he gave me a big list of all the ways I am not for him when he broke up with me: I talk too much, he doesn't like the city I live in, I should be with someone who has a weak personality because obviously I can't handle his strong personality, I'm this, I'm that, and on and on.
Oh yeah. It's all your fault all right. Why didn't you just stfu and do what he wanted you to do?
Oh that's right, it wouldn't matter if you
did do what he wanted you do to. You can't please an A when they're in blame shifting mode because it's not really your fault. None of it is. He just throwing tantrums and blame around like a giant two year old that needs his diaper changed.
It is bad enough to be dumped, but to also have a list of my faults handed to me really hurt. I guess I just want to shake off this terrible feeling I have from being blamed. The way he treated me when he was drinking was really hurtful, but it's almost as if the blame he's dished out while sober hurts more. It's so sad to have given and cared and then be blamed and discarded.
Let me tell you a little story.
Back in March of 2008, my AH started coming home drunk at 4am, waking me up and telling me what a piece of **** I am. I was fat, didn't clean the house well enough, didn't take care of the kids well, didn't bring in enough money.
I cried and cried. I believed every word he said. He said he was divorcing me, there was nothing I could do to change his mind. " I don't want to be married to you anymore," he told me. "I'm going to divorce you."
I was out of my mind with grief. That is, until I figured out he had a girlfriend. He was having an affair and he actually brought that piece of garbage to my house when i was gone with the kids.
That was over three years ago. That guy did me a favor. You know why?
Even though we eventually lost our home to foreclosure, even though that time of life sucked about ten years out of me, that crisis, that soul shaking, horrific event gave me the opportunity to stop focusing on him and start focusing on myself. It was a gift.
After I threw his stuff into the front yard and called the police screaming, I left for a month and went to a tropical island to stay with my sister. I forced myself, every minute of every day, to stop wondering what he was doing or with whom. To stop blaming myself, in my head, for driving my husband away. I forced myself to not be a victim, to refocus all of my energy into taking care of my kids and myself.
If he hadn't ran off with that homeless alcoholic I would probably still be obsessing about his drinking, feeling inferior and doubting myself. I can' even stand the thought of it.
The questions I started asking myself are difficult, way more difficult than "why does my AH treat me this way?"
Asking myself, "why did I stay in that abusive situation for so long?" And, "why did I allow myself to be treated that way," are far more difficult, and rewarding, than living with the giant man child.
Because the only thing i can control is myself, my own thoughts and actions. What's inside this skin. It gave me freedom my Dear, because I now know the magic trick of focusing on my life, my boundaries, my children. Detaching right away from situations I cannot control.
It makes everything all better.