You should know that this post is a confessional. I’m going raw here, folks, and it’s going to be uncomfortable for me. But this is like therapy right now and I have to let the words out. I have to make them real. No editing as per usual. I’m just going with the flow here.
Comments are closed. You’ve been warned.
I’ve found my music again. I didn’t know it was gone for a long time. I didn’t miss it. But when I found it again I became obsessed. I couldn’t get enough. I still can’t get enough. Right now I’ve got Black Lab’s “Gone” blaring from the music machine1. It’s a beautiful song2. I forgot that part of me.
I always had music. “Jen’s Life: The Soundtrack”, I called it. Lots of little mix tapes. And then CDs. I could always find just the right ones to go with whatever situation I was in at the time. Then I stopped doing that. Stopped listening to it and craving it. Until a couple of weeks ago when that part of my soul seemed to break free. I started searching for music. This time it’s “Gone”, “This Night” (Black Lab) and “Familiar Taste of Poison” (Halestorm) at the top of my soundtrack.
I tried. I really tried. I put my self in a box and buried her somewhere she couldn’t escape. I tried to be normal, do normal things, think normal thoughts. I made promises in the early part of January 2009 and, fuck me, I kept them. I took vows and I was holding up my end of the fucking bargain. I stopped socializing again, shut off the music and accepted that this was my life and I was making a valiant goddamned sacrifice for my children. I stifled myself because I thought I deserved it. That part of me was horrible, selfish and wild. She hurt people, including herself. She burned bridges and made enemies. She had to go. He didn’t love her anyway. Stuff her in the box and forget about her. We were better off that way.
I thought I needed a knight-in-shining-armor and he thought he could “fix” me. I was somewhere really dark and I needed saving. I thought it was the right thing to do. I tried so hard to let him shape me into what he wanted. I fought against it sometimes, but mostly I allowed him to mold me into someone so different that anyone who knew me and loved me couldn’t even recognize me. “Why him, Jen?” they asked. “Better than the alternative,” I’d say,”and I love him.” Didn’t like the tattoo, the clothes, the music, the writing, the friends…changed it all. Because I promised them I would. I’d try to open up to him, but he didn’t like that. Too much of her still left in me. So, I closed off my history to him. No sharing secrets with him. Shared them on the blog. Shared them with strangers because he didn’t really love me enough to want to know me.
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Done
It’s only a matter of time. I said that before, but it’s getting to be more real now. I’ve stopped wearing my rings. I’ve stopped pretending to be his wife. I’ve told him it’s over. I’ve told him there is no fixing this. I’ve stopped being home with him when Lil’lady isn’t here.
At first he seemed like he didn’t understand. He claimed to love me. He claimed that we could work it out if only we tried. Counseling, he suggested, would fix it all. We’d be a family if only I’d meet him halfway. He sacrificed so much for me! He wasn’t going to throw 8 years away like that. If I’d just spend time with him, at his club, and stop hanging around with my best friend everything would go back to the way it was.
Halfway. The way it was. Did he hear me? Did he look at my face and see that there is no more trying left in me?
I changed the core of my being trying to make this marriage work. I became a whole new person. I rejected everything and everyone from my past life. I laid down and let him kick my confidence until there was nothing left but bravado and show– but only for my Internet peeps. No one else was allowed to get close enough to me for even that. I allowed him to decide who I was, what I wanted, what direction I was going. And I was miserable. How could he not see that?
I talked to him for three hours. Talked and explained and pleaded. I needed him to see that this is over. I needed him to know why. There was no anger or tears. Just frustration as he continued to tell me how I could change to make this marriage better. He doesn’t like the new me, he said. I told him this isn’t the new me, this is the old me– the one he met and did all in his power to eliminate. She’s a lot stronger than the Jen he’s used to. She’s not afraid of being alone anymore. She accepts that she’s worth more than what she gets from him. And this Jen isn’t going to feel the guilt and shame of just being herself and getting the fuck on with her life. I told him this in the most basic and rational way I could. I looked him straight in the eye and was completely honest about my feelings with him. I don’t know how many different ways I told him that I am done. There is no fixing this and I don’t want to even try anymore.
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