What a week

I get this daily “Message from God” thing on Facebook and a few weeks ago it said something like: “If you want your life to change, you must first change yourself.” So I’ve been sort of taking that to heart and looking for ways to change small things that are important to me, and trying to make better choices in order to like who I am more. Not beating myself up so much, not obsessing so much about stuff, and doing more of the “one day at a time” and “will this make a difference a year from now” kind of thing. And trying to let go of trying to control the things I have no control over and that just makes life a whole lot simpler it seems.

The only down side is I seem to find myself in “isolation mode” probably for the past month or so. I’ve had absolutely no desire to get out and spend time with other people. I go to work, come home or go to class, watch TV, study (though I’m finding myself doing less and less of that!), do stuff around the apt, go to bed, and that’s about it. But I’ve been at peace doing that, so maybe it’s what I’ve needed to do for now. It’s sort of felt like a “nesting” thing, in preparation for facing the world and learning to do life in a new way. And I knew when it was time, I’d be ready to get back out into the world again, and I’ve been ok with that too. I’ve been so looking forward to warm weather and sunshine and a lightening of my spirit. I still am so ready for that! I”ve been spending more time with my daughter, and trying to be a good “role model” for her, and offering suggestions and advice when she seems willing to listen. And also, not trying to control her or her life so much – allowing her to make her own choices and deal with the consequences of that. It’s hard to find the balance between nurturing and enabling, but I’m getting better at it.

Then some things have happened in the past week that has caused me to start to rethink things with M again. What’s getting to me though is that for the first time since I’ve met him, the past few weeks have been a time of me finally being able and willing to let go of him and find some hope and excitement in anticipating my life without him in it, and feeling good about what that might look like. I’ve thought that I was there before, and then knew I wasn't ready to let go, but there was something different about it this time. A different feeling, a different certainty that life would be good again.

In our most recent interactions (though they have been few), I’ve felt free enough to "speak my truth" to him in an open and honest way, without trying to manipulate the conversation (or him) to obtain whatever outcome I think should happen.

Mr. Sponsorpants had a post recently that said something about "Speak your truth, even if your voice shakes" and it affirmed something within me of who I've been trying to be, and that it's necessary for me to figure out exactly what my truth is, and that it's ok to feel and say what is real to me.

So it’s felt GOOD to be honest with myself and with M and to finally be setting some boundaries on what I allow and don’t allow in my life, such as “When you do this, it hurts me. If you are going to participate in this behavior, I can't be around you, and if this is your choice, then stay away from me”. And so as a result of that, we've had no contact for about a month.

Then last week, he calls me last Tuesay night around 10:30 pm. He was working out of town, and he was drunk. He kept saying how much he missed me and just wanted to hear my voice....blah blah blah. I told him if you want to talk to me, call when you're not drinking, and hung up the phone. Friday night I wake up and he’s standing at the door of my bedroom (he still has a key to my apt). It was around midnight, and he was just standing there at my bedroom doorway watching me, and it creeped me out. He was drunk and started taking off his clothes and came and got in the bed with me. It made me furious! I told him this behavior was not acceptable to me, that it wasn’t ok for him to show up out of the blue, drunk, and just expect to get in bed with me. He tried to put his arm around me, and I pushed him away and turned my back to him and the next thing I know he's snoring on the pillow next to me. I didn’t feel good (been sick all week) and didn’t want to get into a big scene with him, so I just got up and went to the other bedroom and slept in there.

I was still pissed the next morning, as we sat and talked for a while. Once again I made it clear that I will not be married to a man who thinks it’s ok for him to go out to bars, clubs, whatever, and if that’s the way he chooses to live his life, then I won’t be a part of it. I told him that I didn’t want to deal with his “P” issues anymore or his risky behavior. I told him that if he keeps going out and drinking and driving around like he does, that he’s going to end up getting killed, or killing someone else or at the very least end up in jail but that it was his choice if that’s how he wants to live his life, I just don’t want to be a part of it.

It was so hard – I KNOW there’s a good man inside of him, I KNOW he is miserable living like this. He’s so caught up in his addictions, and pride and shame and hurt and is just numbing himself as much and as often as he can…I can see this so clearly, but I can’t fix it for him, and I don’t even want to anymore. So before he leaves, he says that he loves me, that he doesn’t want a divorce, but that he didn’t know what else to do. And he walked out.

So I couldn’t stop thinking about M all day Sunday. I prayed and I cried and I kept telling myself, just let go, move on, nothing you can do. He has to do it himself. He has to want it for himself….but I broke down and called him Sunday afternoon – invited him to come to a movie with me. We went to see Crazy Heart – about the alcoholic singer. I guess my thought was that he might see some of himself in Bad Blake and suddenly have some kind of epiphany and realize that he needed to change his ways. The movie was pretty depressing to me. When I mentioned to M afterwards that it wasn’t the happy ending I’d wanted to see, I realized that actually it WAS a happy ending for the girl – she got out and moved on. But the man was left alone, even after he sobered up and got his life together, it was too late for them to work things out. And that just made me very sad for him. And sad for M too, because I've felt that the time is getting close for me to get out and move on. And even if he does get himself together, it may be too little too late for us.

BUT, the time we spent together Sunday was good for both of us. I think we were both feeling battered and bruised and needed a break from the animosity between us. So there was some kind of silent agreement between us that we would cut each other some slack for the day, and just spent time together, snuggling, talking and hanging out.

We attempted to make love that night, but it was a disaster - too much tension, too much doubt, not enough of an emotional connection after all the weeks apart. I started crying and told him I just couldn't do this. So we just stopped and talked about what we were feeling and thinking, and then agreed to just hold each other and go to sleep. And it felt really good to just hold each other. The next morning, he didn’t say much except “It was really good to be with you. I think we both needed that. I love you, I will always love you and care about you, and if there’s any way we could fix things between us, I want to do that.” He called me at lunch on Monday, light conversation, then said he’d talk to me later.

So you know what I did? I spent the day at work looking for a couples weekend retreat / workshop for marriages in crises. I kept thinking, maybe we can try again. Maybe we can go away, learn some better tools to communicate, start doing some things differently, start over somehow. And I emailed a couple of the places to get more information. So I went home that night after work, half thinking that I might go stay with him, but I was still feeling sick so I just went home and laid down on the couch. I was half hoping he would be there at my place when I got there, but he wasn’t. I watched the clock for a while, waiting to see if he would call, and he didn’t. And I went to bed disappointed, but resigned and accepting that this is just the way it is and I might as well just get over it and move on.

So I get a call on my cell as I’m getting ready for work the next morning. He’s calling from jail and wants to know if I can come bail him out. He got himself a DUI and a night in a county cell. If you knew anything about M, you would know how deeply this would affect him. And I knew what it would do to him. I was torn between being upset and hurt for him, but then again there was some sick satisfaction in the feeling of “I told you so” and though I didn’t ever say that to him, he knew I was thinking it.

So I go to get him out….he’s a wreck, says this was his “bottom”, that he’s tired of living like this and is going to change. And he’s crying his heart out, he's humble and humiliated and swearing to me that he is done with living like this. Says he can and will do better by me and be a man that I can respect and be proud of and how he wants to win my love back and how he's going to show me that he is the man I fell in love with. He says he’s giving up the drinking and the “P” and wants to start going back to church and get involved there again and build a better life for us.

Silly fool that I am, I WANT to believe him. I know without a doubt, that at the moment he’s totally sincere, and seeing him so broken put a lot of dents in all these walls I’ve built up to keep him out. But yet I also know how easy it is to say you WANT to change when you go through a crisis, and how difficult it is to sustain that desire to change when life goes back to being somewhat normal after the crisis.

Still, I’m finding myself wanting to believe in him, and wanting to be able to hope for good things for us. I want the Mark that I fell in love with back. I want my marriage to work out and be a good one. I want a life with a “healthy” us. Even though I know I’m very capable of it, still I’m so tired of going it alone. And I don’t want to start over with anyone else, so here I go again allowing myself to hope that it could be different for us. That somehow we will be the exception and be able to have a good life together. And I’m scared to death to hope, and be disappointed again.

And so now I just want to let all that go, and try to focus on staying in the moment, in today….and deal with whatever happens tomorrow when it gets here. And I don’t even know why I’m writing all this, other than I just needed to get it out so I can get it out of my head.

I can’t really talk about this to my friends anymore. They are sick of dealing with me and the “cycle” of this relationship. If I talk to them about it, I feel like they will be disappointed in me, and think that I am weak for believing in him again. But I’m realizing that actually, I am not a weak person. In fact, I am a very strong woman. I’ve been through a lot, survived a lot, overcome a lot, in my life. Sure, I fall in love too quickly, too deeply and many times stay far too long in relationships that are not good for me. But always before, there came a time when I knew to let go and walk away. But none of the others were M. There’s just something in him that I truly and deeply love and am connected to.

No matter how many times I’m hurt, disappointed, angry, frustrated, whatever by him, I always find it too easy to want to forgive him and try again. Maybe it’s because I’m familiar with that lonely dark place inside that makes you do things you know you shouldn’t, or that you wouldn’t normally do, just to ease or numb the pain. And I know how easy it is to get into the habit of doing crappy things to the people you love, because you are miserable inside and you start pushing everyone else away because if they really knew you inside, they wouldn’t want to be with you anyway so you might as well push them away first. It’s easier to reject someone that to be rejected.

And it’s because we are kindred souls when it comes to these feelings, that I tell him that I’m willing to try, that we will just give it time and see how it goes. I remind him that it will take time for me to see if he’s serious, that my walls won’t come down overnight, that he destroyed my trust in him and it will take a lot for him to rebuild that. But I’m giving him the chance to prove it, and now it’s up to him. So we’ll see how it goes.