Maybell: Chapter Four

[Maybell]

And you all can shoot me but I did send a text apologizing for all the yelling I did before he moved out. I didn't do it as a DB move. I did it in response to the incident on Wednesday night with the party. I talked to my friend about it and she said that the woman who is divorcing her husband is out to spread maximum pain to him. That was completely clear. I realized that I had been spreading some pain in being so needy and demanding and angry and I wanted to forgive myself. So I sent the apology, with the words "this is so I can move past all that" in the text.

He said he was sorry for not being more attentive and that he accepted my apology.

And now it's back to low contact. And moving into my next phase.

And I feel like I owe some love around here, but I hope no one will be disappointed that for today I think I need to tend to my own needs.

[Meghan]

It is a scary thing, and I really do understand that liberating is a feeling that gets easily lost in everything else.

The truth is that I've been taking care of me and then of us for a long time now and being on my own still scares me, even though I've been doing it for something like a decade and a half. I put myself through many years of university and supported two people for a few of those years. I'm proud of that.

But I've always seen him as my backup - if something happened to me or my job, I assumed he would take over. I've held onto this even though he hasn't worked in four years and has turned down jobs. His help has largely been helping me deal with work issues and using some of whatever money he has from a small inheritance to pay for groceries.

I suppose he still could back me up financially, but it hasn't really happened yet. And despite all of this I'm still frightened by the idea that I could be in a lesser or more vulnerable position without a partner.

I'm also with you in terms of missing the good H. I still think there is good in him, and if things really had gone south he would have done what he could to care for me and for us. Believing in some inherent goodness adds another level of pain both to having to provide my own security now and looking back and wondering why so much of the responsibility was on me rather than on us.

That was a long (and somewhat cathartic) way of saying that it's hard, even in the best of circumstances, and I'm really sorry that you're having to face this now. I do genuinely believe it's empowering, but it's an empowerment that's also tied up in a range of other emotions and issues, including fear, resentment, and anger. I do hope that it can become empowering for you, though, even if it's not feeling so much like that now.