High school sweethearts\u2026 that\u2019s what everyone called us my whole life. We were perfect for each other, weren\u2019t we? Destined to live happily ever after, because of course we would.<\/p>\n
Back then, I felt like your high school sweetheart\u2014except for when I felt like anything but. All these years, until now, Viv\u00eda en un ingenuo mundo de fantas\u00eda de negaci\u00f3n...<\/strong> that you were who you claimed to be, the guy everyone loved. But year after year, you were proving to me alone\u2014behind closed doors of course\u2014that wasn\u2019t ever really who you were.<\/p>\n Pero cuando las cosas iban bien, \u00e9ramos geniales. Lo mejor de lo mejor. Diversi\u00f3n, risas, viajes por nuestro peque\u00f1o rinc\u00f3n del mundo. Hiciste los regalos m\u00e1s dulces, d\u00e1ndote palmaditas en la espalda cada vez. Subiste la escalera corporativa y me mantuviste a salvo en casa criando a los ni\u00f1os, donde nunca pude ver cu\u00e1nto mejor podr\u00eda ser la vida fuera de nuestras cuatro paredes.<\/p>\n Hab\u00eda colegios privados, incluso educaci\u00f3n en casa, bailes en el sal\u00f3n, asist\u00edan y serv\u00edan juntos en la iglesia y cortaban \u00e1rboles de Navidad frescos cada a\u00f1o. La fachada estaba firmemente en su lugar para los que miraban desde fuera. Incluso yo me lo cre\u00eda la mitad del tiempo.<\/p>\n Pero cuando las cosas iban mal, Me sent\u00eda como en una monta\u00f1a rusa<\/strong>...apenas se manten\u00edan en las v\u00edas. Las discusiones nocturnas eran habituales y siempre surg\u00edan de la nada. Ten\u00eda que llevar tapones para los o\u00eddos cerca y usar la almohada para ahogar el dolor mientras t\u00fa te parabas repetidamente sobre mi cama, grit\u00e1ndome por cada nuevo error de percepci\u00f3n.<\/p>\n I knew our kids were upstairs covering their ears too, and my heart ached for them. I never wanted my children to have the fear and pain I\u2019d endured as a child but I felt powerless to do anything more than just tell you what you wanted to hear to keep the peace.<\/p>\n I walked on eggshells my entire life trying not to piss off a man who refused to see how his anger and control affected his family\u2014primero mi propio padre<\/a>, then the man who\u2019d sworn to love, cherish and protect me all the days of my life. I\u2019ll never forget the bedtime tuck-in when my then 9-year-old daughter asked me why Daddy never gets in trouble for the same things she does.<\/p>\n I might have asked my mom the same question a few decades ago. Sadly, I don\u2019t even recall what nonsense I must have spewed to placate her searching heart. I know I hugged her and told her how sorry I was that Daddy was just so sad and needed our prayers. I was always apologizing for your behavior to our kids, but you don\u2019t remember that, do you?<\/p>\n You probably never knew, and if you did, you would have made it my fault somehow anyway. You were always so absorbed in yourself that how I felt, or how our kids felt, was like a foreign language you never cared to learn. It was up to me to make sure our kids knew that adults mess up too. I couldn\u2019t bear the thought of them growing up without apologies from adults like I\u2019d had.<\/p>\n Luego hubo momentos en que las cosas fueron realmente mal.<\/strong> Like the time I startled awake to the pounding on our front door at 2 a.m. to find you so drunk and disheveled that you couldn\u2019t get the key to work in the door. We awoke the next morning to find you had totaled your car on a drunken drive home from a local bar after we had argued. I guess that would have been my fault somehow too. It was pretty damn sobering to have to watch the local news to see if there had been a hit-and-run. We never did find out what you had hit.<\/p>\n Luego, hubo una vez que insististe en que dej\u00e1ramos una iglesia en la que \u00e9ramos perfectamente felices, para asistir a lo que era b\u00e1sicamente una secta dirigida por un soci\u00f3pata. Silenciaste todas mis objeciones antes, durante y despu\u00e9s de nuestra estancia all\u00ed. \u00bfRecuerdas el d\u00eda en que me arrinconaste en el cuarto de ba\u00f1o, amenaz\u00e1ndome por atreverme a hablar con tu nuevo confidente de la nueva iglesia sobre la confusi\u00f3n emocional de nuestro hogar?<\/p>\n That was definitely labeled wrong of me to \u2018ruin your friendships\u2019 by speaking up about my pain, wasn\u2019t it? One of the final straws was the time when I sat like a spectator of my own life in our final attempt at couples counseling. I watched in shock as you spewed angry, paranoid delusions that shocked our therapist. It was nothing new to me.<\/p>\n I\u2019d seen you overreact this way a thousand times before but thank you for finally letting someone else besides me see it, someone who could help me understand it and finally do something about it.<\/p>\n Our therapist would later confess that this was the day he lost hope for us. It\u2019s hard for me to choose just one but this was definitely one of the days that made things much clearer for me. This was the day someone outside our four walls knew what I wished I could have seen long ago\u2014that you would never really look at your behavior and take responsibility for how you affected me and our family.<\/p>\n No pod\u00edas o no quer\u00edas ver la realidad de qui\u00e9n eras en nuestra relaci\u00f3n. Peor a\u00fan, no viste la realidad de en qui\u00e9n me hab\u00eda convertido. C\u00f3mo Dios me ha liberado en la \u00faltima d\u00e9cada de la disfunci\u00f3n que me llev\u00f3 a esta relaci\u00f3n para empezar. Te estaba ofreciendo un amor que pocos hombres conocer\u00e1n, un amor que t\u00fa dabas por sentado.<\/p>\n Te negabas a verme tal y como era, prefiriendo siempre ser el loco a los mandos de nuestra monta\u00f1a rusa. Al menos ahora por fin tengo un nombre para ese loco.<\/p>\n Reading Margalis Fjelstad\u2019s book, Dejar de cuidar al borderline o al narcisista<\/strong><\/em>, at the recommendation of our therapist, finally helped me understand it all. I didn\u2019t waste my breath trying to get you to read it, although oh how I still ached to heal us! But I finally understood that you would never give yourself over to what would be required for that.<\/p>\n You don\u2019t really want to change. Being a narcissist works for you. You are only interested in \u2018faking good\u2019 not being good to me. Your only desire for anyone who sees beyond your mask is to villainize them or deceive them back into believing and you could no longer do either one with me. Our relationship would never have changed for any length of time.<\/p>\n Lo demostraste repetidamente a trav\u00e9s de las muchas segundas, terceras, cuartas, quintas y vig\u00e9simas oportunidades que te di. Y merezco una cantidad razonable de amor y paz, pero a\u00fan as\u00ed, no pod\u00eda renunciar a ti sin un \u00faltimo combate<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n Me hab\u00eda mudado de nuestro dormitorio<\/strong> well over a year before, knowing it was over, but then you did that thing you always do, where you would tearfully relate some epiphany you\u2019d had about what you were doing wrong, and you made all kinds of hopeful promises of change to lure me back in.<\/p>\n As\u00ed que, como todas las veces anteriores, nos di esta \u00faltima oportunidad, aferr\u00e1ndome a la esperanza de que en el fondo fueras ese buen hombre que siempre hab\u00eda cre\u00eddo que eras. Siempre fui optimista hasta la exageraci\u00f3n cuando se trataba de ti. Esa esperanza siempre me recuerda lo que aprend\u00ed de nuestro pen\u00faltimo consejero.<\/p>\n Me dijo que era muy amable por mi parte ofrecer una explicaci\u00f3n compasiva a tus comportamientos hirientes y estar dispuesta a recorrer ese camino contigo a pesar de tu continua negaci\u00f3n. Dijo que a la mayor\u00eda de las mujeres no les importar\u00eda por qu\u00e9 las trataban as\u00ed; simplemente se ir\u00edan. Yo no era la mayor\u00eda de las mujeres.<\/p>\n Y, por lo visto, tampoco a\u00fan preparado para aceptar la realidad. Necesitaba saber si toda su ira, irritabilidad y emotividad, unidas a su negativa a ver el bien en m\u00ed, se deb\u00edan a los repetidos golpes que se hab\u00eda dado en la cabeza por accidentes de coche, ca\u00eddas y lesiones deportivas. Si era as\u00ed, razon\u00e9 que tal vez hab\u00eda opciones de tratamiento que podr\u00edan devolverme al hombre del que me enamor\u00e9, al hombre que echaba de menos.<\/p>\n El hombre que, como resulta, siempre fue un producto de mi imaginaci\u00f3n, s\u00f3lo la proyecci\u00f3n de tu falso yo, el tipo que el resto del mundo pudo disfrutar, que s\u00f3lo hizo apariciones infrecuentes e impredecibles en mi vida. \u00a1Oh, pero si hubiera podido tener a ese tipo todo el tiempo!<\/p>\n Asumir que la primera mitad de mi vida fue en gran medida una fantas\u00eda fue devastador. Al principio no ten\u00eda ni idea de c\u00f3mo razonarlo todo en mi mente.<\/strong> A pesar de esta constataci\u00f3n y de la posterior desaparici\u00f3n de nuestra relaci\u00f3n, s\u00e9 sin lugar a dudas mi vida no ha sido un completo desperdicio.<\/strong> Ha habido cosas buenas.<\/p>\n Hab\u00eda muchos buenos recuerdos mezclados con el tormento emocional. My love was real even if yours wasn\u2019t<\/a>, even if that\u2019s the best kind of love you have to give. I would never want to imagine my life without the wonderful children you gave me. The reality of my life up until this point has served as the catalyst for the strength and healing I now enjoy, despite the difficult decisions this awareness has demanded of me\u2014decisions like filing for divorce and no doubt being pegged as the homewrecker by those who only know your false self and believe your lies and distorted perceptions.<\/p>\n We were awfully good at faking being the perfect little family though, so I expect a few people were shocked. Anyone who really knew us was not. But here I am, facing the reality that you won\u2019t take care of me, despite explicitly and repeatedly assuring me that even in divorce, you would keep your promises to take care of me.<\/p>\n More manipulation that finally didn\u2019t work. You swore you would never do to me what some of my friends\u2019 narcissist exes had done to them in divorce\u2026 like hiring slimy lawyers, being deceitful, making claims of abuse when I, the abused, chose the high road, and trying to avoid paying a dime more than the law requires. In case you didn\u2019t know, I know this is who you have been all along.<\/p>\n ***********************************************************<\/p>\n Pero nunca quise que terminara. Quer\u00eda creer tus mentiras, y sin embargo aqu\u00ed estoy en medio de una batalla legal contenciosa<\/strong> just to get my reasonable needs met after devoting over twenty years of my life to taking care of you and our kids, sacrificing my own career and well-being. I left you as a shell of my former self. I didn\u2019t know who I was anymore, if I ever did.<\/p>\n My life was all about you, and always had been. We had the fairy tale middle-class life, 2.5 children and the house in the suburbs\u2014the very definition of the American dream, but I had never felt more alone in all my life.<\/p>\n I lived from counseling appointment to counseling appointment for years, begging to be told what I could do, how I could change to ease the anxiety and outbursts coursing through the veins of my home\u2014and while yes, there were definite codependency and caretaking behaviors that I would have to stop to break the pattern\u2014I was repeatedly told, year after year for over a decade, by more than one counselor, that I could not change the madman at the control of my roller coaster life. S\u00f3lo pod\u00eda cambiarme a m\u00ed.<\/strong> As\u00ed que... Por fin. Lo hice.<\/p>\n Durante los \u00faltimos a\u00f1os de nuestra vida juntos, establec\u00ed l\u00edmites saludables. Cambi\u00e9 todas las creencias, suposiciones y reacciones posibles. Perdon\u00e9. Escuch\u00e9. Soport\u00e9. Afirm\u00e9 mis propios pensamientos, creencias y necesidades, como aprend\u00ed que es sano e importante hacer. A veces met\u00ed la pata y volv\u00ed a viejos patrones, pero aprend\u00ed. Me hice m\u00e1s fuerte.<\/p>\n Te mostr\u00e9 gracia a ti y a m\u00ed mismo. Intent\u00e9 escuchar cualquier cosa real y tangible a la que pudiera agarrarme detr\u00e1s de toda tu rabia y ansiedad. Hice todo lo posible por conectar emocional, espiritual y f\u00edsicamente contigo, el hombre que me hab\u00eda dicho toda la vida que yo era el amor de su vida.<\/p>\n Me aferraba a ti durante y despu\u00e9s de hacer el amor, intentaba girar f\u00edsicamente tu cabeza para mirarme a los ojos, y t\u00fa girabas el cuello hacia otro lado, siempre con una excusa a mano, siempre una raz\u00f3n grandiosa por la que no pod\u00edas mirarme a los ojos y conectar conmigo. Todos los d\u00edas me dec\u00edan que me quer\u00edan, as\u00ed que \u00bfpor qu\u00e9 no me sent\u00eda querida? Era una locura. Me lo preguntaba una y otra vez, y al final todos los consejeros y mentores de mi vida me dec\u00edan de un mill\u00f3n de maneras diferentes que lo que te pasaba no era amor.<\/p>\n I was not crazy. I was codependent. I was a caretaker to someone who would never care for me, and the only thing I would ever be able to change would be myself. My head knew but my heart had stubbornly refused to acknowledge the reality since I had pegged you as my soulmate at just fourteen years old. Thirty years later, if this wasn\u2019t love, what was? And could I ever know it?<\/p>\n