Je veux les memes droits que toi / et du respect pour chaque jour

[erika]

Today I am feeling good about my decision to leave Austin.

It's been a long time since I was confident I did the right thing there—maybe never. But today I am feeling good about it. Helping that along is reading this metafilter thread about someone leaving an emotionally/physically abusive person.

I don't know that I could call Austin emotionally abusive. It's hard to say whether he was or not, whether part of it was just me being oversensitive or whether he really crossed the line—although certainly his last message to me did cross a line. But he was just plain mean to me after we broke up, whether it was because he was hurting or not, it doesn't matter anymore. I did the right thing leaving him, for me. And maybe for him, I will never know. I'm okay with that. At least right now.

---

I want to be with someone who reciprocates my love in an emotionally healthy way. That would be a nice change.

Comments

[reservoir.livejournal.com]

This is a good post and you should feel good.

This part, however: So even though I can look at what I wrote and say to myself, "These things are never okay, you made the right choice." I feel horrible. Someone I shared two years of my life with is no longer in my life and that was my decision (it wasn't mutual) and I feel awful.

I feel especially bad because the end was full of him promising to change, sobbing and crying about how he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me and he feels like I never gave him a chance to turn things around. I felt like I had, and like I didn't want to be the chump who gave away unlimited chances.

I miss him terribly -- the sweet, funny, smart, kind version of him that I fell in love with -- and the fact that he's suffering so much right now and that I can't be there for him makes me feel even worse.

...


I am just so sad, my heart feels like it is in a million pieces. Not only am I upset about this relationship ending, but he wasn't exactly nice about it. He was feeling very hurt and so he wanted to make sure I hurt too. He did a great job of it.

I know that the answer probably is, "These things just take time" but even knowing that I still feel so overwhelmed. I guess what I'm asking is ... can you reassure me? I am heartbroken and sad, I know I made the right choice, I just wish it didn't feel so awful. How do I stop feeling like this?


God, that hits home (sorry, I quoted a lot there, but my god, seriously - hits. home.)

[erika]

No, it seriously hit home for me too. I encourage you to read the responses—they're all uniformly supportive and it was really nice to read them and feel like there was a real consensus that that kind of behavior was never Okay.

[reservoir.livejournal.com]

I'm reading them now, they're very helpful and reassuring (especially the one person saying her boyfriend dated again immediately and it took her two years to do so).

Thanks so much for linking this.

[(Anonymous)]

Do you ever wonder if you were emotionally abusive? I know I have been both emotionally abusive, and abused, and it's an awful web to dissect. There's the natural desperation to assign blame, and hunt down the original chicken who begat the nasty egg of abuse that then turned into a diabolical tennis game or whatever (who doesn't love a mixed metaphor when talking about relationships)... Honestly I can't say I have "intellectually"/emotionally? moved past that place of *needing* to point a finger at something or someone, some kind of explanation for anything and everything, but my body just can't take it anymore and I just shutdown to engaging the relationship.

Sorry for the anonymous note - I'm just a longtime reader who doesn't maintain a livejournal account.

[http://users.livejournal.com/labyrinthine_/]

I don't know that I could call Austin emotionally abusive. -- you can.
It's hard to say whether he was or not, -- he was.
whether part of it was just me being oversensitive -- you were not.
or whether he really crossed the line -- he did.

[reservoir.livejournal.com]

I don't really see how this is relevant here. Whether or not someone else was emotionally abusive or had lapses doesn't change the fact that the partner was also emotionally abusive.

I understand how you feel, but to begin processing the issue? You need to move past the "but I made mistakes to so it's all my fault" part.

[(Anonymous)]

It seemed topical to me, as in I was engaging something she wrote. If the mission of the post was strictly to rally support for her decision to leave her relationship, then yes my comment had no place. I was just "relating" and babbling as I would to someone who was relating these thoughts to me via any medium. I wasn't putting forth any kind of challenge or questioning her actions in leaving. It's absolutely clear she made the right decision and I certainly didn't mean to create doubt about that.

As you say, regardless of whatever kind of atmosphere you bring to the relationship, an abusive partner is an abusive partner and should be reacted to as such. There is no viability there and heaping blame on yourself is clearly the most dangerous thing you can do when you need to just scram and create enough space to "process" as you say.

Personally, I was reacting to the desire to have someone who reciprocates that love in a emotionally healthy way. Everyone needs and should have that and it's good to say it outloud and keep affirming this. But at the same time I know that I have and always will be a common denominator in my relationships and if I didn't and don't continue to change, it would be a difficult life to realize as even if I'm not "abusive", as it were, ways I am certainly have inhibited others from being able to act out their own love or grief. It has been to easy for me at times to just sit around and think "I deserve better"... instead of becoming better myself. Again, I was just "relating", not meaning to go "BUT WHAT ABOUT YOU AND YOUR ACTIONS, LADY."

Anyway, sorry to Erike for mucking up her journal space with all this. I think she's doing an amazing job at keepin on keepin on and is obviously getting stronger everyday and has truly served as inspiration for myself.

[(Anonymous)]

(and sorry for the tortured sentence structure and typos, ErikA. jesus.)

[erika]

No, the mission of the post (or any post) isn't solely to rally support, I also write to gain critical insight into my life and your comment definitely fits that bill very nicely. You're definitely not "mucking up" my journal by commenting. :)

I think you raise a valuable point, and it's one my therapist asked me shortly after I left the relationship: what did I like about myself in this relationship, what did I dislike about myself in the relationship. It's a topic I should probably devote a post to.

But at the same time I know that I have and always will be a common denominator in my relationships and if I didn't and don't continue to change, it would be a difficult life to realize... Exactly! I need to discover what factors in myself make it so that I constantly get into relationships with unavailable men—whether emotionally or long-distance & then I have shitty relationships with them. Well, surprise! The shitty relationships inevitably don't work out, and I'm left angry and broken-hearted but I chose to develop those relationships that had those inherent limitations and maybe I should have known that would be the ending from the start.

[erika]

heh. You probably saw it the best, tbh, so to have some outside confirmation that I'm not just being oversensitive and that he was really a douchebag is nice. <hugs>

[zombiecity.livejournal.com]

I need to discover what factors in myself make it so that I constantly get into relationships with unavailable men—whether emotionally or long-distance & then I have shitty relationships with them.

Ugh I feel like I am trying to work through this too. I'm like, "Why do I keep repeating the same mistakes? What the fuck am I doing wrong?" Lately I wonder if perhaps I am the one that's not emotionally available, and so their unavailability is just a reaction to that. Who knows.