This is hard

The bills I was paying a few moments ago will need to wait a minute - while looking for my expense spreadsheet (yes, i'm THAT anal with my credit lately) I found a folder I had forgotten about on my laptop.  Why did i open it today.  

I'm a believer of everything happening for a reason and at the right time.  Maybe the time was right to give me a good kick in the ass and remind me that my memories are selective when i find it convenient.  

I need to say here that what i am about to copy and paste is humiliating for me, and will be upsetting and disappointing for  some others.  But, I need to have this found letter to myself seen by someone else, to make it a real thing, as horrible as it is.  At least to me.  

Do you want to know why i hate you?  Why I want nothing to do with you?  Why I think everything that comes out of your mouth is a lie meant to manipulate me for whatever it is you want?  Why i find it so difficult to put you out of my head once and for all?  Because I let you do this to me.  I. Let. you.  And because of that, I often hate myself and feel weak, ashamed....But in posting this, I am healing...healed.  I am diluting the dirty secret you probably never thought twice about.

Is it ever okay to hit a woman?  Is it ever possible that a man can actually love a woman he hits?

It seems like such a hypocrisy.  We protect the people we love.  We shelter them from pain. We wish we could carry their pain so they don’t have to bear it.  I do.  I know a lot of people do.  The idea of a loved one being hurt, let alone by your own hand is just inconceivable.

And I always thought that no matter how bad our fights got, no matter what was broken in a rage- that I would always be safe from him harming me.  That he had begun to posture towards me, using threatening poses during arguments, getting into my face and making sharp movements meant to make me believe he was going to hit me…..i never believed he would.  I’ve always felt safe, if not understood- if not considered, if not valued.  I thought he would never hit me.

I’ve been wrong before and I wish I was wrong here.  I wish I could say I didn’t see it coming even if it was so surprising when it finally did happen.  So scary.  So definite and final. 

It took him years to get to the point where he kicked me in the ass once during a fight.  Not a funny kick in the ass.  But I felt that because it didn’t hurt me, and because he certainly could have made it hurt me- that it didn’t count.  Yes, it was humiliating, demeaning, and yes it made me feel the shame he should have felt. 

I don’t think a hit has to physically hurt.  I don’t know if todays did hurt because I myself was in such a blind rage that he had dared to make angry contact with my body…….this man.  This man who loves me?  He threw things on top of me as I lay sprawled on the floor, backward crab crawling to get out of reach of his swinging hands.  I don’t know if it hurt my body.  I don’t know how I ended up on the floor, or how the mirror lay shattered underneath me.  I just keep seeing his face spitting at me, screaming that he hated me.  “I hate you, you fucking cunt!”

And how that brought the center of my chest fresh pain that I thought I could not feel more of after the previous nights (early morning) words of “I’m not interested in you” and “I don’t love you”. 

When did this relationship stop mattering to him.  I don’t know. 

While he wants constant rubbing of his sore back- which he brings snowmobiling and dirt biking but can’t use to make love to me.

 

I should list the bullshit lines I’ve been eating for at least the past year. 

What it comes down to is that this man not only lost his love of me, but he has lost his respect of me as a women he once wanted.  Instead of doing the right thing and breaking off with me, as unpleasant and difficult as that is to do with someone you have been in a long term relationship with- We both deserved better than what happened this morning.

How was there an argument this morning after those words were spoken last night?  Because I second guessed myself, I thought maybe I had approached him wrong, made him mad, deserved to be spoken to like I am not worth any respect.  That’s hard to read.  But it’s true.  I wanted to give him the opportunity to take it back.  To realize in the light of day that he loves me.  That he wants me.

I wonder how often that actually happens. 

Now that I’ve had literally the entire day to spend by myself – because I did scream at him to get out before I called the police and he did make the right choice at that time and leave – I realize that this was always going to happen.  That our relationship has deteriorated beyond recognition.  My reaction is to want to talk about it, understand it, fight about it if need be- and that’s all we’ve been doing.  It’s all been very one sided.  I worry and try to maintain the relationship, try to re-set it when he’s said or done something shitty to me (like yelling at me in a restaurant filled with people that he was going to choke me in front of all these people) or how he’s told me many times before that he doesn’t “want” me, doesn’t love me.

 

So the hitting was bound to occur.  Probably because he knows that I will never tolerate being hit.  And yes, when he slapped me I threw a lamp at him.  And when he slapped me again I went after him.  And while it doesn’t excuse his behavior at all, I have to own my own wrong doing in the situation. 

Yes, if he wanted to knock me out he could with one hit.  But that almost makes it worse.  Because his intent was not to shut me up, his intent was to hurt me, belittle me, make me small and frightened of him.  And he did those things for a few seconds.

I need to remember that I cannot change a mans feelings toward me, and that I may never have true answers as to why he has come to the point where hitting me is now okay with him. 

My hurt comes from not understanding something that I have no control over.  Because he does not love me and maybe never did.  Love does not say those things and do those things.  Not any love that I want to be part of. 

I’m numb now.  I know the real pain comes as the numbness wears off.  And then the need to beg forgiveness for a wrong that’s not mine to own, simply so we can go back to before this and not have to face how bad it is now.

Bad enough that I get slapped over some young pool playing girl that he spent the whole night with, checking her out and being checked out.  In front of me.  In front of our friends.  Making me insignificant not just in private but in public.  And then, if I read that wrong and it wasn’t ever his intention- he had the chance to say it and instead I was told he wasn’t interested in me, didn’t love me, and then within hours I got slapped. 

What more is there to think about? 

Why do i feel a need to post this, private, embarrassing and shameful - fucking pitiful letter to myself?  Because i am mortified that it happened and that i had to make up a different version in my mind to live with it.  In my version, i am brave and I do not back down.  The reality is that i was attacked that day.  I was hit several times, thrown to the floor, and had a big angry man screaming obscenities into my face as I cowered.  That is what happened.

And never will again.