The Line Between Love and No
The hardest work I am doing lately is not shutting down completely. I want to close off from everyone, not just the individual who has ignited this burnt, split and raw feeling inside me. I have been writing pieces of that story here, but the heart of it is still within me because there is the fear, but there is also the pain that is too great. Far to great for me to get to trust.
I am not talking here about trusting the person who hurt me. I mean to trust myself to stay safe from people like this in the future--people who may very well love me but who are also willing to shred me if I don't return their love to their satisfaction. People who, I am wondering, may not even see in themselves that they have left a devastating wake with me in the middle.
Is it possible to sharpen your words and deploy them without seeing they are pointed and what you are doing is actually skewering someone? Could you be so deep inside your own mind, believe that you are completely right to the point that when you tell another person how they feel, you are saying it because you believe you know better than they do?
I have learned to ask questions in order to allow people their experiences, but that is not the courtesy I have been afforded. I am not questioning to change my decision about ending my relationship. I am questioning because I can't imagine a person living so completely inside their reality that they have no regard for anyone else's mental processes, physical experiences, emotions or boundaries.
I know. I'm missing the glaringly obvious. What about Donald Trump? But is he even real?
Trump is a caricature, not a man. The person who was in my life--well, I saw their personal complications. I shared so much with them. I opened myself further than I have ever opened myself in the name of love. I thought they had as well. Perhaps they did. But there was an idea in them somewhere that I would hurt them. It was like grit in their eye, and they rubbed it so hard it bit.
They snapped. It all came down on me. They believed I was trying to hurt them, and they sought to destroy me. When I pulled back, they fought harder. When I tried to stay, they vacillated. I was hurt so intensely that I couldn't stay, but I kept trying.
My door wasn't open, so they tried to force their way in.
I tried for as long as I could before I needed to not try for awhile. When I articulated the boundary, I was trounced, disrespected and rejected. Then re-loved and forgiven. Then destroyed. Then forgiven. Then destroyed on repeat even after I said very fucking clearly, NO MORE.
No more.
For months I thought I could save what we had and not just for me. In fact, it was never for me. It was because they asked me to. They needed me to. They wanted me to. They said I should. They would have. They said I had to. They said I was confused. They said I was wrong. They said they said they said they said until I was so spun around and confused all I could do was hit stop.
When I stopped, what I saw was that I didn't want it anymore because it hurt too much to heal.
That's where I am--at peace with not wanting to spend my time caring for this person anymore. Not only because they tallied everything they ever did for me and reminded me of it anytime I needed my own space, or because they told me every time they presented me with a tally that it wasn't about keeping score, or because they told me too many times that I was wrong about what I was feeling, undermining the work they know I have done as a survivor of violence, or even that they have repeatedly threatened to cause me financial damage in response to any and every request for my boundaries to be honored even though I have honored theirs.
If I leave a hole in someone's life, I want it to be heart-shaped.
I don't want to give this person any more energy because I want to give some to myself.
It never should have had to be black and white. There is no hate. Just no.
I still love this person. Love isn't a light to be turned off and on. Still, what they have demanded of me is something I can't give. I have had to draw a line between them and my love.
I wish it was any other way.
Good day
It sounds like you are a co-dependent person.
What you are missing is boundaries.
In a normal, healthy person (like there is such a thing) when someone else tries to hurt them, they say NO. You may not hurt me.
In your head... in your post, you spoke of several things, that if you had a some boundaries, you would have said NO. But, you didn't. In fact, it looks like you had a sign on your back that said, "insert dagger here".
I suggest starting with this guy's videos: Spartan Life Coach
and see if you resonate with what he says. I feel that you will.
This is fairly accurate. I spent my relationship with this person fighting against their codependency. They really, really wanted me to be their everything, but I have been down that road. It's extremely toxic. It was actually because I said no that they tried to hurt me.
I do believe it is possible to love someone without allowing them access, and that is what I'm writing about here. I wish I could allow them access, but they only want to smother me and have me live life their way, according to their expectations. That doesn't make them any less human in my eyes. But I have been abused before, I actually do have CPTSD, and boundaries are hard to uphold--which is why I keep reminding myself that no is okay.
Thank you for the video.
I am going through something similar. Though you could say I am only at the start.
I don't want to lose the connection as it feels special. But at the same time I've been burnt way too strongly and my trust is gone. I probably should have put up the boundaries earlier as I was just trying to reconnect and understand. But I was just pushed away. Which makes sense if the other person is avoidant. Though I don't undersand the attacks. They didn't phase me at the beginning as I (thought I) understand what's going on. And this is probably when I should have stood up and said 'This is not okay'.
But now the attacks are the things that fuel my 'non-desire to connect with people again'.
And I really don't want that. So I am fighting, too, to not close myself off to others and keep on being open and trust people. Sometimes it's way harder then one might think.
But I hope for both of us that we win this fight :).
I do as well. I wish you the best in this. It's not easy. It hurts and is exhausting.
How long ago did you end this relationship? I ended something similar 10 months ago and I'm just now starting to heal and recover. But that phrase is key: you ended it. There's a lot of power in that.
It was in the last two weeks that I set the hardest boundary of do not talk to or connect with me. It is very new, and today I see that they are still not honoring my boundaries. I realize though that I do have the power because I get to choose how I respond to them. I am choosing to not respond at all.
Sometimes all you need is time and patience....... everything will fall in place at the right time.... It is very natural to face this situation in life and to feel this way but trust me, you will be fine with time...
It almost makes me wish time would pass faster so they will move on. I am ready to let them go completely. At this point, the only connection is defense. I am guarding my perimeter so they can't access me anymore. I do have hope though, and am feeling better little by little.