For us, this was the right decision and Peter returned to his parents' house earlier today after two overnights here at the house.
Having Peter around when the children are with us is fine- it's not confusing; all feels quite normal, business-like even. Probably a little dysfunctionally normal, but we can't escape that when we're living with and navigating parenting with these men.
I went to therapy a few days ago.
It was so needed and so beneficial.
She told me to let go of the fixation I've developed around Peter's undiagnosed aspergers and asked me instead to accept that Peter is highly complex. So complex that even he can't work out his own feelings and she even admitted to me that she "can not fathom him" from things I've told her he says and does. I revealed to her a recent outburst he had when I spoke of his cheating friend. He became so evidently triggered and she couldn't comprehend it; she was visibly stumped. I've shopped around over the years for the best psychotherapist money can buy; I'd advise all Cassandras do the same. I think she's my eighth therapist, because you have to find the right one. I've stuck with her for the last 4 years for good reason. She even went against her ethics and invited Peter in for relationship counselling, but that's why she's my therapist, because she explores everything and beyond for solutions, outcomes, answers. She'll unfollow the rules in search of the truth and if our sessions run over and she has no other commitments, she allows for it.
So with her advice, I've given up trying to fathom Peter too.
I'm still observing him though and realising that perhaps the most hurtful part of this separation for Peter is not being part of the pack anymore, our pack, until a more established pack comes along anyway. When I'm here with the children and he's on his own sat in his old room at his parents' house. He told me this was the hardest part for him... being sat in his old room again.
We bumped into our old work colleague "friends" whilst walking with the children on Christmas eve, the group that Peter used to be part of. It was awkward to say the least, I didn't speak to them after my ordeal with the toxic bunch during my first pregnancy, but Peter of course was his usual polite self. As we walked away, I looked at him and found myself asking him if he missed being "part of the pack." He seemed surprised, but I could tell I wasn't far off the mark.
I've never really strived for mass acceptance and I've always been aware of the toxic pack mentality which plagues many inseparable, inclusive social groups. This stems both from personal experience and from my own research in psychology. If anything, I've always wanted to be a bit different, always noticed inconsistencies and injustices when supported by the majority. Peter is different to me. If everyone is doing it, then it must be right. I think this perception comes with ASD much of the time- they spend their whole lives trying to fit in and then here's me, trying not to.
It's clear why Peter struggles with me.
I think if I'd been more clearly "anti-pack" from the very beginning, he probably wouldn't have bothered dating me.
In the run up to the Christmas festivities, he told me during a brief emotional encounter that he "just wanted to chill on the sofa on an evening with a glass of mulled wine and a good film" with me. I spoke about this with my therapist and she asked me how I felt about this prospect. I explained how part of me felt the need to sustain boundaries with Peter and yet the other part of me was dreading a lonely Christmas with barely any family around me. She said that she felt it would be fine for me to consider allowing this. It's Christmas afterall.
So, on reflection, I decided that this mulled wine experience would actually benefit me too. So, I asked Peter that evening, after he had put the children to bed, if he could fancy a mulled wine with me- he could even stay in the spare room if he liked. The children had asked him to stay already he told me, so he was hoping to be able stay- he said he was also tired. He accepted my offer. Half an hour later, he got a text from a friend, asking him if he was joining some other friends at the pub that evening. He wasn't going to go at first, said that he was far too tired, but I replied that he should choose the option he wanted to do, intrigued by what he would do next.
Guess what he chose to do?
So with that, Peter left rather quickly and joined the pack in the pub, ignoring his need for sleep too, staying until the very end- 2.30am. I watched TV, enjoyed a glass of wine and went to bed a little earlier than I would have done if Peter had stayed. This sums him up. His priorities. His need to be included and accepted at all costs. I wasn't hurt, a little disappointed perhaps, but it was good for me to observe this. Peter finally got the option to sit with me on a Christmassy evening, with a mulled wine as he'd longed for, but went to the pub instead to be with the group whilst I stayed home, content with our children asleep in their beds upstairs.
So here, I can see another reason why this relationship has failed. He needed a woman to be part of the group, the pack, the team. Like the way mammals gravitate towards the larger pack for survival- Peter is doing the same. But the sad thing is, rather than helping me survive too- by maybe creating a pack of our own, he leaves me to fend for myself. It's a little like abandonment I guess.
It's hardly surprising we never married isn't it. He couldn't have married the outed one, the odd one out, the loner- it would never help his credibility, his reputation or his survival.
I've found my pack in my children, in some of the mothers around me that have become close friends and allies and in the supportive online Cassandra group. He's made me quite vulnerable really, moving to his hometown, him keeping his social circles to himself. If he is operating animalistically, primitively, following the pack for survival, then what must he really think of me? To leave me fending for myself in so many ways?
I'm coming to terms with his complexity and accepting that I will never comprehend him, but there are questions left unanswered and I can't shake the feeling that perhaps, this emotional abandonment is more logical and yet more sinister that I'd ever realised.
If some of these types of men are not on our side, helping us survive and are concerned only for their own survival, then what are we exactly to them, I wonder?
No comments:
Post a Comment