PonderEthereal

I am looking through old posts for a particular subject entirely unrelated to my relationship with Ryan and I keep running across these posts where I’m crying about something he did or said.

It’s easy, in retrospect, to look back and say ‘if he was so abusive, why did I stay’. It was NOT easy, in the moment to separate my feelings of love for him from the way I should react to how he was behaving towards me. That is the nature of an abusive relationship. If the abused always ran away, ‘it would be no fun’, as Ryan told me. In plain english. In black and white. And I STILL didn’t listen.

There is nothing unpredictable about Ryan. How he acted 2, 4, 6 years ago is the same way he was acting the day we split (excepting a particular domestic violence incident). The sad, angry, frustrated entries from 2 years ago are almost ver batim what they were 6 years ago. And those, sadly, are almost exactly what they were 10 years ago.

I heard a lady on the radio the other day say that, in the case of an abusive relationship, you need to catch your daughter and talk to her BEFORE love sets in. Once she is in love, it’s almost impossible to talk to her. As it was with me. As it is with his current thang. As it will be always. With him. Because he is an abuser. Over and over, it’s the exact same story for over ten years now, with every relationship he’s ever been in - and it will always be. It’s easy to see now. In hindsight. Even though I said, over and over again - that he is VERY predictable.

And he is. VERY predictable. What was I thinking? The exact same thing that other abuse victims think. I love him. He’s not really that monster. And if he is, he will change. Because I’m different.

A good friend once told me that people will always tell you exactly who you are. You just have to listen. They will tell you in plain english who they are and you have to take what they say and believe them.

And I WAS different, luckily. I was. Unlike his last wife, he was never physically abusive with me until the very last day. And I’m lucky that somewhere, beneath the surface, the abuse broke the love and once I could see clear of it, I was able to separate myself.

I’m crying as I write this… but this time, it’s not out of pain. It’s out of relief. Pure unabashed relief that washes over me. It’s a dam of fear and of danger and of pain that just absolutely is broken. Safety, finally… from being so … abused. Plain and simple. I don’t know how to explain what it’s like to run in panic from this horrible pain that is always at your back… in circles around your own home, your own mind, your own heart, with no escape, no relief. And it’s over. It’s finally over. Thank you, baby girl, for making it over. I am so lucky. I am so glad. To be safe. To be away. To be done.