Show me the ropes, Ref! The inability to inflict the same damage on another human being is brutal. The inability to sink to those depths frustrates my soul. Learning to feel your feelings is uncomfortable, especially when you have been crushed by a narcissist. I want to remember what I allowed this person to do to me. I want to remember it as if it were my last drink. I want to remember so that the anguish pushes me to be better person.
It was my one-year wedding anniversary to the Occifer on October 21st. We have not lived together as man & wife, or even really been a couple, since Christmas. In fact, I left Washington a mere eight days after getting married. Ironically, my first husband brutally attacked me just 8 days after our wedding back in 1998 too. In hindsight, at least those wounds healed, and I would go on to be blessed with two beautiful children from that marriage. After nearly four years of putting my everything into a relationship, building a family is gone and time wasted, yet again.
My divorce from the Occifer has been pending since April. It is the bitter end to almost four years of being stepmother to three beautiful boys too. My brother warned me of getting involved with a man who had children. I am always the eternal optimist, cursed with believing things will work out, even in the worst circumstances. His autistic little guy and dare I say, the most precious of the three, lived with us full time. His mother kept the two normal children and even celebrated abandoning him. She was so bold as to make a post about it on Facebook, reveling in the fact that “it was by design”, when someone questioned why she had left him behind.
As a bereaved mother, the cut of that wound is cleaved open on those days that it crosses my mind. I once told her she didn’t deserve to be a mother. The Occifer attempted to make me to offer up amends but there’s a deep-seeded resentment that I will take to my grave. Most days, I don’t even give credence to the fact that she walks the earth. Any mother that throws away their child certainly doesn’t deserve to. Part of me hopes that my words reel in her head until the day she dies. I know, it’s petty but I know a little bit about broken children and being a mother to them.
October 19th, I received news that he finally had legal and primary custody of the precious one. The C-word inexplicably caved. Yes, I said it; unapologetically too. I knew the attorney I hired was going to make it happen. He is, after all, my Marine Corps Brother. I served with him, and I knew I could trust him. He was infantry and had been given the order to bury her with compromising evidence, if necessary, to protect that little one. What I didn’t expect was the pain and the hurt that would accompany hearing about the win. This was supposed to be victory for us as a family. We were supposed to be celebrating as a family.
His last hateful words kept ringing in my ears. “This isn’t your home anymore. I don’t want you here. I know I said you could come back but the truth is, I never had any intention of having you come back. I don’t love you. I don’t want you”. He always did go for the throat when he was angry, but this went beyond. There is letting someone know you have outgrown them and then there is ugly and full of black. He is an emotional vampire that sucks away your life force. I once told him that he was exactly like her and that if there were good in him; it died long ago in his marriage to her. The thought of the way it was empties me. Of course, I know in my heart, that darkness was always there.
I’m not sure what possessed him to call, other than to taunt me for his own sick enjoyment. I was happy in my oblivion. There isn’t suffering there. We are not friends and we previously established there is nothing good to talk about. While I was happy to know that the little one would not be uprooted, I could only writhe in sheer agony as I felt the incubus wreaking havoc in my head. Every time I hear his voice, I feel a wave of immense hurt from within. Almost a year later and it still takes days to calm. Imagine emotional pain together with anger, confusion, loneliness, emptiness, and brokenness; now add all of that with literally wanting to die. That’s where he took me, where sometimes it still takes me. It is not because I miss him. It is because I miss me.
I have moved on to a new job, new city, new life and new person. Most days, I don’t feel weighed down with all the dismal memories of falling prey to a narcissist. Most days, I feel happy and almost full. I have a wonderfully encouraging person who is kind and supportive. I have almost everything. I’ve accepted the inevitable end of my marriage. It‘s been an excruciating journey but I now know what love isn’t supposed to feel like. I’m accepting the aftermath, and that it’s the worst part. It is difficult for me to make peace with being made to feel insignificant, dismissed and thrown away like garbage. That is where my wound lies. I hope that if ever I was that kind of person, that the gods see fit to correct things with those that I injured. Carrying the weight of both burdens is heavy when it crosses my mind.
Show me the ropes, Ref. I need a time out. I can’t take another blow. I’m tired but I want to win.
