A lady called Eve left me a really inspiring comment on an old post. Some very wise words that have had me thinking today and have given me some ideas on how to move forwards from the negative relationship dynamics I have been part of in the past. This line in particular struck a chord with me

You wont be able to have a successful relationship until you open your heart to the possibility that someone wont hurt you.

What a novel idea: open my heart to the possibility that someone won’t hurt me. I’d never looked at it that way before. Imagine being in a relationship with someone who wasn’t going to hurt you. Imagine that such a person should even exist! I do believe that Eve is right though. Until I reach a point where I can believe that I won’t be hurt, my behaviour contorts until I become what I most fear - being a whiny, needy, clinging, insecure girlfriend.

I am slowly learning that being an insecure girlfriend and being a girlfriend who has insecurities are two very different things.

Just over a month ago, I started talking to Matt. I was already hooked before we even met face to face so it was no surprise to me that there was enough of a spark to have us kissing in the freezing cold Market Square at 1am. We met at 6pm and went and had a drink in a couple of bars. He had to go to a birthday thing after our date and I’d arranged to meet some friends. He asked me at one point where I was meeting my friends and it turned out we had both sets of friends waiting for us in the same bar across the other side of town. His face when I said which bar was blank. I’d taken it as him just not knowing the bar I was talking about. I feel too sceptical to declare a sign of fate but really, could it have been any clearer that we weren’t supposed to go our separate ways?

We walked in to The Orange Tree together, he bought me a drink and introduced me to one of his friends who was also at the bar. Then we began to say our goodbyes slowly, reluctantly. He made a joke about the dodgy ending to a previous date I had been on. He turned to face me. I can still feel that ecstatic anticipation as I realised he was going to kiss me; my stomach doing more somersaults than an Olympic gymnast; my heart skipping more bits that it was managing to hit. And then the melting when our lips finally came together.

We went to meet our own groups of friends then and moved on to different places, only to join up again later. It was like something out of a movie - I saw him across the square and we just seemed to walk faster and faster together until I threw my arms around him. I suppose it was then that he began to feel like home, somewhere I belonged, though I don’t think I’d realised it at that point. Since then it’s gone from strength to strength (mostly recorded in my paper journal) and at record speed. We’ve been officially together for two weeks and two days, dating for a month tomorrow.

I keep getting little “signs” that this is exactly right for me. In fact, while I was writing this entry, he sent me this picture which I think sums up what Eve was trying to say beautifully. I could spend the next few months obsessing and analysing, trying to find the Achilles’ heel in our developing relationship. And I would find it, because the more I look, the more difficult I become, impossible to love. The bigger and more significant every miniature imperfection appears. Eve’s comment has made me realise I can stop the deadly spiral of obsession before it evens begins, simply by asking myself a question: what if I can be loved?

One of the things about using this blog for support myself is that I only really post when I’m feeling negative.
Tonight is just another lonely, boring night in. I’m missing my sons. I’m still sad that there is no-one to cuddle up to and cross that I’m bothered by that.
Seeing the therapist tomorrow, thank goodness.

Being a single parent is so lonely sometimes. I am about to go to sleep without saying goodnight to anyone. There’s no-one to sleepily chat to about my day as I fall asleep. If my children wake up several times in the night, I won’t be able to take it in turns to see to them with anybody. When I wake up in the morning, there will be nobody to say “You sleep in while you’re poorly, I’ll get their breakfast”.

It’s just me. All the jobs that need doing around the house tomorrow are my jobs. All the responsibility is mine.

I thought the bitterness would decrease over time but it isn’t really. I watch friends get engaged, get married and have babies and there is so much anger that I am doing it alone. This was never the plan. This was never how it was supposed to be. In 6 days it will have been 2 years since he told me it was over and there was no going back. Why am I still drowning in grief?

What a mess.
Everything feels like a mess. I have turned into the bitch from hell, I have no idea what I’m doing with my life or what I even want to do with it. I am so angry with everything. I feel so helpless.
I don’t really enjoy being single. I don’t hate it, I just don’t enjoy it. It’s boring and lonely - like that lyric from one of Robbie Williams’ latest songs “I’ve been doing what I like, when I like, how I like; it’s joyless”. BUT, I also don’t want to be in a relationship. I’m pretty depressed at the moment and still can’t see why anyone would want to be in a relationship with me but it’s not just that. It just feels pointless. It feels like I’d be throwing myself into a situation where the only thing I’d get out of it is more betrayal and disappointment. How cynical is that? How depressing is it that that is how I view love, at my age! I’m 24 for heavens sake. I should be feeling like the world is my oyster.

A guy has been emailing me. His name is Tom. He’s very tall, pretty smart, training to be a teacher, has a son. TBH I think we’re both in the same situation, wanting to be in a relationship but it just feeling too overwhelming. I don’t know where that will go. I don’t really mind. It makes me feel hopeful, cos the conversation flows quite well, but the idea of being in a relationship is daunting and that’s not how I want things to start. I still miss Gavin. We’ve fallen out again tonight. He doesn’t understand where I’m coming from at all. It still feels like there are two people in his head - the one I fell in love with who is patient, understanding, gentle, caring, affectionate, and the other who is a selfish and aggressive with a total inability to listen. I never know which one I’m going to get.

I just want to feel loved. I want someone to come and hold on to me. I hate feeling like my world is falling apart. It’s bad enough doing it when you’ve got someone who can just say “It will be ok”. It’s awful when you don’t even have that. I just feel so tired. I’m tired of feeling like this is never going to be ok. It will always just be making the best of a bad situation. That isn’t how I want to live my life.

I feel dreadful today. Angry, irritated, tired, confused, depressed, trapped.
I don’t want to do anything, not even move or eat or talk or anything.
Argh. This is not me. It is unbearable, and yet there is no escaping it.
Everything just feels awkward and wrong :-(

Or perhaps not oddness. Now I’ve put all that “out there” and cried even more, I feel better. I wasn’t convinced there was an end to that emotion, but clearly there is.
Now I am feeling slightly more positive about the future. Life is what it is, no point railing against it. Not that hearing that would have helped me an hour ago, but I believe it now.
I feel very lucky to have found Gavin, and to be able to look to the future and see a family unit, and to have his constant support even if I am a looper.
Now if only I could find a way to achieve something so that I don’t feel quite so stuck…

Rediscovered Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap this morning and have analysed the lyrics to death. I hate being depressed without knowing why. Usually there is a trigger but this time there hasn’t been anything suddenly bad. It’s slowly got worse since my team leader at work got fired so yet again I found myself with a new team leader, I’m not sat with my friends anymore, the pressure is increased. Maybe that was the final straw to an already overstretched situation.
And Gavin proposed, so we’re engaged (edit: probably not the best post to have announced this in!), which means I have to get divorced. Which is good. I want to be divorced. But I want to just press a button, not have to go through all of the stress involved with divorces, dragging up all of the emotions.
I am still insanely angry at what Ben did, the way it all ended, the speed at which he replaced me, the fact that our whole relationship and life together appears to have been disposable for him. I know he is very good at putting unwanted feelings in a box at the back of the closet, but there is just nothing. And I am angry that our friends have almost completely cut me out of their lives. Two of them had babies shortly after Ben’s girlfriend did, so they’re all doing the lovely new mummy thing together and I just want to scream and scream and scream. This isn’t fair, this is my life, how dare she steal it. And I’m here repeatedly picking up pieces on my own, like I am screaming but no-one can hear me.
I sound like a loon. I know. It’s been bottled up, it has to come out sometime. I should have done it all back then instead of keeping my mouth shut, being his doormat, caring so much about what other people would think of me. Looking back, I don’t think people would have been surprised if I’d have lost the plot a bit. I was seriously depressed and he just walked out after 6 years. Or rather, made me leave, so he got the house. Who the hell walks out on his wife when she’s so ill, when you have two children together, when you’re married, for someone you barely know, and then go and get her pregnant 6 weeks later, while your wife is still living with you?
I hate being angry. It’s so ugly, so unladylike. But I hate what he did, desperately hate it. It’s like he took my life, tore it into pieces and then demanded I carry on as normal, better than normal, on my own.
I have been over him for a while, but not my old life. I miss that so much. I miss being a stay-at-home mum, I miss being a wife, I miss living with a husband, I miss my boys. I don’t want it to be how it is. I hate this. I feel lost. I don’t have a decent/exciting/well paid job with any kind of prospect for promotion, I am not a “proper” (by which I mean full time) mum, I can’t afford to go back to college/university properly so I’m restricted to the OU, and that is only while I am living alone and get grants for the fees.
This isn’t me. I am not a Plain Jane who can just sit back and plod along. If I want something, I go and get it, but this time I can’t. I feel horribly stuck and can’t see a way out :-(

I’ve been thinking about going on the Women in Power workshop next year. I know it’s really expensive, but it looks fascinating. I was just reading their website and read this and thought, that makes so much sense.

When we stay loyal to our solemn promises never to be like the abusers in our lives, do we depress ourselves? With a seemingly big heart, many of us choose to wound ourselves long before we would risk wounding another. What patterns of violence against ourselves persist because we hold to these ancient vows: I’ll never be that brutal; good girls hide their fury; real women lead from gentleness.

That’s all for today.

Happy:  I am happy because I keep getting little moments of realising that he loves me. And because we have his daughter back this weekend. And because my car is fixed. And because I spoke to my sister and she made me feel better about worrying. And because I bought cream cakes. And because I’ve been thinking about what Kate said about boundaries, and realising that actually I don’t set boundaries in relationships, I don’t put myself first and it backfires. So I’m happy that I’m beginning to make progress in that area.

Sad: I am sad because I feel like I’m not myself and I’m tired of battling.

Afraid: Afraid doesn’t quite cover it. I am terrified he’s going to cheat on me. I don’t know what is it about me that he loves, so it becomes easy to convince myself that it’s nothing, and that he could get what he gets from me from anywhere. So if he has no reason to stay, he’ll just leave like Ben did when things got too hard. I’m afraid that she is a better friend to him than I am, or that she will be in the future. If he fancied her before, why doesn’t he fancy her now? So then I assume he does fancy her now. And he doesn’t want to have sex with me because he wants to have sex with her. I just remember reading about how he felt about Sarah while he was with Jenine, including one entry of him telling Sarah he loved her a month before Emily was born - granted he’d split up with Jen the day before, but still…, and there are so many parallels that I see between me and Jenine that I’m convinced it’s all going to happen again. I feel like unless I am perfect in this relationship, he will leave. He likes the easy life. I am catagorically NOT the easy life. At all.

Angry: I’m not sure where the anger is pointed. I feel angry but I’m not sure what about. It’s not rational, fair anger.. It’s immature anger, which is worse because I can’t express it, because I shouldn’t be feeling it. I’m angry that he doesn’t want to have sex with me, and I’m angry that he wants to be close friends with Sarah. I want to scream at him that it’s just so inappropriate to be close friends with an ex girlfriend. But I am almost certain that my reaction is unfair, so I just won’t say anything, then I feel angry at myself.

Usually when I get all wound up in the evenings, by the morning it has gone. It started on Wednesday night and the fear is still here. It was triggered by him talking to his ex-girlfriend. I am convinced he’s going to leave, but after talking to Kate (my therapist), she’s pointed out that I trust him to stay if it’s just us, but if another woman comes along, I lose all confidence. So having him be close friends with an ex-girlfriend is not safe or comfortable territory for me.

I felt sick all day yesterday, and feel sick now. I find myself forgetting to breathe, and coming up with the most ridiculous catastrophic fantasies. I just want to relax and find a way to be able to let go and trust him. It’s not losing him that I’m so terrified of, it’s the dishonesty. I can cope with the ending of a relationship. I can’t cope with dishonesty or secrets or untruths, not on any scale right now, not even about the pettiest of things. I hadn’t noticed before, it was something Kate pointed out. I’m usually quite strong and independent and intelligent, I don’t “need” a man. What I need is someone who is open and honest and emotionally (and in terms of giving attention) available. I would rather hear the painful truth, than be told what I want to hear. Sure it hurts in the short term, but life does, and if it’s honest then I can get over it. It’s the deception that damages my self esteem and makes me lose trust in my own judgement.

I hope this feeling passes soon. I don’t feel like myself. I feel like my normal, strong, optimistic self is trapped in cage, covered in a black cloth, screaming to get out, while this half-person with no personality, no strength, no self belief is running the show.