hyats262

I got a chance to interact with my ex-husband who is fresh from a stint in prison. He was already stoned out of his mind and talking about joining a traveling circus (they hire felons). It was the same old crap.

But I saw him, I really got it this time. He struggles to pay attention for more than 5 seconds, has 10,000 emotions a second that he cant even understand or recognize, he feels so many things he cannot own. Has no way of taking care of himself or even knowing where to start. He always has a ridiculous idea (because he is mentally ill) about how to get a job. This time it is the circus, last time it was living in the woods and working at McDonalds, before that it was marrying an immigrant so they can become a citizen and he'll get $10,000. He gets out of jail or decides to be partially sober for a little while, goes to stay with his parents who then shower him with presents, this time a brand new iPhone. Then he slips up, his crazy ideas do not work and he's back to using and committing crimes.

I was so young and stupid! He had these emotions that would come flying out and I thought, "There is a real person in there!" He was beautiful and deep and I loved him and he loved me. But it's all in the clouds, never to be truly real, and I thought if I pushed, if I did crazy things, maybe he would be real. Like driving him around the country to rehabs, churches, hospitals, doctors, social workers, anyone who could try.

And now I am here with tears running down my cheeks, seeing he just can't. No one ever taught him how to deal with all his incredible feelings. And maybe someday he will surrender, maybe and go through slow painful reeducation to be part of society.

I understand why I drove so hard, but I understand I would need more than a miracle. In the end, I am so proud of myself that I am emotionally healthy enough to see him as he really is and understand the extreme limitations.

He might experience love, it might be profound but he cant handle it and as I learned, love turns him on a dime, makes his reactions more unpredictable and violent when he feels hurt or betrayed.

I didn't love myself then. And I thought I had found deepest purest love and maybe I had but I was ready to die for it. Extract it from him, prop him up at all costs just to feel that for 5 minutes. I break my own heart.

The best thing, however, was my apology for forcing, pushing out of my own neediness, selfishness and arrogance. The truest love I could have shown would have been to just let him be. And in that vain, I say goodbye, not in anger or longing but in complete and full realization of the entire situation.