Friday, February 6, 2015

IT IS TIME FOR ME TO TELL THE TRUTH....

Oh the stories we tell!  Tell ourselves and tell others.  Oh how they change and grow and adapt to meet our current needs.  I am thankful to have friends who dare to sometimes call me out and remind me that the story I am telling does not sound anything like the story that it used to be.  A couple of weeks ago,  I wrote a blog post about my life and current situation.  A friend messaged me to compliment my writing but also to question my perspective.  Why, she asked, was I sounding like a victim of circumstance when the truth is that I had wanted things this way.

Suddenly I had to ask myself, was I choosing to play the victim so that others would feel sorry for me, or so that I would not have to accept any responsibility for the way things are?  If I were to take my power back and accept that I wished for, instigated, and perpetuated the situation, then where would that leave me?  If I am not the victim, then who am I?  No one would feel sorry for me anymore, but I would also be unable to feel sorry for myself any longer too. If all of this is true, then I am responsible for my misery and unhappiness.  She reminded me that I may be miserable now, but the truth is, I was miserable back then.  This is just a different misery, but this misery has the ability to change and the other didn't!

I have to be honest, first with myself, then with others. I have to rewrite this story....

The truth?  

I was so unhappy in my marriage and had been for a very long time.  The lies, the deceit and the manipulation had been there since before we had ever walked down the aisle and continued on ever after.  Nothing had really been right between us for over 7 years, ever since his last affair.  At that time we had been married for 12 years.  It wasn't his first, or even his second.  He said that they were all just "emotional affairs" and that nothing physical had ever happened with any of them.  But once again, I took him back and we agreed to work to put our marriage back together.  In marriage counseling, our therapist asked me during a session, "What is it you want from your husband?" I said, "I want someone who loves me unconditionally, doesn't keep secrets and doesn't lie, I want someone who I am enough for, someone who will love me as much as I love them." I will never forget what he said next, "but he has never been that for you."  And he was right!

In that moment I fully realized that I had been living in a dream, or really, a nightmare of my own making.  I wanted him to be someone that he had shown me time and time again that he was not.  Even he knew it.  Maybe he wanted to be that man.  Maybe sometimes he was for a little while.  But when you try to be something that you are not, for the sake of someone else, the result is depression and misery.  And hence, we were both miserable and I continued to bury the truth and ignored the facts.  I chose to be blind.  I have to take responsibility for that now!  Had I left then, perhaps I could had saved us both from a lot of years of sadness.

Almost 3 years ago, this same friend that questioned me recently about my story perspective, had approached me and told me that whatever was going on in my life to make me so unhappy needed to change right away.  I cried, I knew what it was and I knew that she was right.  I got in my car and called my husband.  I told him that we were headed down a bad road and that if we didn't change things we were headed for a crash. I stated that I was no longer willing to be the only one to put in the effort for our relationship anymore.  I said that I was going to give it 6 months and then re-evaluate the situation.  The date was February 13th 2012.  A year later to the day,  Feb 13, 2014, we were sitting in another marriage counselors office.  Suddenly I was hearing the same words that he had said 7 years earlier, "I am not sure that I want to be married anymore."  (Months later I would find out that he had started the affair again with that same girl from 7 years earlier).  About a month after that, we got in a fight and I told him that he had to leave.   And he did.

Why do I choose to forget that part?  

He did what should have been done.  He knew it and I knew it.  We had had enough.  We could have tried but he was no longer willing to try to be the man I wanted and needed him to be and I was no longer willing to believe that he could be.  He had always said that he loved me so much and that if he ever felt that I would be happier without him, he would be willing to walk out of my life, and he did.  

Maybe the time has come for me to accept all of this.  Time to stop blaming him and instead say thank you to him, for being willing to do what I was unwilling and unable to do myself.

But am I truly ready? 
It is a huge step to take......

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