I haven't been to therapy in over a month.  First due to the holidays (the days my appointments are usually on inconveniently fell on both holidays two weeks in a row), and then due to the busy season at work and working as much overtime as I could in hopes of making a little extra money.  But one of the last sessions I had with my therapist, she said something to me.  Something she really had no extensive knowledge to speak on, and it was pure conjecture...and for all intents and purposes, I know she is most likely incorrect.

However.

It's the "most likely" part, and not the "fully without a doubt" part, that sparked something in me.  Something I didn't need to spark, because I can't live with it.  I can't hold my breath, can't wish she's correct, can't hope against hope that there might actually be a little bit of hope.

And that has made these past few weeks significantly worse.  Because before I wasn't thinking of him as often.  I hadn't necessarily moved on, but I wasn't as obsessive as I had been.  But her statement (and I'm sure she meant nothing by it) caused regression.  He is back on my mind every day.  I have had multiple dreams about him.  I'd say he's back in my heart, but truthfully, he never left.

I don't think I'm lonely.

I remember being 19, and feeling so alone and lonely, that I would cry at night in desperation.  Desperate to find "the one," because I just wanted someone to love me for me.  To want me, desire me.  It was around that time I read a book in the DTS I was doing with YWAM, where my perspective changed, and after reading that book, and my eyes being opened, that the extreme loneliness I felt previously was gone.

I didn't feel lonely for years after that.  I was content being alone; I didn't have any pressing desire to be in a relationship, to find "my person," or anything like that.  In fact, I was very anti-relationship, because people in my life that I loved and was previously close to, got in relationships, and I was left behind because I didn't matter anymore, only the person they were dating did.  And over my dead body did I want to become that person to the people in my life that I cared about.

Through a progression of situations and conversations with one of my best friends and other life things, I found myself trying out dating for the first time in my mid-20s.  I don't think my ventures were due to feeling lonely, but more so exploring and seeing what dating was about.  There were a couple of guys where things happened, but not really, and I was okay with nothing happening with them.  This was also around the time I moved away from my home town, out of what was a toxic environment at the time, and moving to someplace with a much bigger population.  And definitely not as many weird people.  (Yes, all the people in my small home town are weird, anyone who visits there can clearly see that.  I'm weird too.  It's whatever.)

After moving and finding work and building work friendships with my coworkers, that's when I met the man that I eventually married.  A man who, at the time, made me feel safe.  Made me feel seen.  Made me feel desired.  All of that changed, of course.  But that's not the point.

It was only after being married when the loneliness hit.  The one relationship where someone should never have to suffer in that way, and I never felt more lonely or alone in my life.  (Maybe my childhood is a contender, but I wasn't as aware of my feelings in my childhood - from what I can remember of it at least - so that's hard to say/compare.)  Or I guess I should say, never in my adult life had I felt more lonely or alone.

Being married to someone, feeling things deeply, trying desperately to connect with that person, making bids of connection, convincing myself I needed to stay vulnerable and not shut down in hopes of salvaging the relationship and marriage, repeatedly trying to communicate how I felt, trying to communicate better in general, wanting to get help from someone who could counsel us on how to see each other and communicate better and do better and what effort needed to be put in...all these things, wanting to get over the struggles and the hard times, the "for worse" times, because I knew it was just a season, knew it could get better if we both put in the work...and all of it failing, because the other half that made me one whole, didn't want to change.  Didn't want to put in the work.  Didn't want to make the effort that any relationship will require at some point in the times when things are hard.

The rejection I felt, the clear disgust and lack of desire for me as a person (as a woman), the fact that my existence and who I am wasn't wanted...not having to live with that now is at least a change of pace.  Not that I liked myself, either, but at least one of us could escape me, I suppose.

The point of all of this, is that when I was married, I felt lonely.  The opposite of what one should feel in marriage.  (We were never a team, though, so it truly shouldn't be a surprise.)  And now, no longer being married, I am alone, but I don't feel lonely.

I am still mostly convinced I only had one marriage in me.  There are thoughts and speculations in my head that I will not post publicly about this.  But in the email he sent to me a couple of years ago (dear God, how can it have already been a couple years ago), I responded and told him he has my heart.  And it was true.  And it still is.  Just because he broke his vows, betrayed me on one of the deepest possible levels a person can be betrayed, that did not make my love for him go away or lessen.  I can't show him my love, I cannot actively love him in the ways I did before, but I can still love him from a distance.  Not that that means much...and I'm sure it doesn't matter to him and he doesn't care at all, but if he ever needs assurance that at least one person out in the world has seen him and loved him regardless of anything bad he has done, he should know that person is me.  But I know that doesn't mean anything to him, and I cannot tell him or remind him of that fact.

But there is another part of me that just wants to not feel all this pain anymore.  The fact that he was able to move on to someone else so quickly, and who knows if it's still that same girl, or how many other girls have come along, but - like so much in my life (and I don't want to seem like I'm harping on this, but goddamn it feels so uncontrollable) - it is so unfair.  Unfair that he walked away willingly, voluntarily, and wasn't any worse for wear.  His life didn't change much after abandoning me, because I didn't have that much of an impact when I was in his life.  And it was "his" life, because it certainly wasn't "ours," it wasn't a shared life, because a real marriage is when the two of you become one; you are a team, you consult each other, you make decisions together, because everything that happens impacts the both of you.

There's that saying that to get over someone you need to get under someone else.  I am not that kind of person.  I didn't sleep around before (even with the high sex drive that I have), and I certainly am not going to start now.  But it seems like the only way to move on is to have someone else to think about, obsess over, want to be with.

But is that selfish?  Is that a real desire that I have - to be with someone, share my life with them, build a life together?  Is that a good enough reason to pursue a relationship with someone?  But that also begs the question, how could the next person who comes along (if anyone actually does, which is a stretch, let me tell you) be anything but a rebound?  Because in thinking about it, it seems inevitable that whoever is the unlucky person to be next in line after what should have been a lifetime relationship imploding, that person can only serve the purpose of getting over the previous person.  It doesn't seem like there's any realistic or possible way to move on unless there's some poor person who is the scapegoat of the first step of forgetting the previous person.  And call me crazy, but I don't want to have anyone deal with that or experience that unfortunate placeholder.  I don't want to put anyone through that, because that isn't fair.  So that feels like even more reason to not seek anything out.

My therapist said once "when we aren't spoon fed love, we learn to accept it from the edge of knives."  I don't think she came up with that on her own (a quick internet search tells me it's not her original thought), but the point remains the same.  I was not fed the love and attention I needed growing up.  What all children need.  And after a lifetime of being starved of the love and attention I needed, getting even just a few drops of attention and what seemed like love (at first), that felt...life changing.  It's why I say love makes people bloom.  Because at first, when I felt loved and desired by the man who used to be my husband, the world felt richer and more alive.  I was doing better mentally and emotionally.  I was more creative in ways I hadn't been creative before, felt more inspired, wrote some of my best things when I felt loved.  People who are truly loved, and loved well, will bloom.  (This is also how I know I failed in loving him well, because he did not bloom.)

I have lived over 30 years at this point not being loved well.  Not getting what I need or even desire out of relationships.  (Okay, that's partially untrue.  When one of my best friends and I lived in the same town, that friendship brought me a lot of comfort and live and love and I miss her so much.)  So what do I need now?

In a prior therapy session, I mentioned to my therapist what I did for my prior husband's birthday on the last one we spent together.  How I built him a fort in our living room, because he never got to experience that joy as a kid.  I made him a key lime cheesecake, which was one of his favourite desserts.  I bought him 13 sunflowers, because 13 is his favourite number, and sunflowers are one of his favourite flowers.  She commented "how well you were able to love him when your own cup was empty.  I wonder how much more you will be able to love someone when you find your cup full."  And she continued on saying how that may not necessarily happen in finding someone else to share my life with, but could happen in finding fulfillment in friendships and community.

I think I've mentioned it before, but I just remember feeling so desperate at times as a teen (don't remember my younger years as much, so I can't speak on that) to just feel loved and heard and seen.  Feeling like I had all this love in me that wanted to get out, that I wanted to love my family with all that love I had, but not feeling like I was accepted, so my love wouldn't be accepted.  So that love was shoved away, hidden and buried, occasionally able to come out and be given to others in my life (friends), but probably seen as intense and obsessive and I know there were a handful of times it came across as having a crush, because apparently paying close attention to people and their likes and dislikes and trying to make them feel seen is mistaken for liking them more than a friend.

Being married, I thought was my chance to pour out all the love I had been saving and hiding away for my whole life.  I thought I could be who I was, not having to hide anything, put on masks and pretend like things are okay when they aren't, reveal the less than appealing sides of me, and be truly seen, and still be loved in spite of who I was.  I was wrong.  I was seen and was criticised for it, told he didn't like being around me when I was sad (which is all the time), told he didn't like having sex with me because I'm me.  The love I tried to pour into him was...well, I don't know what it was.  I don't know if it wasn't accepted, or wasn't appreciated, wasn't welcome...but what the Bible teaches as putting your spouse first, laying aside your own desires and needs to meet theirs, the world takes and calls it "codependency."  That isn't to say codependency exists, but my attempts to love and sacrifice and support were seen as codependent and not for what they were.  Which, I suppose, what else could you expect from someone who perceives the world from a worldly view and has no idea what Love actually is or looks like?  (Another way I failed him, because I did not provide a good example of what Love looks like.)

The point of all of this, is trying to determine if I'm lonely or not.  I don't think I am, because I'm not actively going out looking for friends or company or companionship.  And as high as my libido might be, I am not about to go looking for someone to fuck, because the last time I had sex I was married and I cried afterwards on account of feeling nothing, and I'm not about to be intimate and vulnerable in that way with someone who isn't committed to me for life (much less risk pregnancy and other terrible things that can happen from sex).

I at least have therapy tomorrow.  Who knows if we'll get around to this topic/question, what with having a lot to process from not going for the past month.  But I can at least contemplate it on my own until we get around to discussing it.  Maybe I am lonely, but am in denial.  It could be that I am and I don't see it for some reason.  I'm hoping my therapist will know what questions to ask to help me determine if I'm kidding myself or if I'm truly content without anyone.

Maybe I'm only lonely for a specific person.

I guess we'll see.

 I told my therapist in my last appointment with her, that I never hated being a woman more than when I was married.

In the last phone call I had with my former spouse, he told me about his take on "feminine" and "masculine energy."  And then he proceeded to tell me about how I came across as masculine.  When I pressed for examples, he couldn't provide anything specific, just how in the last few months we were together (before he tore my world apart and turned it upside-down), I came across as "masculine" because of all the arguing that happened between us.

My takeaway from that is that apparently it's not "feminine" to argue or have opinions.  That the modern or new age way of thinking of feminine is that a female is demure, is meek, she does everything expected of her by her man (without him needing to communicate what that is), she doesn't have any opinions of her own, and no personality because she will blend in and mesh with him so perfectly, it's like she's an extension of who he is.

I remember telling him that I tried to be feminine with him.  He told me with the right person, I wouldn't have to try; it would come naturally.  Like usual, I worded what I meant poorly.  I don't have to "try" to be feminine; it's that I allowed myself to be feminine around him.  

To me, being feminine is an extremely vulnerable thing.  It means feeling deeply (an unfortunate side affect of being me), it means being soft, it means being vulnerable and open and all walls are down.  I allowed myself to be that way for him - with him - because I thought he was safe.

I was wrong.  I allowed myself to feel with him when I was first with him, because I thought he was worth feeling things for.  But over the course of time, he proved that he wasn't safe.  When I felt things deeply, when I tried to express how I was feeling, when I attempted to communicate and tell him where I was coming from with my perspective, it was ignored or written off.  He told me thinks like "you're being too sensitive" or "you're overreacting."  And then he would try to argue that how I felt mattered to him, but when I attempted to tell him how I was feeling, it was ignored every. single. time.

In that same conversation, he told me with the right person I wouldn't have to try to be feminine.  (Again, poor wording on my end caused the misunderstanding, but it doesn't matter now.)

With the "right" person, I can be feminine.  Because that person will be both emotionally competent and intelligent, and he will understand that me being "feminine" (i.e. soft, vulnerable, feeling emotions) will be something to protect and value, as well as encourage me to feel those things.

My former spouse is not that way.  He did not encourage my femininity, he was not emotionally intelligent to be able to understand my feelings or the way I was.  Emotions and what they are, are very limited to him.  Like thinking I will be angry for him asking how I am, when it's not anger.  Not at all.  It's indignation, and feeling misunderstood, because he was the one who made the choice to walk out and betray me and the vows he made, so he lost all rights to be able to ask how I am and find out anything about my life.

Unfortunately for me, I still love and care about him.  But as my therapist put it, "you didn't sign away your love when you signed the divorce papers." 

It feels like it has been too long, but not long enough.  I still feel like I am living a nightmare I can't wake up from.  That he was able to walk away free and happy and without burden, and I have been left behind, torn apart, a shadow of my former self, and forever unwanted.  How typical that he can walk away happy and without consequence, and I am left picking up the pieces, never to be the same.

That's the story of my life, though.  Suffering for the actions and decisions of other people, because they are not the ones impacted.

I hate that I still love him.  I hate that I still care.  I hate that I still think about him daily, when he so quickly moved on and doesn't think twice about me.

I hate that I gave my heart to someone who didn't treasure it, and who threw it away when it didn't serve him anymore.

I hate everything.

 There's been a phrase, or a kind of concept, that I've heard over the past few years.  The idea of parenting your inner child.  Letting that part of you that didn't get things it needed, or maybe was mistreated, or neglected, or whatever the case may be, feel seen and heard and soothe it, give it what it needs, help it to heal.  On one hand, it sounds like new-age, hippie-dippy shit that is stupid.  But on the other hand...I am beginning to understand it.

I was driving this morning, going no place of consequence for a short errand.  Because my brain is often my enemy, of course it was thinking about things too deep for what wasn't, but basically was, first thing in the morning.  I started thinking about the fact that I really do, deeply and strongly, hate myself.  I have been aware of this for years.  I became consciously aware of it back in 2019 shortly after I got married, and in all honesty, it was probably being with my now former husband that made me realise that I legitimately hated myself.  Yes, he was the catalyst for the realisation (considering how critical he was of me, how me just being myself wasn't enough, etc.), but I'm pretty sure the hatred was there before he came along.  It was just his behaviour and treatment of me that was enough to make me realise it.

But I digress.  If this deep self hatred existed before him, where did it come from?  I've struggled with depression for over half my life at this point.  Depression has been called self-hatred, and/or anger against the self.  You internalize the anger, because it wasn't safe to feel that growing up, so you criticise and blame yourself unrealistically, which turns into depression/self-hatred.

And that's when it clicked for me.  Of course I hate myself.  I grew up not feeling wanted or loved by my family (there is a lot of nuance to this; I know my parents did their best, but it doesn't take away the fact emotional needs that I had - and probably all of my siblings had - were not met).  Not feeling loved or wanted or like I mattered at all taught me to think about myself that same way. 
And as we know from a psychological standpoint, we gravitate towards that which is familiar.  Which honestly confuses my brain, because at the beginning, he was attentive and sweet.  Yes, he was very controlling and insecure and critical as well, but there was some positive attention there (the bad attention far outweighed the good, but I wasn't as knowledgeable back then as I am now to know to pay attention to that and take it for what it was - toxic).  In a lot of ways, he was like my dad.  There were some things he paid attention to, attention he gave me, but he was very, very critical.  It was familiar, because it's what I had been accustomed to my whole life.

(Side note: paying attention to, knowing, and understanding your family of origin when it comes to family dynamics and relationships is incredibly important.  I cannot emphasize this enough.  Know where you come from, understand how that impacts your relationships, and use that to do better, be better, and change those patterns so they don't continue should you ever be in a romantic relationship and/or married.)

My self hatred started when I was a child.  When I had big feelings, and got punished for them, rather than being taught how to manage them.  So eventually I learned to shut off all feelings.  It stopped me from getting in trouble, which stopped the negative attention I always got...
It makes sense.  Getting in trouble for feeling things, being ignored except when I was getting in trouble, not feeling like I was wanted or valued or loved as a child...realising this when I was driving my short drive made me sad.  I try not to cry these days, but I found myself tearing up over this.  Being sad for the little girl Aimee, who so desperately needed to feel like her family wanted her, like she mattered to them, but not getting it.  She was hurt for so long; she is still hurt.  She never got what she needed, which was affection and positive attention, and knowing that how she felt mattered to the people who claimed they loved her.

It all feels impossible.  And, quite frankly, unfair.  That the damage done to me (albeit unintentionally) was done by others, but now I'm the one suffering and the one responsible for fixing it.  How do I parent the child part of me?  How do I tell her that she is loved and valued and wanted, when even I don't feel that way about myself?

Self hatred started in my childhood, but it continued into adulthood and into marriage, because the man who claimed to loved me criticised me often enough to where on a subconscious level I learned that I was not enough for him and he didn't love me for me, even though I never once hid from him who I was, and that sadness was part of my existence.  Then, because he abandoned me rather than doing the right thing, keeping his vows and growing and changing and doing his part in the marriage, it reaffirmed every single thing I grew up experiencing and knowing: I am not enough.  I am not wanted.  No matter if people tell me they love me, they don't, despite them saying otherwise.  And people will never, ever, ever be there for me.  

I haven't come to some miraculous discovery and am now healed and love myself.  Especially considering all of this was just realised this morning.  But my heart hurts for the little girl that I was, who was simply starving for love, for affection, for wanting to know that her family wanted her...and never got those things.

Maybe someday she will heal from that.  Maybe even someday, I won't hate myself anymore.  That day isn't today, but at least the awareness is a start.

 So often these days I feel as though I am going mad.

Going mad with what?
With pain.  With grief.  With the inability to understand what has happened to my life.

It's been over two years.
TWO. FUCKING. YEARS. since he told me he wanted to move to a new place alone, without me, to treat our time apart like a deployment, because of course that's what you fucking do in a marriage.

Of course that isn't what you do.  But how would he know that?  He never saw an example of a healthy marriage.  He never saw or experienced what real Love is.  You can't know what you don't know.  And he didn't know a lot when it came to relationships.

I miss him, like the idiot that I am.  Like a fool, because no matter how often he hurt me emotionally, no matter how often I felt dismissed or undesired by him, I still loved him.  Unconditionally.  (I still do.)  He will always be loved, by my family, by me.

In these times, I also remember the bad.  Most of it was bad.  Why wouldn't it be?  He didn't pay attention to the relationship, to the marriage, to me.  He told me he didn't like being around me when I was sad, which was the baseline of my existence.  Something I never hid from him.  Even worse, he told me (shortly, before he deployed, so I lived with that knowledge the entire time he was gone) that he didn't like having sex with me because I was me.

...and you wonder why I want to hide who I am completely from everyone new that I meet from now on.

I don't understand.  I don't know if I will ever be able to truly understand or comprehend what is now my reality.  Because to me, if someone gives their vow, that's it.  End of story.  You keep it or you die.

But he gave his vow.  He said for better or for worse, until death do us part.  But he never truly meant it, because when things were worse, when he wasn't doing well (completely ignoring how I was doing), he quit.  He gave up.  He showed his true colours.

Colours that were there the whole time.  That were evident, even from when we were dating.  But colours I never noticed, because of my lack of experience with dating, because of my blind trust that he meant what he said, because I ignored how he lived and his actions and how he treated me, and paid more attention to his words, which ended up being completely worthless.

My world has turned upside-down and inside out.  It has been that way ever since he confirmed he wanted to move to a new city alone.  And even now, after all this time of being separated, and now no longer being married, I still cannot comprehend or understand it or make sense of it.

It's like my brain refuses to accept what is right in front of my face.
That even though reality is showing me he was a coward, he quit, he gave up, he was a liar, that somewhere in there, those things are not true.
That this is a bad dream I will someday wake up from, and the man who told me he cared about me when he didn't really care for anyone, will still be by my side, will love me in all the right ways, will show me that he meant what he said.

Except that's not true.

What is true is that I meant very little to him.
For all his talk of saying he wouldn't know what he would do if he lost me, he walked away pretty damn easily and quickly.
For all the times he asked me "just give me a little more time" and when I asked "what for?" and he couldn't give me an answer, I still gave him time.  Believing, somehow, hoping against hope, against history that repeated itself, that maybe this time things would change.
For everything he said to me about me being the love of his life, about how he loved me, and wanted me, that all of that turned out to be lies.

Even after we separated, even after the divorce was finalized, he was still lying to me.
In the random times he contact me, he probably still is lying.
Because if history has proven anything, he can say all the words he wants to say, but I should know better by now.  Nothing he says is worth trusting.  Nothing.

How he wanted a divorce because he realized he wanted to be alone?
That was a lie.
How the girl he was talking to at work was "just someone to talk to?"
That was a lie.
Every. Single. Thing. with him has been a lie.

I am an idiot for having ever believed him.
EVER.

And I am not going to make that mistake with him ever again.
Not with him.  Not with anyone else.

No one is trustworthy.
No one tells the truth.

And his actions have only proven to me what I have known my entire life.
I am not wanted.
My love is not enough.
I am not enough.

I have finally learned my lesson.

 I can't stop thinking about him.

I am an idiot.

I thought I was doing better.  Being back home in California, back in February, helped, even though it was because of the death of someone so dearly loved.  But I was able to go to places that were familiar, that I loved, that were mine.

And then in March, things started to go downhill.  I started thinking about him on a daily basis again (when I had started to go for a few days at a time of not thinking about him).  But out of nowhere... wham.

The body keeps the score, right?  March marked two years of being in this fucking state I never wanted to actually live in.  March marked two years of being separated from the person who was supposed to be my person.  Additionally, going back to the gym, a place where I may not have had personal ties WITH him physically, but certainly spent every waking moment and thought on him when I was there in the past, because everything was so raw and fresh and unbearable...that those things are tied there, too.

And now it's June, but this downward slump hasn't stopped.  Seeing a person I love marry someone who loves her and loves her so well she is secure in that love and doesn't have to question it, made me happy for her, but just reminded me of how I was never secure in his love.  I think deep down I always knew he would eventually abandon me...I just wish he would have done it sooner.

If someone tells you you deserve someone better, maybe believe them if they don't put in the work and effort to become the person you think they deserve.  Because eventually they will abandon you, betray you, destroy your world, cause unspeakable trauma, and make you wish you had the courage to not be alive anymore.

Because the one person who was suppose to be your person, the person who made vows for better or worse, that you wouldn't part until death, the person who wrote you and said they chose you now, and always and forever, ended up being a liar.  They only wanted to be with you when things were easy.  When you made them feel good.  But when things got hard, they didn't want to keep their vow.  They didn't want to put in the work.  They didn't want to prove to you that they could be the "better" person you deserved.  No.  They gave up, they quit, and they proved to you that you are worth nothing.

That no one loves you, that you are not worth the effort, that you are pointless and worthless.

I don't know why I'm still here.

(I do.  It's because I'm still a coward who can't find the bravery to no longer exist.)

I feel nothing but pain.
Excruciating, unbearable pain.

Pain from abandonment trauma.  Having someone who promises to be there no matter what, but then they up and willingly walk out of your life.
Pain from the trauma of betrayal.  Hearing for years how they want you, how you matter to them, how they aren't going anywhere, the vows they made, how things will get better...and then they betray every promise they made, every vow they said, by deciding that "incompatibility" was a good enough reason to quit and not keep their word.

How do people survive this.

The pain feels unbearable, and it torments me every waking second.
I want to do great physical harm to myself, as if somehow that will lessen the emotional pain all this has caused.
Because at least physical pain makes sense.  Physical pain has evidence, it shows scars, there's a reason for it.

There is not one goddamn good enough reason for this emotional pain.

Giving your heart and soul and life to someone, and it meaning nothing, because they so easily tossed you aside.
Even worse, the finality of the end of your marriage didn't even hit 6 months, and already they have moved on to someone else.

It was a lie.
It all was a lie.
Every day you spent with them, every shared moment, every memory, every "I love you"...meaningless.

Nothing brings me joy anymore.
Not even the few things that felt seemingly foolproof.
Hiking.  Ordering new books.  Taking pictures/editing them.
I have felt nothing the handful of times I have tried to do these things in the past few months.

Because nothing is worth anything anymore.
My entire marriage meant nothing to the man who told me I was the love of his life, because it turns out, I actually wasn't.  If I had been, he would have fought to make things work.  He would have been willing to stay.  He would have been willing to be a team so we could actually get better.
But even worse, even if I wasn't the love of his life, the vows he made on the day we got married were empty words.  They carried no weight to him.  He didn't mean to keep them, to follow through.  Even if things got hard, even if the realisation of "oh, we don't fit in any way" hit, it was an excuse to call it quits.  If the vows were sincere, the effort would be there.  The determination to find a way or make one.

Instead I am left with nothing.
Nothing except the knowledge that I wasn't worth it. 
That he never really loved me.
And that now I am used trash, tossed aside, that no one else is going to want.

It was hard enough to find someone who was tolerant of how weird I actually am.
But now being my age, and with all the bullshit that has gone on in the world in the past 3 years, even if it was okay to be with someone else, the impossibility of finding someone in my age range who is 1) single, 2) didn't conform to the lies the governments and media sold to people, 3) doesn't have their own past divorce or children to carry with them, means that I have absolutely no hope.

None.

So tell me, what is the point?
Because truthfully, I don't see any.

What I see is that everyone lies.
I knew that before, and trust was always cautiously handed out.
But if even the one who vows not to part until death, parts from you much sooner, and still very much alive, no one else is going to keep their word.
Family can't.
A former husband can't.
No one else will.

I am worth nothing.
I am not worth loving.
I'm not even worth getting better for, even though that was also said a handful of times in the early days.

Nope, instead it's after deciding that I'm not worth it, he starts to get better on his own.
But he couldn't have even tried to do that for me while we were still married.
Our marriage never even got a chance to be a "normal" marriage outside of military life.
And I never got a second chance to be able to love him better, to fix my failures and mistakes, to try to be a safe place for him, to love him and be there for him in the ways he needed.

But that only works if both people are willing...

I feel nothing.
And I feel it all entirely too much.

Please just make this pain stop.
Please.

 Things haven't ever been this bad.

Sure, for years I was severely depressed, and talked about how dead I was inside.  But there were still small moments here and there where I felt some sense of joy.  Hidden pockets of sunshine that glimmered through the darkness.  I was still able to rouse myself to go on adventures, go exploring, go hiking, and find some reprieve from feeling nothing, nature often times being the only thing that made me feel alive, made me feel at peace, made me feel anything at all.

Even last year, when it was (at the time) the worst things had ever been for me, mentally.  Being more suicidal than I had ever been in my life.  Not wanting to be alive by the time the end of the year hit.  But I think, even in the midst of all that, I still had some semblance of hope.

There is no hope anymore.

It all went away as soon as I saw the email in my inbox.  The email that contained the paperwork that was waiting for my signature.  Paperwork I didn't want to sign, but was forced to, because otherwise it would have been too costly, in too many ways.  Paperwork that has one of the ugliest words to ever exist.  Paperwork that, when I read it, made me feel sick to my stomach, and I haven't stopped feeling that way since.

It's different this time.
Last year it was bad, but there wasn't the definitive knowledge.  There wasn't the life-shattering decision that was made that I had no part in making (story of my life).  Last year there was still some communication.  There was still "I love you" and "sweetie" (although way less often than before) and even "I want you" (which turned out to be yet another lie).
There was also confirmation that he was my person.  And although it didn't feel like it for several months at that point, he was still my best friend.  Still the person who knew me better than anyone in my life ever had.  Although maybe that's not saying much, because my own immediate family barely knows me, so by default I suppose, anyone who isn't my [blood] family that I let in, probably knows me better than my own family.

But now we're here.
Except now there's no "we."  It's just me.
Before it was us, and ours, and two lives joined into one (well, my life joined to his).
And now that bond that was made and formed in so many ways, over so many shared experiences, has been severed, and that is a wound that will never heal.  Ever.

Nature always used to make me feel better.  Being out in it.  Seeing it.
And this is how I know things are too far gone.
Because the last time I was out in nature, hiking alone, as I used to do so often before in past years...I felt nothing.  Not one goddamn thing.  I didn't feel at peace.  I didn't feel any joy.  I didn't feel content.  I felt absolutely nothing.

And that's how I know there is now no longer any point.
Because if the one thing that used to be able to make me feel better, without fail, evoked absolutely no emotions within me... Well.  That's just confirmation of how far gone I am.

I know I keep repeating myself, like a madman, insanity seeping through the cracked facade of my once-solid exterior, but I just cannot make sense of it.
I cannot understand how over and over and over he told me he was in this for the long haul, that he wasn't going anywhere, wasn't going to leave me, and then that's exactly what he did.
I cannot understand how someone can be so weak, to not be able to stick it out through the hard times, to follow through and stay, even if things seem hopeless.
I cannot understand how someone can tell me I'm the love of his life, his best friend, his soul mate, that he wants me, and then decides he doesn't want to be married to me anymore.

Never in a million years will I be able to make sense of it.
Never will I ever be able to comprehend how little I was worth to him.  Not worth following through on many things, but the biggest thing of all: the vows he made the day we married, where he promised to be by my side for better or for worse.

If you ever want to know the character of a person, all you need to do is observe them.
To know if they're a person of their word, a person who will follow through on what they say, you will see them do so.
If you want to know if things matter to them, watch where they invest their time and attention and money.  You will see them pour into the things they actually value.
If you want to know if they think of others first (i.e. can express empathy) or if they are self-centered, pay attention to how they respond.  If they first respond saying things like "same" or react in a way that points towards themselves, you will learn they are the first person they will be thinking about in almost any situation.

My whole life I have not felt wanted by my family, or even by other people in my life.  There are various reasons as to why this is, but the biggest indicator were the actions of those around me.  It would only make sense that the one and only person who was supposed to stick by my side, the person I saw and chose to love and know and spend the rest of my life with, would also not want me.
It follows the same pattern of everyone else.

Of course, I get it to a certain extent.
I was a failure as a wife.
I was a horrible example to him of what it looks like to love someone.  So often I got caught up in my own hurt, in my own feelings of not being wanted, of not being heard, of my feelings not mattering to him at all, that I withdrew.  I withdrew instead of working on making sure that I didn't make him feel that way.  And I failed in absolutely every way that mattered.
And the worst part is, is that being so caught up in my own hurt and the constant rejection, I didn't even see it until it was too late.  I didn't see that I didn't make him feel safe, that he couldn't tell me things he should have been able to tell me (if he truly saw me as his best friend/wife).  The biggest indicator was when he got back from deployment, and that very day I picked him up, he got absolutely drunk, and he had to be in that state to tell me he didn't feel safe to tell me things.

And I hate myself for that.
I hate myself for failing him.  I hate myself for allowing myself to feel things, which then made me feel everything, which made me feel rejected and hurt and not wanted.  I hate that I reacted so poorly to things in the past, that I made it unsafe for him around me.  I hate that I didn't push for us to get real help back when we were dating, because had I done so, I know things would have gone differently, and we would have worked out shit early on, rather than letting it pile up from basically day one, because he didn't see it as a priority, nor did he actually want to put in the work on getting better (despite him saying otherwise).

I am a failure in all aspects of the word.
And it makes sense why he doesn't want me, doesn't want to be married to me.
It makes sense that I stopped being his best friend, that he didn't like being around me, that he stopped wanting to have sex with me, that he prefers to be alone rather than being with me.

I hate people, too.
That's one of the things we bonded over early on (if you don't hate people you don't get it).
And I prefer to be alone, too.  I'm a major introvert.  Why wouldn't I prefer that?  But the thing is, is that I preferred being with him over being alone.  Because he was my person.
But I was never his.

There's a show that I've seen before called "Fleabag" which had some really great moments in it that talked about love.  One of the quotes goes something along the lines of "I don't know what to do with it...with all of the love I have for [him].  I don't know where to put it now."
And I don't.
There is never going to be anyone else.
He doesn't understand that. 
It was only ever him.  I saw him, and I chose him, and I rose in love for him.

But even more than not knowing where to put all the love I have for him, I don't know what to do with all this hurt.
To experience the betrayal of someone who told you they weren't going anywhere, who vowed to you before best friends and God that only death would part you, but instead, it wasn't death but their own inability to want to keep their promises...it feels like someone took out your brain from your skull, unwrapped it, and did a poor job of putting it back together again before stuffing it back into your cranium.
I feel like I am going mad, because I am trying to make sense of something that will never make sense.
I am drowning and suffocating in the madness that all this hurt and pain is producing.  Weekends are for drinking excessively, because I need to feel numb.  I've also taken up the habit of slapping my own face as hard as I can (easier to do when intoxicated) to stop myself from being a little bitch and feeling this much.  Anything to be numb and lessen the pain, because it is too much. 
It is too much.

No one can ever explain to me why he couldn't keep his word.  Why I never mattered to him.  Why the vows he made and the life we shared for such a short time wasn't worth anything to him.

There is no hope anymore.
There is no future.  No shared life.  No growing old and grey together, nor arguments about which one of us is going to die first because we don't want to see the other go.

So I have no competition now, but I'm going to go first.
I just need to get over this fucking fear of death.  It's going to happen eventually, so might as well make it sooner rather than later, right?
That's what I keep telling myself.
And it's true.
I just need to stop being such a fucking coward about it, and figure out the best way, and get everything sorted.

And then, at the very least, I will have kept my vows to him.
And when he finally finds the person who he wants to be with more than he wants to be alone (it will happen eventually, from one of the girls he finds to fuck), he can be free to be with her, because I will no longer be alive, so his vows will have been fulfilled.

I will conquer this fear.
And then I will finally be free of all this hurt.