Asinine Ramblings

I watch my social media newsfeeds with dread.

When there is a news story local to me outlining a suspicious death, or a car accident, I know in my heart that it's him.

When I see a group of people huddled and talking in the distinct hushed tones that only happen when someone that they know is dead or dying, every guarded glance that comes my way tells me that it is him.

My heart sinks and my mouth goes dry. I know in my heart that this time, it's over. This time, he has finally learned that he is not bulletproof, and that he is, in fact, human like the rest of us.

Who is he?

To be honest, right now I don't have a fucking clue. You're not asking the right question.

Who was he?

Ahh. Well, that's complicated. But I have some answers for that one. I can tell you who he was.

He was my love, my life, my strength, and my curse for 14 years—almost half my life. He gave me beautiful children that we raised together for a time. He took me places I had never been, wined and dined me, and made me feel like a princess. He gave me confidence and strength, and showed me what a real family was when he brought me into his. Together, we overcame the trauma of my childhood abuse, and he was the first to show me that sex is an act of love, not control or power, and need not ever be painful or humiliating. For a time, he was my rock.

He was also my abuser. For every beautiful thing he gave me, and every imagined freedom I had from my previous life, he took something away from me. He was my love, my life, my strength—and so, to him, I didn't need anyone else. Only him. He gave me these beautiful children, but according to him, I would never be able to raise them without him because if I did, they would end up as fucked up as I am. He took me places and bought me pretty things, only to accuse me later of being greedy and materialistic. The confidence and strength I had that grew from his love became too much for him... I became too much for him. And so, I had to be stifled and cut down to size because the idea of a strong, independent woman threatened his masculinity. I could never be allowed to make more money than he did, even when we desperately needed it for our growing family. I could never be allowed to progress past mediocre because it hurt his pride.

So, I left him.

Those four words hold so much. It wasn't that easy. I'll give you the Readers Digest condensed version: Breakup, three months of stalking and harassment leading up to a traumatic assault, another three months of stalking and harassment ending in my failed suicide attempt, four months of jail for him in total, and then a kind of half-ass attempt at salvaging our family that began with a year of counselling for me, and six months with couples counselling, and ended with me leaving him again.

All of that, and my ass still worries about him?

Here's the thing. I have his kids, and I think they still love him. I'm not going to get in the way of that.

I'm living my life, moderately successfully. I work full-time, we have a roof over our heads, and my kids have clothes on their backs and food on the table. They have never missed a meal, and since I knew true hunger and poverty as a child, that's a big deal.

He's out there, living the motherfucking thug life. You know, selling drugs, doing crime, being an all-star asshat while I'm here trying to undo the damage that the abusive relationship and his eventual Houdini-like exit from our lives did to the children. When my little one looked up at me with her big, brown eyes and asked me why her daddy doesn't visit or when he's going to take them swimming like he said, I hate him with every fiber of my very being. When all of the kids just stopped asking about him, I found a little more capacity for hatred.

So why do I worry so much? Why am I stuck, caught like a stupid deer in the headlights when I hear about a drug bust gone bad or a fatality in an area he frequents? Why, if it's his loss, his fuck up? Why do I even still care what happens to him?

Fucked if I know.

The best I can do is to just keep living, and keep coping. I have these wonderful kids, and my life is pretty bearable. We come home from work/school, we laugh and talk. We walk, swim, run, and read. Life gets easier everyday, and I do imagine that at some point, whatever sick hold this creature has on my mind will loosen and die away.