Her father is a bit of a prick really. Been in and out of hospital for months. Bella lives 45 minutes away. She is CEO of an incorporated association. It’s a busy job.
She’s the sixth child and she’s been doing most of the care. The siblings are spread about the globe, but are on the same page. They organised a group of in home carers, as the parents (mostly prick dad) refused to consider residential care. I mean, these are wealthy people, with wealthy children who can get lovely care in nice places.
Dad sacked the help before Christmas.
Ugh.
So then mum got hospitalised again. Dad has been in and out a lot lately.
Anyway, mum has terminal cancer, and dad has been in and out twice in last few weeks. She’s exhausted.
Dad still refusing help. So has come home to Bella’s.
I called again this morning. What do you need? What can I do? Can I cook for you, bring groceries, feed horses?
I said, “I’ll bring dinner this week.”
Her reply was, “I just need a gin and a chat.”
I’ll be there after work Weds. With gin, lemons, and dinner.
There are Switzerland friends, and good peeps. She’s both.
I know a lot of people who say get rid of those who are still in touch with your abuser. But this person is a good person. She was always a bit in love with Rog. They have been fuck buddies at two different periods of life. I get it. She also has understood, and expressed her deep disappointment in him. She plays nice. It’s easier when he lives so far away.
It does hurt that she is still in touch. But that’s her movie. Ours is still a good one. I don’t watch the other one she stars in anymore.
I know she knows who he is, and what Trinket did. She is dismissive of her.
I’m on the immuno-compromised list, for an early Covid vaccine.
We have been very slow rolling this out in New Zealand.
I guess, with no community transmission for a very, very long time (NZ has basically been Covid-free, except for cases locked down in mandatory MIQ for two weeks on arrival into the country,) we are a long way down the list of the supply chain!
Then, there was a massive Ransomware hit on the local District Health Board (DHB) computer system a few weeks ago. This was chaotic, surgeries and clinics cancelled, no one knew what the hell was going on! I’m so glad I wasn’t in radiotherapy now, as that was also cancelled for a few weeks. So concerning.
I am now just over three years since completing my surgery and radiation treatment for cervical cancer. I am in remission, but not considered “safe” for another two years. My bloods do still tend to go up and down a bit more than is perfect, but I am generally in good health.
But it has meant that the roll out of the vaccination program in my region has been further delayed, ugh.
Anyway, I don’t mind that I am not yet vaccinated, I’d rather they got to the aged population faster! My Dad is 77, and not yet had his first jab, as not yet available to him. He had a rough year last year, with renal problems, and pneumonia, with four long hospital stays, culminating on the removal of a kidney, finally. He’s done really well since, bounced right back, he’s generally a fairly youthful, healthy and active 77 year old.
I had planned to fly to Brisbane, see my son for a few days, then up to my uncle and aunt near the Whitsundays, and up to Cairns, and out, for a week to ten days in August, before our breeding season got underway, and work got crazy again, but I have now been advised to just sit patiently. To not travel. Damn!
New Zealand and Australia opened a quarantine-free travel bubble recently, and it seemed an ideal plan. However, New South Wales has had an outbreak, and a traveller wandered around Wellington last weekend, before realising they were Covid positive. Welly has just gone into a Level 2 lockdown. This is Lockdown Lite, with restrictions and guidelines, but no stay in place mandate other than that you are not to leave the region during this perioid. Just for 72 hours, to see how much damage was done, and to try to contain any outbreak.
BG’s sister, the one I haven’t met in person, just group chats and Zoom calls, because she lives in Sydney, is due to fly in on the 8th. To surprise their mother for her 87th birthday, on the 12th. That is now looking sticky. There is a no quarantine-free travel status for people from NSW for at least 72 hours. They are having a pretty big flare up of the Delta strain over there. Bugger!
It’s kinda weird. His other sister rang me this morning, to firm up plans. It’s quite funny how this always falls to women! I have only been a part of this family for a short period, but she is already using me to prompt him – he hasn’t responded to her email (it is the club’s AGM tonight, and he’s frantic.) She was insisting I come, and stay with her and her partner, we have the large bedroom earmarked apparently, with middle sister relegated to the smaller room – if she can even come now – what a laugh! I was under the impression that they wanted sibling and Mum time, as there are some personal things to be discussed, about her care. Robyn laughed, and said, “bugger that, you’re part of the family!” Um, that is really nice, but it really isn’t my place to say anything, just support and back them up in the decisions they make together regarding my sweet, new mother-in-law’s wellbeing.
I sometimes look at my new life, and think, wow!
How did I get here?
Who are these really loving, funny people?
None of the conflict that was in the previous family I came to via a relationship. The two sisters made our life very difficult in the last eleven years Roger and I were together. It was honestly the saddest thing, losing those people. Those nieces and nephew. I was so heartbroken. I loved them, but had to be very loyal to Rog when there was a huge family conflict. It was horrific.
These three genuinely like each other, and will fight you if you hurt one or the other of them. It’s interesting that there is a nine year spread of ages, and they are still great mates. And are easily in agreement about their mother’s care. They bonded hard over the disgust in their father’s long, three decade long secret affair, and eventual discard of their by then aged mother. And then her health challenges and how to help her have a good quality of life. Selling their family home and ploughing the funds into her retirement village serviced apartment and ongoing care. They work together to help her, financially, taking her to health appointments, etc. I just love this so much! Kindest people, but really real, down to earth, with great senses of humour. They are the epitome of the close “Westie” family, lol.
So, damn. Still won’t get to catch up with my Mum’s only sibling.
Oh, and how weird is this? BG’s mother’s birthday is the same date my mother died. It will be twenty years in a few weeks! Her name is my middle name, and BG’s family name is very similar to Roger, and my children’s family name! He remarked on it the other day. I already knew, and was a bit creeped out, but BG’s surname contains Roger’s surname, with letters in the same order! BG said, eww, that is pretty weird, you’d think you would have avoided me!
I laughed, and said, hey, I didn’t even know your surname when we first started out! I was (and still am, lol) saved as Paula (my town’s name) in his phone!
Which is lucky. Be awful to be talking to the other Paula by mistake, right?
The Other Girl. It’s not a great joke anymore. The kids and I thought it was hilarious when we (stupidly, without a damn clue) referred to Leanne, as “Dad’s girlfriend.” That still makes my skin crawl, and everything in my body cringe and tighten. How stupid were we???
I think I told you all about the new friend I have recently made.
I’m not one to make new friends easily. My tribe is small.
Rog used to say I was anti-social. It definitely became more apparent after I knew he was a cheater.
I think it’s partially a trust thing. I love my people very deeply, and you have to seem worth it, real, honest, kind, fun. I will give back all of those qualities in ♠️.
He was a social butterfly. Loads of people. There were often times I didn’t know who people who came to my house were.
I recall one night, a small baby in my arms, our eldest, and he arrived home after a night of drinking, around 5am. I was in bed, but heard a woman’s voice with him. They were pouring second drinks when I decided I should get up and investigate. I had no idea who this blonde, young woman was. Apparently she was a friend. He offered to drive her home and give her a bed for the night.
That was my Norm. I admit I did internally question this. They seemed very matey, not a “new” friend. But I convinced myself that he was just being a nice guy and looking out for someone who’d had a little bit much to drink.
Yeah, okay.
I never really saw this “friend” again, after later cooking her breakfast, and her leaving.
Anyway, this new friend of mine has a LOT going on. So much I’m not sure where to start writing about her. She’s going through something, and has asked my advice a lot. A loving woman who has not learned to value herself. At 50, having never been in love before, despite a 21 year marriage. I’ll talk about that at some stage. But she has ended up falling madly in love with a very damaged man – a long term old friend – and he’s been breaking her. I have gently but firmly answered her questions about loving someone who doesn’t treat you well. She has told me several times that she has broken the sexual part of their relationship off. But then that she was talking to him about xyz. I just said that no contact or grey rock (he is involved with her in a legal sense, ugh) is healthiest when trying to break a trauma bond.
Yesterday she said she’d fully ended things, and cried all day. Went to her GP. Then asked me for psychologist recommendations. She works in the health sector, so I was a little surprised.
My writing makes her sound like a real drag! She’s not. She’s a calm-but-bubbly sweetheart, who just isn’t coping well with a guy playing her. She says no one has “got it” like I have. And heard a very, very brief version of my, “I am deeply in love with a man who kept choosing other people, and I know he’s not safe for me. That the man I adored for thirty years died, and this one, who lives with, loves another woman, the latest he cheated on me with, breaks my heart every day, but I choose mindfully, every day, to value myself, despite my utter heartbreak.”
Yep. That is almost word for word what I told her. Afted hearing her story over the course of several weeks. One night, she came for dinner, and I listened to her for six hours. There is so much trauma. But such a kind person, softly spoken and caring. She says she feels a very fast affinity and respect for me.
That said, I’m being super cautious about this. I need to protect myself from too much ruminating and I’m wary of carrying anyone else’s pain, when my own is still quite heavy. I haven’t said a lot. My listening ears are on. Absorbing and trying to think of ways to educate her gently, to encourage her to value herself.
And this is why I haven’t posted about her until now. I know it reads like I am opening myself to a broken person. I’m being cautious. I have the most wonderful, positive people in my tribe. But this woman has the most lovely aura. And she said to me that once she gets herself sorted, she hopes she can pay it forward, like I am.
Loyalty is essential to my life, it is a sign of respect and care. Disloyalty soon gains you a black mark. Too many black marks, and you go on my cull list.
Weirdly, I didn’t really apply this fully to Rog after I discovered his lying and cheating with Leanne.
I mean, I was aware of it, but felt we had so much love, that we could work through it.
Of course, at that point I had no idea of the scale of their affair (fully involved, emotionally and sexually for over fifteen months) or the other lies about other women in our past (hookers, ONSs, etc…)
The most surprised person about my willingness to forgive and work through this, was me! Even with just the initial thought that he’d recently, maybe once or twice, “accidentally” fucked our old ‘friend.’
And loyalty, in the form of respecting other people, whether I know them, like or dislike them, whether we are close, or not, is also a thing.
I would never fuck – or even flirt with – a partnered person.
That was what held me back the one time I got close. That I would have been doing something that hurt other people. That partnered people should never do that – or at least not without implicit agreement to do so – as in polyamorous situations, which include meeting and checking that the whole polyamory thing checks out. That it is a mutual decision.
I dunno. I just find the whole let’s believe the known cheater’s story too damn convenient for selfish people to justify their behaviour and carry on getting the sex and attention from someone else’s husband/wife.
I surprised BG last night. He had rostered himself on in the bar, and I was expecting him home later, so was going to have dinner ready for him. Was a last minute decision to drive over, when I managed to escape work early.
He got a hell of a fright as I walked in his back door, and he wasn’t in the club, having managed the rosters to get out of a bar shift after a full day in the office.
“Checking up on me?”
I laughed, but was a little mortified, no! I never even thought of that. So replied, “yeah. Guilty conscience?”
He laughed too, and said, “yeah, you’ve caught me with a burger and chips for dinner, when I know it should be salad…”
He was thrilled to see me, once he recovered from heart failure!
We ended up at his friends’ bach and I met several more of the crew. Had an absolute blast, and managed about three quarters of a bottle of rosé! Leaving this morning, after being treated to a bit of special BG attention, was a bummer.
He’s just messaged me to thank me for the lovely surprise, and to tell me how he only sleeps well when I’m there. Feels fantastic today after a tough week, but one where he has solved several of his work problems.
During the only couples counselling I eventually managed to drag Roger to, four years after DDay, our therapist, Nic (the one who diagnosed love addiction), tried to get us to watch Brene Brown’s original TedTalk on vulnerability.
Rog watched a few minutes and turned to me with, “see, you have to learn to let go and be vulnerable with me again.”
I quietly seethed.
I wasn’t ready, he had been blaming me, telling me I abandoned him, and he had no choice but to cheat.
I wasn’t ready to be that vulnerable with him again, yet. He had done little to make me feel safe.
But I needed to be more vulnerable. To absolve him of the terrible guilt he felt about what he chose.
Fuck. That. Shit.
I needed time, to see him lead the way in our healing just a little bit (hint, that never happened.) All the research, all the counselling, all the trying to find answers, looking at myself about what I must have done wrong – ALL done by me. The only time he did anything was after my first suicide attempt, where he found me a psychologist, and dropped me off at her office… never read a book. Never thought to seek counselling. Never looked online for help – except at dating sites!
I was aware that Brene’s words were so very true. You do have to find at least a certain amount of vulnerability. To avoid bitterness and being closed off from the joy of the world. I also knew I needed to work hard to get to a place where being vulnerable was “safe” again.
I was a lover of life. Grabbed it with both hands and shook the hell out of it. Take every opportunity you can. Until Leanne. When I began to withdraw. And fear. Roger described me as sparkly. He said he crushed the sparkle out of me.
Yeah.
He did.
I’m trying to find my sparkle again. Travel. Risk. Fun. Sparkly isn’t a word I utter, or use IRL.
But weirdly, BG used it the other day. “Look at you, you funny, sparkly thing!”
And no, there wasn’t a sequin in sight.
Apparently my green eyes have regained their sparkle. He isn’t the first to say it. My two best girlfriends guessed there was something up, saying, your beautiful eyes have started sparkling again. Your skin is glowing. Like a gorgeous young pregnant woman.
Ugh.
My two and a half week cold sore finally healed, and I was perfectly kissable. Thank God. It’s hell not being able to use your lips on the person you are making love with.
But yesterday, he messaged me to say, guess what? I have a side serving of … coleslaw.
Shit! I felt absolutely terrible. Gutted. Devastated that I somehow shared the virus. Dirty, actually.
He laughed. Said he thought he’d had one before. It was fine.
I didn’t feel any better.
I get them.
Rog never did.
Anyway, I rang the pharmacy down the road from BG’s work, and asked a huge favour. Could I ask someone to please pop down to his work and deliver some Zovirax and lysine?
Yep. No problem. We’ll do that for you!
How cool are they???
I got a message a few hours later…
I was vulnerable. Took a small risk with him. I don’t wanna be his mother, or hover about. But I thought, I gave him a yucky virus, I can try to help him heal. I was worried he might think I was micro-managing a perfectly capable, single, grown man who is perfectly capable of dealing with his own health. Has managed to do so quite decently for 53 years…
But, I knew he had a late board meeting he would be preparing for, and was unlikely to have time to get to a pharmacy.
I tried to be kind, and let go of my fears.
To the point where I booked a flight to Australia to go meet him after a conference he has in a few weeks. He said he’d love it if I met him there for the weekend.
I felt the fear, and did it anyway.
Much like the properties I am buying. Terrifying.
But then, so is sitting still.
Anyway. Enough of that. Time to go see a couple of documentaries to warm up before my daughter finishes work!
My most awful day at work ever was followed yesterday by an enormously rewarding result.
My boss, who really has been quite driven, irrational and erratic, throwing staff under the bus at will, realised after I pointed out to her the day before, that her management style needed refreshing.
I have worked with her for eleven years.
She is a kind, compassionate caring person.
Find me a female vet who isn’t!
But, she is driven. Ambitious. Is a world leader in her field, and having turned 50 this year, she is pushing to be the best in the world at a new, revolutionary process. Perfecting her systems and technique has been driving her for quite some time. In other words, having a bit of a midlife crisis.
Professional competitiveness and a – frankly destructive and childish – feud with a former colleague, has been making her a bit cray cray.
We, the staff, have been used as human shields in disagreements between her and her husband. We have been kinda asked to lie, etc. Amongst other things.
It’s been happening for a while.
I finally called her on it. And it didn’t go down that well. We have never had a disagreement in eleven years. I felt sick. Shaky. Nauseous.
But yesterday she came in with bribes in the form of beautiful morning tea baking, a much happier person, and thanked me for advocating for her staff. She even offered me a four day weekend!
Apparently it pays to be a bitch. Who fucking knew?
And I took the extra day off! I have Friday off as well now as my usual Thursday at the moment. Four day weekend. Woot woot!
Naw. Who knew it paid to be a mean bitch? Honestly, I am the mediator, the fixer. This role, almost making my boss – who has been incredibly supportive of me – cry? It felt so awful.
And BarGuy drove the two hours over to me, and cooked me dinner, fed me pinot noir and single malt whiskey. He was worried about me. Naw. He manages a staff of 40, so said I did the right thing. Managers need calling out when they are being dicks.
I think he might be starting to let his own walls down a little. He seems smooshier, softer, more caring than ever.
Fuck, it’s hella sexy!
He asked me some quick questions about Rog last night.
That’s a first.
He wanted to know how tall he was, which kind of surprised me. He’s 6 foot himself, but when I said pretty much 6’3″ he asked if him being shorter was a problem at all?
What?
Height?
I didn’t realise I was heightist, lol.
I’m 5’4″. So really? Quite the perfect height, for what we are doing 😉🍆😜😂
And the domestic abuse episode came up. He’s dealing with a stepson who is a meth addict, in a care facility and clean for three weeks, he’s just had a schizophrenia diagnosis. He and the boy’s mum are thrilled. A treatment plan is being formulated.
We were talking about abuse, etc. He was appalled, of course. And started swearing loudly. I guess he was thinking, abuse rarely happens in isolation. He knows about the emotional abuse and cheating, so it makes sense, I suppose?
BarGuy, staring into my eyes, “what the actual fuck? What is wrong with that man? You are amazing, you’d never know, so kickarse. And yet kind.”
Nawww.
I didn’t defend Rog, but I did say he’d never shown signs of that before. Emotionally manipulative, and a gigantic liar, yes. I rarely called him on his lies – mostly because I didn’t know he was lying! He was GOOD at it. But when I did call him out, that was the result. I didn’t back down and accept his lie about fucking Trinket in my house. I stood up for what was right. And got knocked down for that.
Quite literally.
Think BarGuy might be a bit deeper than I realised. He’s a much healthier slow burn. No frantic love bombing. So unlike what I had before. So physically different. It’s good.
For now.
I’ve just finished my counselling session, and I talked about BarGuy for the first time. I asked if I am hurting myself by putting myself back on the emotional roller coaster of another man. Even though that’s not quite what it is yet?
And as we talked about my boundaries, my thoughts about maintaining my mental health, she said, you’re smiling more. Your eyes are shining. The geographical distance, your legal and emotional protections, the slow burn of this seems like a good thing for you. You’re such a passionate person, and that is incredible, but being fucked over by a callous, selfish partner has made you more cautious. Embrace what makes you feel good, it seems healthy. You have boundaries and you’ve come so far. I’m so excited you have been so courageous! I know the feelings for Roger are still there, but I know you know he is so unhealthy, and abusive. This seems nice.
Glorious weather for a quick overnighter. A bush bash this morning after I put some of my home killed lamb shanks in my friend’s slow cooker for her dinner tonight…
Now having a very quiet gin with my friend on the beach.
I have a therapy appointment this afternoon, so heading home in an hour. My daughter is struggling again and wants me to stay with her tonight after her work late shift finishes.
So I’d better pop home to put the dogs to bed and pack a bag do I can go straight to work from her place. Poor sausage. I hope she gets some relief soon. She is very resistant to trying meds, but I think she needs to try now.
And just as I was posting this, she messaged me, all excited because her subsidy for her therapy is now finished, and her therapist likes her so much she has offered to try and get more funding, at a discounted rate that is nearly half her usual fee.
Feeling the pull to write a little about how things are in my life right now. Nothing groundbreaking, just a brief update, to spill it outside of the containment that is me these days.
As you all know, Roger and I are on track to re-evaluate ‘us’ after I hand in my thesis in late July. Will we stay together, or will it be the end? I can’t say for sure either way at the moment. This does not mean that we hate each other, or that life is unpleasant. We love each other, and work our hardest to be kind to and caring of each other. But I am aware that this is a very difficult time for Rog. He struggles. And I ain’t finding it a bunch of fluffies either.
The thing is, I don’t know how to trust anymore. Anyone. I haven’t been able to convince my brain to allow vulnerability. So, of course, after about five years of thinking I could trick me into trust and vulnerability with a very remorseful man who did a lot of things that ‘should’ have made it okay for me to trust again, I had to pull away. But he also, admitted later when he could see with clearer hindsight, did a couple of things that maybe made things a lot harder than they needed to be. I am speaking of his refusal to change his phone number (their affair was entirely enabled by text and phone calls alone, he was not on social media, and he never gave her his or our email address(es).) So, he was still getting texts, and occasionally replying, for two years after D-day. He admits that was stupid, and that I was right in pretty much begging him to change his number, as that would starve the maggot of oxygen. Huge regret of his. He also, as many of you know, fucked her again at the two year mark. If you read waay back, you know my feelings about that. Whilst I understand that he was trying to figure out why he had thrown away his good life for a person he was pretty sure he didn’t even really like, it probably wasn’t helpful. To anyone. Even her. Yep. I loathe that woman, but even I don’t think fucking her again was a nice thing for him to do to her. But I do, nevertheless, understand his thought process. I know he went to her to ‘discuss’ the whys and wherefores, the sex, to me, was just his … patheticness … I guess. I now know how ruled he is by sex. I never really got it before all of this. We had a busy and fulfilling sex life together, so I never got the message that he feels incomplete without sex in his life. I think that is just sad. That you would prostrate yourself for bad sex – his words. He now understands this about himself, too. That he is needy, and it doesn’t make him feel very good about himself. But, in all of this, I have become somewhat sexless. And he says it’s better that being sexually needy. I beg to differ. I don’t think there is a winner here. I don’t think, in this sexualised world, that ANYONE ever feels good about themselves if they have become sexless. I wouldn’t admit this in real life, I would be judged, and made to feel a prude/boring/stuffy. I am none of those things, and I miss sex like crazy. But I just don’t feel sexy. In any way. Even self love, and I used to be good at that shit, lol! Bah, enough about my embarrassing ‘problem’ with sex.
Well, the latest thing that created some more distance between us is this. Roger still sleeps with me. Which is fine, but that I am not a sexual being anymore, so he needs to be aware I struggle at the moment. He seemed to be coping with that. We would cuddle and talk, and that was that. One of the things we have discussed ad nauseum, is that I know he ‘needs’ emotional and sexual closeness, and that I can’t really provide that at the moment. I hate it. It isn’t who I think I am at my core. But, I have worked damn hard to survive this, to be as intact as I can be after he blew the old me up, used and abused. I had to build some walls, as the old me had none, and it nearly fucking killed me that he treated me the way he did, and made me physically and mentally ill. I don’t know how to dismantle these walls. I am torn. To let them down might mean I can feel something good again, but I was 100% vulnerable and loving and where did it get me? I don’t think I can survive this again. So, yeah, it sounds stupid, but I can’t let them down, or not for long.
I thought we had communication nailed now. That we are open and honest. We talk. Still a lot. About life, about the future, about us, about not us. And I made it clear that I understand he has needs, and that living in the same house makes that a difficult thing, in many ways, but that if he wants to get laid, that he just has to be honest, and let me know. I don’t think that is abnormal, and I also don’t think it is a lot to ask, to discuss these things. It’s not like I am asking him to ask my permission. I just want to know if we need to change the living arrangements. So, I was doing a tax return the other day, and noted that he had a credit card charge to a dating site. He had told me that he had joined this site, and chatted with a couple of women. But that he decided it wasn’t for him (he had never done this kind of thing before) and so he had resigned from the site. Okay, I got that. We had another conversation about this, if he was feeling this lonely, that we needed to find another way of being. He said it was fine, that he was coping again, but that sometimes the sadness of losing me was just overwhelming. Promises were made to ensure communication was maintained. I just don’t wanna be piggy in the middle. I also don’t think it is fair to another woman, if she finds she likes him, to see me still living in this house! Back to the new credit card charges. I was angry. Not furious and filled with fire. Just sadly angry. He hadn’t talked to me, he had just paid this dating site. Of course I approached him and said we needed to talk. The charges were from three months ago, and he said he had forgotten about them, and I could see he was a bit embarrassed. He hates being this pathetic, he sees the dating apps as a bit sad, too. I just calmly said that I thought it was really disrespectful, mostly of me, that he would sleep in my bed, and in all honesty, we still have sex, when he was talking to any other women. I felt revolted and used, and I calmly expressed this. He seemed very sad and to understand.
I just don’t get it. Why would he even put me in that position when he knows the damage he has done? I know it is desperation. He does get very desperate about our situation, it isn’t a healthy one, I get it. But why, after all he has learned these past few years, would he not talk to me? Tell me we needed to find alternative accommodation? Sigh, it just felt like I was on a treadmill, and that we were back to teaching him about boundaries and other people’s feelings being just as important as his. Affair Lessons 101 stuff. Do some people, even those who seem to get it, seem to understand the damage, seem to want to change, never fully get it? All this stuff that is so innate to me? I mean, we have a quote pinned up in his maimai, one that he chose, about twenty-something years ago. One of the things in it is to be careful with other people’s hearts.
And yeah, it isn’t fair to either of us. And yeah, we both miss each other like hell. But you’ve gotta be realistic. He just can’t cope with the contact that is never enough. And I miss the old him, the one I adored, that lovely guy I had created in my head for those first decades, the one who obviously never existed.
FML.
I’m okay, much better than if I had let him back into my heart fully, but I just feel stupid again. That I somehow almost believed that he had learnt all he needed to about how to treat other people. This is not an inherently stupid, or callous man. I honestly felt he was the most emotionally intelligent man I had ever met, once upon a time. And in many ways he is. But there seems to be an override button, and he STILL has trouble not pressing it when under pressure.
Tearing at the Fabric 