Why Does Something So Wrong, Feel So Right?
I’m on sabbatical. I’m not supposed to be thinking about him. Yet here I am, reviewing the milestones, pondering the ups and downs. He ended it, he asked for another chance. It was a pattern, and I learned the hard way from my ten year domestic sentence that patterns don’t really change. Yet, I can’t help but feel like we didn’t get a chance, a fair shot, to see if we could work it out and make it worthwhile.
There were always shadows lurking during arguments, interference from invisible interests. Who can move forward unscathed by previous relationships? I certainly no of none. I am aware of my sensitivities and baggage that I harbor. I know I wasn’t perfect before and I’m less so now, but I am also wiser and more informed. I guess I had the benefit of knowing I didn’t want to be with anyone else. That wasn’t something he wasn’t blessed with. The damage from his previous relationship was fresh and festering. The manipulative bastard was still toying with his heart and head when I came along.
Why allow someone that mean, selfish, and slimy to stay in your life? I kept asking myself that over and over. Just when I’d fooled myself into thinking he was out of the picture I’d find some reminder that he was still in it, holding onto whatever hooks he still had into his heart. If it was so bad, then why not walk away? What is this impulse that makes people stay with someone who cares more about their own agenda than your welfare? I have some inkling. I had plenty of red flags that I ignored to stay in my domestic sentence. It took work on my part to deny all the reasons why I should leave.
But he was out of the situation, he was single again. Once I cut the professional liar out of my life, it took a while but I absolutely left him no window to crawl through, no crack to whisper in. I put an invisible shield between him and my heart. I also did not have the benefit of being in a new relationship with someone loving, patient, and sacrificing, which I endeavored to be for him. Perhaps he viewed that as a weakness. So often it seems people stay with someone hostile and harmful because they perceive them to be strong.
So I have to ask myself the same question. Why would I want to be with someone who was so careless with my heart? No doubt he put me through hell. At a time in my life when there hasn’t been much security or foundation, he made me feel like nothing was certain, everything was ambiguous. He treated his ex like he was a husband but I was treated as little more than a friend with benefits. I suppose that I will just have to remind myself that the person in my mind is no angel. Whatever his real intentions were, his actions demonstrated that I wasn’t a priority. I made plenty of mistakes myself, but I have to keep in mind that if I waste time thinking about him I’m only making another mistake.
