It’s emotional for her
During a meeting with my two realtors my ex may have said something like "this is emotional for me."
My ex likes to share things like that in groups. I don't recall that she ever did one to one. We mostly fought about sex, or she was out of my voice range, so we weren't having a conversation. Very unsatisfying for me as I look back. I still hate sex (fortunately Zoloft has the side effect that I don't even think about it anymore, so who cares. I tested this with porn a few months ago and switched to Amazon—I needed some replacement kitchen utensils.)
Why is she like this? I watched her do this with others for years and years. With social contacts she would dominate conversations. With anyone important she would fail to communicate, switch topics randomly, and recede into background noise. I think some of those people concluded she wasn't very smart, or could be easily manipulated. I don't know. I just witnessed her ineffectiveness with those who mattered, as if she was competing but didn't know the rules.
If she hired someone—training, a doctor, a marketing firm, a writing coach—she would become clumsy, agonize over most conversations, and rarely get what she paid for or needed. Those relations generally ended with big disappointment or betrayal.
Noticing and reporting this pattern is important to me because our marriage terminated similarly. I am emotional about that. I cared about her very much, and just needed some approval from time to time. Much less than most men I believe.
I can't recall that I ever got any, and I know I never got any when I demanded it. Needed it. When it would have saved me from suffering as much as I have.
What does it mean to me that my ex could say "this is emotional for me" to strangers (who also think she needs special care and handling to avoid crises) but not to me directly?
It means my marriage is long gone, for one thing. But it also acknowledges what I knew about her and complained about regularly when we were a couple, as broken as we always were: living with Mina meant that help was never on the way.
She never showed up when I needed her. Never. Looking back, it feels like I was gaslighted nearly every day of our marriage.
She may not have intended this. I agree with others that she lacked rudimentary emotional IQ. At points she did not seem very smart. She missed social cues by the boatload. She rarely said what was most important to her to others, and panicked when people like me, who may have mattered to her, couldn't make sense of her behavior. She was easily flattered, which is likely why she had multiple affairs that never lasted. She was paranoid.
Feels like gaslighting and very little else, from this distance.
And sadly it confirms a lesson it makes me emotional still to accept: that she will NEVER help me any more than she ever did. Her greatest act of truth telling to me was estoppel-level negation of my needs. I believe she knew it was not genetically possible for her.
A favorite word of hers was "attenuated." I don't know if she knows the definition. Me neither. But in context, what I believe she was saying was simply that she could not be available in a healthy way to others—and she knew it.
Which is why she's say something as childish to strangers as she did to our group discussing the sale of our jointly owned real estate. Never to me—her best friend ever. She doesn't know, of course, that after three years I can no longer distinguish her voice.
I literally thought she was one of my brokers. I had to ask several times whether she was on the conference line.
I slept in the same bed with this cypher for nearly 30 years. She was the center of my life. I perceived her to be tangible and real. To have some substance, though it was often hard for me to locate.
Weird, right? I would not recognize her on the street if we passed, I don't believe. That's weird to me, and it hurts me like hell. I am now infected by her inability to find love attachment.
My ex likes to share things like that in groups. I don't recall that she ever did one to one. We mostly fought about sex, or she was out of my voice range, so we weren't having a conversation. Very unsatisfying for me as I look back. I still hate sex (fortunately Zoloft has the side effect that I don't even think about it anymore, so who cares. I tested this with porn a few months ago and switched to Amazon—I needed some replacement kitchen utensils.)
Why is she like this? I watched her do this with others for years and years. With social contacts she would dominate conversations. With anyone important she would fail to communicate, switch topics randomly, and recede into background noise. I think some of those people concluded she wasn't very smart, or could be easily manipulated. I don't know. I just witnessed her ineffectiveness with those who mattered, as if she was competing but didn't know the rules.
If she hired someone—training, a doctor, a marketing firm, a writing coach—she would become clumsy, agonize over most conversations, and rarely get what she paid for or needed. Those relations generally ended with big disappointment or betrayal.
Noticing and reporting this pattern is important to me because our marriage terminated similarly. I am emotional about that. I cared about her very much, and just needed some approval from time to time. Much less than most men I believe.
I can't recall that I ever got any, and I know I never got any when I demanded it. Needed it. When it would have saved me from suffering as much as I have.
What does it mean to me that my ex could say "this is emotional for me" to strangers (who also think she needs special care and handling to avoid crises) but not to me directly?
It means my marriage is long gone, for one thing. But it also acknowledges what I knew about her and complained about regularly when we were a couple, as broken as we always were: living with Mina meant that help was never on the way.
She never showed up when I needed her. Never. Looking back, it feels like I was gaslighted nearly every day of our marriage.
She may not have intended this. I agree with others that she lacked rudimentary emotional IQ. At points she did not seem very smart. She missed social cues by the boatload. She rarely said what was most important to her to others, and panicked when people like me, who may have mattered to her, couldn't make sense of her behavior. She was easily flattered, which is likely why she had multiple affairs that never lasted. She was paranoid.
Feels like gaslighting and very little else, from this distance.
And sadly it confirms a lesson it makes me emotional still to accept: that she will NEVER help me any more than she ever did. Her greatest act of truth telling to me was estoppel-level negation of my needs. I believe she knew it was not genetically possible for her.
A favorite word of hers was "attenuated." I don't know if she knows the definition. Me neither. But in context, what I believe she was saying was simply that she could not be available in a healthy way to others—and she knew it.
Which is why she's say something as childish to strangers as she did to our group discussing the sale of our jointly owned real estate. Never to me—her best friend ever. She doesn't know, of course, that after three years I can no longer distinguish her voice.
I literally thought she was one of my brokers. I had to ask several times whether she was on the conference line.
I slept in the same bed with this cypher for nearly 30 years. She was the center of my life. I perceived her to be tangible and real. To have some substance, though it was often hard for me to locate.
Weird, right? I would not recognize her on the street if we passed, I don't believe. That's weird to me, and it hurts me like hell. I am now infected by her inability to find love attachment.
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