The secrets of an unloved object

He’s after me because he likes the challenge: the cat-and-the-mouse game, the construction puzzle of convincing me that it is worth it. He says I’m so unlike the others; of course I’m so unlike. The one at that moment always is.

He sweeps me off my feet and lifts me up closer to where air spirits live. It's intoxicating. Then the cracks appear: the subtle insults, the outbursts when he gets told ‘no’. The control over my choices masked as caring behavior. The decisions behind my back. Naturally, fights follow and accusations fly. Tears flow. More insults, more ultimata, more lies. The moment I’m left high and dry with tear flowing down my face in the middle of an airport, I say ‘enough’.

I’m still somewhat ashamed when I reflect on this episode of my life; most survivors of intimate partner abuse are. Shame is a powerful emotion: it portends fear, humiliation, judgement. I'm sentenced by the court of my own mind. I've done my time, yet the shame doesn't disappear.

I don’t talk ever about this; I’m not fond of the popular American tradition of grabbing a microphone and oversharing with the world to process trauma.

I suffer quietly.

I gradually realize I was lured down a rabbit hole of the relationship with an unwell person for all the wrong reasons, and left with scars in all the wrong places.

New secret.

New anger.

I’m bombarded from every podcast and every self-help book by the notion that I must forgive - for my own benefit; that I must move on - for my own good.

I can’t.

I’m frozen to the ground and starring in disbelief at the shipwreck swaying in the bay of eternal sadness that seems to be me. I can’t control the memories stuck on endless replay in my head as if hateful goblins with grins full of mockery stole the remote control. I’m permanently reliving the 3D story in which I was used and abused, absurdly hurt.

Whose fault is this.

To kill time, I plan a vengeance of monstrous dimensions, only to cry as if nothing were to be alright ever again: I’ve lost a piece of myself that I’m never getting back, and a poisoned fragment of someone’s dark, mortal soul is now squatting in mine without invitation.

It’s a secret I never tell. It rots and putrefies me; it’s an abscess I can’t drain.

I stumble upon an exercise on “How to forgive in nine easy steps, anyone, anywhere”.

Having nothing to lose, so I try:

1. Verbalize what is not OK about this "secret"

Everything. Everything went wrong, and I ended up altered for the worse: my anger unhinged, my heart cracked.

I blame him for absolutely everything that went wrong, or not the way I had wanted. If I don’t, I fear that means I condone his behavior that shattered me, and instead of hate, I will drown in self-blame. So I blame him: he used me and abused me; verbally, emotionally. He wanted to hurt me, and largely succeeded.

That is not something I can ever change, and I’m strangely OK with it. Some men hate women, and he was one of them. A misogynist bully. I just happened to be a woman useful for hate. It’s not about me, and never was.

But the real secret is this: the genuine source of my anger was not that I got hurt, but that I have absolutely no way of getting back at him. I can’t avenge the pain; that keeps fueling my anger like a tank rupture a wildfire.

He made it clear that he, and only he, is in full control of what happens between me and him.

So I made the reasonable choice: I broke it off. The only way left for me to assert a degree of control in the "relationship". Did you know that love is about trust, not control?

Also, the only way left for me to try to hurt him (worth a shot.)

After everything spiraled into a toxic catastrophe of who-blinks-first games and “if you really loved me, you’d… ” ultimata, I was nothing but perfectly malicious. I said things with no other motive but to hurt the other person, no matter if those were true or not.

Yes, this self-proclaimed prince charming turned out to be an incredibly manipulative Machiavellian. He treated me pragmatically with absolute disregard for my own needs or emotions. He caused me genuine pain and crushed a part of my soul.

But I should have never viewed that as a hall pass to do anything I can think of to hurt him back.

So the first step of articulating what was not OK about the situation - aside from him treating me like sh*t, me trying everything I could think of to treat him even worse.

2. Acknowledge that this happened

Didn’t I just do that? Ok, I’ll try one more time:

The reason I initially fell head over heals for him was because he let me pour myself emotionally into him without a judgement; those secret thoughts you didn’t think you could share with a living soul unless immortal and forever bound to be yours? Yes, those thoughts and feelings. It worked like an instant magic; it always does.

So I was enraged like a wounded bull by how he eventually treated me, using all my vulnerability against me.

Why me, why?

It took me years to admit I treated him exactly the same: no matter how stubbornly I was convinced that I was in love, in my head, everything was about me, and nobody else.

I didn't give a crap about his own needs or aspirations; all I wanted was to be blinded with attention and rescued from my own private hell. STAT.

My motives to jump into that relationship were utterly selfish: I needed to be carried away to a faraway land, and was happy to believe any promise of my own castle. I had no clue what his emotional needs were (did he have any…?), and I didn't care. Like, not even the slightest, not even out of politeness.

In hindsight, I never actually listened to him, and was merely hand-selecting words that would assure me of my own truth; first that it’s true love and nothing will come between us, then that I'm the victim of his manipulative ways and he takes a twisted pleasure in seeing me suffer.

I acknowledge that all these things happened, I’m aware of my share. Yes, I got badly hurt, profoundly and unexpectedly. I know I’m not supposed to use adverbs. It was all very adverbial. In fact, there isn’t an adverb I couldn’t find a job for in describing what a mess this collision with a raging narcissist was.

It was all built on a lie, then expanded like a toxic gas by heat, knocking me down when it finally exploded. Ignoring, trivializing or fighting my wounds will not help those heal. It happened, and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.

But it wasn’t unrequited eternal love that burnt me, it was a gambit in my game of “get the f*ck outta here” that didn’t pay off.

But saying this aloud doesn’t change or mean anything.

3. I need to forgive myself and him in order to feel better.

I don’t know if I can.

I tried and I'm trying again.

I still can’t.

Yes, I know there is no hope of a better past; it will not happen one more time, with a different ending. I can write a book in which it does, but it would be a sad book.

I can’t make him pay, I can’t make him cry. I shouldn’t want to. I should want to forgive him, and to forgive myself for my role in all this.

I just don’t know how, and being told that I somehow need to isn’t doing me any favors. There's gotta be a better way, doesn't it.

4. My distress and anger does not stem from his actual actions, but from how I feel about what happened.

Duh.

Somehow, I’m supposed to alleviate my pain by working with how I feel about those actions. How am I supposed to feel after I was humiliated, used and shamed? Happy?

This is the trap in all those ‘personal growth’ processes; I’m not the problem, the actions were.

People who come up with those notions forget that sometimes it is NOT in our head, not in the space we control, but in the objective realm where both good deeds and sins count.

It’s this bit where it always stops working; this necessity to gaslight myself that it wasn’t him but me so I can forgive.

But it was him, not me. He really did a number on me; if he didn’t, I wouldn’t be investing my time into this exercise. So what exactly is this supposed to do for me.

I’m perfectly happy to admit I was a perfectly equal part of the problematic equation. That does not ease the weight of the other half, the burden of the sin committed against me. Why is it helpful to force myself to quash my anger? It’s the only real thing left.

Now I'm angry at whoever came up with this bulls**t.

5. I need to give up expecting anything and whatsoever from him

I did this a long time ago. Didn't change anything.

I cannot make him apologize or ask for my forgiveness.

I used to think that he might, eventually; but like all people of his breed, he never asked, and he never will.

While I can’t make him say 'sorry', I can burn all the bridges.

I do, and throw into the fire all maps and secret codes that highlight the path to him, as I will forever fear that if him and I ended up on the same bridge again, we’d both fall down.

Love and forgiveness cannot be gotten, it can only be given.

I can't give him love, I never did, and never will.

Just like I can’t bring myself to love him, I can’t bring myself to forgive him either.

Can he forgive me?

Does that mean that I’m still expecting something?

6. If I'm not getting things that I want in my life, it is not because he has hurt me.

I’m actually OK here. I’m able to compartmentalize my demons and pay for therapy.

7. What is it that I am thankful for

I hate this one.

OK, I’m thankful that I learnt I shouldn't override my instincts just because something is so, so incredibly tempting. I typically analyze, sniff, check and double-check. I don’t make rash decisions. My trust must be earned. But I didn't question him, I just fell. The illusion was so bright, so close I could feel it, so real it seemed to have its own smell and sound.

Then the house of cards crumbled, burying me under its rubble. Without any rescue dogs to sniff me out, I saw through the cracks faces of people looking for me. Suddenly I felt love, an emotion that took years to build and grow. It wasn't hidden in the the shade of Fata Morgana anymore. It was there all along.

Strangely, only colliding with someone like him finally taught me to tell when its the real thing. That is something I actually am grateful for.

8. The best way to get back at him is to live my life the way that I want

I know.

After the dust settled, I marched on like it never happened.

I didn't need his help, advice, or blessings to achieve what I wanted although he had made me feel that I do in the past. Many, if not most people like him desperately try to create this mirage that unless you are with them, you will never be truly happy, forever unable to live your best life. It’s a Machiavellian lie: there is no unique and irreplaceable romantic partner in the world that would hold such power over one’s life, unless we let them.

It’s strangely liberating knowing that if I just march on, things can happen.

Maybe that is the best free advice people refuse to give, or more likely, to accept.

9. Make the heroic choice to forgive

Why should forgiveness be the only way out of this? Why should I forgive someone who never asked me to?

I was an unloved object that was meant to serve a purpose. I was used and neglected when no longer needed.

How do I forgive this. Why should I.

I think it's total horse manure. I haven't seen this person for almost two decades, and doubt I ever will. Why does it matter whether I forgive him? It doesn't change anything about how he treated me, it still remains bad and toxic. The only meaningful thing would be to turn the experience into something productive.

I opened my notes and start writing the sad book.

Just promise me you will read it.