Move On

I've been through this whole break up process, so I should be used to the pain by now. I am at the point of acceptance with my last marriage. It's not a completely comfortable place, but it is definitely a place of accepting what happened for what happened. I wish I were at that point for this relationship. I wish I didn't have to go through all the stuff I know I will have to go through in order to move on.

I wonder when I will reach the point where seeing his town on the weather map will not only not make me wince, but will no longer cause me to react. I wonder when I will stop getting stuck thinking about the good parts of our relationship, and remember there were plenty of reasons for me NOT to want to stay in the relationship, if only I had had the guts to break up.

And that brings me to an aha! moment. I had mentioned to him, more than once, something that he did that made me unhappy, and I nearly left, but he convinced me to stay. And yet, if I mentioned this now, he would have said that he was helping me by breaking up when he did. What I realized he was doing was taking control – if he could be the one breaking up, he had control, just as he did for so many parts of our relationship (something I chafed against). I mean, what else can you say about someone who continuously asked where I wanted to eat, and then when I told him would disapprove of my choice and make the choice himself. The best was when he asked me what I wanted – I said "hamburgers" and he took me to a Chinese restaurant.

So, I can go on and on about his control issues (which, undoubtedly, came out of childhood where he had no say or control of his life). But I want to let go of this and move on. When will this happen? When can I finally laugh at all this, or at the very least see how crazy this relationship was?

One day, I know. One day.