Ice cream and cookies

Warning: This post is going to be ugly. Really ugly.  Yesterday Stella’s father emailed me to see if I could watch Stella over dates in December so he could go to a series of Phish concerts. He also included the fun fact that there were 9 local shows over the summer, only 1 which he attended.  This immediately threw me into a backward spiral. Backward because  right before he told me about his affair, he said he wanted to spend that new years with grace and i.  Then the weekend that he told me about his affair, he also informed me that he wanted to go party at the Phish concert on new years with his “real friends”.  I went right back to the awful conversations where he outlined every single one of my shortcomings.  When he explained over and over how much he resented me.  Despite the fact I had checked in repeatedly during the marriage to make sure that he was okay, as I could sense that something was off with him, and he always responded that he was fine and to stop asking if he was okay.  Yet over 8 years he grew to resent me so badly that he took up with another woman and wanted to live apart from his wife and child. Was willing to give up the majority of the time available to him during that precious first year of Grace’s life so he could go “be himself” and recapture his youth.

I cried last night. And cried some more. I called my mom who said the exact right soothing things - how insensitive he was, how clueless, heartless and cold. To not even realize what a trigger this was and how it is a yearly painful reminder to me of being told the litany of things wrong with me in the eyes of the person that I twisted myself inside and out for.  All of the time I spent wondering why my husband was so distant and punishing myself for not being a good enough wife to be able to figure it out of fix it. All the while it was him lying, misrepresenting himself, and I never stood a chance.  

So I broke out the ice cream. And then a huge sugar cookie.  And the sugar influx stopped the emotionally spiral until it plateaued into rhythmic sobbing as my dog sat on my belly and tried to console me.  But the crying wasn’t just for what happened in the past. It was also for what is happening now, with the Runner.  He has been so busy and his to-do list is growing faster than items are being checked off.  I knew that part of it is because he’s spent so much time with me. And I was so paranoid that he would resent me for it, just as my ex always did. Resented my existence as it was just something to make him feel guilty when he needed to be working constantly.  I did ask The Runner if I was a distraction.  He adds so much good to my life and I want to do the same for him. I don’t want to inadvertently add stress. He replied that of course I’m not a distraction and he would rather spend time with me then checking off his to do list. And he added that I needed to think more highly of myself.  That really hurt. Because it’s true. My thoughts are hurting me so bad. Reading each of his texts first through the lens of my ex - full of resentment and anger. And then a second time when I force myself to hear The Runner say them in his own voice, gentle and unassuming.

I realize this post is rambling and I don’t have a conclusion, but the emotional storm that started last night is still shedding it’s last rain and clouds this morning as I woke up in a fog, still teary eyed.  The main lesson that I learned last night was that as far as the present goes, with The Runner, it is only my anxiety talking. And to be aware of it and let it flow by rather than holding on to is as the truth.  I understand this concept yet it is so hard because I am blurry on the line between what is my anxiety and what is reality.  I guess that’s what happens when you are lied to for so many years.