My ex-husband has been crossing my mind with more frequency. I can't help but compare my life now to my life when I was with him. And it's not a pretty comparison. It reminds me of all the years, decades I wasted.
It's made me realize how hard my life was when I was with him. It's funny, you never would have heard me describe my life that way when I was actually in the middle of it all because I didn't know any better. He made everything harder.
To cope and counter the hard, I shrunk myself until I was a tiny fraction of what I was before I met him. I made everything within my control easier. I gave in to his preferences instead of speaking up and facing an argument. I let arguments we did have get turned around and soothed him to end them. I policed my tone. I asked for very little. And when he couldn't deliver on the tiny asks I made, I forgave over and over. I did everything I could think of to help him regulate his emotions, until I could do no more. In many ways, I carried life for both of us.
And he made life so boring. The non-stop TV, the way he made me feel guilty if I ever tried to go out with a friend or even participate in a choir, the grocery runs to find the cheapest prices at Aldi, Sam's Club, etc. when I just wanted to enjoy my food, the way our life revolved around cars, etc.
My world was so incredibly small, even considering the travel we did.
I think this anger feels renewed now because I'm living what life could have been all along.
These past two years have been really something. I've stepped outside of my comfort zone. I've made connections. I've learned a lot about myself. And specifically these past two months have been such a highly concentrated version of the total two years.
I have built a new life with what feels like such ease in comparison. I now walk into a room of strangers and comfortably sit down and enter the conversation more often than not. I dream. I plan. I follow through. It is beyond anything I ever could have dreamed of.
Yet there is grief and anger that I waited until my 40s to experience this. There is anger at the man who did just enough to keep me around but never fully chose me and instead stood in the way of me fully living.
My anger simultaneously feels justified and silly. Justified because as my friend put it, he was "an intentional burden." And silly because I'm truly having so much fun and anger just seems out of place.
Maybe both have their place. It's okay to be angry. Some I trusted deeply caused me significant harm. And it's okay for that anger to feel a little silly so I don't lose sight of the beauty of what I have built.
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