I was involved with a man a few years ago, and like many women out there looking to be loved..I found all too soon, it wasn't love he was after.
He was not a guy in my group of people per say. I hung around people that thought more like I did. The old fashioned people. Or people who wanted to be left alone. One could say he appealed to the younger group and I appealed to the older group.
As life changes, my group got smaller and while dealing with the death of my mom, the discovery of deceptive husband, in waltzes this guy...Chip.
Prior to that however, I lived a lifestyle what was said to be that of a nun.
I was quiet, praised my God, and tried to live a peaceful life. Had two beautiful amazing children who grew to be brilliant independent strong women. Friends were few, that I chose, life was good, for the most part.
Marriage was always a challenge. And oil and water kind of thing. But! I stuck with it for the sake of my girls. Dumb!
As life plowed forward, so did I. As I did, I too grew more independent. My step father taught me to never depend on a man. A bunch of lessons well learned. As I plowed through life, raising two girls, basically by myself, with many mistakes made along the way...I was growing up so to say too. Learning to be my own person, to be a Mom, to be a strong independent women who needed no one.
Dysfunctional as it gets. Today, while my girls are amazing strong women, they wear the scars of their childhood from within yet another dysfunctional family. Dysfunctional helicopter over protective Mom. If only they could see it through my eyes. It was easy for me either.
Married to a man who could read at a sixth grade level, could write maybe at a third grade level, the burden of life of a family and all that came with it, a house, bills, jobs, all that was mine. I didn't have help, running a home so to say was mine and only mine. And if the dude of the house needed anything written down, that was my job too, not to mention the job applications, interview prep, all of it..his...was mine too.
No help with teaching the girls anything in prep for school,, or homework, no help anything education related. I was on my own. The picture gets bigger from there as you can imagine.
I'll sum it up, I was raising a grown ass man too.
Over time, as my girls grew, as I was lost in who I was, what I was doing, I knew I had to do something different.
I enrolled in college.
That's where my personal growth began. The more educated I became, the more independent, stronger, opinionated some would say, I also became. Wiser to the world for sure. And with that wisdom came a sense of wanting and hoping to protect my girls more. Was it protect or smother? Probably both. It was out of love though. See as I was learning about all these new things in life while studying law, psychology, science and the like, I also was learning of all the evil things of the world too. What Mom who loves her children wouldn't want to protect them from all the criminals out there. Did I get it right? Nope. I guess not.
My coping with life skills as a Mom sucked apparently. That left scars on them. I did the best I could with what I knew at the time.
Anyway, fast forward, many mistakes later, lessons learned after the fact, psych fee too...I found myself watching my Mom die, making decisions I thought I never would, dying everyday with her.
As you might imagine she and I were very close. A single mother again, after my father died, left to raise 6 kids, sometimes 8. On $1.75 an hour. Her coping skill was alcohol. Over the years, all of her children but me abandoned her in one way fashion or form. She died not knowing her grandchildren, yet all her kids were in that room when she died. When I buried her with my father, I said goodbye to most of my siblings too. After all, they didn't have anything to do with Mom, why should I have anything to do with them. They weren't around to help her as her health failed, they didn't listen to her stories of the life she led, one abuser after another. They weren't there to wipe her tears, put her to bed, to listen to her cry herself to sleep as she battled her demons. I was.
Will I vowed to myself not to be an alcoholic Mom, my life coping skills reflected my Moms in many ways too.
See I knew all the family secrets. The abuse- physical, mental, psychological, the suspected sexual abuse, the horrid horrid stories my Mom lived with her entire life. I heard it all. Mind you, I was second to the youngest of those 6 kids.
Is it any wonder this women drank?! I would have too. It was the only coping mechanism she had.
From the life of her childhood which was not great in any way, to married and beaten daily by her drunkin husband from the age of 19 for six or seven years and 4 children who watched it all. And are believed to have possibly been sexually assaulted by their father...
She met my father sometime around 1968-69. They had myself and my youngest brother.
6 kids, two adults, living on a farm in a two bedroom trailer house. A new husband, dying of cancer. 1919-1976.
I was six years old, experiencing my first death. One of many to come.
My mom would have a few boyfriends along the way, all but one of them very abusive. The one who didn't beat her, well, I don't know what went wrong but they never did end up together.
I witnessed a lot of abuse, until I was finally old enough, strong enough, brave enough, to able to defend my Mom.
She finally met a good man. But he drank just as much as she did. He had demons too. By that time, in 1985, Mom was so broken and damaged- another relationship- her last relationship would take her to her grave. Don't get me wrong - when they didn't drink, my Mom and Step -Dad were great great amazing people. Giving, loving, parents. I'm very proud to have had them both as parents. The drinking brought out the worst in both of them. And of my younger brother was around, and drunk, he'd beat them both. Here's the thing...we were not physically beaten kids. I suppose it was all the trauma and abuse we saw..that made some of my siblings the abusive people they are. Oldest sister: pathological liar, hypochondriac, and a whole lot more. Next younger sister, very abusive to her children, should have been locked up long ago. Next younger is fine for the most part. Struggling young Mom herself trying to figure out the world. Daughter doing the same.
Older brother next in line, enlisted in the air force to escape. Alcohol got the best of him too. Good man tho. Nothing like his father.
Then there's me. Married young and dumb, two beautiful girls, college graduate, amazing job, failed marriage. I grew up and out of love. Not an alcoholic or abusive. Tho being an over everything Mom these days can be classified as abusive. Depends on who you ask.
Younger brother, alcoholic very abusive married I think 3 times, I don't know how many kids. Good man when he's sober. But when he's not, it's game on for him.
Out of all of that my family is- one sister, her daughter and boys, and my oldest sisters daughter and my children, their significant others and one grand child who is the center of my heart filling the gaping hole my Moms passing left.
Enough about that.
Back to the point of this blog.
The email I never sent.. the one.
For four going on five years, chip and I communicated largely through email. In the beginning it was text messages - for maybe a few hours, then messenger, then insta-messaging, then email, even made private accounts with generic fun names, marijoe and marijane.
Our communication skills in the form of email or any format like that sucked. When you can't hear voice infliction or know the others demeanor, text is open for interpretation. Often times the wrong interpretation. To argue through an email, and resolve it-impossible. I would say, 90% of those emails, we heartfelt arguments, outright vicious war of words. Neither of us would win.
The more we emailed, the deeper the hurt was inflicted. Some of which neither of us could recover from. Once words are said, you can never take them back. So true that is. While forgiveness is a thing, forgetting is not.
I wish I could forget so many things. Those memories - yeah the fade, as does the pain, I see the scars everyday in the mirror. A reminder of where I've been. While I seek a peaceful content future, I have moments of weakness, of sadness, of anger, I feel revengeful, I still do stupid things.
Proof that I was nothing but a piece of ass....
Thanksgiving. Not one word
Christmas...not a single word
New Years...not a fucking word.
I don't care what happened, what was said, what feels are felt, if there was remotely anything real...there would have been words sent that I should not have had to initiate. Fucking player. What did I expect?! Why should I expect anything- he told me I was just a piece of ass, worthless and meant nothing. Nothing was real. It was all a delusion- false illusion to have crazy pointless sex.
Hopeless fool am I.
He claimed to have all this love, all these feelings. A man who says such would say so right? Love supposedly has no boundaries right? Wrong.
Its obvious the threat of exposing a man for who he really is in an email I didn't send...warrants silence in all circumstances for the weak and comfortable.
Real love has no boundaries, no shackles, no constraints. Real love knows no threat, no flight, no limit of expression of contemplation, procrastination no deliberation. Its finite, infinite, authentic, so real it can be felt when even miles apart. Its a no wonder I could never feel his love...it was never real. It was all a lie. Every single I love you that fell from his lips, a lie, that slid from his split tongue..deceit.
He was more in love with the thought of loving me than actually loving me. Or anyone for that matter. Men like him are incapable of giving love..truly giving love. They are more in love with them selves and their own misconception of a world that don't exist, for real...its the self fulfilling prophesy...the lies they make themselves believe so that everything is okay in their world. NOT your world- his world.
See- love they supposedly feel comes from a sense of who they lack to be. That love they claim to have and give is actually the self absorbed ego that is insecure in a world of self made pretenses.
For example- Chip is insecure in his very being- as a individual, a man, a being period. Largely I believe because he was teased all thru school by other kids. That followed him into adulthood, feeling inadequate and insecure in his own skin and identity, he makes poor choices while in search of whatever feels good (for him).. this can be seen in how he responded to life events - like his parents divorce. While he didn't tell me in detail, my guess is he didn't talk to one of his parents for some length of time after their divorce. Son like father, other women later, probably the reason he won't leave his wife- cuz he fears his daughter is as shallow as he or someone was and won't talk to him for years too. His mother was a smart women. She watched his father do the same thing for years, she watched and knew all about you too..dear son. She knew the day she smelled my scent. And you had no clue.
I personally think this notion of "never being spoken to again" is an excuse to stay - a simple comfortable life style of separate rooms, separate lives, while co habiting under one roof. With a wife he claims to love too. 🚩 If she only knew what I know. She would kick his ass to the curb. Now yeah wanna talk about a women who has been dooped. I cant begin to comprehend how he kept track of the lies he told her over a course of nearly 5 years. Did she even care?! Did she just give up, throw the old towel in and get to the point of not caring what he did or with who just to be left alone? It really doesn't matter I guess.
I do wonder why she still drives by my house though. Not like I want anything to do with him - why would I - knowing what I know today.
Let it be known, I know the co habituating lifestyle, I live with the POS I was married too as well. Not by choice however. As much as I dislike him - the fact that he can't keep a job or the like, he pays me rent and I allow him to stay..as long as he earns his keep. We talk only if we have to. Its not a happy arrangement by any means, most days I'm disgusted with his presence in the same room as I...same level of disgust I have for the other X.
Just for the record, I was not Chip's first extra marital fling. There was another women too that Chip screwed around with for two years while he worked at the casino. That was supposedly early on in their marriage...was he ever happy, if so why all the women? Clearly he was looking for something missing.
He told me of a point in their marriage where they nearly not divorced. A moment of tribulation. Probably shoulda followed thru. Spared yourselves the façade you live now.
20+ years of going through motions, faking, pretending, setting up the grand illusion for the world to see, while we all may have seen it, were not dumb, we saw through it too.
My grand daughter made a comment about Chip some point around Christmas. Said she missed him.
How is it that a little girl, who was so young at the time, can remember so much. What qualities did a 2,3,4,5 year old sense or feel or perceive - receive from him that would stick with her at the age of 7?
Needless to say the conversation she and I had about whether or not she should miss him was long. I told her the truth, that he didn't love me, that he is with another women, and that he isn't worth missing. Cuz he's not really a nice guy. He was just pretending to be nice. Told her that it was completely okay to find him one day when she's older and tell him exactly what she thinks of him with a punch to the face. Hahahhaha. No not really.
If there is one thing that has come of the four year farce, its great examples of how a man will use a women...for my grand daughter to learn from..examples of what love is and what love is not, the difference between a man and a boy, the meaning of settling and having standards, knowing your worth, value and protecting your peace. To be able to identify a player, the sheep in wolves clothing that prey on unsuspecting women. The red flags one should never ignore. Example of how to spot a liar, player....if he doesn't communicate over a phone, or a text...but insists on using social media plat forms or email, RUN. He is a lying dishonest untrustworthy pos! He's hiding how he communicates and who he is communicating with from another women. Don't sink to the level of being someone's secret. You are worth more than that! If he can't kiss you in the street or on the dance floor, he ain't worth your time. If you can't call him day or night, show up unannounced, he is not the man to be a part of your life. Don't settle for scraps of his time, your time is worth more than that. If you experience any of just these few things, you're being played. Kick his ass to the curb and walk away with both middle fingers in the air.
Then burn everything of his as a tribute to the memories up in smoke. I held that proverbial funeral. Yet here I am, reliving my mistakes or were they life lessons? Both? I did learn a lot along the way. I will never be played like that ever again - never be that stupid again! Trust me - if there is a women out there I can spare from going thru the same thing I did - I will sure try.
In memory of my Mom, who today, back in 2015 would have been laying in death bed, never to speak another word..