Flawed

I am flawed. I'm quite certain we all are. I'm well aware of my flaws, no need to point them out, we are well aquainted with one another. They know I'd like to get rid of them, they aren't going to give up without a fight. I am going to try really hard to figure out why I am the way I am, and work at fixing it in many areas. Nothing like a divorce to make you take stock and reassess and wonder "Who am I really anyway? Do I even like who I am?" Perfect time to grow, and change and try to be better. I'm not starting this blog to point out all the things about Alan that are unflattering to him, or to try to make him out to be a bad guy, or get people on "my side". I really hope all of our mutual friends and family will resist picking sides, and can just love us both through it all. But I know, I have such a fairy tale notion of life, and that's probably too good to be true. I'm going to do my best to be fair and not put things out here that probably shouldn't be, not drag Alan and his business out here without his permission. But at the same time I am really trying hard to be honest and authentic and real in this process, and so some things will be talked about, and they all aren't pretty. I'm not doing it out of spite, or in a mean vindictive way, I just want to have this place, this blog, to write, to heal, to work through it all. Writing is my happy place, it's where I feel comfortable, it's sometimes the only way I can share how I feel. That's one thing I'd like to change too. I'd like to not be so afraid of emotions, afraid of sharing them. My biggest flaw, at least in my opinion, is this defense mechanism I use to keep people out. It's been there for as long as I can remember. I had some pretty crappy things happen to me at a pretty young age, and I'm quite certain this behavior stems from it. I don't play the victim, I don't use my tragedies as crutches or excuses. They are what they are, I learn from them and move on. I'd like to not be this way, but I'm sure it's going to take some great effort in learning how to do that. I can remember being a kid, and refusing to let people see me cry (ha, good luck ever seeing me cry as an adult too, I don't cry in front people if it can be helped.), or know that I had a weakness of some sort. I have this need to appear always strong, in control, I can not show vulnerability or weakness. Even when I was 12, and we were in essence saying goodbye to my big brother Scott, who was dying, I remember going outside to the car to cry and covering it up before coming back inside. I couldn't let people into my pain, I couldn't share it. Now there are some people in my life, for whatever reason, that I am perfectly comfortable letting in, they have an all access pass to me and my pain and I can talk and talk and talk to them about it all. There are not many. And I don't know how my mind picks and chooses who these people are going to be, it just sorta happens. And then there are times when I have stuffed things in for so long that it all just starts leaking out and suddenly I'm sharing crazy things with just whomever is handy at that moment, which of course is a trainwreck. Sorry for those of you who have endured that. That's another thing, is I am a master at compartmentalizing. I can stuff my emotions down so far and just go about my day and my life and not think about any of it. I've done that for so many years, that I don't even know how I feel anymore, or how to feel sometimes. This of course was very frustrating to our therapist when we were in counseling. Alan and I have this terrible cycle, he rages and I shut down. The more I shut down, the more he rages. He wants me to react, to know he's getting through, so the less I respond the more intensity he uses, the more intense he gets, the more I shut down. He gets to the point where he is just so angry and it just comes flooding out of him in a very expressive manner, and once he starts I'm not sure he knows how to stop, he jumps from one topic to another and doesn't stop to breath it seems. Our therapist would have to stop him and try to untangle the 15 things he threw out there in 5 minutes. Me, I just shut down. She would ask me "Where do you go? In your head? You just are blank." I don't go anywhere, I'm there, I'm hearing it all. There have been times that Alan would literally be raging in that manner for an hour or more, non stop, and I just sit there, expressionless, not moving, not speaking. Just there. The therapist would study my face and just watch me, and she would say "You give nothing away, you don't move an inch, you don't have a single expression that crosses your face, no matter what he says, no matter what he does. How do you feel about this?" My answer was always "I don't know." She banned those words from me, I was not allowed to say them. Sometimes I really didn't know how I felt, there's a real disconnect there for me. And sometimes there was just no way I could express anything. If I don't feel safe, comfortable, there's no way I am sharing. Once my wall is up, it is damn near impossible to tear down, even for me. The way I protect myself from conflict, from anger, is to bury myself behind a wall. I am a conflict avoider. Alan is conflict. There is so much pain, and hurt and lack of trust there, that there's no way I can let him in. He has been shut out of my feelings for a very long time. I don't trust him with my feelings. This of course means there is never any healing or resolution. I don't say this to blame him, or to say he is the bad guy. It just is what it is. He has the uncanny ability to find out what hurts or bugs a person, and he uses it. He will throw my words back at me, twisted, manipulated into something they were never supposed to be when I said them. So to avoid this, I stopped speaking. Nothing I said ever made it better, usually worse. If I said how I felt, he would find a way to use it to hurt me. So, I stopped sharing. Thus playing my part in the demise of our relationship. I am stubborn, and strong willed, independent to a fault. I hate asking people for help, I have a hard time accepting it when offered. I am getting better. I am learning how to lean on people and to let them help me. It's a process. I want to be soft, and vulnerable and to be able to share and to feel, and to let people take care of me. I know though, that's this isn't going to happen between Alan and I. At least not for a very long time away from the pain and hurt, I can't let him in, I can't share, I can't do it. Maybe as self preservation I just won't. I don't know. We have always had this role reversal. Both therapists we've seen during our 13 years together made note of it. He is more of the female in the relationship, I am more of the male role. He is sensitive, and always sharing his feelings, the one who cries easily and often, and wants to be touching and affectionate all the time. Me, I want space and don't want to share what I am feeling, don't want to be smothered under the affection. Another one of my flaws in our relationship, I'm just not affectionate to him like he needs. I am reinventing myself through all of this though, I want to be the "girl", the soft sensitive one who can show her emotions and cry without fear of what people think about me, of me being weak. I want to be affectionate and loving. I can not with Alan. I can't do it. As sad as that is, I can't let my defenses down. I can only hope that as this relationship is dissolved, I can let go of those defense mechanisms and no longer use them or need them, and to heal. I don't want to be who I am in this relationship, because really for the most part it's not who I am, it's who I've learned to be in this particular structure, this environment. We just don't work together, and that is really a sad thing for all 5 of us in this family.

Going through the big D and I don't mean Dallas.....

Yes it's a corny title, especially given the enormity of the actual situation, but I'm going with it. So it's now been 10 months. 10 LONG months, since Alan and I have "separated", and yet live under the same roof, still share the same bed. It's been rough, and not a fun experience for any of us, in the least. I have filed for divorce. April 19th is our court date, our 3rd one actually because the first 2 got rescheduled. Even though I am the one who asked for this, I am the one filing, and in essence I am the one dissolving this marriage, it doesn't make it any easier or less heartbreaking. I think it's easy for people to assume that the one walking away, the one ending it, has it easier somehow. I haven't found this to be the case at all. I think I'm just the one who is doing what needs to be done, the one who realizes that this is a terribly unhealthy and unhappy place for us, and that something must be done. I am heartbroken though. This is not what I wanted. I didn't get married thinking that it would end like this. I fully believe in the institution of marriage, I wanted to be married forever. I don't want to be a 34 year old divorced mother of 3. This is not what I want, but sometimes life doesn't happen the way that you want it to. I'm trying to accept that, and learn from that, and make peace with it and move on. I'm not looking for advice, or validation, or anything really, except to be heard. Sometimes it's just nice knowing that you are heard, even if it can't be understood. I'm not looking for someone to try to help fix this. I don't think it can be fixed. We've been in this same spot really, for at least the last 6 years. We've been through marriage counseling. In fact, the therapist who had been seeing us for quite some time, told me her professional opinion was for me to walk away. She didn't think it would get better, that it was unhealthy and toxic and she had watched us try and try and we got no where. I'm not using that as validation or an excuse, or as an "easy way out". I'm not placing blame, I'm not "playing the victim" and pointing fingers. We both are unhealthy, and together we are toxic. I accept my responsibility in the demise of our marriage, I am not perfect, I am flawed. But I also refuse to accept sole responsibility for it as well. Alan and I don't see much of anything eye to eye. We have totally different views on life, love, family, money, sex... you name it, we see the world in a totally different light. I can't see his way, he can't see mine. I'm never going to be the woman he wants and needs me to be. I'm not able to love and care for him in the ways he needs it, or else I could have figured this out over the last 13 years. I don't think he will ever be the man I need him to be. In order for this to work, one of us would have to become a completely different person, and that's not fair to either of us. Both of us deserve to be loved for who we are, and not change and become someone else to make the other person happy. I also just don't have it in me any longer to ride the Bipolar roller coaster. It is exhausting, and sometimes frightening. Maybe that seems weak. It is supposed to be "in sickness and in health". I know Alan didn't ask to have Bipolar, and he does what he is supposed to do, he takes his medication, he goes to his weekly therapy sessions. I know he's doing what he can. I just can't do it anymore though, I'm not built to function this way, I'm not emotionally strong enough to weather out the storms time and time again. And it's hard answering Starla's questions about it all. When is daddy moving out? Will I still get to see him? It's hard. I didn't want this for her, or for the boys, or for any of us. I didn't take this decision lightly, it's been agonized over. We have literally been having the same fights, about the same things, for years and years, and it's not getting better. And the last 10 months have been hell on all of us. We have been stuck in this stagnant, terrible place for 10 long months. Which is why I filed for divorce, we need peace, we need healing, we need to move on and away from this awful place. Some days I am fine, some days I am a mess. I am starting this blog, as a a way to journal though this whole experience, as a way to reflect, for introspection, to start healing and to figure it all out. To be real and raw and honest. And to allow my friends and family into it all if they want. The thing is, I am a pretty private person. I have a hard time sharing how I feel, a hard time letting people in. This is one of my major flaws and one of Alan's biggest complaints, one of the biggest ways I have hurt our relationship. I am trying to fix that about me. But that's a whole other blog post.... But for now, this is where we are.