With Clarity comes Relief and Anger

A year ago, his behavior didn't make any sense to me.  My unconditional positive regard searched for excuses that would help me hang on to the image I had created of him in my head, that he was a good man.  It was an image created from the highs of our relationship, from what I now understand was a performance, from the way I tend to focus more on the positive than the negative.

When the end came, that performance permanently disappeared.  There was no need for him to cycle back to the highs to keep me because he no longer had a use for me.  What I was left with was a man stripped of all his masks and costumes.  Yet, I still waited for that next performance so I was confused.  

I even ended that text exchange with him about a year ago with "I don’t even know why I tried once more. I guess I keep hoping I wasn’t so wrong about you and a glimpse of the man I once thought you were would come through."  I was still trying to hold on to the man I had imagined him to be.  I didn't yet quite understand that image was just a performance.

At that time, I wasn't even willing to entertain the idea that he was intentionally or knowingly hurting me.  That would have been too big of a leap from the image I had of him, a contradiction my brain couldn't manage.

Since last year, I have gained so much clarity.  As the unconditional positive regard dissipated (very slowly!), I started to see patterns.  The extreme highs that followed the lows.  The way he ignored my simple requests.  The lack of consideration.  The one-sidedness of the relationship.  The way he blamed me for things that weren't my fault.  The love bombing as his only attempt at repairing after an argument, arguments that he always turned around on me to make it all about him.  The slow erasure.  The gaslighting.  The subtle comments he made to get me to change.  The projection.

With that clarity, his behavior in the end actually fits.  It's who he was all along.  He just masked it to varying degrees over the years to convince me to stay.

There is both relief and anger in that realization.  It is such a relief to clear out the confusion, to give my brain a rest, the fill in enough of the puzzle to start to see the image.

But I am so angry.  I'm angry at him for the deception, the manipulation, the lies, and the energy and joy he stole from me with no intention of pouring it back into me.  But maybe even more so I'm angry at myself for falling for it, for tolerating it for so long, for believing in someone who wasn't willing to deserve it, and for not listening to my doubts that went back all the way to our dating period.

This is why I'm struggling with intention right now.  I acknowledge the end result is the same.  It really shouldn't matter whether he intended to hurt me or not.  But right now it does matter to me because it has made me doubt myself and my judgment.  It has created a stumbling block where I struggle to extend grace to myself.   It has turned chaos and confusion into self-doubt.  A self-betrayal feels even worse than being betrayed by the man I was married to for 19 years.