Will You Go Back To The Love That Broke You?

I am a visual person.

Nostalgia has been killing me since last Friday. It started with seeing a picture of tea cup I purchased from hallmark in 2017. It says “who says we have to grow up”. Then the placemats. The throw pillows.

I often hear people say, to me too, forget and move on. I don’t really understand that. Memories, good and bad makes life worth living. 

Past gives you hope for a future which drives you to live your present. 

Mom said. “Live with your right. He held your hand. He is his fathers son. You have the right. Live with the right.”

He himself asked me. “I have moved on long ago, why can’t you?”  

I think most of us confuse moving on with nostalgic memories that are bittersweet at times. 

I let him go because for months I watched him struggle. He didn’t want me and kids. His vision of how things will be was different. 

By the time he realized he doesn’t want the life we built, I had fallen in love with him. I watched him suffer. Then, the day he reached out to his ex sealed our fate. I always think, when I reach this point of thought that I should have walked away that day. With my head held high. But I am a mom first. There were three kids and him.

There is no greater pain in this world than watching the people you love in pain. I had no good choice. Bad and worse.

So, I let him go. It took him only few hours to move on. I fell apart. Lost myself in grief. For months. Every time I recover slightly something will happen.

Once a while I think of what mom said. Then I go back to what my therapist says. He reminds me that a relationship involves two people putting in their 100%. One person putting 200% never works. It will drive you and the other person insane. 

I wonder on nights like this. Was any of it true?

He said to me that it was not. It was mere pity towards a single mom who according to him was in gutter. He added that I forced him to take me to meet his family. He told me that he knows my kids will be ok because they have a responsible father, hence he doesn’t care what happens to me.

I believe him. 

I believe the friend I respected so much who said he is happy that he dodged the bullet.

Today, every time I talk to my therapist, he reminds me that considering what all have been going on I am doing well. I told him today that I don’t feel like that. I feel like I have been on battleground without rest for decades. 

I told him “I just want to rest for a minute.”

My heart aches. I can’t forget. I have moved on from where I was. But if you have loved anyone truly, you know that it never fades. You learn to live in their absence. Once a while, like an old scar it will hurt.

I found a series of 5 pictures in my daughters iPad yesterday. I cried my eyes out. She must have taken it when we were not looking. Like the scenes of a movie, those 5 pictures tell a story.

When I said, “I miss him, but not who he is.”

My doc knew what I was talking about. I miss what he stood for. I miss simple things. I miss his Superman t-shirt that I used to wear. I do not miss his scolding. I do not miss the mind that enabled him to walk away from his word.

Usually, I go through everything I wrote in my head.

Then I end it with a single question. 

“Will you go back?”

No. I lost my grip on reality, life, and myself for a few months following the day I let him go. During which I had moments of clarity and then an insane amount of pain. I watched with an aching heart the things that unfolded. People I love, how easily they changed. It’s not new to me. Still, it hurts. I watched his hatred for me. I watched his apathy. Finally, I watched his reality. And I saw the person I saw the first day.

Love had blinded me. I always believed, still believe love is everything. What I didn’t know was that one side alone never works. 

Back to my answer. No, I will not go back no matter how many years it will take me to bury the love I feel for him. A man who can do what he did to two kids and a woman who did nothing but love him is not someone I want my kids around.

I am no longer a block for his personal and spiritual growth. I am no longer the reason he doesn’t eat healthily. I am no longer holding him back from achieving enlightenment. A part of me just loves him.

He took my trust. The last drop.

To make it all sound ok, he gave the line “we were trying it out” to all.

No. We were not trying it out. At least you can accept that truth.

If you were, then I had a right to know. 

I would have never put 3 kids in the middle of it. 

Six months later, two of them are still paying for the trial.

The little one talks about her room. I never had the heart to tell her that her room was stripped naked before her warmth left the house. 

Don’t think he is a bad guy. I am the bad guy. I said yes. Against my gut, I so desperately wanted to love someone, be loved by someone, I said yes. Against my best judgment. I hoped and prayed. So it’s on me. 

He started telling me that I play the victim. It always made me angry. No matter how many times I asked him to not say that, he did. It was a trigger for me. 

I don’t think or feel like a victim. I feel proud that I love someone more than myself to let him be free. I know life will bring me my share of good and bad. After all, without bad, how will you know the value of good?

I know I will find a way to keep walking. The days I feel so weak and vulnerable are going to come again. But so will the ones where I feel strong and determined.

I had lost myself while building a life with him. I had to. I am slowly finding myself again. And I am happy about it. I see a very tough road ahead. But my faith is strong, hope is high, and heart is filled with love. I think I will be alright, along with everyone else. 

If you out there, are like me, know that you too will be ok.

Keep getting up.

Keep walking.

It will be ok. 

Luv

Sajju