10 Years After
Ten years is a long time to mourn the loss of your own heart. It has been ten very long, very hard years.
I don't believe I will ever fully recover. He got married, I barely survived with my sanity. I was late to the wedding. September 16, 2017. One day before my mom's birthday. Had it not been so close to her day, I wouldn't be here now. I just couldn't do that to her.
A few months later, it was winter I think, I was on my way home from work. It's a two lane highway, traffic runs both directions. A big transfer truck swerved into my lane in front of me and I didn't flinch. I had no reaction at all. In that one second it took him to swerve into my lane and swerve back, barely missing me, I simply did not care if it happened or not. I cried after he passed me and NOT because I was scared.
I have too much invested to end whatever this is with him. Time, money, memories. I do know he will be the end of me one day. He doesn't think of me the way I think of him. Even now, I don't go through the day without thinking about what he's doing, hoping he's okay or that he's eaten enough. Little things like that, ya know? And I'm lucky if he remembers during the day that I've messaged him after he's ignored it and cleared the notification. He is the first thing I think of when I wake up and the last thing I think of when I fall asleep.
He expects me to accept the wife as family. I expected him not to rack up a metric fuckton of money from my credit cards for a car and insurance plus so much other which has left me unable to pay down the debt I was already in and has caused me to be stuck living with my parents, all while lying to me and living the life he wanted to live with that girl and his friends until it was time for the wedding and the two lives were forced to be merged.
Guess who lost on that one?
But I'm the bad guy. Always. And I'm blamed because I'm the stupid one who has stayed and not forced him to pay back anything? Yep. My fault. All my fault. Because I'm still in love, it's my fault. He doesn't understand how badly those three years of lies and taking my money affected me and why I can't let it go. He gave me an opportunity to walk away, telling me he'd understand. But of course he would, that would be easy for him. Debt-free AND guilt-free. No, honey, you don't get both. It doesn't work that way.
The worst part about all this is that the "him" he puts to the world isn't the real him. It's not the guy I know who's in there that he's buried so deep that even he barely remembers. He keeps trying to model his life out of some 1960's storybook he's been read by his parents. To live by the values you were taught from your parents is NOT the same as living IN the era your parents lived. He also pulls bits and pieces from others he has been around over the years. I listen closely, and watch him with intent, and I can tell you from whom each of his grafted personality traits comes from. And I can tell you which are genuinely his. Unfortunately, there aren't many of those left. He hated nearly everything about himself growing up and sought so much to change that now almost everything about him is someone else.
But I know his heart, Dear Reader. I know his true self - the one that scares the everloving shit out of him. And that's why I try so hard; that's why I'm still standing beside him. I'm not much good at anything, but people reading is kinda my thing. My not-so-supernatural empathic ability is sharp and I am usually not wrong about a person. I have rarely been surprised by a sudden twist of character in someone I've met and I am certainly not blind or deaf to human actions or reactions.
The reality is, I don't love who he portrays nor do I love who he was. I love who I know him to truly be.
I just don't know for how much longer I can wait for that true person to shine.
I don't believe I will ever fully recover. He got married, I barely survived with my sanity. I was late to the wedding. September 16, 2017. One day before my mom's birthday. Had it not been so close to her day, I wouldn't be here now. I just couldn't do that to her.
A few months later, it was winter I think, I was on my way home from work. It's a two lane highway, traffic runs both directions. A big transfer truck swerved into my lane in front of me and I didn't flinch. I had no reaction at all. In that one second it took him to swerve into my lane and swerve back, barely missing me, I simply did not care if it happened or not. I cried after he passed me and NOT because I was scared.
I have too much invested to end whatever this is with him. Time, money, memories. I do know he will be the end of me one day. He doesn't think of me the way I think of him. Even now, I don't go through the day without thinking about what he's doing, hoping he's okay or that he's eaten enough. Little things like that, ya know? And I'm lucky if he remembers during the day that I've messaged him after he's ignored it and cleared the notification. He is the first thing I think of when I wake up and the last thing I think of when I fall asleep.
He expects me to accept the wife as family. I expected him not to rack up a metric fuckton of money from my credit cards for a car and insurance plus so much other which has left me unable to pay down the debt I was already in and has caused me to be stuck living with my parents, all while lying to me and living the life he wanted to live with that girl and his friends until it was time for the wedding and the two lives were forced to be merged.
Guess who lost on that one?
But I'm the bad guy. Always. And I'm blamed because I'm the stupid one who has stayed and not forced him to pay back anything? Yep. My fault. All my fault. Because I'm still in love, it's my fault. He doesn't understand how badly those three years of lies and taking my money affected me and why I can't let it go. He gave me an opportunity to walk away, telling me he'd understand. But of course he would, that would be easy for him. Debt-free AND guilt-free. No, honey, you don't get both. It doesn't work that way.
The worst part about all this is that the "him" he puts to the world isn't the real him. It's not the guy I know who's in there that he's buried so deep that even he barely remembers. He keeps trying to model his life out of some 1960's storybook he's been read by his parents. To live by the values you were taught from your parents is NOT the same as living IN the era your parents lived. He also pulls bits and pieces from others he has been around over the years. I listen closely, and watch him with intent, and I can tell you from whom each of his grafted personality traits comes from. And I can tell you which are genuinely his. Unfortunately, there aren't many of those left. He hated nearly everything about himself growing up and sought so much to change that now almost everything about him is someone else.
But I know his heart, Dear Reader. I know his true self - the one that scares the everloving shit out of him. And that's why I try so hard; that's why I'm still standing beside him. I'm not much good at anything, but people reading is kinda my thing. My not-so-supernatural empathic ability is sharp and I am usually not wrong about a person. I have rarely been surprised by a sudden twist of character in someone I've met and I am certainly not blind or deaf to human actions or reactions.
The reality is, I don't love who he portrays nor do I love who he was. I love who I know him to truly be.
I just don't know for how much longer I can wait for that true person to shine.