I was talking to my IT head today because when HR submits my name change, it will likely immediately deactivate my ID which is used for so much in the office and I won't get a new ID for maybe two weeks. So I was trying to understand if they had any workarounds because it was going to get very difficult to do my job and as I discovered in that conversation, I would have no telework capabilities for that time period.
The anger in me had been building all weekend as I was overwhelmed with all that needed to be done to separate all our stuff, change my address, and then change my name and I think it boiled over with learning that I would be losing my telework days. A co-worker came to sit in my office just as I was reeling from all this and it all came out in tears and frustration as I poured out the pain and anger I was feeling.
To not have any answers as to why he did this to me.... To be bearing the brunt of the consequences of his decision..... To have watched him emotionless this weekend be so uncaring and cold..... Who is this man?
I will admit in that moment of anger and frustration I sent him a text. I wanted him to feel the pain I was feeling. I wanted him to know the consequences of the decision he made and the way he went about making it. To be honest, I wanted him to care. The man I thought I knew would have cared. I wanted to know that man was still in there, that I hadn't been that wrong about him, hadn't misjudged him that poorly.
And I wanted him to know that the worst thing he did to me was the non-explanation that leaves me in so much doubt and confusion. And that was the one thing he could actually still fix, if he actually cared about me as a fellow human being.
The response that came back was uncaring, cold, and repeated much the same about not being happy. And then it made a vague statement about how he feels like he deserves "better treatment/more affection".
How I treated him poorly is beyond me? I couldn't even guess. I suspect that his perception is still so clouded over with pessimism that he can't even accurately interpret what he sees in me or that he is holding on to something I did to him 15 years ago that he never told me about. Am I perfect? No. But I am not aware of any specific ways I treated him poorly and I cared enough about him that if he had brought anything up, I would have done my best not to do things that bothered or hurt him.
And I can only laugh at the comment about affection. He was the one who put limits on affection and backed off on sex. Looking back, I suspect the resentment goes back to that point where he pulled back on affection and sex. He doesn't seem to get that resentment kills intimacy. He chose to hold on to whatever grudges he had without saying a word (and still hasn't said a word as to what those grudges were) instead of communicating and working through whatever issues existed.
So if he thinks he deserves more affection, he actually has to put the work into a relationship to have the hard conversations when he gets upset about something so that he doesn't kill any chance of enjoying affection by holding on to resentment.
My text this morning accomplished nothing except further rile me up. I don't know why I sent it to him. Yeah, I think I do. I've reached a point in my healing where the good man I had believed him to be is completely crumbling before my eyes. I'm realizing he never was who I thought it was. And that is devastating to realize about the man you loved for two decades and invested so much into.
So as this image crumbles before my very eyes, so does my sense of reality and trust. That is a shattering thing to experience and so in the back of my mind there is still some denial that maybe I wasn't that wrong about him. By sending the text, I was facing that denial and so hoped I would see a glimpse of the man I thought he was. The response back confirmed he never was that man and that who he is showing me he is today is who he really is. He is an emotionally immature, selfish man who lacks any empathy.
He can put on a good show and even show some sympathy when he wants to and it benefits him but he doesn't have the ability or desire to actually put himself in someone else's shoes and care about how his actions affect them. Maybe it's really good that I am getting out now.
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