My divorce and the following relationship brought out parts of myself that I had formerly not known. The woman I had been — the organized, hard-working, friendly woman — turned into something quite different. And that “difference” was characterized by fear, to the point of near-hysterics. For the first time in my life, I began to truly hate parts of myself. Fear paralyzed me and put me on edge. All. Of. The. Time. There was no “time off” from being “me”, sadly.
I was raised in a first-generation college-attending family. My parents wanted good things for us…all nine of us. Because of their sacrifices and my subsequent music education, I have always been drawn to beautiful things. Music, art, and nature were (and still are) things that define me. I feel like I had the capacity to be quite a classy chic at times.
Name-calling and being negative about other people was not my MO. I really didn’t even spend time with negative-minded defeatist people. It’s just not my way. My parents and religious life taught me to love, to lift others up, and to be very conscious about my choices.
But everything changed in June of 2020. Usually one of my favorite months, it was ruined by an email that would change my life — and the lives of my children — forever. That email contained an attachment from the lawyer who was overseeing our “amicable” divorce. He wasn’t MY lawyer. He was the lawyer to whom I paid 4K…as a retainer. His job was clear. He was simply to approve all of our responses to the dissolution clauses. Simple enough, right? My almost-ex and I had completed the dissolution weeks before and were just waiting to sign it. So I thought.
That email sent me reeling. The entire dissolution was crossed out in red, bold lines. And under each clause, was an explanation from HIS lawyer (who I didn’t know existed) why our former agreed-upon words would not work, going forward.
I had no idea he had gotten a different lawyer. I had no idea this was coming. It hit me like a freight train. I thought I might never stop sobbing. For days afterward, I couldn’t eat. Drinking water was a chore. I was dehydrated and weak, had a migraine, and had no idea how to move forward. I felt hopeless, truly hopeless. for the first time in my life.
At this point, I began to see parts of myself that I hated…that I still hate, actually. I saw the “me” that tries to run away from problems. I saw the “me” that is so fearful that she goes to the police for restraining orders. I saw the “me” that I thought lived a “white trash” lifestyle. I was consumed with fear.
This was the main problem:
If I had not known about his having gotten a lawyer, if I hadn’t known he was going to blow up our life, if I hadn’t known…then what was coming next? My mind was in a constant state of flight/fight/ freeze. And I saw all of them, alive and well, all day, every day. Paranoia was a way of life.
I always wanted to run. But I felt paralyzed. And I had no choice but to fight. Fighting is not my MO. I had been a white, passive sort my entire life. And now…I had to endure what felt like another person living inside of me. It was hell.
There are not enough words to explain how hard I had worked, how patient I had been, and how deliberate my choices around this divorce had been. Years and years of therapy, coaching, talking with my then-husband, and saving my pennies…so much had to happen to get to where I was.
And all of that was, on that fateful June morning, for naught. I could not have tried harder to do the right thing for myself or for him. He was miserable too…but he was also comfortable with a live-in slave. As he should be, I guess.
The man-boy I was with at the time certainly didn’t help. There were certain comforts that I enjoyed having him around, but he began to less and less safe as well. And before the ending of that relationship, I found myself, again, at the police department, getting yet another set of papers to file a restraining order. What had happened to me? What kind of people file restraining orders? Aren’t they all drama queens with loser boyfriends, with no moral standards, and babies from all different baby daddies? OMG…the stereotypes!
No matter the stereotype, I had to get over it. The safety of my children and myself was imperative. This was yet, another place, that I never imagined myself. I felt so much shame about it. I would not dare speak of it to my parents. Things had been bad enough for long enough. They had been used and abused (financially) by my ex-husband enough. They didn’t want to hear about my next, most ridiculous and unnecessary, drama. It was apparent that I was going to attract the wrong kind of man. And that was shameful.
Where were the men like Preston, the sweet boy from KY that I dated in college? Why didn’t the safe, geeky band guys ask me out? Why was it always the charismatic, egotistical types?
I think I have the answer to that now. But, no matter, there I was doing the thing I never imagined doing, talking to people about things that only people “south of the tracks” talked about. I was one of “them” and I felt broken. Those men broke me.
What teaches a man that they deserve to go wherever they want, do whatever they want, whenever they want? Those are questions I will leave unanswered. But during the divorce, my ex-husband continued to come to our home — where I was living with his children — without permission. One time, he went through all of the paperwork in my files. It was filled with tax information, bills, and my journals. He left it all over the kitchen table, not in piles, but in a heap of loose papers. Why didn’t I lock the house, you ask? Well, that’s easy. I never had a key for my house until after that day. We never locked the doors. #countrylife.
At the end of it all, here I am, having moved in with a friend who has become much more than that. Of course, living with a boyfriend ranked right up there with filing restraining orders. I was not one of those girls. And yet, here I am, continuing to do things I swore I would never do.
I didn’t want to give up my independence. I carefully planned and waited to leave my husband in order to keep it. But I am only half of any relationship equation. I never wanted to be the “kind” of woman who found herself in a situation that forced her to move in with her boyfriend after divorce.
“And here we are”, my sweet man says.
There was a kind kind of person that I knew I did not want to be. And I had become HER.
No matter how hard I had fought, it was not to be. Humble pie just isn’t a pleasant thing to eat. Simply that.
I could never have known the intentions of any of the men in my past. Yes, there are clues now, looking back. However, in the middle of it all, things seem normal enough. And, when you’ve never been in a healthy relationship before, how do you know what it’s supposed to be like?
People can tell you that you’re supposed to enjoy yourself. People can tell you that it’s not supposed to be hard. People can tell you all kinds of things. But, in the middle of it all, what is hard? Hard is relative. And when you grow up doing hard, manual labor, being the straight A student, being the self-disciplined practicer of musical instruments, what is hard?
The fearful, paranoid “me” is slowly dying. I am still constantly worried and looking out for “signs” that I am still not safe, that I am missing something that needs to be addressed, or that I need to pack up and go RIGHT NOW. But it is getting better. I am getting better at telling those demons of the past to be quiet, rest, and sleep, long and hard.
Maybe they will. Maybe I’ll be allowed the peace that I know I deserve. I wasn’t meant to live as a bottom-dweller. None of us were. The dregs are no home for people. But life sometimes trips us up too many times in a row and there, we land. At least for a little while.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism | Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box | The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer | What We Talk About When We Talk About Men |
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Photo credit: Liam Briese on Unsplash