passage.....

if someone would have told me that when i finally left him i would struggle with my feelings for him, i would have laughed in their face! when i was with him i hated him and wanted my freedom. no, not all the time. not even most of the time, especially in the early years. but the last six years we were together were the most difficult.

if i want to be fair, he probably couldn't stand being with me as much as i couldn't stand being with him. i was not a very nice person after a while. while i do not blame myself for his volatile and violent outbursts, i take full responsibility for the times i fed his cycle of violence.

i am sorry for the times i made him feel less than a man. i am certain that without my verbal commentary on the matter, this was something he already struggled with. i am aware of the abuses and pains he was dealt as a child. the lack of validation from his father. his father an alcoholic and his mother cheated. thus the beginnings of his demons.

if not for my faith, i would have handled my life with him in a very different manner. i craved his attention, used to beg him for it. it would have been easy to seek out the same consolation that his mother did were it not for the moral code i chose to live by.

time after time i would beg god to help me love him, soften my heart to his pain and struggles. and he would. i wanted james to know that i saw the good that he could be, not just the ugliness. my heart used to hurt for him. if nothing else, i can say that i loved him and always will.

i know i said i hated him, but that was just my pain talking. when i am removed from that pain i am forced to remember the things that were good. the things that made me laugh, made me want to be with him. it is so true when they say you always want what you can't have.

however, it is no longer about what i can't have, it is about safety. i can see the truths, i can see the pains, i can see the goodness, i can see and understand the demons, i can see my part in the cycles, BUT, i cannot make him see or deal with anything he chooses not to. and no matter how much i beg god to "fix it", he has given us free will to choose to be "fixed".

it has not been easy leaving. not for the obvious reasons like finances, but for the emotional ones. the scars may run deep, but my love for him ran deep as well. i took him back so many times because i beleived he would, believed he wanted to change. but i cannot hold on to that any longer.

for too long i lived in the dream of what i wanted our marriage to be and now i must let all that go. now i must forge a life without him. whatever my future holds, it will no longer hold him. i am still dealing with feelings of anger, jealousy and pain. when they seek to drag me down into my ugliness, i take a moment to pray for him and the woman he lives with.

the time has come for me to end this chapter, once and for all, and begin writing the new one. in letting go of my old life, my hands become free to embrace my new life. and part of that life is sharing my story, and me, to others who are hurting and struggling.

this blog will be filled with my past, but only as a tool for the task i feel has been laid out before me. it will also be filled with my present and my future. life is good, and today i am at peace. today i see that it is time to take that passage....