I am a survivor
I've been doing a lot of work on healing from an alcoholic marriage of 20 yrs. First, just getting out took so much effort. On the outside, if I listed all the bad things that were happening, anyone would read that list and say "whoa, how did you not run out the door the first time X happened?"
The honest answer: it didn't take long for me to accept abusive behavior as normal. Because he "didn't lay a hand" on me, I didn't think I was being abused. Because I had a job (the primary breadwinner, no less), using all my money to keep us afloat when our $ was going down the drain due to his bad decisions seemed like "what primary breadwinners should do". I forgot how to spell "autonomy" and "self esteem". I just decided that since I married him, I deserved everything that came to me. Loneliness, despair, stress, depression ... Fake it Till You Make it! This is marriage, right? Every day!
As time went on and I started to feel increasingly unhappy, I figured that other people were just better than me, bc they picked better men. So since they weren't so stupid as me, they deserved better lives.
I left once I finally realized that alcoholics are going to die unless they decide not to, and my spouse clearly had no problems with the express train to death. But I did.
As the fog has cleared, the rage set in. "Sacred Rage", I've heard it called. The kind of rage that comes from believing you are worth more, and thus fight your way to a better place. That was good. Very productive.
But another kind of rage was running along side. The self-hating rage that comes from hating that you made bad choice of a mate. The rage that came from the childhood belief / faulty thinking that being a couple meant you weren't defective, and choosing to marry someone bc you were blinded by the idea that you could have the romantic story. The rage that comes from realizing that marrying an alcoholic is a losing proposition, which meant that you were doomed before you made it back down the aisle. The rage that came from the knowledge that, when my friends were going on fancy vacations to celebrate their undying love after X decades of best friends marriage, I was paying my attorney enough money that he could retire early and spend time with His beloved bride.
Since then I've been trying to work through that rage in order to move it out of my gut. Because it is/was keeping me on the edge of depression all the time. Even though I understood (intellectually) that I did not cause it, could not control it, cannot cure it.... It's a lot easier to give that lip service than to Live that belief.
If I'm going to honor the person who suffered, the dreams that died, then I will not pretend that I'm going to be ok with the circumstances of how my life came to this point.
Instead, I'm trying to rebrand myself into what I am. A survivor. No partner. Not much money. But I'm here.
As I approach my 6th decade, I feel like my life is a dirt field. Garbage, dead plants, broken bottles, broken dreams everywhere I look. But I think that the secret to relieving this rage and consoling myself is to look at this dirt field like a garden. Add some compost, dig some holes, plant some seeds and see what happens.
I can't change the past. I can't fix what was broken. I can't retrieve what was taken from me.
But I didn't go down with the ship.
I used to think that if I "healed enough" and "loved myself enough" then maybe real love would walk into my life. But when I look around, I've realized that love doesn't only land on whole people. It lands on the insecure, the anxious, the self-hating, the abusive ... in short, it's a crap shoot. Partnership Love is simply a vibe that some people get to feel, no matter who you are.
And if it doesn't land on me, it doesn't mean that I'm defective. Or stupid.
I'm gonna take my dirt patch, add some compost, plant a seed or two. Maybe see if something will grow.