Dirty Laundry [ September 10, 2008, 11:23 pm ]

Two months ago today my world was rocked. My whole view on love and life was changed by a man I trusted because something inside of him snapped or ensured him that it was ok for him to hit me.

Since then I've been trying to make sense of the whole situation and understand why this has happened to me. I don't have any concrete answers or definitive conclusions. I don't understand how a man can promise to protect me but then forget his word as he's hurting me. I don't get why I can give so much of myself and my love to a person but it can't be reciprocated. I can't wrap my head around the healing process and how it can still be such a rollercoaster after two months. I'm still trying to make sense of the saying "everything happens for a reason" when each day brings a new struggle to accept what's happened.

In some ways I don't think I've fully accepted what's happened. Some days I'm perfectly fine with my new reality and then other moments the realization of how horrendous this situation is--it consumes me and I find myself gulping for air and begging the universe or god or anyone for a reason why this happened.

This entry isn's meant to dwell on those things, though. Rather, I choose to fight in more than one way. I choose to stick with the charges even though he's begged me to drop them.

And I choose to air some of his dirty laundry.

He never supported my decision to come to MSU. He couldn't understand why I could possibly want to come back to school for two more years and stress myself out over classes and residents and staff development. He called me "selfish" and "greedy" for pursuing my dream of obtaining a Masters Degree. Meanwhile he bitched about a low-ranking job and did nothing to better himself except cut me down for pursuing a better life.

His negativity didn't end there. It spilled into every area of his life and inevitably...mine. While I am not Pollyanna I am an optimistic person and his constant complaints about his hatred of MSU (because he looooathed this school for some stupid reason), his job and his lack of a better life wore me down. What scared me--and what I realized towards the end of the relationship--was that I found myself becoming cynical and negative like him. I was slowly becoming someone I was not because he chose to look at things through dingy shades.

He didn't think he was a bad person, though. He thought he was perfect as he was and he did not want to grow or learn anything more. This was probably part of the reason he couldn't wrap his mind around me furthering my education--because he didn't see the point in it. While I viewed life as a work in progress he saw his as a masterpiece completed, albeit a bleak one. He didn't share my passion for learning and instead would rather swear at video games than bettering himself or his situation.

The one bright spot in his life (besides me I hope) was his damn cat. I say "damn cat" because he loved that stupid thing more than me I'm sure of it. When it bit me I got yelled at not him. When I did a values exercise with him he was able to narrow down his values to me and the cat. A huge fight broke out because he couldn't see that him not choosing me was him invalidating our relationship and history.


It takes two to tango and I am the first to admit that I am flawed and high-maintenance and overdramatic especially when it comes to love. However I never would dream in five lifetimes of hurting him like he hurt me. So this bit of housework is done with frustration, sadness, anger, reluctance and ultimately relief. He clearly was unhappy with many things in his life and no matter how much I loved him, things weren't meant to change for him. I'm still hurting, but I'm healing and this will pass eventually. He's left with a guilty conscience, a warrant for his arrest, some soiled items of clothing and his freakin' cat.

I hope the two of them have a very happy life together.

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