If I Have to Ask You for It…

A big disclaimer is needed at the beginning of this one and it is this:

This is a problem. My problem. I am working on it. It’s a struggle I am in, working to wrestle out of previously-programmed shame and self-blame. This is in NO way to feel inside a healthy relationship.

Done…I wish.

Last night, I couldn’t sleep.

Rewind…

Yesterday was HELL.

The email came directly before my therapy appointment (convenient, I guess). The ex is taking me back to court. The court granted his petition to hear his complaints around my not having paid him the last $2500 of the 75K I handed to him.

None of which I had, mind you. I had to refinance my house and double the mortgage (which I cannot now afford) to pay him off. But the courts don’t care if you and your children (whom you have sole custody of) have a roof over your heads. Nope.

This last $2500 is a fabricated amount, created by misconstruing amounts paid on the family car, which I drive. I do not own the car. He does. It’s his loan and I have been paying it. And it’s paid off. But he will not give me the title because he has played with the numbers, making it look like I owe him more. What the fuck does he need with more? His 6 figure income is solely his. I get nothing. No retirement. Nothing.

So, back to the topic.

It is things just like this that upset the apple cart (which was already tottering on two wheels). I could not get away from the feeling of hopelessness and devastation. All I wanted was to be held and allowed to cry.

But, in the same breath, I didn’t want to dump my emotions on my sweet man and make Him feel like He needed to make it all better. I didn’t want to sleep at His house and disrupt His sleep. But I needed to be held. I needed to feel safe.

Why is it that I will alienate myself from what I need? Why do I NOT allow others to care for me the way I know I need to be?

This question, I expect, is answered in a different way for everyone.

I was the second child in a long, long line of children. I was second mama by the time I was age 6. My needs? I learned to take care of my needs on my own by the time I was 10. Or not. My needs were secondary, tertiary, quaternary, etc…I was WAAAAAAY down the list of people who needed…anything.

I remember the first time I asked for what I needed inside my marriage, years later. Let’s just say, I never asked for anything again. What I got, I got. What I didn’t, I managed without. When he demanded that I ask for money from his accounts to manage the home, I went and got another job. Like hell, was I going to ask for money!

And by “managed to meet my own needs”, I don’t mean I did well. I didn’t. I didn’t do well at all, really. But I smiled through the pain. I performed well. It served the marriage. It served my family of origin as well as the one I made with my own blood, sweat, and tears. It didn’t serve me, however.

Asking for what I need is the most foreign of things. Acknowledging my own unhappiness is also very difficult. I have learned, over many, many years, not to value my own happiness.

Joy…joy is something I do well. But happiness? Nope. Joy is all about perspective. It is taking everything into account. It is empathetic and compassionate.

Happiness is more about ME. Who is that and what does she want, anyway?

So by the time I ask for what I need, I am at my wit’s end. I have hashed out and rehashed so many times, how to NOT ask. I have even become slightly resentful and embittered that I even have to ask. Then, I cease even wanting it…on the conscious level.

There is a part of me that continues wanting. She wants to be loved, enjoyed, cared for, and needed. She wants to be seen. She shut down a really long time ago and is trying to wake up. And waking up is painful.

One example of my failure to ask is this:

I could not ask my millionaire dad to help me by paying off my lawyer’s 16K bill. This is his lawyer, the lawyer I trusted to take care of me and totally dropped the ball. I realize this is my privilege talking, but I wanted him to take care of it. That amount of money is nothing to him, but half of what I need to live on for a year with my kids. I didn’t have a right to it, but it seemed like the right thing for him to do. But he didn’t. I would not ask him to do it. That’s on me. (Some perspective here…I grew up incredibly poor in money, yet rich in family. The money came into the family when I was an adult.)

Last night, I couldn’t sleep because of this new stressor. The thought of going into the courtroom again, only to lose again, was too much. My needs and the needs of my children have never so blatantly been disregarded as in that room, so many times, last year. I will be recovering from that for years, I expect. And be paying it off the rest of my life, literally.

So, I got out of bed and went downstairs to the couch, where I could hear the rain, the tree outside, and the wind chimes next on the neighbor’s porch. I needed to be held. I needed to held firmly and given the reassurance that I was safe. But, I didn’t want to wake him up. I didn’t want to ask. I didn’t want to be a nuisance. I didn’t want to hear the words that came out of my ex’s mouth in our first weeks of marriage. I live in the fear that I will…and then this relationship will need to be over as well.

Because now I know that it is a clearly waving, bright red flag to hear words like that.

I don’t know if I will hear them. And I have hope that I won’t. This lovely man continues to defy the odds.

He heard me get up and followed me downstairs, talked to me a bit, and then snuggled me on the couch until I fell back to sleep. I don’t know if he got any more sleep. I am trying not to think about it as I already feel badly enough, having upset his night.

But, according to him, we are a team. He is here to take care of me. I am here to take care of him. Our needs are to be met.

But I am going to have to start asking. Am I brave enough to do it? I don’t feel brave at all right now. But, maybe someday.

Because if I don’t ask, I will be harboring resentment. I will not be giving this relationship the fair shake it deserves, just because others have abused my love and trust in the past.

I deserve better than that. He deserves better than that. My children deserve to see their mother happy and being treated well. And maybe, just maybe, they will.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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