ShootingStar1

Since I left my abusive AH last July 4th, and finally came to agreement with him and jointly signed the divorce papers a couple of months ago, I have felt much freer. I have done so much recovery work since I left him, and begun to put in place the beginnings of a new happier life.

Over the past few months, my STBXAH has seemed to begin to grasp the enormity of the consequences of his abusive behavior, and the finality of my leaving. He has apologized and he has asked me to come back. I have said no, and I have not told him where I am living, or anything about my new life.

Now we are working together cooperatively to get our jointly owned house - that he has lived in alone since July - ready to put up for sale as soon as possible. He has cut way back on his drinking, and that is evident because his thinking is not psychotic as it was when I fled last July.

There is a huge amount of work to be done to get the house ready to sell, and since most of the value of the house was awarded to me in the divorce, it is important to me that the work get done. My STBXAH is again taking pride in the house, which he loved, and is working very hard to fix it. I am pleased and proud of his efforts. I am working hard on the house and it is looking better each day.

I am driving the long drive up to the house frequently, and see that I will have to spend extensive time there in the next two weeks to get done what I need to do.

I do not want to go back to him. I do not want to go back to the house, though I loved it and essentially re-built it in three major renovations. I do not even want to drive back to that State, and when I leave, I push "Go Home" on the GPS with pleasure and relief.

But I am again seeing some of the best parts of my husband. We are again sharing some of the best parts of our marriage - the ability to work together as a team in a big project. His humor is back, and he is the best I have seen him in years.

So at times I feel massive grief again that all this happened and I feel the pull back to the best parts of what we were together. He told me that he is sorry for what he did, that he is so sorry he was such a jerk. I agreed that he was. I said he had no idea of the emotional devastation he caused for me, and said no more. He has quietly asked me where I am living, and I just reply that there is no need to talk about that.

I stood on the deck and looked over the railings at all the gardens I worked on and loved coming into bloom, and I cried.

What I didn't expect is that I am again making the choice to leave him. This time, when he is not abusive, when he is not at his worst, when he is not a raving raging incoherent drunk incapable of any rational or respectful behavior at all.

I am contented on my own. I like the new life I am building. I like living in a community that has lots of artists by the ocean. I am making friends. People seem to like me.

But I loved him deeply, profoundly for 20 years, despite all his abuse and my loss of myself. Now I can see again why I did, and that makes it all the harder, that makes the grief and the loss all the deeper as I leave him again.

It is especially hard because while I am contented on my own and very proud of myself with all I've accomplished since I left, I miss having a man in my life to share with. I miss being married. Not because I am dependent, but because I am lonely. I liked sharing my life with someone.

I am not going back. That is not what this post is about. Given the depth of despair I felt and the profound loss of myself and the loss of my belief in myself as an independent, worthy, self-reliant, happy person when I was with him, I could not go back with any belief that I would survive as whole as I am now becoming on my own. I can now understand and own much more of my own role in the devastation that our marriage became.

But it is hard, very hard, to go and do what I have to do at that house and find myself enjoying his humor, enjoying the easy-going pattern of working together that has re-emerged.

I think that he now understands the consequences of his bad behavior in his own life. He has lost a very good, loving, committed woman. He has lost my grown children forever. He has lost the home and land he loved.

I do not think that he can understand what the costs were to me, and I expect that he will never be capable of that kind of empathy. If he were, he wouldn't have done what he did in the first place.

He has not done the emotional work of recovery that would be needed to feel that, if he were to have me back, he wouldn't slide right back into the domination and de-valuing me in order to aggrandize himself that got me into this mess. I do not see that he has dealt with the resevoir of rage that he carries; he has already had and ended a relationship with another woman in great anger because she tried to control him.

I am clearer about who he is, and that he has the right to be who he wants to be. I am clearer that I am no longer who I was, and I understand that, were we to re-engage, my clarity about who I am and what I will live with and what I won't would eventually enrage him. I am clearer about what in me let me fall under his control and domination.

So it is yet another passage to endure. At every turn in the road, I find another transformation that I must make as I seek to become whole. I left him so emotionally abused that I fled with some terror and the determination that I needed to live without him in order to not lose my soul.

Now, I have to leave him again, this time, despite his quiet and subtle entreaties that I come back, because I need the freedom and peace to become who I need to be.

Oh but it hurts. It hurts so bad.


My psychiatrist said: Beware of the Cheshire Cat - he is most dangerous when all you can see is his smile...