The breakdown of a relationship

People often mistakenly think that the opposite of love, is hate... but they are so so wrong.  Hate, like love is something that involves passion, there is true emotional feeling behind it.  You can hate something or someone with so much passion, that it might as well be love, for the sheer power or strength you put behind it to bring those feelings out.

The opposite of love, is surely indifference; you simple don't care anymore, it doesn't matter to you, you don't 'feel' anything, it's almost irrelevant.

I did love my ex husband.  However, I am not sure if I ever fell 'in' love with him, for me to fall 'out' of love with him!  But I knew my feelings for him became less and less, as time went by.  I saw too much of his ugliness, to appreciate what good was left.  The endless number arguments/ discussions/ debates, always about the same things, that seemed to revolve on a quarterly basis.  I got tired of having the same conversations repeatedly, they would eventually, in spite of any initial well-intended attempts to achieve balance again, lead nowhere.  Until another 3 months passed, and we would have the same conversation again, each time trying to gauge if we had moved forward, backward or stayed the same.  I never felt any motion.

In the meantime, he continued with 'his' life, I neither moved up or down on his agenda.  In fact I always told him that I took position no: 8, in his life.  It was a position I soon realised I had to learnt to accept, there was no point in insisting I be higher up than that.  It was made abundantly clear to me, that his work, his hobbies, his friends and his family came first.  Always.  And on those very few occasions when I held his time or attention, I began to question his sincerity, doubted his actions, and always knew there was an ulterior motive.  He had a "get round to it" attitude, and that was toward me as well.  So therefore, I always had to wait, for everything.  But, if I didn't put him first?   My goodness he was a like a brattish child, constantly whining, wanting attention.

I wised up to his game a long while back, and every time these 'chats' happened, I took another step further away from him, creating distance in all senses.

I should have heeded, the fact that his was his second time round.  All the time he was busy blaming his ex wife, I couldn't help but notice and acknowledge reasons, why she was unhappy and why things had perhaps gone wrong for her.  He was completely blameless, of course, he had "worked his arse off", to earn a living.  But that was all he did.  Even when she was suffering with depression, he did nothing, he gave her no support, no love, no kindness what so ever, and then wondered why she left, when they had been trying to 'save' their marriage.

I once said to him about 4 years ago, that he was repeating his own history, his life story all over again.  He was shocked by my intuition, but then he always was, but he wasn't 'ready' to talk about his previous life and marriage.  Even after 16 years of being with me, he still couldn't bring himself to admit that he'd 'fucked up', and that he was doing the same to me.  But in the end, it cost him dearly, he had already started the process of losing me, about the only thing he ever actually got round to doing.

You can spend a life time with someone, and still never really know them.  Or you may have suspicions about certain personality traits, where they came from, what was the influence for a persons behaviour.  But all the time we are happy, we never really see the ugly side, and we certainly don't go looking for it.  But it 's when things are not so good any more, for instance after an argument with someone, that we notice the negative qualities, the selfishness, the tightness, the temper, the venom they can spit or speak, I suppose all the qualities of hatred.

My ex, became very ugly, ridiculous almost, with the things he did to 'get at me', initially I was so hurt and frustrated by his actions.  Couldn't get my head round why he could do the things he was doing, or the fact he would sink so low.  But each time he did something, it usually backfired, which meant he was usually the one left worse off.  But it didn't stop him, even now that we are divorced, (but forced to live under the same roof), he still does petty things to wind me up.  He is like that child, forever burning his fingers, and I wonder why he still bothers.

I had learnt my lesson well with my ex, I had learnt him well, I had seen the hidden dragon on too many occasions to ignore it's existence.  But, he didn't frighten me.  Not with his words or his actions.  He knew he had no way of winning any war with me.  He knew all the time he lost his head, I just got stronger, I refused to respond to him in the way he wanted.  And that made him angry, but there was nothing he could do with his anger to hurt me.

I believe, he hoped that my fear of being on my own, or starting over again, would be enough of a deterrent for me to continue with that life.

He never had a clue, how elated my heart felt that day, when I told him, "we don't have a marriage anymore".

I had known it for so long, but finally I could no longer hold the words back.

When a relationship is ending, someone has to be responsible and admit it won't work any anymore, that you've come to the end of the line.  No one wants to be the be first to say it.  But some one has to.  Sx