Will this hurt ever go away?
Everything always seems to be just below the surface – ready to erupt at any moment like a volcano.
Last night the hurt surfaced again in a simple conversation with my children. It seems that Lovey says that I never was the man that she thought she married. I guess she was right.
But I did try.
And, after a year of marriage, I couldn’t live a lie and I told her the truth. I told her who I thought I was.
I made myself vulnerable to her.
I told the kids that I thought that was what one did in a marriage. You make yourself vulnerable. You trust them. You expect them to be there for you. You expect acceptance and unconditional love.
I gave all those things to Lovey. I accepted her for who she was…not who I wanted her to be….not who I thought she was….. I loved her unconditionally…through all the nagging, the outbursts, the tears, the shrieking, the multitude of medical tests, the endless arguments about everything. That’s what married folks do I thought.
Yet, through it all, Lovey harbored all these “other” feelings about me. Feelings she never discussed. Feelings she probably didn’t even know she had at the time.
And, now she is sharing them with the kids….and her feelings are coming back to me.
Indirectly.
And then those indirect comments…when they come at me….act like little coal mines….digging below the surface….hitting the core of my buried volcano of hurt…..and it begins to churn inside me……
And it finally erupts. It erupts in a cascade of tears…down my face.
I guess when all is said and done and I look back, Lovey was never the woman I thought she was when I married her.
Will this hurt ever go away?
5 comments:
Frank you asked: “Will this hurt ever go away?” My answer is that I am not sure, possibly not. But what does happen over time is that we learn ways of dealing with the hurt. Like you learned to deal with the hurt from MP, you learned how to state very eloquently that you were hurt by being ignored through the process, yet you have left much of the bitterness behind. The scars will always be there, just like the “character lines”, but we learn to smile through them, because life is better that way.
One friend compared these old hurts to a grumpy neighbor that comes over for tea every once and a while. You learn, after some length of time, that if you are civil, his visits may not be pleasant but he leaves and you can go on with your life, however, if you get mad at him he will just make your life miserable for the rest of the week.
I am so sorry that your ex has you down in the dumps. I know how that feels. I hope (so very much) that things will improve, and the days will look brighter again.
The hard part is words are not easy to take back. Once they've done their damage, it's there and often stays leaving scars.
Plus she is one who can cause you the most hurt with very little effort I imagine. (You could be doing the same too.)
We all wear masks even to our closest love but I think she was SOME of that person you did know and love and still is...the divorce it bringing out maybe angry hurtful thoughts too.
So much change and emotional events recently, so I'm not surprised you're "on edge" all the time...it's ok to cry, let it all out. Hang in there.
For me, over time, the jagged raw edges of the hurt softened, and I learned to firm myself up.
I totally get you talking about making yourself vulnerable and feeling betrayed by someone in whom so much trust was invested. There was such a big part of me that was so reluctant to believe that someone I had been so close to was now someone intent on inflicting hurt. It didn't matter whether the hurt was intentional or not, it was so hard to imagine that this person and the one I'd known were the same.
The other side of the hurt which took me longer to come to terms with was the self-blame. Secondary to the immediate wounds and hurts was the sense that I should have known somehow, many years earlier, that the relationship was not to be trusted and that I was somehow at fault.
It just took time, and increasing emotional distance, to come to peace about the facts that (a) the relationship had been more troubled than I had wanted to admit for longer than I wanted to admit, and (b) I had done the best that anyone could have done with the experiences and aptitudes God gave me. Sure, I made mistakes and I was far from a perfect person or a perfect husband. But that is exactly the way the universe works.
Wishing you the best, my friend... and I made it to Hartford safe and sound a couple days ago... I'm really pleased with how it's all going and have a lot of peace.
Frank -
A couple of thoughts:
I pray that your kids will have a sense of objectivity in all this. They should never have to take sides. They have two, unique parents. And they need to be able to unconditionally love them both.
I agree that it's a shame to have to keep secrets. Yes, marriage should be a place for total honesty. But I feel many of us know there are some things left better unsaid. There's little humor even in the old line: How do you respond when a lady says, "Does this dress make me look fat?"
Things said to anyone -- spouses, friends, family, or enemies -- can never be taken back. Perhaps, that's part of the comfort of being anonymous in blogland.
You've got my prayers and hugs.
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