I fell in love with an illusion. I trauma bonded to him, was devalued by him, discarded by him, and then hooverd by him. I was left in pieces on the floor, heartbroken, dreams shattered to bits not knowing what to do or how to even start to comprehend what happened. I knew our marriage was not great, but we had made a promise to each other to see this one through since we had both been divorced before. But as they say, it takes two to make a marriage and one to break it.
I own my 50% of blame for the ending of our marriage. I finally grew weary of being “used” and set down some strong boundaries, all the while shaking inside, hoping he would understand and want to work through this as a couple. Not understanding the depths of his emotional damage, (You see, I still have compassion for him), I had no idea that he was not capable of doing that. As I asked very clearly for what I needed, he became more distant, more withdrawn and angrier at me. He would not talk to me, or he would just stare at me with a look of disdain on his face when I talked tried to talk with him. We spent virtually no time together anymore. I tried painting word pictures for him to try to understand how I felt in our marriage, and again was met with a blank stare and silence. When I would ask him to respond, he would simply say “I don’t have anything to say.” I didn’t understand that as I was standing up for myself, he was making his plans to leave.
My options at that point were to go back to giving him my all and getting back almost nothing, or to keep moving forward knowing it was the beginning of the end. As an empath, my first instincts were to try more giving; but instead, I pulled back into myself, and just watched it all fall apart. I tried to bargain with him - just spend one nice hour a day with me, and then you can have the other 23 to yourself. Or if he wanted something, I would offer to buy it for him, if he would be nice to me for a day. Trust me, it was as pathetic as it sounds. How could I have let this happen? How could I have lost so much perspective?
That is the push-pull relationship between an empath and a narcissist. One wants to give, one wants to take, but take to the detriment of the giver. The giver is blinded by love, and because I didn’t love myself, I was terrified of being left. The sad part is, I was left anyway. So as I lay broken in pieces on the floor, my dream life with the man I loved shattered, I knew I had to change and heal this wound I have carried for 58 years.
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