One day at a time...

The funny thing about dealing with abuse is that it reduces your life to a single day at a time. You live for today, but not in a good way. You hope you make the right choices so that he won’t come home and yell at you and belittle you. You call him 100 times a day to make sure that every single decision/thought you’re having is in line with what he wants you to have. You don’t wan to disappoint him and deal with the anger that comes with that disappointment so you exist by moments, by hours, by a day and then another day and then another. You go to bed at night just praying that you’ll wake up tomorrow and finally get things right so you won’t have to get back on that cycle again and battle through another day. You lose sight of the long term, other than whatever long term he desires for you to have.

The last few years of my marriage – maybe even longer than that – were lived in that moment-to-moment, day-to-day focus. Get through today, go to bed, wake up tomorrow and try to get it right. I’m realizing that I’m still living that way because it’s all I know how to do. That’s why I feel so untethered, unfocused, because there isn’t someone forcing me to exist in his world, with his rules, with my only goal trying to please him and avoid the rage episode that will inevitably follow. I’ve lost the rager but I haven’t lost the behavior.

Couple that with the sort of abandonment issues I have. Now, let me preface this with the following is not a criticism of my sister but my point of view. My sister moved around a lot through my late teens and young adult life. I always wanted to connect with her and she tried her best to stay connected with me. But she had to make the choices she made and live her life the way she chose to and, for me, that left me feeling like she abandoned me and left me behind. And, for some reason, my sister’s relationship to me is the strongest “masculine” relationship, I discovered in working with my therapist last year. So many of the issues I have surrounding my sister bleed over into my relationships with men. Again, MY issues, not blaming her for any of it. It’s just how she affected me, as we all affect each other.

I’m slowly realizing that I break my relationships with the important men in my life down to a single day at a time. If they don’t react the way I was hoping for when I see them today, I am crushed and devastated because, obviously, I have done something wrong to incur their wrath and their distance. Never mind that he may not have slept all night or that he’s sick or that he’s just gotten back in town from being gone for weeks or he’s dealing with his own personal exploration. Doesn’t matter because it’s all about how “he” is today, whichever “he” it is. If I don’t do what he wants, behave in a way that will keep him close to me, then he’ll be gone from my life tomorrow and I’ll never see him again. It’s such a weird combination of these two situations with my sister and my ex that create this panic and this desperate need to make sure that I do everything exactly right for this single moment in time, causing me to ignore the overall picture and the overall relationship.

With the OOMA, it’s, of course, jacked up to ridiculous proportions. That’s where the obsession comes in. Ohmigod, he was distant last night so obviously I did something wrong and made him angry and, although I know I’m going to see him every night for the next few nights, it doesn’t matter because he’ll “leave me” emotionally because I displeased him. Never mind the past history of him not leaving and the fact that none of this is true. It’s just what I feel in my heart. I’ve disappointed him somehow and the result will be abandonment. I haven’t been able to step back and see the history of our relationship and that it is a strong relationship, regardless of what it is labeled. He’s in my life for a long term, I think, if I can just quit being so ridiculously desperate about not losing him.

This feeling lingers with the other significant men in my life, although, obviously, not to such a degree. It leaves me convinced that I have driven away all of my “boys” and that I am a terrible person and that I don’t deserve to have any man in my life love me because I am a disappoint and am a bad person who deserves only to be left alone.

Wow, that’s a lot of pressure on the men in my life, as well as a lot of pressure on me to be perfect each and every time I see them. I have forgotten what my therapist tried to instill in me – that I am beautiful in my imperfection. I can be imperfect with the women in my life, weirdly enough, but not when it comes to the men in my life because both my ex-husbands would not tolerate imperfect. Yet both of them wore their imperfections on their sleeves as well as everywhere else.

I don’t know how to get past this perception but I’m hoping that just by realizing that this is what I do that it will somehow allow me to get past it and see these relationships for what they are – very dear, very strong and very present. These guys aren’t about to walk out of my life just because tonight we didn’t connect the way we normally do.

I also need to really see that they have emotions and problems and things they are going through that have nothing to do with me. My myopathy and my ex’s inability to communicate with me emotionally tends to make me forget that these men are deeply emotional and men who can feel and hurt and be depressed and are mostly able to be in touch with those emotions. I am neglectful by ignoring this part of them and, as a friend, I have to be more aware of how they are really feeling, not what feelings I project on them.

And I have to remember that these three men in particular have been such an important part of my growth and the beginning of me letting go of my perceptions of men through the lens of my ex-husband. And as I grow and as I discover more about myself, maybe I don’t need them the way I did before. That makes me kind of sad because it means that maybe our connections won’t be as intense and strong and potent as they once were. I’m going to miss that. But I have to learn to look past this exact moment in time and know and trust that they will be there for my 45th birthday and my 50th and, hopefully, my 60th and beyond. And, if not, that they will leave my life with fond memories and kind words, leaving behind the warmth of their presence.