The ‘Off’ Switch

Where is the ‘off’ switch? Where is it located, dammit? On my heart? Somewhere in the folds of my brain?

I am trying SO HARD to accept that love isn’t something I can just shut off any more than I can stop breathing.

The love I am speaking of is a love that is familiar and comfy; it feels warm and safe – I don’t want to let go of that love. But that loves comes from the past; it is tugs on my heart when I think about the man I fell in love with. It nudges me when nostalgia gently peeks its head around a corner; or slaps me on the face.

When I think about the man who added to my trauma, added to my heap of hurt, that same love feels like a disease and turns into a sickness that I can’t get rid of. That love feels unhealthy, like toxic waste in my system. It breaks my heart wide open and I feel like I am leaking all over the place. I am constantly stitching myself up.

I keep reaching out to him with the love that my heart is harboring. Trying to wave the ‘white flag’ of truce, of peace. I am trying to be my most vulnerable and open self with him – for me, for the kids. How else are he and I supposed to move forward if not from respective places of caring and compassion?

I am just exhausted by the constant conflict, the stress and anxiety. I swear to God I am shaving years off of my life. I have never dealt well with turmoil and friction; my mind latches on to the discomfort they bring and won’t let go until things are resolved. But the problem is, that sometimes, things just cannot be resolved. Ever. I suspect it is a core tenet of my personality construct, and a lot to do with my INFJ-ness.

When I shared my thoughts and my emotions with him last night, my open heart, and my love and longing, I got a long response about all of the stress he has currently in his life and a statement at the end that said, “please, please don’t add to it Aim”.

Wow. Just wow.

I saw so clearly in that moment that my love, my hurt, and my desire to have some sort of amazing, loving relationship with this person was viewed as adding to his mountain of shit. Not a source of comfort or support. SHIT (my word, not his). My love and my caring is simply more stress for him. I guess he has enough of that from all of the new people in his life.

He doesn’t need me. He doesn’t want me. He doesn’t love me.

And yet, I cannot turn this love off. Even though I know it is hurting me to my core. It is leaking out of me and has nowhere to go. I am just sitting here in a pile of love for someone who doesn’t want it, doesn’t need it, and who views it as just another ‘thing’ to deal with.

I have been questioning whether my love – at least to some degree – is the final tendrils of codependency waiting to unravel themselves and the fear of abandonment I still carry around. This is why:

If he were to come home, drop to his knees, beg for forgiveness, and tell me he wants back into my life, this house, this marriage, what would I do? What would I say? If that were to really happen, I believe I would say no.

NO.

Because in moments when I am not hurting and not sitting in my pile of unrequited love, I can honestly say, I don’t want to touch that with a 50 foot pole.

No thank you. Love be damned, I deserve better.