Disillusioned

I was disillusioned by you from the beginning. I wanted you to be so much more than you are and that wasn't fair to either of us. I thought if I loved you enough, I could heal that wounded part of you; that dark part that you said only I know how to trigger. That part of you that would spend hours screaming your rage while I lay still as stone; you would always break down in the end and finally show me the part that was really hurting. I thought if I could get you through that I could get us through anything.

I can see logically now that it was not me triggering this side of you. You were this way with your mother, your ex-wife, your sister. I don't know what scares you so much in femininity that you feel the need to lash out and tear us apart from the womb. Even though I can logically see this, emotionally I still ache. You knew exactly how to tear me down; the things that would hurt the most and make me feel so worthless that I would believe you when you said your pain was all because of me. You told me I am a selfish bitch, that I expect people to care about me but they don't, that there is something fundamentally wrong with me. You knew what you were doing; I had been so vulnerable and open with you about my own struggles and insecurities that you knew exactly how to strike blows that would hurt the most. The last time I saw you I left truly believing there is something fundamentally wrong with me; so wrong that I don't deserve to live.

You were my home and you knew that. The reason I kept coming back to you as a friend after all these years. I needed the comfort of being with someone who truly knows me, but how dangerous it was for me to find that in you. You were my shelter, but a shelter that was filled with hidden dangers; grenades I would lay on that instilled in me the priority of your happiness over my own, trap doors I would fall through and learn that I can never be too careful where I step. My entire life I have longed for the space to be authentically myself and feel heard and seen. This is why your rejection hurt so much.

It is hard for me to keep the facts in our relationship straight because you were always twisting them; something I now recognize as gaslighting. Twice I recorded you yelling at me to remind myself later that it did actually happen. You yelled at me in the car for 30 minutes for not having sex with you earlier that day. You told me that because days before I was being sexually suggestive to you and because you had waited 'patiently' for three days that I owed it to you. You said it wasn't fair that in the moment I didn't feel like having sex. You said every other human on the planet would feel the same way as you and that I was fucked up for not understanding. You said that me not having sex with you was a form of me disrespecting you. This belief you instilled in me over and over; that my wants and needs are always lesser than yours.

When I was assaulted by a stranger a couple months ago I blamed myself. I had been naked in a sauna and was violated after I had politely told him I wasn't interested. I blamed myself because you taught me that I deserve to be treated this way. That because I was naked, I was asking for it. That even though I said no, it didn't mean no if he wanted it. That he was entitled to touch my body because he was a man with urges. That his sexual desires were more important than my own physical safety. This is the scar you left.

The only words I have found comfort in that might allow me to let you go is strangely... believing that you were trying your best. You screamed this at me over and over that this is who you are but I always believed that this dark part of you could be healed if we just worked hard enough to get to the root of it. But looking back I see how this belief could be scarring to you and for that I am sorry. What I saw as an opportunity for growth, you saw as a flaw in yourself and I recognize how that hurt you.

You were doing the best you could; but that was not, is not, and never will be enough for me.