I didn't need him to choose me. I needed him to be honest with me.

In therapy last night, it came up how some people watch their ex move on with someone new and ask questions about how he can choose her and do things for her when he was not willing to choose me or do those things for me.  I have a lot of questions that keep swirling back to me but that is one I have never asked about my ex-husband.

I didn't need him to choose me.  I needed him to be honest with me so that I could have all the information to make the best choices for me.  Him choosing to marry me, making extensive future plans with me, writing me love letters (he later admitted he didn't mean), etc. all while internally only choosing and investing in himself and letting silent resentment build up left me with really incomplete information.  He made a daily choice for 19 years to keep me in the dark so that I would stay.

As I get news of his new relationship, I'm under no delusion that he is choosing her in any way that is meaningfully different than how he showed up in my relationship with him.  I fully expect she is lacking a transparency she will only later understand was missing all along.  

I see myself in her.  I remember the hope I felt at thinking I found my soulmate.  I remember the intense connection of the beginning.  I remember how fast I fell.  I remember the way he made me feel loved and adored.  I remember all the attention he gave me that first year or so.

Except now, with hindsight, I also see the way he used that intensity to get me attached quickly.  I see the way he manipulated and controlled me even from the beginning.  I see the hesitation in my journal that I was so quick to dismiss that should have made me slow down.

So as I hear about his accelerated relationship with someone new, it's like I'm reliving the cycle again.  It's like I'm re-watching that chapter of my life with the knowledge now of how horribly it ends.  Sadly, I can't stop the cycle from repeating again.  I wish I could but I can't.  

What I can do is look away.  That is why I removed social media from my phone.  If I don't open the apps, I won't see her profile recommended to me and whatever new profile photo she decides to display.  I won't be temped to navigate to his profile.  And without that distraction, I can focus on building this beautiful life I see unfolding in front of me.  I can spend my energy dreaming about where I might move next, where my next chapter might take me.