Breaking up is hard to do
So, you know that relationship?
The one you entered into as a child, almost by accident, because you had met online and were into kind of angsty, emotional boys who could write pretty things and look good in eyeliner?
And even though it turned out that he wasn’t nearly as good looking, or emotional, or creative, or anything that you thought he would be in person, you filled in that part, because you needed to be desired and you were alone and lonely.
And then he moved himself in, uninvited, after 3 months and quit his job so that you had to financially support him and lie to your parents that he wasn’t living in their dead mother’s flat with you. You knew then, hey hang on, this isn’t how it’s supposed to be, but you were still alone and still found it hard to say no, so you started to push down the no you can’t stay and only brought it out in fights?
Fights that became increasingly more frequent, in direct correlation to the amount of sex you were starting not to have. Fights that involved him lecturing you on how you should spend your money, or not spend it, as it threatened his share of what was never his? Fights that turned into leave leave leave screaming matches in public, stand offs when you tried to drive him somewhere to dump him but he refused to leave the car? Fights where you, beyond frustrated, would antagonise him, prod at him, poke the proverbial bear, until the bear bit back, threw glasses over water over you, threw you from the bed and stamped on your side? Fights where sometimes you would succeed in making him leave, but in the terror of that intensity you found yourself driving down the road to find him so you could bring him back, because at that point you had become cowed, confused, codependent and filled with self-loathing.
So that’s how you remained, in his safe place, mentally unwell, unhappy, unable to resolve a resolution to what so clearly should never have been more than a short term fling, definitely not involving a key. And that state endured for almost four years past the original first that may have been ok, may have been less about leave than stay.
You saw doctors, discussed going on anti-anxiety and depression medication, started seeing a counsellor, who, over time, although at first non-committal, became increasingly definite that you should end that destructive and soul crushing coupling.
But then, there was a way out.
You moved to a new city, into a new flat, without him. You had the hundredth break up discussion and this time it seemed to stick. He was in another city and had to work. But you were so sick with him, his control, his constant messages, his attention. He was so much nicer when you were breaking up with him, the devotion was complete, he was never not there. And so when things went wrong with the shared flat, in he swooped, glad to save you. And because you were weak and alone and lonely, you started it all again, in a new city. You had tried to move on.
You saw a boy, he kissed you, but he reminded you too much of him - young, selfish and complaining about his bus journey to your house from his.
So you allowed him to come through and see you, more and more frequently, until, suddenly, he was just there all the time. You knew you were making a mistake, you tried again to break up with him and this time he went into supersize mode. He must have sensed that this time was different. This time there were friends to give counsel, people to lean on. So he sent you take me back flowers to the law firm you were on a 6 month secondment to, he started a tumblr blog https://www.tumblr.com/search/messagesforkaty and he sent between 50-100 texts a day, as well as voicemails, emails and Facebook messages. For a while, the only noise you could hear was the ping or vibration of a new thought. He threatened to kill himself. He proclaimed his undying love. He wrote and sent whatever he could think of to manipulate you back in. An orchestrated campaign.
You can guess the ending. You move again, he ends up coming along too. More break up talks ensue. There are some that happen just before you are supposed to go on holiday where he promises he will have set up a place to leave to after the return. Of course he never looks and takes advantage of your post holiday illness to ignore your frequently pathetic warnings of time limits passed. There are others where you find yourself crying, on Christmas day, as you break your heart open, trying to beg him to let you go, and he cries, goes out and then cooks dinner (having refused to let you go to your family or to his) and then acts, the next day, as if it never happened.
The more and more you are ignored, the more unstable you start to feel. You begin to find work increasingly hard to cope with. During your second year of training you suffer a breakdown, have to take time off as your employer offers you a chance to win a full time job. You win that full time job but there is only so much you can cope with and there is no longer much room to keep pushing the leave, leave, leave parts into. Finally, you crack. Of course he is suitably worried. He encourages you to stay off work, to take care of yourself, to not worry about anything. It suits him to have you inside, cut off, not demanding that he leave his computer screen or his sports match. You struggle. You take your pills. When those don’t work, you take more pills. You try and make your world bigger than your flat boundaries. But it is hard. You try and fail to return to work after 6 months off.
You move into your own place. You tell him he is not coming. He goes to see his parents and shows them the schedule, asking do you like our new place? Of course they assume we are moving there as a couple. You have the presence of mind to refuse their donation of money so that he is not named on the deeds but lack the ability to refuse his mother’s insistence on buying a bed, a sofa, flooring. It is very difficult to explain why you can’t accept these things when she knows nothing about what has been going on all these years. So, surprise, surprise, when the new furniture arrives, there he is, that old piece of furniture, always there in the corner.
He knows, though, this time, that he shouldn’t be there. The clue is in the fact that he has not once slept a night in the bed his mother bought. He pleads for you to spend time with him, but you remain sectioned off, in your area, the bedroom. You drink to escape from him, from feeling like nothing in your life is real, that nothing matters.
It takes 2 months for you to attempt the return to work. This time it goes better. You manage it. You don’t manage to stop the drinking, but you’ve come to learn that there’s always a compromise for getting what you want.
You’re still in his safe place, that damaged place where he can claim he’s worried about you. He likes to corner you, lecture you about drinking, impeach you to spend time with him. You are still too blanked out on the medication to register any of it. Until one day, things start slipping again. You find it harder and harder to get through the day. The thought of completing the simplest of replies seems herculean. You start to lose time in your days and panic about how the work is building up.
You return to the doctor. You’ve started to feel something is wrong. It comes to a head one night, when, drunk, you come through to demand his attention. He looks up from his laptop screen and tells you that he is busy. You, unjustifiably rageful, enter the kitchen and remove the largest serrated knife you can, return to his line of sight and slice it across your wrist. That was the first time. There were others that followed. Attempts with a swiss army knife, cigarette ends, scissors, tweezers, razor blades. He hides all the sharp objects in the house. So you move on to pills. You take your antidepressants, you take your dog’s pain medication. One night you find yourself rushed to A&E as there is apparently a risk your heart might stop on the combination of alcohol, anti-depressants and the other pills you swallowed.
So, obviously you have to stop work again. You wean yourself off the anti-depressants. Feelings gradually start to rush back in. At first it’s just electric spasms running up and down your arms, your legs, running circles inside your head. But then emotion is suddenly back. You start to really notice him there. You get annoyed by him, angry with him. You fight again. You object to having to take him numerous times to Auchterarder to pick up a custom made £3500 bike when you are in debt. He refuses to do anything on these trips with you. You are told it will be x amount of time when it is always x squared at the very least. The final time, you pull into a petrol station, rageful, and demand that he gets out to fill the tank. He throws £20 at you and refuses. A stand off ensues. The threat of your brother coming to pick you and the dog up from the abandoned car in the petrol station is enough to make him comply. But you can’t shake the murderous thoughts driving back, trying to persuade yourself not to swerve into the oncoming motorway traffic, just to teach him a lesson.
But throughout all that is going on, you start to equalise out more. The doctor starts giving you a return to work date. You make local friends, reconnect with some old ones. Suddenly you are no longer alone and only seldom lonely. He starts to notice. He no longer has his role as martyr and carer. He decides to inform his mother about the drinking. They have secret conversations about it. He becomes increasingly upset about your new gay friend and stalks you on a walk with him and imposes himself until we have no choice but to invite him along.
That night, on our return, he announces that he is never leaving our dog, never ever ever.
And that is your final breaking point.
So, stronger than you have been in some time, you insist he has to go. He exacerbates things by inviting his mother along the next evening and showing you what he said to her.
She asked:
‘was she drunk?’
‘she is unwell’
‘poor you, you have done everything you could for her, don’t blame yourself’.
You can’t contain yourself. Your parents come though to give you support. You find yourself, standing in the park, crying, opposite his crying mother. He is nowhere to be seen. Trying to explain. How could she not have had any idea that this was going on for so long without her knowledge? But she does agree to take him away.
And so for the last week, you are finally alone. Alone but not lonely. You are still being bombarded by requests to move back in, because it is hard to commute from one city to another, and that is your fault. Requests to go on holiday, as that is your fault for choosing the wrong time to break up. Flowers, to remind you that you and the dog are his wee girls. Threats that he will take the sofa and the bed.
You know, the way relationships usually end, right?
You know that kind of relationship?
