Slumdog....
Slumdog Millionaire– did you see it? Latika, she was my girl. The girl who had a tough life, had unimaginable things happen to her, was still living in such a hellish place she told me on more than one occasion that she “wished for death every day”. In my reality/story the girl didn’t make the choice or take the steps needed to change anything. No, she ended up being a woman with low self-esteem, co-dependency issues, trust issues, a liar, a manipulator, and of course had an addiction (to help numb herself to all of the other stuff. In her words, “to quiet my mind, stop the hurting, even though it is just temporary”).
As I watched this movie flashes of my ex came to me again and again. Those feelings I had for her came to me…. Were they love? Can you “love” someone with whom you are so different from? Maybe you can, but can a relationship work with them? In some way I will always love that girl. I have a deep compassion for her, the pain and issues she struggles with. Yet, I have to wonder if those feelings were a good enough reason to try and make it work for as long as I did. Is it possible sometimes we confuse compassion, sympathy, and the sadness we feel for someone with an addiction for love?
Looking at it now I can say I would still feel a tremendous draw to her if I saw her. Probably for the reasons as stated above. Yet now I am with someone who I have total admiration for. Someone who has the same values as me, that I trust implicitly, who is driven, I could go on and on. You know what? I am also happy, all the time. In an intense way, but this time it lacks all of the ups and downs, the drama. It seems to me that the emotional high is amazing, just as intense as with the ex, but evenly keeled. I think I (we?) can get addicted to the intensity of the emotions we experience with an addict. That amazing feeling we get when they do what they say they will (for a change), or take a step toward recovery. I sought that high, but had to endure all the lows to get there.
What’s my point? Hmm, I guess the point I am trying to make is if you, we, (I) step back and look at what we are fighting for, are we doing it for the right reasons? Sure it feels intense, love, the compassion, the optimism we feel can be off the charts. However are the core things there? The similar lifestyle, TRUST, the same financial values and work ethic? Love and emotions are essential to a long lasting relationship. However, a lot of authors have written that the other things may be more important for a long lasting relationship.
I am so fortunate now to have it all. All the feelings in the world could not have made me happy in the long term with my ex. There were so many areas of differing values. So I guess I ask those of you struggling and battling whether to stay or go….do you have all the things needed to make this last? Not just the intense emotions….those are why I stayed, but in retrospect it could have lead to a huge mistake (in fact I should have left years before I did so in a way it was still a huge mistake). I know posts I read from others on here telling me about their “addict” relationship from the past verse a healthy one they had now helped me slowly put things in perspective. It give me the strength to ultimately move on and break away. Hopefully at the least this thread will ring some bells or make people think about what they are doing and why. You couldn’t pay me to go back to where I was. Not in a million years. I just wouldn’t tolerate that treatment again…but at the time not only did I tolerate it, I fought to get it back again, and again. It’s mind boggling what we can adjust to and learn to accept. Is what you’re fighting for worth it?