New Beginnings
From a messed up ending with a narcissist…
I’m sitting near the spot where we sat for hours one night twelve years ago, drunk on Chivas whiskey and green tea. Hands intertwined as we shared our thoughts and feelings, butterflies waking from slumber within us. You were 30 and I was 31 and we were entering a new chapter in our lives. We started meeting more often, getting closer and deeper into this bond we had both never felt before. You made me laugh and our chemistry was so enticing. Red flags flashed inconspicuously in front of us, yet we happily kept staring into each other’s eyes. All I knew was that we couldn’t get enough of whatever we were feeling.
The first time I should have listened to my gut was when we were already engaged, just two months left until the wedding. We were walking to your place and discussing something I felt deeply insecure about. First you claimed that I was overreacting and had no idea what I was saying. Then you assured me it was nothing of that sort. You gaslighted me completely. All of a sudden like a switch that had flipped on, you lost your shit at me on the street at 7 in the evening. You shouted all kinds of stuff and and I remember how mortified and shocked I felt at that moment. I could feel the stares of the people walking around us, their mouths agape. Finally you screamed, “F*ck off!” and stormed off towards your building.
I was beyond shamed. I did not know how to react. I watched you walk away and then I hid my face and started walking home. It occurred to me that you were leaving for the airport very soon and I wouldn’t see you for a couple weeks. Instead of realising that maybe we would be a mistake, I changed course and ran towards your house. I apologized for MY feelings and tried to pacify you. It was a sick feeling, one that I pushed aside. My inner self felt violated and abused and still I pushed her aside for what I thought I wanted in the future.
Today is our tenth wedding anniversary and now we are separated in different countries, sitting under the same moon. The divorce proceedings are underway, with large bills from the lawyers every month. I’m alone with tears pouring down my face as I grieve the loss of our family, the loss of the future I thought I would have with you. I wish I could have continued to love you despite all the ways I felt violated and unloved. I wish for the sake of our two beautiful children we could have carried on happily in front of them even if we were strangers when they slept. But it was too hard for me to carry on that façade as the years went by. It was hard for me to sleep peacefully at night without fearing that you’d wake me up in the middle of the night in a rage and throw my suitcases across the wooden floor.
I couldn’t even escape your vicious wrath in the car the morning we dropped our excited daughter to her first day of school post-Covid. Unexpectedly screaming at me that you would make my life so miserable that I’d want to unalive myself. You slapped me for no other reason except that I was a “f&*^*king b*tch!” Then a month later, you send me a beautiful bouquet of pink flowers for Mother’s Day? And you tell me what an amazing mother I am that I do everything for the kids (with no help from you) and that you can’t wait to see what I’d do next?
I bet you never expected I’d go through with the actual act of leaving you. But I did and I’ve slowly been dying every day since.
I don’t know how to be happy. I try to live in the present moment with the children and give them the best I can. Sometimes my emotions get the best of me — my stifled grief and heartbreak seeps out in bouts of anger and I feel so guilty and remorseful over my raised voice that hurts their feelings. But you never felt any remorse for me, did you? You never took back the horrible words you said to me that day and all the others. You never took back the slaps, the shoves, the punishments I painstakingly endured.
Last year you sat with me and told me you would be a better husband and father, that you would do right by me. But you did wrong by me every chance you got. I know I wasn’t the perfect wife and I wish I could go back in time to change it, to be more forgiving and loving, but I feel it wouldn’t have made a difference to you. It was too difficult to keep pretending to be someone I wasn’t.
I don’t know what happened. I don’t know anything anymore. I’m sorry for the pain and loneliness that you’re going through, if any. I can’t imagine going a day without the kids, let alone six months which is what you’re experiencing. I’m sorry for all the childhood trauma you experienced that caused you to be the person you are today. I’m sorry that you’re not able to see right from wrong when it comes to treating another human being with respect. I’m sorry that I was no longer able to forgive and forget as easily as I did in the early years of our relationship. I’m sorry that our marriage story had to end.
I wish you well for the future. I hope you will one day have the ability to reflect and understand why and how things went wrong. Even if you don’t, it’s okay. I hope even though we are no longer a family, you will still be the best father you can be to our children. And I wish myself the strength to move on to find my happiness and peace. We each have only one life to live, and we deserve to live each moment in joy.
