To him, my soul is an unwanted sole.....

Good morning, Blogger.... And a beautiful, late summer morning it is. Soon the mountain that is my back yard will be full of reds and orange -- but for now, it is a beautiful, rich green.

So.... I'm discussing the beauty around me and not bitching .... no, it's not because my husband finally made love to me. He hasn't.... No, it's not because I hit the lottery ... still in foreclosure actually. All the same issues are around me, but like an old sweater, it is comfortable and perhaps is what keeps me warm. My pain is the common thread that has kept me together. I live each day needing .... like a mental hunger I can't feed alone, but need to be given the food. And I can't ask for the food that I need -- because it pushes him further away. Just knowing that I need "anything" at all just seems to push him away. To maintain any kind of respect from him, I must walk around with my head held high, shoulders back, showing confidence -- it keeps him tame... or at least tamer.... (is that an adjective, or just a noun -- lion tamer, wife tamer....)

But inside I fight with myself constantly. I want to collapse at his feet and sob to him, "Please, please stop torturing me. Please love me the way that I love you!" But this would completely disgust this man. Right now he has the need to inflict pain upon me, talk in circles, not be where he says he is going to be -- and he likes when I notice it -- and he gives vague answers. He actually TRIES to imply that he is up to something.... And I TRY to act like I don't care.

But there is one change I would like to report, and am happy to report ... I have begun the long tedious process of releasing from him. It actually started a while ago ... it started the day I drove my son, alone, to an alcohol rehab facility a few hours away. I had asked him to please be supportive because it was so hard for me to do for my baby boy ... but no necessary. As my husband, and as my son's step father, I really needed him. He does tend to pull through during my times of deepest despair ... at least he used to. But he didn't. And I felt him trying to slip out of the house, any excuse, so that he could conveniently not go along.... And when I faced it and called him on his cell phone to confirm my suspicions, he was so mean to me. He told me that he had no respect for my son and had no interest in being part of it. He then made a statement as to the quality of my parenting leading to this moment all along. That was a hard pill to swallow, and not one I am prepared to swallow alone. A lot of factors go into the parenting of all children, and especially mine. Their father has been gone for almost ten years, leaving me alone to do the best I can -- but my mistakes have affected us all. But not for lack of love, or lack of concern. But the abandonment I felt, especially as I drove back home alone .... I could barely drive as I sobbed for the first hour and a half in the car. But the tears turned to anger for a bit, and then to determination. There was no denying, not even to myself, that this man's love was either non-existent, or just something that I was not interested in working so hard for any longer.

That was the beginning of my release....

I arrived home with swollen eyes, but with a new determination .... But every time I thought of my son, tears found their way back down my cheeks.... And then, wondering what my husband was doing the whole time I was gone, I looked at his cell phone, only to see that he had tried to make contact with an ex-girlfriend while I was doing what was so difficult.... How could he? Why would he? Is it as clear to you as it is to me? This man does not love me -- not in the way that ANYONE would want to be loved? It's crazy ... and very sad.

But since that day, since seeing that and reacting to it, he has locked his phone and he deletes all his calls and text messages. He keeps his computer password protected at all times, erasing his history each and every time he is on it. He leaves for hours and hours and goes to "his house", where he also gets on his computer.

Thank GOD I have at least released my attachment to him a little bit ... And I release more and more everyday as I actually watch myself be humiliated. Yet, some part of me must still want to believe I am wrong -- because I do the acting that he requires -- acting like I don't care, shoulders back, head high..... not being true to my real feelings or emotions. My "real" feelings and emotions are now becoming as one with my acting requirements. Something about acting like I don't care has started to take a hold of me for real. He is transforming me into what will become someone he ultimately can no longer control. His narcissistic ways are beginning to disgust me. His evasion of me and any intimacy has truly been a turnoff and sometimes I fear that he will actually approach me to be intimate -- because there are times when I would really have to slip into yet another acting role to pretend that I want to be intimate with him.

But ... there's always a but with me.... or a butt with me .... There is still a part of me who walks with her shoulders slumped over, looking downward as I walk through my life, wishing he would snap out of this and become who he said he was when I met him. But my theory is this:

He really was who he pretended to be -- it wasn't an act at first. He really had slipped back into his role of being with "The One". It's like Cinderella trying on the shoe, seeing if it fits, at first feeling like maybe it did fit, but quickly realizing this was not the shoe she had been wearing, but feeling obligated to continue to wear this shoe that only hurts and reminds her of the wonderful shoe she used to wear -- not this fake image of a shoe.... So although I was myself all along, he tried to make me something else, "The One", and now I shall spend eternity feeling as though I do not fit, and being punished for not fitting perfectly into the role of "The One." Silly man -- he doesn't even know who "The One" really is.... His new shoe is lovely, a wonderful shoe that anyone else would be proud to wear, a shoe that required care and love to keep the fit perfect .... but he looks down at me, his ill-fitting shoe, and doesn't recognize it for its truth... Reminding me everyday that I will never be good enough....

"Yeah, you might be a shoe, and do kind of fit, but you are so lacking and so tattered, you are lucky that I walk around and step on you everyday.... lucky that I tolerate what you lack ... because I have had shoes twice as good as you and now as I dwell on thinking of my other shoes as my life passes me by, I shall punish your soul until I magically appear back in the "sole" of a real shoe.....