I don't hate on you or blame you or think any bad thoughts about you. I don't know you. I hope he never puts you through what he put me through. I know what it feels like to be held by him when he decides to choose you, not use you and discard you. I know what it feels like when he chooses to really love you, in his own way, set his attention on you and not on an assembly line of other women, live or online.
Believe me, I know the rapture of hearing his, "Baby, I've never felt this way before, this much love before. You are the one. I want to marry you." He proposed to me. I know what that feels like too. The "I want 40 years or more, the rest of my life with you," the tears streaming down his face, so easily at the sight of you. Oh, I know.
He is a master at the art of getting deep in your heart and soul, into all the forgotten spaces you'd wish somebody from some other life had remembered, seen, and loved. At last, at long last. Those beautiful eyes stare back at you like you are the most beautiful woman on earth. How his sweet talk about your future life together makes your heart skip and how the words themselves feel like they hold you and oh! you are finally safe.
What you don't know is how quickly those eyes can go deep winter freeze. It may take months, or years. But he won't be able to help it. It isn't about you.
I knew him first. Years ago and recently. Nothing has changed. He hides his dark spaces, adapts his cruel and abusive speech to make you think it isn't there, but people like him? No, ma'am, they do not change. He could have, but for some bizarre reason, he chose to play games-- with himself, at the expense of women who dared try to love him. His heart is a block of ice, set on fear-based power and control, only capable of mimicking love and spiritual, psychobabble, not actually feeling, sharing, or giving love or putting any true skills into practice. His love is a sandcastle, gone at the first great storm or a small one, depending upon how you placate him. Uncomfortable, like a bored child, he goes for quick fixes. Porn, infidelity are his go-to's when he finds you insufficient but you will never know until it is far too late.
He is a master of secrets and sleight of hand, of manipulation. You will be his queen, but never his only one, for long. The words he speaks to you, will not be sacred and reserved for you. Only a fool would believe that. His is a true sickness he denies, and hides behind, blaming you, as he blamed us when things go south. And with a man of psychic, spiritual, and psychological deceit? It is only a matter of time.
That rage, that shift in visage, that sudden change of heart I have seen, unprovoked? It is a hidden garden of poison fruit beckoning some unsuspecting woman to eat, to indulge, to buy, partake and inebriated in his illusion, to take care of him, with the only care he is truly willing to give just another an afterthought (read unwilling and lazy). He is there to be served, not to serve. Empty sweet nothings you now hang on.
He literally used to slip and say those words, to me. I used to correct him. "No, baby, We going to take care of each other and make a great future, not 'I'm going to be so good for you, take such good care of you and your son and be good for your future.'" But his hand was revealed and played. His actions followed his first sentiment. He was just playing me, as he had others before me.
Crassly, once he said "I'm trying to find someone who will wipe my ass," making other references to be taken intimate, bodily care of when he can still do things to take care of himself. That is one of many reasons he felt like a black hole to me. I could feel his trap from miles away, but I was the one woman he literally couldn't lie to and who he'd known 20 years, a problem.
Other signs are there. The sweet talk covers it up, the hundreds or more of first thing in the morning "I love you so much, sweet baby" or "gorgeous" sweet-nothing texts are easy to get lost in, this I know. It is one hell of a subterfuge. He did it to me, and sadly, I doubt I am the only one.
You think I am the crazy one right now because that is his narrative. That is OK. The truth always rises, and his narrative is a hard one to hide. I am not the only woman in recent history he has exhibited extreme rage and narcissistic tendencies towards.
I can play that role if it suits that blissful fantasy of yours. He, not me, will blow it up one day, and that is the flaw in his script. I will be far away and long gone. Because healing the darkness in him, is not a month's or months' long endeavor. He is always sorry afterward. I am done collecting apologies from that man, which is why I cut him off. Twenty years of that on repeat was enough. I'm grateful to no longer see the fairytale but the real man for whom he is. I am grateful to have blown up his illusion of a future, which would have been the death of me, my living hell.
Free I am. Free to write and teach others about my experiences so others may arise out of similar situations, and find their voices.
I was once where you are, the woman who now breaks all the molds, and not the woman he sees in me now, who is the worst among them all. I long learned that the only way to win in his game is not to play. So I walked away.
If one day, you come across this letter, I hope you know this is the only thing I ever thought about you. That I was once you, and he got into your head the way he got into mine. Think he didn't trash-talk his ex before me? He did.
My focus is on my own healing, helping others, and moving on with my life. So beyond leaving this little breadcrumb on my site for you, this is as close as I will ever come to speaking to you. If you ever come here one day, finding yourself in my position, know that I do know the pain he can inflict not only on myself but on others.
We heal. Promise.
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