I Married A Man Just Like My Dad..
emotionally stunted and feeling like love was an audition I couldn't pass..
My therapist has always said, I cannot use the ending of my marriage as a crutch for the rest of my life but for now as we process the grief that is associated with endings I will. I am not a stand up comedian but these days the butt of my joke is my marriage.*badumpba*
So lets have a little catch up.. Here is what I know, my husband left me. Yes, I refuse to sugarcoat that little fact or feel insecure that there was nothing inside of me that could make him want to stay EVEN after I did my big one and begged.
I broke the first rule of being a hot girl - I begged a man who told me time and time again he wasn’t in love with me anymore and had zero desire to stay married to me, to stay…if we’re being transparent I can’t pinpoint the reason I wanted him to stay or if it was the idea of us in my head that I was too afraid to let go of. How could I move on from the abandonment of my past if my husband that I had worked so hard to catch left me too? How could I prove to myself and my family that my generational trauma had healed if I was adding another level of trauma to it?
That’s the funny part about this one life we’re given…there is no blueprint and no road map that tells me what happens next or if my next life will be better than this one. We just keep our heads down and put one foot in front of the other and hope for the best.
My trauma is an interesting dinner topic, and I am going to leave you all well fed as we dive into it. I have trauma from childhood that we’re working on unpacking and the one thing my therapist and I can and do agree on is my parents fucked me up - royally. I am the product of a drug addicted mom and a dad who provided it. Loving me and my siblings wasn’t on their priority list because the drugs needed to be sold and my mom needed to numb herself from the pain of existing. Mommy, we have that in common but my drug is compartmentalizing my trauma while yours was crack.
I say all that because I married a man similar to my dad. Emotionally stunted and treating love as if it was a game I had to win, there was no such thing as unconditional love, theirs was full of conditions. Love was meant to be begged for, you had to kneel down and pray to him as if he was a god who would give you just a dollop of love if he deemed you fit. I was taught at an early age that love is not given freely, it is won. I wasn’t worthy of his love until I could PROVE how badly I needed it. And love was an emotion I needed more than the air I drew in to breathe.
I still feel the pain and grief of losing my marriage and my dad, they’re both emeshed in each other and neither can soothe the others ache. I feel the pain of 5 year old Breana who wanted so desperately to be loved and made safe by her dad that the first person who reminded her of him she married. My heart is empty and yet some days it feels like its bleeding out of my chest and I can’t see where the hole is in order to get it mended. I feel lost ya know, wondering when and where my next great love may find me and if that love might put me back together or if the love I am really searching for is mine.