Meandering Mind - Eva Dillner [36]
It's time to say all the things I didn't say, that I should have said way back when. I was so naive then, had no idea how to make sure my needs got met. On the surface you were such a perfect catch. You were a gentleman, very good looking, you took me out to dinners and football games, to concerts and church outings and included me in your family get togethers. What was there to complain about?
Good question. Partly it's about my needs, partly it's about underlying values, and most of all it's about beliefs of what life is all about. I don't know how to start this, where to begin, how to nail down the real issue. I'll start at the end, when I brought up my sexual needs, and you simply walked off. That hurt, excruciatingly. I felt rejected at the core of my being. I felt I had no right to have needs. I felt my wishes weren't important. I felt like a monster. I felt betrayed. I felt sad and angry and I felt guilty. I felt that my sexual needs were perverse, that there was something inherently bad with my bodily lusts, that I wouldn't fit in somehow. I felt I wasn't marriage material. I felt abandoned.
I have experienced great difficulty in sharing my inner self with another, for fear they will do what you did – simply get up and leave. I have been so afraid of being left, that I have put up with some really awful behavior. I never wanted to be alone, but that is what I am. I haven't known how deep my pain has been. I haven't understood how deeply you hurt me. To simply leave, no discussion, no dialogue, to just get up and walk out when I show you my desires, that really hurt. I am most afraid of revealing the inner sanctity, the inner space that is tender and vulnerable for fear that the next man will do the same, just get up and leave.
I know I will get hurt again, that is part of the earth plane. But I would like to be able to have a dialogue, to be able to explore our viewpoints, to understand each other. Because at the bottom of it all, that is what we didn't do. We never spent time trying to understand where the other one was coming from, or discussing what we wanted out of life, if we were to spend it together. It feels as if when I did surface the discussion, I was rejected outright. In a way your message to me was if I had known this from the start I never would have spent time with you. I felt worthless and rejected.
And you know what? I would find it hard to believe that you and your wife have only made love when you made babies. I would hazard to guess you have discovered your ideals were not upholdable after all. That reality put sex in a much different light for you. But I guess I will never know. And I suppose it's not important for me to find out, I just tend to be curious about everything.
I have experienced guilt and a feeling of not being able to breathe, I gasp for air as I try to comprehend what you were saying. I felt like your views would suffocate me. And of course they would have if we'd stayed together. I hope to God I have finally cleared out the cobwebs and totally cleaned house as far as our relationship is concerned. I want to forgive you for the pain you have caused me and I hope you have forgiven me as well. Because I do understand it couldn't have been easy for you either, to be faced with me who so not fit into your ideal of how a woman should be. Must have been quite a shock to you.
All my best/Eva
PS – I might as well stamp reject on my forehead. That is how I feel. Like a reject. It certainly has played out that way in my life. And I've set myself up to be rejected time and time again. At least I have found the cause and can heal it, but it sure hurts. I find myself astounded at the depth of the pain and how this has been lurking there for so many years. I have dug and dug in therapy. Perhaps I am scraping bottom – at long last!
PS #2 – You know, it's