I'm ready to let go..

[fizzylem]

We cannot avoid loss, hurt or pain and even if we could why would we want to? When we reach out, talking from pain can leave us feeling connected with others, probably more so than at any other time in life. It can show us many things about ourselves, others and what it is to be human. Pain takes from us but it gives a lot more in return when we grow from it. Pain can rot the core of us or it can be a solid, enduring root in our compassion.

To feel alive; to really live life, we need to let pain in yet also know when it is time to let it go.

[iwillbeok]

I do get what you’re saying, fizzylem, I am finding this with counselling. I need to face the pain to deal with it, which hurts at the time but then each time it gets easier to let it go.

It is just a real shame that this pain was caused by someone who professed to love me and have my best interests at heart. But was in fact the most selfish, controlling and self-serving men I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet!

Even in this darkest period of my life, though, in opening myself up to others about the pain I’m in I have made some of the most genuine connections with some lovely people – family, friends, and the lovely, strong survivors on here!

Hugs
Xx I

[fizzylem]

I’m with yer, open it up, feel it a bit at a time, as much as you can tolerate so eventually it loses its power. Especially when you decide I’m going to let a bit in, rather than have it hit you unexpectedly.

Took me years to realise that him saying I love you, pretending we shared the same hopes and dreams (which I now know he did as he later admitted this), gave him a great deal. I mean 3 words kept me going and ensured his needs were met, he got sex, food, shelter, money, someone there to always pick up after him. I couldn’t comprehend ‘if he loved me how can he be so cold, callous and heartless?’ I think the answer is because he didn’t really love me in the first place.

I don’t think he has the capacity to love a woman. He hates himself for needing sex with a woman, but he likes that she can make his life easier, and its easy, even fun controlling her.

Of course I also wanted to believe I was loved, but waking up is not so bad, removing this false lens he made for me was needed. Doesn’t mean I’m not lovable, doesn’t mean what I felt was any less real. Like you I tried my best to love him – too bad he was only in it for himself. It’s a very unfulfilling way to be.

I read somewhere that the hormones released when having a lot of sex in the early stage of a relationship can lead a man think he might love you, it is perhaps more the case that he loves how you are making him feel, as a direct result of the chemical release. Once the rabbit phase ends so does his false love. Love grows through intimacy really doesn’t it, over time. To love there needs to be passion, commitment and intimacy – there was only ever passion on his part, I thought we both had all three components for a long time. We did not, he lied and manipulated and he was not committed to me at all.

This man has been utterly dreadful to deal with and has caused me and my daughter a great deal of distress, and I’m sure there will be more to come. However, I don’t want to feel the anger anymore, it’s not helping me. My anger is my response to masking pain, so to rid myself of this I had to first rid myself of the pain, once the pain shrunk the anger faded away.

I will never forgive him, but what I can do is accept he is the way he is, that this will never change. It’s happened and we are where we are. It helps me to now view him as an inadequate human being, rather than the selfish, controlling, manipulator – even though this is true.

I do this not because I am letting him off the hook, I will never do that, I do this for me because this is how I want to feel when I think of him. Do you get that? I feel angry when I think of him as a monster and all the things he has done, I feel more at peace when I think of him as an inadequate human being, there was a time I would never have been able to allow myself to call him human, but now I do accept he is human too, a pathetic one yes, but human.

It’s taken me years to get to this place mind, but I can honestly say I have let go of the pain. Nothings changed, I simply removed the thorn he stuck into me, I decided no more, I let go because I needed to for me.

Thanks for sharing and responding to my post IWBOK x

[iwillbeok]

Thank you fizzlylem – I can feel the wisdom in your words. I am still relatively newly out (after decades of conditioning, gradual increase in abuse and then sudden, scary escalation when my survival instincts kicked up a notch (or 10!) and just screamed at me “Enough!”). I can see this letting go in my future. I can see light at the end of the tunnel. Its long but there is, I believe an end. Where I will totally free.

At the moment things are still too raw. I’m still processing – still struggling with even the ‘did he know what he was doing?’; is this the way he viewed me all along?; is this who he was the whole time?” etc etc…

We were very young when we met, and very happy for a long time – or at least I thought until I started to examine things with my newly exposed lenses!. It felt like it was really only the recent short term that things started to unravel – I made excuses for him (stress, depression, OCD, my reactions, etc) without realising that was what I was doing. I would vent in my car when driving to work – long, shouty speeches (in effect what I had wished I could call him out on) but in effect he had so convinced me that I was the problem that I felt I had no right to complain about any of his shortcomings. I found myself becoming secretive and dishonest. I lost respect for him. I started to not like him anymore but believed I still loved him – why else would I be with him otherwise? So, I internalised all this and believed it must have been me, just as he asserted.

I’m certain now that at the end (escalated sexual control and abuse following a massive row) that he knew exactly what he was doing. The way the control and threats ramped up, I honestly believe he was trying to break me. Sometimes I get angry (usually when I am dealing with the fallout of his long term abuse on our children) but mostly its numbness alternating with pain and confusion.

I hope to be where you are and know it will take time – despite being desperate for a magic wand to fast forward to when I can truly let go – I take hope from messages like yours, and others on here who have been free for longer than me, that I will get there. That I will be whole again, somewhat dented and scratched, but whole.

Thank you xx iwillbeok

[Borntobefree]

Hi
With each new day Iam findimg mysekf after the emotional pain and sexual abuse ..its sure been a long road but I can now see the light
Iam.so happy I free from.the monster
How could he say he loved me …then use all my insecurities against me .I have never in my life come across some one so so evil

He thought he destroyed me
But you know what Iam back stronger and wiser

(detail removed by Moderator)

[fizzylem]

You sound wise, a positive thinker and that you’ve done a lot of processing already IWBO. Yes you will be free of this some day, just keep chipping away, moving forwards with a side step here and there when you need to. It takes a while huh to realise that you weren’t to blame, you weren’t even equally responsible for the failure of the relationship, that this was down to his behaviour, his inadequacies, his selfish motives and I suspect a severe lack of emotional intelligence.

If only we’d not had children with these men! But that said we love the bones of them don’t we, however hard it can be to support them sometimes. He effects everyone he comes into contact with hey.

So sorry to read how utterly dreadful its been for you, and how you felt you were to blame and that your children have suffered, not right is it.

You will all be OK. I can hear your it in your words. Try not to fear the pain, let it in – this will shrink it! x

[fizzylem]

Hey borntobefree, thanks for your post. So glad to read you are out. Yes those 3 little words were more trouble than they were worth for sure hey. Using our insecurities is cold and callous, nasty and mean, it strips us of our esteem and makes us doubt ourselves – making us easier to control. Well no more BTBF, those days are over! It’s behind you now, even though it feels like its still hanging around. With the right support you can turn this around. Wishing you love and peace x

[Author]

Posts