Why it's going to be ok
I thought he was my best friend, my partner, and my future. There is a void here now like a black hole where the cosmos could fit inside my gaping, broken heart.
I'm not the wallowing type though. I'm a doer. I'm going to tell myself the truth. There will be a new dawn for me.
The truth of our relationship is that some loves just fades away after too many problems and not enough compromises. He gave all he could. He said he had much more, but he didn't. I see now that I drew his real self out of his unintended lies. I love him so much still, but it did start to change for me too, realizing with time that his words don't match his actions.
It's the love that we shared that makes me hope he has a long, wonderful, happy life and has everything amazing and good, still. I hate him and love him into this place in me that just wants to let him go. I only want what is fair for my kids and me. Not his version of it, but mine.
I was devoted and loyal and never disrespected him or said a bad word about him, and that doesn't just go away. I never betrayed him, but it seems, his family had full knowledge of our marriage as I feared. Every time his mother made an underhanded comment, and I questioned him about it, he was never honest either. I could never compete with them.
For me, for my part in the wrongdoing, our love always had to take a back seat to the kids. It wasn't ever a choice I had. My guy told me to defend them. So strongly. Now I feel vindicated. He ended up hurting the kids in the worst way, and it's unforgivable. He did the same thing my self father did to me, something he said he would never do. It's unconscionable even. He'll say I drove him away, not letting him be the disciplinarian it was his right to be. You keep your promises to children, and you don't make excuses or pass the blame when you don't.
I'm not sure he ever really tried to fall in love with the kids. He held them to standards he would not hold himself. He demanded respect rather than earn it by example. He acted out of annoyance and frustration and not out of love. He questioned me at every turn and did not respect my role and my history with my children. He said, "I never felt like their father anyway" as he was running to his mother but did not consider what the children thought. He wasn't the man he said he was. He left us. He left us. Whatever he says to his family and his friends, and his coworkers too, the simple truth is that he left us. That's not my man.
I did not do anything to justify it. He betrayed me. He got aggressive with me and my children. He has no grounds for divorce other than not being able to deal. Last summer, when his mother expressed how badly she felt for him, I couldn't understand it. Because he was 41 with a family he took on? He said he wanted to, that we were his world, that he loved us so big. How was I to know he didn't? Now I know I'm not meant to understand. And it just doesn't matter.
He left his ring in the most dramatic fashion and the gifts I gave him and the presents I made for him. He left all the pieces for me to put back together on my own, in our home, to run home to his mother. He was not my man.
It's going to be ok because there's no other choice for the children...and for me.
I keep thinking about his face the night before he left. He said, "can't I just do what I want?" What a strange thing for a grown-up to say. It's like he thought the demands of family would one day end, and he was surprised when it didn't. I tried to tell him when we were dating, but he always thought he knew better than me and never conceded anything.
When I think about our history, I know he was not my man. He did not fix a single thing or want to do anything with my friends or family while expecting me to spend every holiday with his. He did not hear me when I said that this was an issue; he just resented me and ran to his mother.
I don't understand why there had to be this drama now: instantly defriended by his sister and my nephew, moving out in a hissy, making all the decisions without consulting me, and especially leaving without saying goodbye to the children. Could we not have had a conversation? I take responsibility for my inability to love him the way he wanted me to, and I own who I am and how it has conflicted with his needs in our marriage; but I still remember it being mostly good and the happiest years of my life. I don't understand why it couldn't have been handled differently, more respectfully, more maturely. It's going to be ok because in my future, I'll either live with a real man or none at all.
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