I finally named my grief Golum. Nothing else seemed to fit. It took on this inhuman persona in my mind every time I tried to associate it with a name, and the creature from LOTR that follows Frodo around, and who has a love/hate relationship with Frodo fit my grief to perfection.
A couple of weeks ago, I saw my ex boyfriend, who I shall refer to as X. I went out with a couple of friends of mine, fully aware that I would run into X, because X, when single, is a barfly. X is a really good two-stepper/swing dancer, and he feels like dancing with girls is the sole attribute he has going for him as means of attracting someone of the opposite sex. So where can he dance? At the local country bar. After dinner and karaoke, my friends and I ended up at said country bar. I will never forget for the rest of my life what happened after I presented my I.D. and walked in: "Cowboy Casanova" was playing, and there was X, with some skanky-looking victim, just off the dance floor practicing the pretzel. I simply sauntered past him with a small, knowing smile on my face, and then found a table.
I didn't speak to him. He didn't dance with anyone else until the very end of the night, when the girl he had slept with the night I left him asked him to dance, but just before that, after my friends had left the table, I felt someone nudge me. I look over, and it's X. He said hi, I said hi, and I asked him how he'd been. He said, (with a forlorn look on his face) "Okay." He asked me the same, and I said, (with a medium smile) "I've been great!" It felt good to see his reaction. He apologized for everything. I said, "It happens." He didn't like that answer. I used my fairly decent acting skills to make him believe that I was very happy without him. And not all of it was acting.
Later, when I was on my way back to the hotel, I checked my phone and X had been texting me incessantly since 1:00 a.m. "It's nice to see you", "Okay, I get it", and "Can we talk?" I did text him, telling him there was nothing to talk about, but I feel really good about the fact that he wanted to come to the hotel where I was staying, I had had quite a bit to drink, and yet I told him no, and slept alone that night. Huge feat for me.
But...since then he's texted me or called me everyday. I've been insistent that it's over, that there is no chance for us. That I had drawn a line, and after a year and a half of cheating and lies, he'd crossed it. I mean...the rest of it I could make excuses for, but he begged me to move in with him, promising he would never hurt me again, and within two months I was packing myself and my children...for the third time in 6 months. I wanted to kill him, but I knew when I moved in that he wouldn't change, so I'm just as much to blame.
After several days, though, the anger was going away, and it was harder for me to dismiss his pleas for reconciliation. He started calling me baby again. He told me the girl he'd slept with was terrible in bed, and that no one would ever compare to me, and that he just did it to forget about me for awhile, but after it was over, and he went home, the misery was still there.
It's in my DNA to be compassionate. Even when someone is hurting me...I might punish them and make them feel my wrath, but if I see them desperate and pitiful, I can't help but feel sorry for them. And X is pitiful. Not that he deserves my pity or forgiveness, but I gave it to him, anyway.
I made it clear that we were NOT back together. I didn't want to hear that he would change, I wanted to SEE it. From afar. He deleted his Facebook page, deleted the Easy Sleazies from his phone (everything done before) and constantly told me how happy I made him. But this is the only part of our pattern that we're good at. We've both learned to crave the "makeup" segment of the cycle. Like an abusive relationship, we relied on the good parts of our relationship (and in truth, there was a lot of good) to help me ignore his dishonesty and the mistrust.
But as the days went on, as the shine wore off, the old feelings of resentment and mistrust seeped back in. It was much easier to see him for he really is from an hour away. That, and I had started talking to someone new, and it was nice to remember what it was like to have a discussion with someone and not wonder if everything that came out of their mouth was a lie.
The day after I found out about X talking to a girl on Facebook and started packing, X started talking to a new girl. A conversation in which I print screened and saved--knowing I would be in the situation I was in before long--to remind me of why I left. I'm glad I did, because X has been talking about going away together on a vacation--something he knew I wouldn't say no to, I love to travel. I read the conversation, read his disrespectful, disgusting words, disregarding our relationship like a one night stand to an apparent stranger, and my ears got hot, and my hands started shaking. I was right back where I started: Pissed and Up-to-Here with his bullshit.
So at 2:00 a.m. this morning, I text him. "I'm not going on a trip with you, or anywhere with you." He text back, "Why baby????" I said, "I saved your conversation with Kat, and I just re-read it, and it pissed me off all over again. I remember why I left. It's just not going to work."
Then I turned off my phone. This morning, I had three texts and one missed phone call--all of which I just deleted, trying my very best not to look at them. I caught one part saying, "It will work, baby..." but I didn't read the rest. I've got to let go of him. I have been aware the entire 18 months I've known X that he wasn't good for me, and that he would never change. It's a hard pill to swallow when it's like you're on the outside looking in, watching yourself make these bad decisions based on emotion, and do them, anyway.
Whether X likes it or not, I'm moving on. Things are happening in my life (for the extreme better) and they have all literally happened AFTER I walked away from him. I believe in God, I'm not sure how much influence he asserts over our lives, but that can't be a coincidence.
...and it feels good to have finally made the right decision concerning him for once.
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