What was on his mind..

So, we had the disastrously depressing 'date' night on Sunday that did not end well.  Yesterday (Tuesday) morning, first thing I received the following email:

I feel a bit dissappointed about last night, i was really looking forward to it and treating it like a date. I think that it was a mistake on mybehalf to expect a light hearted chat with some amiable comments on our relationship and how things are going. On a positive note i would rather flush out all my abusive thoughts now and so having disagreements/discussions i hope will prove constructive in the long run.

 

I felt my 'hackles' (is that the word) raise when you said that you feel i would rather have a doormat wife. I understand how through my abusiveness it is a logical conclusion to think that, but i find it very difficult to label myself like that. I would say that in any relationship abusive/ non abusive /personal/lbusiness etc that each party would like the other to agree with them, so looking at our relationship where i have been abusive and it is personal i cannot think of any discussion/argument that we have had where I would feel happy with you just 'rolling over' to let me get 'my way'. The closest i can think of was going to Cuba.

 

I think i misunderstood your intentions for saying it at first by pointing out that you have had 'your way' through a lot of our lives as you have been very instrumental in what we do.But taking what i think you meant which was simply 'i would prefer you to be a doormat' then no not at all, any time that i have said 'why wont you just obey me' i am sure would have been said in jest and you will have probably echoed my sentiments (in jest......possibly).

 

I feel I would like to either convince you of my point of view or visa versa eg. home ed. I dont really have much self pride and would always prefer to be convinced or proved wrong than you just go along with whatever i say.

 

I dont know if you still think that about me, it would slightly bother me if you did but I understand I have given you good reason to come to that conclusion so it hopefuuly wont be a big problem.

 

this may be a problem:

 

After that i couldnt really think straight so the next part you actually may not have said anything or you may have and it may have been intentional or not and you may agree with it whether you said it or didnt;

 

before i start i want to say that i realise this is coming from a blame/accept responsibilty perspective and to clarify how i see myself:

 

My abusive behaviour is 100% mine.

You have done nothing to cause it

I display abusive behaviour without any incitement by you as well as

Reacting in an abusive way as a way of dealing with everyday problems/differences

 

However

 

I still feel i need to put some blame on you for negative parts in our relationship. A while ago you sent an email or text in which i understood that you felt that you do have some culpabilty for bad parts of our relationship but that my abusiveness has far outweighed and so you are not willing to look at your previous responsiblities. I can accept and deal with this because though i see my abusiveness as my problem that i impose on you, you do admit that our relationship had other negativities that you brought to it. In short I am not 100% to blame for our problems but 100% to blame for my abusiveness.

 

I would like to know how you feel about this.

 

when I was talking about jealousy you said you didnt understand how I could be like that. and when i said you have acted out of jealousy in the past (distant i know) you justified it because of our circumstances. I know that my depths of jealousy are a lot deeper and still current but i felt you were being slightly aloof. to analogise: you were the older alcoholic who has been on the wagon for 10 yrs telling the drunk 'i dont understand what your problem is'.

 

i cant think anymore

It felt like a spiralling down.  :-(  Yet again, back to square one - will anything ever change?  I felt so despondant and had to do a day out with the children (pre-booked and paid for) which did not go well as I felt so stressed about everything. 

Last night I sent the following reply:

Well I didn't really want to reply, but here I am replying.  If there is even any point.

I felt really down and deflated and disappointed after the other night.  To be honest I don't feel like I want to do that again.  I don't know when I will feel like doing that again.  I suppose I had idiotically built up to thinking things might be nice and believing the hype about how much you'd changed and were viewing everything differently.  Stupid.  I knew that it was all going to be pretty surface-level but I suppose extreme gullibility and stupid levels of optimism have always been weaknesses of mine.

I just think... god, I can't say anything without it needing to be analysed to death.  This isn't really conducive to me wanting to communicate on a personal level - do you know what I mean?  

As far as doormat - yes, this is what I have deduced based on your actions.  I guess I couldn't figure out what would make you happy because I never seem/seemed to be able to, and all the evidence pointed to this.  I don't really want to go looking at everything that has happened to make me think this.  I just want to do a giant sigh at this point.

Yes, you being abusive is 100% your fault.  Any other problems that we would have been able to get over probably relatively easily are probably 50/50 but your abusiveness have actually made them into giant problems that are impossible to get over.

Re: jealousy.  Again... there is 'appropriate jealousy' and 'inappropriate jealousy'.  A lot of things you have attributed to me being jealous and unreasonable are actually nonsense and I was acting normally.  I have been confused over them for a while - i.e. me being jealous of you going out.  Well, I was puzzled about that.  Actually what made you come to that conclusion was the fact that I used to (errr... 10 years ago +??!!!) react negatively to you going out.  Now, when I think about it I know that it was reasonable to feel like that based on the facts that:

1. You used to 'pop out for a drink' and then 5 hours later I'd get a call to say you weren't coming home.  This was horrible for me.  Any normal person would find this not a good way to conduct a relationship.
2. When I couldn't afford to go out you still would *on a regular basis* AND be irate with me for having a problem with this.  At best, this was totally insensitive behaviour and again, most normal people wouldn't find this ongoing an acceptable way to behave.  I even remember getting ready with you to go clubbing and then when your friend drew up in the car you shouted that there wasn't enough room for me and off you went without me!!!  That is just total arsehole behaviour!  Do you really wonder why I used to be upset with you?  

Other times I probably was jealous over stuff that I shouldn't have been and it's another one of those things that I used to do in the stupidity of youth and that I've grown out of.  Yes, it was horrible to go through and I was probably unreasonable and nasty to you over stuff that was irrelevent.  If we'd both gone through that 'natural' phase of youth and then grown out of it then we'd not have these issues - I don't know.  But based on the fact that I haven't really experienced this unreasonable and unacceptable jealousy levels for so many years it really isn't appropriate.  

I do find it unfathomable like I said before, that after everything we have been through you are still acting like that towards me.  I can't understand it.  I can only presume that nobody ever would be able to ever prove to you that they are trustworthy.  I can't really say that I know how that feels, because every time I've been in a relationship and fallen in love and come to trust someone then that jealousy hasn't been there.  

You say you have little-to-no self pride.  I suppose that's part of the low self esteem thing.  I don't know if that's linked to the jealousy.  I have no idea what is psychologically going on with all that.  I do know that I can't help you with this, because I have been (I think) trustworthy, loving, tried to be supportive etc and it's not enough.  I don't think it's made any difference, which is sad.

I'm so exhausted of trawling through every minute of our past history (every minute that might somehow shift some blame from you to me, that is)..... when will this end????  When will it be enough?  

I feel so down about the last few days.  I know it's because I was too optimistic.  But still, I feel really down.

He has texted today to say that he feels down to, and feels negatively about my reply.  I don't know or want to guess what he was hoping to hear. 

I'm just left thinking why am I even contemplating the continuation of this relationship?  What is the point?  This kind of to-ing and fro-ing is going to continue for at least another year if not more.  So, I feel like I have two options:

1. I continue as I am, wait-and-see.  Hopefully the programme and work he is doing will enable him to change his abusive attitudes and values.  If not, then in a year or two I have to go through the stress of separating totally.  So, basically 2-3 years of uncertainty, emotional overload and grief for the possibility of a 'happy ending'.
2. I decide to end the relationship fully now.  Then in a year's time I will probably be fully recovered and the uncertainty/fear/grief will be over pretty much - or minimal.

This is the choice I face.  What I have been doing is choosing option 1.  What will probably happen now is that I won't be able to decide and therefore, by default, I will be choosing option 1 still.

Sometimes I wonder what is wrong with me?  Why can't I just move on and get over it?  What is it I am clinging on to?  The relationship has *never* been amazing or supportive or fulfilling - so why am I so reluctant to let it go?  I guess these are things I'll be contemplating over the next few days/weeks.