enough

It has been over a month now since Ash and I got a place of our own, leaving Dan and Livi in the old apartment. It has been a stretch. When I left, Dan and I were planning to re-evaluate when the old lease is up April 30, our 18th wedding anniversary. We were still planning to go to therapy and see if we could find a way to be on the same team again. Less than a week after I moved out, Dan told me he would not be joining me for therapy. He said it wasn't going to help.

I really like our new place, but from an emotional standpoint, it's been a real mixed bag. The ambient stress level is so much lower for me now that Dan and I are not in the same place, I feel good about coming home in a way that I hadn't even realized I was missing. I miss my Dan. Not the guy who is there now, but the guy who promised not to let me drown the first week after he moved into my apartment when I was stressing about bills. The seahorse (stay-at-home-dad) who was the primary caregiver to our two three-year-old's so that they didn't have to go to daycare. The man who supported me in such a way that when things got rough, calling Daddy was no longer my first course of action. He was my partner and my equal. His strengths countered my weaknesses and vice versa. We were a well balanced team. We went through so much together, things that most people never deal with. I thought we were invulnerable. Maybe that was part of the problem.

The parallels between losing my Daddy to Alzheimer's and losing my Dan to the new guy are astonishing. I feel like they were both replaced with people I didn't know, wearing the skins of the men I had loved. Daddy began treating Momma in ways that he would not have allowed anyone else to treat her. My Dan used to remind me that it was ok to help people, but not to let them take advantage of me. He watched my back. This new guy took advantage of any weakness he saw,  rather than bolstering me. He became the guy that my Dan protected me from. My Dan used to help protect me from myself, but the new guy was more than ready to use me for all I was worth. 

Daddy became a shell of the man he used to be. Every now and again, he would say something or do something that showed you who he used to be, but he didn't really understand what it meant anymore. It hurt to react to something he said that meant something to me, knowing that it didn't mean anything to him anymore. I love you's from one of the two people who taught me the meaning of that phrase became painful. In much the same way, this Dan would still say the right things sometimes, but the intent was not there. It's like he was just saying things by habit, but there was no meaning or follow through. Within a five minute conversation he might tell me he was proud of me for being healthier and then suggest we go get donuts or ice cream. He only suggested eating out when I was already emotionally drained and most vulnerable to making those bad decisions. It got to the point that the nice things he said were so contrary to the actions he was taking, that they became as painful as an I love you from Daddy. 

Even before I started my one-eighty, I can see the truth that he had no longer considered me his partner. All that we'd been through, all we had worked on, everything we had built, no longer seemed to matter. It was such a frog in the stew pot situation that I can't say when it started, but the cat situation made it clear that things had definitely changed.

For as long as we have been together, Dan has wanted a cat. I have never wanted a cat. I'm just not a cat person. I've never been around them and I don't understand them. But the biggest reason I really objected to having a cat is that Daddy was super allergic to them. I didn't ever want something in my house to make it hard for him to be comfortable. So when a friend had found some kittens that were being given away, I told Dan I would be ok with it if he got one because I knew Daddy was not ever coming to visit again. Man, all the layers of pain that come with that simple sentence. 

*take a deep breath* 

*do it again*

*and again* 

I felt like I lost my husband to a cat. I did not. My Dan had already left me. It just took the cat to show me how little my wellbeing mattered to him. And to me. We were both willing to sacrifice both my mental and physical health for a cat. That cat made him happy. His happiness mattered to me more than I did. My Dan didn't let me sacrifice myself for others like that. But this new guy, couldn't care less. Especially not when my sacrifice was for his benefit. 

DJ got so mad at us both for prioritizing Dan's happiness over my wellbeing. I don't know if I could have ever asked Dan to give up the cat. I do not believe Dan would have ever suggested getting rid of the cat. I am so lucky to have a friend who would stand up to both me and Dan. But how sad is it, that my best friend had to fight against the one guy who promised to fight for me? And is that better or worse than DJ having to fight against me, for me? Not that it really fucking matters, I guess. 

What does matter? Somebody has to fight for me. Why? Because I am worth it. Because I deserve it. Because I am more important than a stupid cat. And who needs to fight for me? I do. I need to fight for me. I need to defend me and protect me. I suck at it. It is hard for me to want to protect myself. It is hard for me to remember the truth that I deserve to feel safe and loved. 

My Dan left me a long time ago. I can't live with this new guy. I cannot feel mentally safe around him. So even on the days when my asshole brain starts telling me that I can't do this on my own and I was better off with him, I have to remind myself that removal of that constant stress was a big deal. I have to remind myself that I should not have to feel the constant need to defend myself. I have to remind myself that this new guy and this eeka brain, neither of them gets to hurt me anymore. Maybe, if I keep telling myself that I deserve better, I will actually start to believe it. I want to hope that is true, but hope is scary. For now, I will keep telling myself that I made the right decision, that being lonely is better than being under fire, and that nobody deserves to feel used like that. For now, that will have to be enough.