When You’re Going Through Hell….

Keep going, right?

I have not been doing well. I’ve cried more this week than I did last. Driving home yesterday I was crying and talking out loud when I finally let out this guttural scream. I was hoping it would release all of the pain and anger and I could go back to feeling nothing. I say feeling nothing because I’m certainly not going to go back to feeling happy.

This is not what I planned on writing as a follow up to my original post but it’s what you’re getting today. I’ve been watching a lot of TikTok on breakups and recovery. There’s a lady I like a lot but this one video gutted me.

As always they want you to believe that this (the breakup) is only setting you free to find what you really need. I don’t believe that. Honestly, I believe I will be alone for the rest of my life.

I know I said the same thing during my divorce from Jerry Lee and then I ended up with Matt. And yet technically, I was correct. I didn’t find my person. I thought I did but I was wrong. Didn’t find the person I would be with for the rest of my life. Thought I did but I was wrong. He didn’t want to be with me. My ex is happily, or maybe not so happily married and I dated a man who dumped me 5 1/2 years later. They’re going strong and I’m by myself.

I’m getting off track though. Back to the video.

She says, “Yes, you may still love them. You may always love them. But you may find someone who stays by your side, who doesn’t just leave.”

Two problems with this. First, I don’t just want somebody who won’t leave. I mean, obviously that’s what we all hope for, but I don’t want a ho-hum relationship with somebody just because he won’t leave me.

I want what I thought I had. I want the relationship where people look at us and say, “You two are having way too much fun together.” I want someone who makes me laugh and who laughs at my jokes. I want someone who wants to do things together.

The way she puts it it sounds like settling because this next person is safe. I thought I had safe when I got married. It wasn’t the romance of the century but I thought it was safe and secure. Turns out I am really a terrible judge of character.

The second problem dovetails nicely into my shitty ability to judge people. I thought I was with someone who wouldn’t leave. I thought I was with someone who would stay by my side. I was terribly wrong.

“Find someone who you are so comfortable with and they just stay and you’re like they’re not going anywhere… You can exhale and relax with someone like that.”

There is peace in being with a person who brings you that security. Imagine the feeling of being with someone who makes you feel like they’ll never quit on you.

Those are the inspirational points she has scrolled across her TikTok.

Sorry, Darlene, but I thought I had that. I thought I had that peace. He made me feel like he would never quit on me. Until the day he did.

You know, I never thought Jerry Lee would cheat on me but I did sometimes question whether or not he would leave me. I dreamt many times that he left me before it actually happened.

With Matt I never dreamed he would leave me. I knew his story and how he and his wife had gone to a VanHalen concert and they were never apart after that. He put up with over 12 years of shit from her- drinking, smoking behind his back, cheating, telling others he was abusive and controlling, endangering his children. I thought to myself, “Here is a man who will never walk away. He will never quit on me. When he falls in love he remains in love.” Hell, he’d still be with his wife if she hadn’t left him.

But apparently me not decorating a fucking Christmas float and playing on my phone too much was a burden too heavy to carry.

While I enjoy the tips to help me get over him and I delight in her unbridled optimism that he will miss me, too, I don’t see myself ever getting into another relationship. I am clearly not good at them.

If I was so completely fooled this time despite all the vetting how can I ever expect to get it right?

And I don’t want to settle. I don’t want to be with some boring, bland guy just for the sake of saying I have someone. I don’t want to have bad sex for the rest of my life. I don’t want to be bored out of my fucking mind. I don’t want to have to change who I am. I want what I thought I had with Matt. Only next time I want to have it with someone who isn’t a fucking liar.