PoeticaL
cluttering the net since 2001

the one where I admit I'm wrong

Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2006
For 12 years I used to get phone calls about my ex. Sometimes from his boss, sometimes from someone that just wanted to tell me he owed them money. People that just met him loved him but then he crossed so many people that they would tell me about it as if I were to somehow blame. I used to feel so ashamed and embarrassed of him often. It was something I hated because people that did not know him or us or me would think he was so wonderful because he poured a cup of coffee for them, but in a heartbeat he would screw that same person over in any way that he could and then somehow he was no longer great and I was to blame. This used to piss me off because so often I wanted to tell people that he was not right in the head and that you couldn�t trust him. But I never did because he was my husband at the time and that too made me feel like a twit for being with someone that I knew had issues. It was a clusterfuck of back and forth about right and wrong. I knew he was wrong but I supported his wrong rather than admit to people that he was wrong because that made me feel wrong all over. I felt responsible for his actions even though I had shit nothing to do with them. It was an ongoing hell within. I wanted to warn people not to trust him because he dicked people over all the time. I wanted to protect them somehow. But in the end I never did. And if I admitted to anyone that he had a criminal history they would then tell me things like �Ohh I�m so glad you told me, I won�t bring my purse to your house anymore.� So small minded because he wasn�t going to steal someone�s small time purse and then I ended up feeling like no one wanted to be around me if I admitted to what he was. It was a mess, a long and tired and drawn out emotional mess for me. He is a sociopath and I never knew it or identified it until I was away from him and no longer influenced by constant confusion about reality and his lies.

I am extremely hard on Rick sometimes. I think because of my past experiences I am fearful that one day I�ll wake up to again realize that I don�t even know the person I married. I fear this because it happened to me before. I didn�t wake up to find that I didn�t know my ex but rather that I never had and he was one balled up pack of lies rather than a real person with a soul and consequential feelings. He was a user. When he split he flat told me to find someone to use. That�s what he�s doing with his new wife�he is the user and she is the stupid one being used. She doesn�t know yet or recognize because she�s in the dim light of the newness and reality has not set in. It will. I can�t forewarn her because sociopath�s keep their victims separated so they can continue on doing and using people as they wish. If she heard things and believed them he could no longer get away with his ways. So she fears me and avoids me and leaves places if I am there. It�s all rather sad on one hand but I think one day she will get her just retribution from me in the very form of his actions. This is quite funny in the end. If you�ve never known a sociopath person you will not understand.

I have a passage from a book taped to my work wall and I read it at least once a week (posted below my entry) to remind myself that not all people are wicked the way my ex was to me. That he is indeed not to blame but rather a product of his mental disorder. He is a sociopath.

Having been with a sociopath has probably left residual damage on my ways of thinking. I am the master monitor. I monitor Rick as though I am his parole officer. This is crap and it�s wrong on my part. I watch him like a hawk as if I�m going to see the slightest movement into the wrong direction and snatch him back to the right. This is so wrong on my part and I�m slowly realizing it.

Rick went out last night with a friend of his, Tom. Tom seemed nice. Tom turned out to be not so smart and not so nice. You don�t bail on friends. Tom is a bad friend. (doesn�t this sound very much like a Dick and Jane book?...sorry �bout that) Anyway, someone named KC or perhaps Casey�called me. He told me that Rick was with him and sleeping off his drunked�ness. Now mind you I don�t like when he drinks because I worry but he rarely even goes out and yet I�m like that fucking hawk�.remember? I worry like something bad is going to twist up my world. This is not due to Rick�s behavior but rather because of his husband department predecessor. I swear this is all confusing but it makes sense in my own head very much so.

Casey (or Kasey or KC) called and he said nice things to me about Rick. He told me Rick�s a great worker at work and gives his 110% every day. He told me he�d never leave his friend (because he considers Rick a great one) stranded like TOM the turkey did. I swear I can�t make sense of it in words but something about this conversation with Casey was transforming and Rick should probably pay him for therapy or some such crazy thing but I walked away bursting with pride about who and what Rick is.

Rick is that guy who cares deeply for his family, his friends and his wife. She�s one lucky girl. He�s someone that I can and do feel proud about. And yet I beat him up all the time, always having this expectation that the hammer is going to fall and surely he will fuck up. And even his fuck up�s (which are so minor they�re laughable�..) aren�t worth even measuring. I swear I have had an epiphany about my relationship with my husband.

He really is the bomb ass diggity and I�m one crazy ass bitch. Truly. I can admit it. He gives me everything I ever ask for, he doesn�t walk around town with his cock out for sale to the ho�s�he goes to work every single day and he is reliable and good�like your favorite pair of jeans. But I have these exasperating expectations that are unrealistic at best. Yes, I wish he cleaned up after himself and did his laundry more frequently and and and I wish being a wife was easy and that I was good at it�perhaps even great. I can only say I love him and it makes my entire being swell with pride because people can and do talk highly of him and that�s absolutely priceless in my book. I love the way he doesn�t put up with my bitchy ways. If I tell him off over the phone or I go hawk-like on his ass he simply�.hangs up. This puts me in my place and it makes me respect him so much. I doubt he sees what I feel because what comes out of my mouth is rarely what is in my heart. It�s as if by admitting these things daily I am being weak or vulnerable. This is so dumb ass lame of me. I need to change my ways because I love that boy.

I need to get my soul and my guts de-hawked. I really do because I�m a lucky girl these days. I praise the heck out of him to other people but unfortunately he�s never around to hear it or know it. I need to go out on a limb and show him�with actions and words, etc. how I feel without being so scared to just let go of all my fears. Rick is not the past�..that past was bad and ugly and scary. He is the now...the blessed now. I'm very lucky�.

The passage reads� �For their own reasons, sociopaths sometimes marry, but they never marry for love. They cannot fall genuinely in love, not with their spouses, their children, or even a pet. Clinicans and researchers have remarked that where the higher emotions are concerned, sociopaths can �know the words but not the music.� They must learn to appear emotional as you and I would learn a second language, which is to say, by observation, imitation and practice. And just as you or I, with practice, might become fluent in another language, so an intelligent sociopath may become convincingly fluent in �conversational emotion.� In fact, this would seem to be only a mildly challenging intellectual task, quite a lot easier than learning French or Chinese. Any person who can observe human actions even superficially, or who can read novels and watch old movies, can learn to act romantic or interested or softhearted. Virtually anyone can learn to say �I love you,� or appear to be smitten and say the words, �Oh my! What a cute puppy!� But not all human beings are capable of experiencing the emotion implied by the behavior. Sociopaths never do.� � Martha Stout

12:50 p.m. ::
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