Regrowth

Out of everything Evil Spawn ever did for me or to me, the best gift was that email he sent me telling me his reasons for wanting a divorce.  It's all bullshit.  I know it.  He was just trying to give me some 'reasons' and, as he always has, put the blame on me.  And, as before, he expected me to swallow it and ask for more.

All it did was make me sit and mentally go through our marriage and remember all those things he did that made me feel like less.  He was emotionally abusive and I took it.  I let him change me.  I devalued myself. 

A lot of people expect me to just bounce back...be strong and wise and joyful.  But I have a lot of work to do on myself.  I need to forgive myself for hanging on for so long...for making so many excuses for why I stayed....for not having faith in myself to be able to go out and make it on my own...for feeling so sorry for him that I believed that I could make a difference. 

I used to get upset with my older sister because she would knock herself out with losers by trying to make herself indispensable to them. She would do things for them...worm her way into their lives.  They didn't respect her for it and she got on their nerves by being there all the time cleaning their house, cooking for them, etc.  The guy she's married to now I am not sure they even love each other. They just lean on each other...he gave her a house to redo and she has someone else there to help her with the physical labor and they both pay the bills.  They don't even sleep on the same floor of the house...he sleeps downstairs, she sleeps upstairs.  She makes sure to have his dinner ready as soon as he comes in the door from work, no matter what time that is. She works, too.  Who makes dinner for her?  He comes home, sits in the chair in front of the TV, after grabbing a few beers to sit by the chair, she brings him his dinner, he falls asleep in the chair later.  She does all the laundry, and, until a couple years ago, did all the lawn and landscaping. He now takes care of the mowing.  He used to go sit at his once boss's house and get drunk many evenings and she would have to go 'fetch' him and bring him home.

My younger sister is married to a guy that works hard and works hard at home.  It isn't until lately that I have worried about their marriage.  She has become lazy and depressed and is always anxious.  He has been getting short tempered with her a lot.  I worry about it.  They have 3 young girls...the oldest one is 14, the youngest is 7.  I think she has become anxious about her marriage since ES divorced me.

I have been a combination of my sisters.  However, since that email from Evil Spawn, it did something to me.  After I took a mental trip through my 25 year marriage I have decided that he is nothing but a self centered, narcissistic, emotionally abusive ass and I do not care what he feels or what happens to him.  He never cared about me.  I am done.  I am no longer angry at him...he was just being himself and I did not acknowledge what he really was.  I am no longer going to allow him to bully me into taking on the blame or the shame for anything.  When he comes here to pack and take away the rest of his stuff, if he tries to take something that was not specifically mentioned in the divorce papers, I will not back down.  Screw him. 

And as for me thinking that once I get on my own two feet and can handle the bills...that I will allow him to quit paying alimony...screw that too.  He can pay for the full 5 years. 

I am in the process of regrowing my backbone.   It will be long and sometimes painful.  But he will find that I am not that person he bullied and took it.  I am once again that person that I was about 3 decades ago.  I will not take crap from anyone.