"On Labeling Women Crazy"

Someday, hopefully, I can be the cat.

A friend of mine posted this article, and it hit a nerve because I read it some time ago when I was going through a similar situation with Ex. I wrote about it here. The difference, I explained to my friend, was that, "he said he loved me, and he was occasionally but rarely there. After ten years I was done. It became my fault in the eyes of everyone, except the few I shared with, after all. It's a powerful article.", "Also, I should add, there was more going on and he never said he was leaving. He expected our lives to just continue that way indefinitely."

Sharing with her triggered me into coming here and reading some of my past posts. I mentioned to her that, "This article pretty much sums up why I'm divorced.", and sent her a link to this blog, which terrifies me. It always does when I "come out" to someone who knew me back then because this blog is the essence of my anger and pain when I was getting divorced. It doesn't matter how strongly I felt when I was writing in anger or tears, it's still terrifying to tell someone about it. It's raw, and it's there, and it's real. More ME than anything I ever said out loud, although now it's a past me, and I'm moving on in a healthy way.

I loved her, and I still do, though I haven't seen her in a very long time, and I worry how she will react to reading all this. As I've said before, the only thing I can control is how I feel and how I react.

 
This blog is creeping out into the world more and more as I reveal it to people I knew then, and Ex and I are tentatively moving toward friendship as time passes so I'd like him to never see this - though having it here, there is always a chance that he will. 

If he does, he does. 

I am able to see glimpses of the man I liked and cared for, and it makes it easier to make peace, forgive, and move on.

My Cinderella Complex

Painting by Lado Tevdoradze

Even though I grew up with The Cinderella Complex on my mother's bookshelf, I still thought marriage was the goal. The answer to being and feeling secure and loved. I have since learned that is not true. I'm still struggling a bit sometimes with that thought process, particularly when I'm feeling insecure, and am trying like hell to cut that cord and continue to reshape what relationships are to me. I like this article because it showed me yet another facet of why my marriage didn't work. (I put Ex and the kids first. Ex put himself first.) But it also reminded me that this works for any relationship that is important and means a lot to me. What I got out of it was this: I am sometimes afraid of not knowing what my future will look like. It's hard for me to feel out of control, though I know the only thing I have control of is how I feel and how I respond. I'm going to try to focus on changing the way I think about patriarchal "rules" and to realize that Partner wants me to be in his life for the rest of ours, no matter how it looks. We get to make our own rules.