Tar Baby

Don’t know why; just down. OK, that is not entirely true. I stopped taking my Zoloft, with any regularity, about six weeks ago and now my prescription has lapsed and I need to go back to the Doctor for a refill. In fact, I stopped taking most of my medication, except for the 800mgs of Ibuprofen about three times a day to stave off a migraine.

Why? I don’t know. I suppose I’m tired of being dependant on pills to regulate my mood, my blood pressure, my headaches, life. I suppose in a way it is self punishment. Deep down within side of me there’s a black mass, my tar baby, I can’t explain. In that mass are feelings that I deserve everything I’m going through. All this hurt, all this angst, pain, sorrow, anger, all of it. I deserve every last bit of it.

Not taking my medication is in some ways a physical manifestation of those emotions. I can deal with physical pain. Having had daily headaches for the last 19 years and Migraines for the last 10 years I’ve learned to cope, and push through, physical pain. As sick and twisted as it sounds, right now the physical pain reminds me that I’m alive but again, it’s also punishment.

High blood pressure (as a result of the years of stress) is also known as the Silent Killer. I know if left untreated it can do irreparable damage to body. In those deep, dark corners of my mind, I feel I deserve whatever havoc it wants to wreak.

I know, I know, I need years of therapy. I agree. I simply cannot afford it right now.

On the one hand, I’m ready to move on with my life and I’m feeling maudlin for the white picket fence, nostalgia for happily ever after. On the other hand, I don’t feel I deserve, or have the right to, happiness, peace, pleasure, security, love, or even health for that matter. Maybe that’s why it took me so long to actually leave him.

Again, I suppose I felt I deserved to stay in a toxic and dysfunctional relationship because I was raised with the idea of “You’ve made your bed, now you must lie in it.” The world of my family is very black and white; there are always clear and definitive paths. I don’t see the world that way; I never have. However, I’ve found it difficult to eschew the values assigned to my life and find the values which work for me—thus the dichotomy. I don’t blame my parents. In fact, they’ve been amazingly supportive and quite honestly, wanted me to leave before I ever did. They’ve mellowed with my circumstances. Their love is completely unconditional. Still, I feel I’m such a huge disappointment to them.

It’s exhausting to be at war with oneself.

I’ve been playing with these theories within my head for a while and this is the first time I’ve ever stated them. There’s a bit of a release even in the admission but I still feel like a tar baby in quicksand.

Acrimony for sale: $175.00

An early morning phone call from my not-quite-erstwhile husband resulted in him letting me know he was not going to have enough to cover the Verizon bill. I've asked to separate the phones out, as they are in his name, and he keeps putting me off. (Background: we agreed I would continue to pay his car insurance as it's under my policy and he'd pay the cell phone bill. I still pay it every month.)

At the end of April (the 24th actually) I received a call from Verizon stating our bill was two months behind and I needed to pay $140 of a $315 balance in order to keep the phones from being turned off. Left with little choice, I paid it. I spoke with X and I of course said this was yet another example of his lack of responsibility. He said money was tight due to a variety of circumstances but that he would take care of the $175 balance before the next bill came due. And, in a Polly-Anna effort to see the positive, the good, and believe he'll prove me wrong; I trusted him to pay the bill.

Well, I'll bet you can guess what happened. He didn't pay the bill. And, it hurts all over again. I'll bet also you're shaking your head at my stupid naïveté.

Paying the bill will a bit of a strain on my finances this month but the pain, the hurt, the exhaustion, the saddness and the immense sorrow I feel aren't really about the money.

Insecure

I’m feeling very insecure right now. I suppose this is a normal phase of the separation process but it is a phase I’m not comfortable with. I’m really questioning my attractiveness, not just physically, but as a whole, an individual. What do I have to offer? What is my worth? I know I’ve changed. Thus, am I significant in any way? Or am I simply part of a very dysfunctional—and now broken—unit.

It feels so very strange to be on such an emotional roller coaster. I’m not an overly-emotional woman. In fact, my husband always said I was the guy and he was the girl because I approach issues with logic and reason rather than feeling and emotions as he does. He would argue a point based on what he felt and then I would point out the flaws in his argument based on logic. The phrases “You’re issuing contradictory statements. It is one way or the other. You cannot have it both ways” were probably said by me about a thousand times. This did not endear me to him and I suppose his qualities did not endear him to me either.

I think, in my heart, I knew it was over when I no longer had the urge to argue. I lost my passion, the burning in my gut, the need for balance. I’m not saying those feelings were correct and I didn’t lose them in hopes of sparing his feelings, which would have been the right thing to do. I lost them because I lost my passion for life at all. I lost my desire to live; I lost the essence of me.

I’ve always been one who lives in the future like others live in the past. With me everything has always been about potential and possibility. Life is about taking the mess you’re in now and making something wonderful out of it. It’s about what I can do, could do, would be willing to do, and want to do. Those aspects of my personality are absolutely fundamental to my survival. I’ve got to believe there is a future to keep living today.

I find myself reaching for reassurance in ways I ought not. I am in new and most-uncomfortable territory making impulsive decisions based on what I feel right then and there rather than my normal, logical way. What sounds good when I’m in an emotional hurricane proves to be totally ephemeral. And like so much cotton candy, it has the illusion of volume and substance but is merely wispy, sugary fluff.

I thought twice about posting something so personal but since I decided to chronicle my feelings I thought I’d put it out there. For me, at least, the longer I keep something inside the less real it is. If I get it out on paper, or electronically for that matter, it becomes real. Maybe seeing it in black and white will enable me to face it head-first. Perhaps I’ll even be able to recognize and rearrange the destructive patterns in my life.

About a year ago my grandmother passed away. Her death gave pause for a lot of introspection. Not too long after the funeral and into the mourning process I spent one afternoon trying to envision my future. What did it look like? Where were we headed? What potential was there for us? I broke down when I realized I could not see anything at all. There was nothing there but a void, a black hole, if you will. While the situation is different now and I’m beginning to see the possibility of a future I’m still in a very sad place because embracing the promise of a future means letting completely go of the past and that is much, much more difficult than I ever thought it would be.

Recounting: Part Deux

Sunday, April 2

I hadn’t seen him since we met for a non-romantic dinner on Valentine’s Day. He called but I told him I needed space in a major way. He semi-respected that.

I’d given the counseling idea a lot of thought and decided I do not want to continue couple’s counseling at this point and I need to let him know. So, I called him and asked to dinner at the Chili’s right next to his workplace. I meet him in the parking lot and we walk to the restaurant. It’s awkward.

During the course of dinner I tell him I don’t want to go back to counseling. I realize he’s hurting very badly right now and while I’m not playing “tit for tat” I’m hurting too, and he has hurt me a lot in the last few years. He says he’s never heard of a marriage breaking up over money. (Interesting since money is the cause for a lot of break-ups.) I told him it was not the actual dollars and cents but the attitude of operating independently. “If we’re supposed to be a team then we make decisions as a team.” I shared my feelings: “You operated independent of me and without regard for how your decisions would affect me or even us as a couple. You didn’t consult me or think about what was best of us and our future. You simply did what you wanted, acting selfishly, wanting to fulfill your own needs and wants.”

For example: In February of 04 he quite making his auto payments and by July/August of 04 his truck was about to be repossessed. So, he decided to sell it. He owed about 18 K (because he was upside down on the original loan) and he sold it for about 12 K. The bank said they would just lower his monthly payments so he could pay the rest over the course of the original loan. Then in December 04 I discovered he didn’t make a single additional payment on the loan. I, of course, didn’t think it was necessary to ask him if he was making his payments every month. I just trusted he was being responsible— silly me. We had separate bank accounts (even different banks) his choice, not mine.

In the meantime he’s driving his grandfather’s car which he received from the estate after his death. It’s a good car, very old, but needs work. At one point in time he thought it was going to permanently die and was desperate for a vehicle. He tried to buy his own car but because of his credit and having an auto loan that was charged off he couldn’t get financing at all. So, he asked me to finance a car for him back in February of 05. I declined.

As you can imagine, it didn’t go over well—at all. I knew that I would be the one responsible for it if he couldn’t make the payments and it would be my neck on the chopping block. I couldn’t take that chance. He then basically accused me of not loving him as much as he loved me because if the tables were turned he’d do it for me in a heartbeat. I told him to ask his Dad or his Mom (they’re divorced) and he said he had too much pride to admit to his Father the situation he’d gotten himself into.

For me, it is more the principle of the matter than the actual outcome. He chose to put himself first and me second, time and time and time again. I got tired of being his second choice. I said “You hurt me very badly by choosing everything over me and I don’t know how long, if ever, it will take me to get over that hurt.”

“The bottom line is, I don’t trust you. I don’t trust you to take care of me; I don’t trust you to put the needs of our family (while it’s only the two of us) first. I don’t trust you to look for the “greater good” rather than what you want. And right now I’ve got to take care of me. No one else is going to do that and I don’t trust you to do it.”

I cried, he cried. He said he missed me so much, I was his life, his rock, everything to him. He said he missed everything about me, everything about our life together. I said: “I know this will hurt you but I don’t. I miss what our life could have been, I miss what I wanted our life to be, but I do not miss what it actually was. I’m sorry but I just don’t miss what we actually had together.”

I cried all the way home. I mourned what I wanted out of my marriage, and in a way I’m still mourning the loss of what once had such great potential. I cried because I so wanted him to prove to me he could change and we could be happy. I cried because I wanted a family, and a home, and a loving and nurturing environment. I cried because although I am very independent, I’d like someone to take care of me for a little bit. I’d like to just give it all up for a while and let someone else be in charge and know in doing so they will have my best interest at the forefront. I cried because I was looking at 35 and a waning biological clock and the knowledge that I may not ever have children. I cried for the love not being enough to sustain.

In theory: I know his problems are not my fault; I know his irresponsibility is not of my doing. But somewhere deep down inside me there’s the feeling that if I’d been a little better, nicer, kinder, if I’d done a little more, paid more attention, organized more efficiently, life might be different. And, if he truly loved me he would have taken responsibility. If I were truly loveable he’d have done it. It must be me. I guess I'm just not worth it.

I cried. I cried. And then I cried some more.