The Ways I Felt Exploited By Him

In two months time, it will be two years since we separated. If I look back and think of an adjective to sum up the way he made me feel during the majority of our relationship, I'd choose the word "exploited."

I've already written about the huge impact that internalised mysoginy has on men like ours. They've spent their lives trying to fit in with a patriachal society, they willingly absorb all it stands for and become the epitome of patriachy themselves, feeling accepted as a respectable, upstanding male chauvinist, particularly if they are also white and of middle-class. 

Our men become easily moulded by the old fashioned, mysoginistic views of their own fathers who they place on pedestals. The very men who saw women as mere domestic appliances. Yet, they are swept along easily by a modern, economy-driven society (due to their own practical and materialistic values) which happily forces women back into work and away from their children long before it's time. Who do women think they are to think that they're exempt from contributing financially? There is no value in care work, only work of financial gain. The care work goes purposely unnoticed. She must complete such dismal, unappealing, non-valuable work on the side, quietly and invisibly.

For many of us, we're expected to do everything and to do it without complaint. We ought to work like we don't have children with a home to run and run a home and raise children like we don't work. But also, we must never expect love and affection in return- afterall, it's a wasted commodity to men like ours. It's sad for me to admit it, but I think that some love, affection and appreciation would have softened the continuous, monotonous blow of modern marriage or cohabitation. Without a bit of love glitter to cover the turd, all women like us (Cassandras) are left with is a pointless, useless turd of a relationship and piles and piles of thankless tasks. 

He exploited me in so many ways.

From my first sickly pregnancy and me not being able to work easily, him telling me, "it's the job of your employer to get as much work out of you as she can; of course she's pissed off with you." It told me everything I needed to know about him right then. I realised at that very moment that I'd always remember him telling me that. It was an insight of what was to come and I think my subconscious warned me so.

The fact that I was pregnant in the first place was the result of him "forgetting" to withdraw having previously agreed that we would use this method temporarily. Once I was pregnant, I was supposed to ignore the fact as the side effects of our unplanned, yet reckless pregnancy inconvenienced him and his life. He was however conscious of how he came across to the outside world and persuaded me to move in with him long before I was ready to:

"Let me look after you..."

"You can't be pregnant with my baby and not live with me..."

So I gave my landlord a month's notice and off I went, to live at his house where he made very little room for me and my things for months, despite my pleas. All to save his reputation as everyone's favourite helpful handyman and now family man.

My freedom was exploited after our baby was born, she seemingly belonged to his family and I was the mere vessel for birthing her. I was expected to spend my maternity leave with his mother, which I declined repeatedly through desperation rather than assertiveness. I was a nobody. My wants, needs, my wellbeing my desires were all unworthy of importance, everything that made me who I was, faded away. My sadness fell on deaf ears, it was easier for him to label me as "intolerant" than it was for him to question his own family. I was just the complaining woman he lived with now, but as far as the outside world could see, I was much more.  As soon as it was too late for me to easily leave, he seemed comfortable into trapping me into his world of selfish comfort whilst I suffered. I just needed to stop being so negative he would say. My lovely, helpful, kind Peter was delivering a nightmare.

I lost my income, my career prospects and friends whilst his life continued as normal. He exploited this by demeaning any financial decisions I wanted to make- it wasn't my money afterall. He was the earner. I was exploited by motherhood, because he allowed me to be. My vulnerabilities were always used to benefit him. 

When breastfeeding our second child, he once said "just because you can't go out without the baby, doesn't mean I can't!" This was in defence of his social life when I needed his support at home with a toddler and a baby. He gladly exploited the fact that our baby needed my body in order to survive and he capitalised on his hobbies and free time more than ever. I was his childcare because I had to be, what did it have to do with him? This is despite me and the baby relying on him to do a bottle feed each evening to give me a break during the first three months, but he'd just drop the responsibility mindlessly, he couldn't understand why he should be bound to one feed a day, even when I was bound to so many. 

We talked about marriage during my first pregnancy, he said he wanted to marry after her birth. As it turns out, it's been easier to separate whilst unmarried, but my rights as a mere cohabiting partner in Britain are dreadful. Whilst his pension has blossomed, mine has dwindled due to part-time working whilst the children were little. Had we have been married I'd have been entitled to a chunk of his pension and to more equity of the family home. He knowingly exploited my vulnerabilities yet again when I communicated my concerns for my stability and he found every excuse he could for us not to marry post children. He was however, happy to have a second child with me.

To defend his lack of engagement with mundane domestic work such as cleaning he'd say "it's more important to you than it is to me, so why should I have to do it?" Cleaning was a choice he argued- my choice. He felt the same about cooking. He would argue that he would have been happy to eat cereal for dinner, so why should he have to share the cooking? Although Peter did contribute domestically, he resented it and blamed me for him having to share these tasks and he'd quietly seethe and sulk. He was mentally disengaged, so I needed him to contribute practically, the mental strain of parenthood was all consuming for me and non-existent for him.

I was expected to push down who I was as a person; he made it clear that I was too colourful, too opinionated, too outspoken and he'd correct me in public, humiliate me and gaslight me. I think this form of exploitation hurt the most, the way he exploited the essence of who I was to bolster his own ego.

And then, I was persistently giving. 

Washing, cooking, cleaning, decluttering, form filling, worrying whilst also trying to earn a living. He valued none of it, labelling domestic work optional in his own mind. I know he felt exploited by my expectations for him to contribute to the family life which we had created together.

I wouldn't have minded as much if he'd given some love in return, but it was always withheld when I'd pointed out his shortcomings, or cried or shouted for more support. Shining a light on his misgivings never caused him to look inward, he only hated me more. 

As time went on it became clearer that he had absolutely no desire for a relationship with me at all. I was only there to make his life easier, more comfortable. A live-in housekeeper and nanny. 

Love has always been my love language: talking love, giving love, showing love, receiving love. Practical tasks in my opinion have little to do with love at all despite what the books say. I realised that if I didn't want to drown any further, I needed to begin speaking his language. So when the children were a little older, that's what I did. I used him for DIY and childcare and cooking and other practical tasks whilst mapping out a life away from him. Yoga in the evenings, womens meet-up groups, dancing at weekends, I found friendships again. I started going out more than him.

One day he said to me when I told him that I had yet another commitment and needed him to stay at home with the children: "I feel used."

It's funny how the tables turn. 

He's now living with his parents and the only thing I need from him now are his financial contributions towards the family home which the children and I have remained in. He has no domestic responsibilities anymore, reduced childcare (the children stay with him twice a week), no more living with a nag like me, his household investment taken care of by myself each day. He lives where his loyalties have always lay: with his parents. He now has everything he ever really wanted, yet it causes him discomfort, and although I know he will never realise that he caused it, I find some comfort in the knowledge that he instigated it all. 

"I'm not happy with this situation" he has said to me. And I say "really? when you got everything you really wanted in the end?"

I imagine he'll be painting himself to be the poor homeless victim now, paying for a home that he's not living in. His male friends shaking their heads at the injustices that such a nice guy like Peter has been left with. I can easily imagine them saying amongst themselves, "Poor Peter, exploited by the woman he loved."

Why he's more loyal to his family of origin than he is to you.

For a long time, I couldn't get my head around why he seemed to like his mother, father and sister more than me. He always valued his father's judgement over mine on everything, his mother could seemingly behave however she wanted to and he always deemed her right, his sister was always his favourite innocent victim. 

He'd chosen me and yet appeared to have more emotional loyalty to them. He was emotionally enmeshed with them. When his mother hurt me with her criticisms of my parenting of a newborn that I dedicated my everything to, I was always being "too sensitive" and "intolerant." He could admit that she was interferring, that she was overbearing but excused her as "meaning well."  He was absolutely more comfortable with my discomfort than he was with theirs. 

When we were dating, he once left my bed to go to his 27 year old sister in the middle of the night because she was upset about splitting from a  boyfriend a few weeks beforehand. He had been called to her by his mother who was consoling her at 3am. It was an open display of where his loyalties were expected to lie. It was a very clear message sent to me early on. I was not invited either. It was family matters. A few years later, I found Peter consoling his sister at her 30th birthday party after his mother upset her and they had both disappeared. I found them upstairs, where my presence was clearly unwanted and I was told to return to the party and that they would be down again soon. The details of the upset were never divulged to me. Family matters never were. 

Unknowingly, I blamed myself for far too long. 

I just wasn't cutting it. 

I was a troublemaker.

I really was too sensitive.

I'm pushing him away.

I'm unlovable.

I create drama.

I've disappointed him. 

Thank goodness I disappointed him. This is the main reason he was more loyal to his family of origin. I'd disappointed him for calling out bad behaviour, for being intolerant and noncompliant, for saying no, for not being more accommodating. 

Many of our men have never been challenged or criticised by their parents and so they gravitate back to them when life with us becomes tough. We are not their caregivers, we don't provide them with financial gifts or endeavour to meet their every little whim, where often their parents have done so. They deem their parents safer because they excuse him, demand nothing of him and in many ways, still povide for him. 

He was an older brother to a sister who was several years younger than him. 

He was always admired, always put on a pedestal, perhaps due to her own undiagnosed neurodiversity also. Family bonds don't change, fade or end in enmeshed families, they are all one and cult-like. Peter has always been made to feel very important by his family of origin or was left to his own devices without any expectations of him and so, when I came along with my expectations of him, he felt challenged and victimised. Naturally, he gravitated towards them more so. 

When I expressed my unhappiness to his mother with a young baby in my arms and a toddler at my side, she excused him like he excused her. "He needs his down time." I needed mine too, but my needs were not her priority or anyone's priority, certainly not his. They collaborated with each other albeit rather silently at times. They were all of one mindset, all one entity like nothing I'd seen before. A cult.

When I was encouraged by his sister to confide in her about our failing relationship, she listened only to know things. Behind my back, she was collaborating with him and creating a divide between us, pulling her brother back to her. I imagine her subconscious whispering "I have zero expectations of you, unlike her, she's unreasonable... I'll massage your ego like she never will..." 

Because he belonged to her. 

He belonged to them all. He wanted to belong to them. You can't marry when you're already married. My criticism of his negative behaviour became her ammunition in the end and he excused her anonymous online trolling of my blogs and posts and even her accusations that anonymous posts in a group were mine (they weren't). He even praised her for it, let alone defended her. I'd dared to reach out in a private group asking for help with the dysfunction which she'd been accustomed to and she found it, screenshot everything, shared it with the cult and continued being pleasant with me on the surface. Then she began attacking my personal blog anonymously. He refused to believe it was her, but was happy to believe her untruths about me. I'd spent years getting him to see that his mother's behaviour wasn't ok and we'd made progress, but getting him to see that his innocent little sister's wasn't ok came at the biggest price. 

He feels important and powerful around them and victimised when he's expected to contribute to family life or be in a loving, functional, intimate relationship when he was with me. He'd never really been expected to be a grown-up. He had particularly never been expected to make sacrifices. He'd never had to make any sacrifices at all before. It was a foreign feeling to him. 

" His life has changed enough" his mother once told me. Despite him remaining in his hometown, maintaining the same job for almost 20 years, the same friends... Whilst I'd moved towns, carried two babies and had huge body changes, developed an autoimmune disorder, lost friends, made new friends, moved away from my mother, lost my job, gained another and reduced my income significantly by working part-time and impacted my pension contributions. 

His life had changed because he suddenly had responsibilities and expectations of him which had never been placed on him before. Thats what she really meant. In his mother's eyes was a wounded victim and he often behaved that way. They gave me the feeling that they thought I'd victimised him, that I was spoiling all his fun. I guess Peter was eventually saved from me by his family of origin who he has been living with since our separation almost two years ago. 

It's odd that I always thought that the family he'd created with me, the loyalty to me which was building slowly, would prevail in the end. But it never did. Our men will always gravitate to the place and people where there is less challenge, where truths are unspoken and where there is comfort, familiarity and ease. 

I'm grateful for disappointing him these days because it means that I was loyal to myself. Thank goodness I wasn't loyal to him. It took me a long time to realise also that he disappointed me too and to value this fact.

Peter asked me recently, after he'd had a couple of glasses of wine, "have I disappointed you?" He has never once asked me a question like this before. Peter does not do vulnerability.

"Yes, most definitely." I responded without elaboration.

"I guess I have disappointed you also" was my response.

"Yes" he replied uncomfortably, without elaboration.

But I sat comfortably with this, knowing exactly what this disappointment meant for him, knowing that disappointing him was the only way I was ever going to emotionally survive. Disappointing him means that I am free. It means that I've said "no more." 

Of course, it is his family of origin who have disappointed him really. But he isn't capable of pinning that responsibility on them and I doubt ever will be. Them disabling him with their interferring and lack of expectation of him (which ultimately set me in a negative light) has given him the idea that they are kinder and good to him. 

He really is a victim the more I think about it. A victim of their control, of their enmeshment and manipulation. A prisoner of their beliefs, their mentality, their habits, their values, their family "loyalty", their excuses. It has cost him hugely. His disappointment will forever be directed to me because my morals, beliefs and values are unfamiliar and impact him. I think of all the sacrifices and life changes I made to be with him, the requests for love and affection, the desire for a fulfilling family life-- which ultimately is what has disappointed him. I realise that his disappointment in me is rooted in him feeling pulled away from his family of origin, away from his old life and away from all that is familiar. I offered so much. And it is that which disappoints him. 

And so he gravitates back to his family of origin, relieved. 

When Comparison Steals Your Joy

It's not just our men who steal our joy, but thanks to the kind of lives they force us into, so does our tendency to compare ourselves to other couples and other families.

"Comparison is the thief of joy!" I hear from the wings.

"We're all different, you can't compare!"

"Everyone has their struggles!"

But most Cassandras know that our other couple friends aren't experiencing the same kind of intricate, emotionally abusive troubles that we are. 

I'm currently on holiday with Peter and our children. Still, we are holidaying together to minimise the impact of his recklessness and thoughtlessness on our children. If I didn't holiday with him, he would holiday with the children without me because he deems it his right to, even if he wouldn't enjoy himself.  Everything comes down to rights with Peter. Even after separating, I'm still having to sacrifice parts of myself and my own wellbeing and needs to keep the children safe. Additionally, I believe that it's important to maintain some level of travel and life outside of the daily drudge of day to day living. I want to show the children other places and worlds and I need to experience them too. There are negatives to whatever solution I throw at the situation, so I choose my negatives carefully. 

But, I am starting to wonder if my foolish resilience is beginning to weaken. I don't like Peter as a person anymore. Peter is not my friend. Peter's lack of motivation to do anything at all which didn't benefit him personally wrecked our little family. I put the children to bed in the evenings and I'm left with him, beer in hand, no conscience, no care in the world acting completely normal. Can I keep doing this to myself? 

I am struggling hugely during this break.

Friends of ours are also holidaying nearby, a family we have holidayed here with in the past. They have taken extended family away with them too and are renting a lovely big house overlooking a quiet beach with stunning sea views and a private swimming pool. It was suggested that we meet up by the mother of the children in the family, but I can't face it. 

We are around a mile away from them in a small, pokey cottage that is a little tired, with no views due to having to leave our booking until the very last minute as I never know what the situation will be like with Peter to book in advance. I never know if we can endure another holiday together until the time is almost upon us. I envy them also taking their extended family away with them. They will be able to enjoy evening meals as a couple as they have family to watch the children. Peter and I never got to experience this due to the overwhelming, critical and interferring nature of his parents, particularly his mother. Peter, in retaliation wouldn't entertain bringing my mother away with us either because he deemed it "unfair." Like a toddler might. Our holidays have always been the four of us which has been isolating, something I think Peter enjoys.

What I find so difficult is that I've looked at this cluster of cottages that our friends are renting so many times before, longing to book the smaller one. But it's always gone by the time it gets close enough for me to accept that I can just about withstand holidaying with Peter for another year. 

But I lie here in the small bathtub of the pokey cottage that we're in with paint peeling off the battered tiles, wondering if I could tolerate this better if the destination was a little more luxurious and larger. A bigger space to get away from Peter more. Maybe I should book in advance afterall?

I cry for the life I never had with Peter, the one I see our old friends living now. I am green with envy and heavy with sadness.  Intimate suppers overlooking the harbour whilst their parents lovingly put their children to bed, the matching dry robes and matching kayaks that they own (Peter would never entertain partaking in any activities that I enjoyed), the swims at dusk in their private pool and family days out with extended family, having other adults to soak up the noise of hyperactive, tired children.

I know that no family life is a fairytale but I am tired of "making the best of a bad situation." If I hear this advice one more time, I genuinely might scream. I find myself thinking, why can't I have the best for once? Instead of making the best of the shit I have. I'm lonely here. 

Holidaying without any emotional connection and no love or friendship is tiresome in the throes of parenting young children. Is it time to let go? Time to accept that Peter will always be their father and that the risks are now out of my control? Save myself from the slavery of family holidays? Perhaps one day enjoyable family holidays will be in my reach once again, with a loving person who I deserve to share them with. But I guess I need to let go first...

The Dangers of Relationshipping with an Emotionally Unavailable Man.

Emotionally, our men are very different. I am referring to men who make Cassandras of their wives and intimate partners, regardless of the cause. 

We've all heard of abusive relationships. Emotional and mental abuse is making it's way to the forefront of what we now know about abusive relationships. We talk about it, we no longer make excuses for it. Verbal abuse is as bad as violence. But what about when the emotional turmoil is invisible? When the suffering is caused not by anything they do particularly, but what they don't do? It might be easy to blame our expectations, to gaslight it all away. But this type of (sometimes) unintentional, intimate abuse rocks us to the core. We're uprooted and we're disoriented by inner upheaval caused by the uncertainty of our outer worlds. 

I'm going to compare the way an emotionally healthy man may respond to elements of an intimate relationship, compared to the way many of our men appear to respond, to try and shed a bit of light on the darkness that they douse us in. 

Firstly, one of the elements of healthy intimate relationships which was missing in my relationship with an emotionally unavailable man was eye contact. You know when you're in company and someone makes a joke that totally resonates with the two of you and you look over at your other half and share an intimate glance? Well, that never happens. I realised just how greatly this was missing from my relationship with my ex on watching a video we made together during covid for our child's birthday. I'd written a funny poem about her birth and kept looking at Peter who stood next to me at the odd punch line, but he stood, stoney faced, awkwardly staring towards the camera fixatedly instead. In the video, I look like I'm desperately reaching to him to emotional connection with my eye contact, whilst he looks like he's doing everything he can to avoid it. It's uncomfortable viewing.

I've seen the way my friends husbands look at them when were all together, the way they look back. Miniscule intimate moments which create connections and links. These do not exist in our relationships.

Secondly, when we point out an element of themselves which they don't like? We suffer for pointing it out. They don't have the objectivity to step back and think, "that triggered me, what could I do differently?" Instead, they turn on us for daring to shed light on their shadows. The suffering isn't always direct either. It's often silent sulking, demand avoidance or ruining special occasions. We often don't get to actually learn what it is we've done to upset them, but boy do we know about it when we have. 

Thirdly, if we raise an issue that we're upset by, it will always be our fault for raising the issue. We can never win. The only behaviour they accept from us is tolerance, silence and blind compliance. We were never meant to complain, or have needs. We either suffer in silence or suffer for not being silent. 

Fourthly, they'll be jealous of us. We excel at work or receive a compliment? They'll hate it. Have a birthday? Don't expect to be celebrated. They may pretend to be pleased for us, but they won't be. We are competition. They feel us inching away from them if we become more successful or happier than them, and their disapproval emanates through their negative energy. 

And don't expect anniversaries to be noticed or celebrated. Anniversaries don't exist along with any other special occasions which mark any relationship milestones. They will feel discomfort when it comes to reminiscing about your historical romance, they'll make out you're overly sensitive for wanting to mark your time together and love with any form of celebration. 

Also, It's quite normal to make plans for the future together. But don't expect that from an emotionally unavailable man. They have no intention of committing any future plans or time to you, it may happen, but not through any conscious effort of theirs. They will not contribute to intimate discussions for the future, they will shut down. They wouldn't dream of making themselves vulnerable enough to share any of their future goals or agendas with you. They are one entity. They'll be maddened by these discussions and irritable. They don't appreciate being pinned down. You'll be talking to a wall which repeatedly responds with "ok" and "I don't know." You'll never know where you stand or what they want and that is how it's supposed to be. 

Then, you'll offend them over and over again but you'll never understand why. They are governed by deep inner beliefs, left by the deepest of wounds. If your values don't align with theirs, they'll be insulted and you will be punished, indirectly, subtly, insidiously. Sometimes,they may even push you to the limits of your tolerance levels as your needs wishes and boundaries are repeatedly ignored and broken down by them through silent revenge. 

And then, you'll be treated as an appliance. There to support and facilitate their lives. Their job will always be more important than yours, their time, their career. And you'll lose out on your own time, your own career because you're expected to slot in with childcare whenever a sudden demand is placed on them and they expect you to already know about it or to jump at short notice and set your own professional needs aside. You are their appliance to provide all necessary child and house work. Your uses are practical.

Sadly, they'll never miss you.

They aren't capable of it.

You'll feel out of mind when they're away from you as communication will be sparse. And that is exactly what you will be- far from their mind. They won't tell you they love you or miss you as they can only focus on what is right infront of them. The text messages of love and bonding that you might expect through periods of absence just won't exist in a relationship with an emotionally unavailable man. 

They'll gaslight you.

Emotion just doesn't exist in their world so how could it possibly exist in yours? They'll accuse you of imagining things, of being too sensitive, hysterical, crazy, turbulent. 

He might love his mother more.

Most of us grow out of the FOG if it ever existed throughout childhood and adolescence (fear, obligation and guilt) as we mature and find our own views of the world and begin to honour our own needs. Emotionally unavailable men often don't adapt and reprioritise as they begin families of their own. His mother will always be the woman he needs to please the most. They never feel new love deep enough to cut those binds with her and so she remains his number one, his priority because she is the deepest emotional connection he's ever had. 

Emotionally unavailable men are silent, non-proactive, dismissive and dangerous. It's incredible how doing very little, how omitting love, avoiding connection and belittling your needs can cause so much destruction, but it really does. 

Some men weren't made for love.

If he's not emotionally available, he isn't available for any form of intimate relationship... so if you can, run for the hills. And if you can't, you must detach.

Making Space

Meeting someone new is going to be difficult unless I make space for him. Up until now, I've been healing and the last thing I've needed is a rebound relationship, but now I'm ready. 

A poster in the Cassandra Group pointed out to me in similar wording that some of our men only respect other men, who they often feel intimated by. They unfortunately do not respect women. That dating someone else may be the initiation he needs to finally respect my boundaries. I can't help thinking that she's on to something, but I know that meeting someone else for this purpose only wouldn't be at all healthy either. However, as I begin to wrench open the gap between us, I can't help feeling the need for protection from another male. 

He isn't taking it well. 

No he doesn't shout and scream, but he does play games and the passive aggression in his messages regarding the children has ramped up enormously in recent weeks. He has taken to openly mocking much of what I say and challenges my requests for notice regarding changes to the childrens' routine with attacks about other things which he argues is no different. It makes me realise that I've allowed him to cross my boundaries so much since we separated, in some ways, to protect myself from his emotional cruelty when I don't behave the way he likes or dare to question him.

To make space for someone new, I am having to go longer without seeing our children, which is anxiety inducing, leaving them in his care for longer periods, as "care" isn't something which comes naturally to him. I have asked for more calls with the children as a result and I'm met with responses like "if there's time."

Yet, if he children were ill or needed him, he still has access to our home, which I do not have where he lives as I am not welcome there by his mother.

Even occasions where I have sought to collect the children or drop the children off directly at his parents' house I've been directly accused of "making things difficult." The irony. Having the children in a space where I am not welcome to deliver them to or collect them from, let alone visit, is extremely hard, and he has the audacity to call me difficult. He is governed by inner most beliefs that to the outer world, make little sense. That's because these beliefs are routed in his parents wants and needs and rules and anxieties, but he is blind to it. 

I will go 36 hours without seeing my children twice a week from now on, knowing that they are likely going to have illnesses ignored, emotional needs neglected, that any schooling needs which fall out of his usual routine will be cast aside and that if it's a hot day, he will not apply suncream or provide extra water. Their diets will consist of processed packet food during their time with him and they will not be encouraged to eat any fruits or vegetables at all. They will go to bed late and wake up tired and I'll pay for it all during my own time with them. 

It's a hefty price for myself and my children to pay, but it's time to make space for change and for love. 

Last night was the beginning of one of the first 36 hours away from them and I ashamedly drank gin and tonic and ate airfryer chips until late. This is what I worried about. That during the time away from them I'd engage in negative behaviour myself as a means of coping. Hopefully, next time, I'll use my gym membership instead and try to use my time positively. But I don't know. 

The space makes me anxious.

Yet, I can't help feeling that this space is much needed now if I'm going to move forward in my life and find someone worthy to finally share it with. The challenge of course, is getting used to sitting with the space initially. Space where I should be near my children, space which he never deserved to fill. 

Going Back In Time

Recently, I've been struggling with low mood. At first I blamed the cold and dreary British weather and the slow start to summer, then I wondered if my vitamin levels were in check and even questioned if I was beginning peri-menopause early. Maybe it's the weight of responsibility: a child with additional needs, an energetic dog, a job to work, a house to run single-handedly.

I've filled my life with so much since he left: book clubs, yoga, meditation, dog walks, nature walks, friends, dancing, music- all the things that make me feel good. Yet, I still haven't felt good and have been too afraid to stop going.

I told my counsellor last week that stopping and slowing down worries me, yet I am exhausted. I don't want to sit in the silence and I'm petrified of returning to the lonely little girl hiding away in her bedroom that I once was. I realised that I am never giving myself the opportunity to sit and take in my surroundings because this isn't the life I'd planned or imagined. A single mum in a large house that I can't afford which is ageing around me and crying out for improvements. All the designs we had planned for our home are out of my financial reach now. It's a shell. A graveyard of dreams that will never be. Family holidays we'll never go on, family togetherness, love and happiness which will never be felt. Ideas of romance, gone.

My counsellor told me that if I don't stop, my body will make me stop. So over the last two weeks I have stopped a little. 

Yesterday, I decided to go back in time. I don't know what I was looking for really, answers maybe about what life had been in the beginning with Peter. 

I drove to our first home together, which had always been his home and never mine because it belonged to him first. I parked near the rear of the house and I could see the driveway and the window of the back bedroom which used to be our eldest child's room. 

The house always felt claustrophobic and oppressive. The windows were small, the house long and narrow, nestled between two other houses on a narrow country lane. 

The memories of that house and the feelings which surfaced made me sad, as I realised I'd never ever been happy there. There was no joy looking up at my child's old bedroom window, just an ache for the lonely woman that I was in that house. Any happiness was always prompted by my hopes for us for the future. I always thought that our future would be better, happier, closer, more intimate somehow. Then I considered that I'd spent the entirety of our relationship in a state of perpetual hope. This was a bit of a revelation. Always thinking that the best was yet to come, but the best had actually been and gone. The best was at the very beginning, when I was unsure of him still and so he showered me with a short-term fixation which felt like love. 

It occurred to me that I can't lose what I have never had in the first place. So what do I grieve?

The house backs on to fields and so I took my dog and retraced my past footsteps over the paths and around the wooden fences which brandish the greenery. The walk took me, mentally, back to my old self, ten years ago, post-birth and suffering post natal depression. How lonely those walks used to feel, how isolated I used to feel; no friends or family close by, just these empty walks over empty spaces with no company. I remember feeling so heavy when I lived there, the pram felt so heavy, the weight of motherhood and the strain of his overbearing family, but I also remember Peter seeming much happier there somehow. I think he loved his life in that house before I arrived; it was his sanctuary, his hideaway on a small country lane, surrounded by fields. 

I think he might have loved it.

Further down the paths, I used to walk past a small cluster of houses on another lane, owned by a housing association which helps find homes for low income families. I remember at the time, thinking that I could apply to move into one of those homes and be free of him and his family. But the prospect of more loneliness a little further down the road from him never appealed to me and so I stayed in the narrow townhouse with him until I managed to convince him to move to the family home I live in now. 

My current home was the house of hope that I used to envision on my walks around those misty fields, a home surrounded by friends, close to my childrens school, near to the local shops. Community and support. This house where there are bigger windows, more light, more space and room to breathe. We had so many plans for it. But he never moved in with us. Not really. His mind was still closed and narrow, isolated and sheltered, so in the home I chose for our family, I outgrew him as I made friends, found new walks and became part of a community. He remained in his own narrow, dark space. 

I've come away from my trip back in time knowing that I am not grieving for anything that we've ever had, but for the hopes which never bloomed. It pains me that they very almost did bloom. We got so close. But in the end, he was never the man I wanted or needed, not even in the beginning, where it all began. I was still hoping back then.

I realise that I have always been on my own, just as much as I am on my own now. I haven't really been in a relationship since being in my early twenties. What I've been in over these last 12 years is a dangerous bubble of hope with a practical companion, a financial provider and an emotional oppressor. He has been unrelatable most of the time. 

However, I find myself thankful that I stayed and didn't move into one of the charity houses on my own with our first child ten years ago. I'm glad that I found my house- our family home. But I feel guilty too. Peter has lost both homes and lives with his parents once again. I know he resents me for that. I think if Peter went back in time for a few hours, I think he'd wish we were still living there in that house. Isolated. 

I felt sad for him on my walk near our old home and I cried for his losses, I'm not sure why I felt that so deeply. The seemingly lovely, lonely man that he was back then, should perhaps have been left alone all along. He has given me the two most precious gifts I'll ever have in my life, so I'm confused by feelings of gratitude and of loss towards him too. 

It's hard to grieve for something that you never really had, but atleast now my future is in my hands. Him leaving has given me real hope for a real love and a real relationship one day. It's actually been a very long time that I've been alone, I was perhaps more lonely in our old life than I am in this one, without him around as much. I grieve for what I thought our lives had been and would be. I grieve for not being loved and for having the love I freely gave rejected over and over again. Mostly though, I grieve for the lonely young woman with the pram who never realised that she was already grieving.

And I can't help but think to myself, it would be nice to be loved at last.

The High-Low Functioning Roller Coaster

I was recently reading an article which explained why experts in the field of autism are moving away from the term "high functioning autism" to describe autists who are able to achieve excellently academically and in other areas like arts and music. 

It explained that many autistic people have high functioning and low functioning days dependent on any triggers, stresses, biological changes etc that may have impacted them.

This has been quite impactful for me to consider as I always felt like I was going stir crazy when Peter's personality would completely change when he was on annual leave from work. The difference was so astounding that when I first noticed this in the early months of dating Peter, I thought that he was going on and off me. I'd often wonder what I might have done to upset him, then he'd be off work again a few weeks later and we'd be loved up again. However, as it turned out, Peter could not actually function in an intimate relationship and go to work at the same time. Too much demand. Emotional overload.

I am finding this in other areas of our lives too: he can't go to work and make parental decisions; he can't go to work and empathise with our child's emotional needs in school; he can't go to work and make plans for the future; he can't go to work and keep track of any family events at all.

When Peter is working he forcefully functions all day and he returns home a shell of himself. He sits in the quiet, scrolling mindlessly through his phone. He does not want to speak, he does not want to cook, he can't read, he can't have sex, he can just about exist. He returns home and stares a lot, his body is sluggish, he can not hold a conversation, he will keep falling asleep for a few minutes at a time as he sits with the children. At meal times, he eats and stares whilst his family connect all around him. He will eat dry foods mindlessly like crisps and crackers late into the evening, not realising how much he's eaten. He is completely unaware. He often can't remember his journey home from work.

Contrastingly, when he is not working, Peter is full of lively energy. He can not sit still. He has ideas of places to go and things to do. He has packed a family picnic before everyone else is dressed. He's impulsive. He wants to plan.  Of course, he ignores vital, important details and his time management is still crazy, yet he functions. He listens to our daughter's problems although still prioritises solutions over empathy, he chats at the dinner table, he cooks. He's a different person in the same skin.

It made me ask myself, could I actually consider Peter to be high functioning after a hard day's work? Absolutely not. He is a zombie.

Peter and I no longer live together of course, but the article made me reflect on the times of low functioning and on my own self doubts at what I was seeing and experiencing with him. 

 From the reliable, dependable, chatty, friendly personality that I'd come to know, that his work colleagues know, who was this vacant man who used to sit at the dinner table with us at the end of each day? I know now that he was functioning on his basic settings because he was depleted and burnt out. 

So many Cassandras are confused by the cognitive dissonance of their partners, unable to fathom how they can switch between two distinct personas. It's another layer to the cassandra syndrome- feeling like we're seeing and imagining things. But, we're not. 

Peter used to describe me as an emotional roller coaster and he was right, I was. But I now find myself wondering if this was a side effect of his roller coaster- as I had to sit next to him in his carriage day after day, functioning at his best one minute, to barely functioning at all, up and down, around and around. Yet, he was too mind-blind to even notice. And as often our men don't look inward, they only see that we are to blame. 

It's sad that he can not recognise his own limitations, get the support that he so clearly needs to enable him to be a better partner and parent. Autism isn't to blame for that, pride and ignorance is. I'd like to think that one day, he'll look back and wish he'd have committed to helping himself, but I'm not sure that he'll ever truly remember how much he needed help in the first place.