So this is what it’s like
I have a shift starting at 5.30 in the morning and I am still up at 11.30pm, unable to sleep since I went to bed 3 hours ago. I can’t stop thinking, or feeling.
The engagement ring from X is a dead albatross. I am angry each time I think about it, and recently I’ve thought about it every day. I see it as something I can focus all this anger that has surfaced now that I have finally started cutting those last ties to X. I am really angry.
He has all these friends he can run to for affirmation about who he is, about the shit in his life, and how all these friends think he’s so wonderful and I sit here in my bed, alone, thinking hateful thoughts that everyone has forgotten about me. Or they don’t care. Fuck it. Fuck him. I am tired of bottling it all up like I have done since August 2000 when I found out who he was really.
So this is an angry post. Don’t read it if you don’t want to know about me. If you’re from work, I don’t care, if you’re from IRC - I don’t care. I probably do care but I am tired of hiding it.
I met him and went out with him, fell in love with him, accepted his marriage proposal, helped buy the engagement ring, supported him when he quit job after job, supported him when he started his own fucking business, talked him through his lows, calmed him down after he would rage, quietly paid for a new windscreen when he broke mine during one of his rages.
Just when everything was finally together, the 6 years we had slogged together. We finally had financial success, he was running a business that could support us both, I could relax, enjoy doing my work. He fucked it up. I walked in after leaving work early due to a migraine, and found him dressed up as a woman. I was in shock, he screamed at me to get out of the bedroom, and I sat in the loungeroom. Totally numb.
I waited for him for an hour until he came out. I watched the sun set over the river and just waited. We talked, and cried and I thought that it was just a fetish, I could work with that. I thought that I could accept that and that he was still himself. Except that he wasn’t. So after 12 months, and countless talks I tried breaking up with him, but it hurt too much. I took the engagement ring off. Started referring to him as my partner, not my Fiancé. I stayed. I shouldn’t have. We shared the room, but never slept in bed at the same time, this had been going on since I found out in 2000. I began to understand that how I had been lied to, that I had never been first, but was usually the last person thought of when he was having his problems.
I saw where he had told me so many lies. When I had found him lying he had apologised and I took it. I should have just told him to fuck off, but I loved him too much. Even when I ended the engagement, I couldn’t just leave. I resolved to fix my life after gran died. He was no help, and I knew then that I had to get out to save my own life. I had to fix myself, lose alot of weight that I had stacked on due to my emotional problems at home, find a good job.
So to get down to how I feel.
I feel used, angry, broken. I have contemplated cutting just to see what pain was like, because I have deadened my senses to feeling anything. It takes alot to try and unlove or to bury love that you have for another human being. I can stand most pain these days, like that abscess in my tooth. I no longer take painkillers for toothaches. I can feel real pain. Because I started feeling real pain I have found that I have been able to start thinking about how to heal myself. A chat with David when he visited woke me up to a few other things.
My tolerance is almost zero when I hear people complain about their problems of late. About their cars not working, about their bills being too high, or like my sister did for a while and bitch about her friends, or even my lack of tolerance over some of my friends who would whinge about their current man and why he sucked. There are very few people I can relate to these days. David said it in his post recently about how hard it is to meet the right one. I agree, and I too wish I could do what he has done, and gone and made a new life outside of the square. It’s not too late.
I think about the 6 years I poured into my relationship, and the following 5 of combined trying to save it, and realising that it wasn’t going to work. I loved him but did he love me? That question was asked by MM tonight. No, I don’t think he did. He cared about me, but he used me as a vehicle of normallacy. To pretend he was someone that he isn’t. To hide the truth from himself. I do not accept that if you love someone, that you would hurt them as much as I have been hurt. I would never wish it on anyone.
I talked about my relationship today at work. About that fucking ring and that he wanted it, and I said no. Not because I wanted it for sentimental reasons, but because he didn’t deserve it. He’s kept everything we purchased together. I walked away with my shitheap of a car and the ring, I didn’t want to complicate things. I understand why some women will fight for the last scrap. It’s blood money for pain and hurt, the countless hours of crying in bed alone.
He has his friends who affirm he’s a wonderful person, that he will achieve his goal of becoming a female. Not a thought will be spared for me. Not for my pain, not for the agony of heartbreak that I went through before I finally told him it had to end. I have stayed silent for 5 years, keeping his secret. Feeling ashamed.
All I want is someone to love me for me, and not use me. I will never put up with being second ever again.
I hate blogs with posts like mine. I hate this post. I hate him.
January 2nd, 2006 at 12:52 am
Wow, somebody wrote a New Years resolution that they will be sticking with. Hasn’t that put the relationship break-up into perspective. I get the feeling that this post was a fresh start in your life. If you put that energy to good use you will achieve anything.
I can’t imagine the weight you must have just taken off your shoulders. And creating this post will go a long way to healing your scars. I guess David told you not to muck around in life.
Go get ‘em.
January 2nd, 2006 at 5:56 am
Dear Lori
Was it Confucius who said - a journey of a thousand leagues begins with a single step? You have made many many positive steps in the past year
and this post is another giant one. You are a very wonderful person Lori and through the pain you are well on your way to discovering it about yourself. All stength to you my friend in the coming year!
January 2nd, 2006 at 11:59 am
I’m sorry this has all come out on what should be a happy day. While its important to not forget our past, you should see what you have accomplished since then. In the last year you’ve managed to stand on your own two feet and take charge of your life, and I for one am very proud of you.
I wish you all the very best this year Lori. I haven’t forgotten out conversations together and all my best wishes go to you. In many ways we’re very similar, and from your achievements I often find strength for myself in them.
To a new, exciting, year.
January 2nd, 2006 at 1:46 pm
may I suggest that you get it melted down and made into something that symbolises the new you? A phoneix symbol, something reborn from the ashes mayhaps?
January 2nd, 2006 at 7:26 pm
Hammy: It’s an easy resolution to follow, I need that change. to grow.
Fredd: Thanks
your support is valuable..
David: It needed to be said, I am tired of hiding it all
Tom: No matter what shape the ring would be melted to, I am always going to hate it.
January 4th, 2006 at 12:31 am
Don’t ever forget that you also have friends you can rely on, no matter how many miles there are between us. I’ve seen you grow and change so much over the years(sometimes good, sometimes bad) and I for one am proud of what you have achieved so far(all by yourself) and to say I know you. I can’t wait to see where you are this time next year…
January 5th, 2006 at 2:05 pm
A brave post Lori.
*hugs*
February 6th, 2006 at 7:04 am
Hi. I’m one of the people who supports ‘him’ and I just wanted to say that I care. About you and ‘him’ both. I enjoyed meeting you in the IRC last night and hope you will come back and hang with us more often. I would love to get to know you too.
February 6th, 2006 at 10:04 pm
thanks nerwen. i will be dropping in more often
February 12th, 2006 at 7:23 am
Hi.
He did lie and he held things back. He lied to himself as much as he did to you - though you may never really believe that. He was a lie back then - and he is sorry.
Sorry. It seems he’s said that so many times - it’s never adequate. It never should be.
So. No more Lies: if this hurts, makes you angrier, whatever - well, maybe it’ll help you if you hate him more. That isn’t a self-pity thing and this post is being written in the 3rd person, to try avoid the ever-present habit he had, and she has, of making everything about him, and her.
The truth: he did many things wrong - pretty much close to everything really, but he NEVER lied about loving you. He didn’t use you to further his denial. He loved you.
After that day in 2000, well everything changed. He still loved you, but he didn’t know how to escape the shame. In the long run, that was a good thing … for him, since it made him start facing issues.
She realises now that she should have told you so many things recently. She didn’t because she reasoned that she had already caused too much hurt. She didn’t want to make it worse.
She realises now, the pain was always going to happen. She tried to hold some things back, to avoid causing more hurt. That made her seem uncaring and selfish (which she is anyway - but that’s another story) which just caused the hurt anyway, if from a different angle.
So, she isn’t telling you these things to hurt you. She is telling you because she wants you to be free of the lies - too late perhaps but she can’t fix that.
He loved you. She loved you. Neither of them ever stopped. Not ‘cared’ - loved.
Both of us know that it’s all past, there is no going back. Even if forgiveness could be thrown around without regard, there would always be too many memories of pain and shame for all involved.
Not everything was a lie. Whether you believe that or not, at least there is nothing held back anymore. Most of all - He didn’t forget you. Nor did she try to erase you from her life. It was just - there was nothing he or she could do to make things right. You don’t ‘fix’ something like that - not when you created it.
So he did love you - though it probably would have been better if he didn’t. The twisted irony is - he might have faced his denial sooner if he hadn’t loved so much.
Well. This post is already rambling way too much.
Cya for now
Me
February 3rd, 2007 at 10:04 pm
I am glad for you that you were abe to find the real you out of this situation. I have been where you have been. Same situation. I survived a deathly illness, it brought me to realise I could also heal mySELF. There is life after such an upheaval in lifes journey, I can see that you have found that out already.
May 20th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
Dear Lori,
Tough story. Hope you are fine now.
Two months ago I heard that a dear friend of mine, suddenly returned from Turkey to the USA since she discovered that her boy friend was actually famine.
I lost her out of sight one year ago, just months after I introduced her to this acquaintance of mine; yes the guy/girl.
I try on remote to help her right now. But for her is it still hard to admit that she is fooled badly. The he/she never told her his back ground.
Needless to say that she is going through hell right now. And she is such an amazing beautiful girl. But still too ashamed.
You are doing better now. Keep that alive.