^that's great xorkoth, a toxic relationship is never good and I was in one before so I know how it was. I am thankful in a way because after everything that happened it made me a stronger woman and definitely changed my perspective about life and what I really want in the long run.
Yeah, I have learned a whole lot about what I want in a partner and in life, this relationship lasted for 12 years (18 to 30) so it really had a profound impact on my life and development. The toxicity in myself came ultimately from me, I was unwilling to stand up for myself in even the smallest ways from the very beginning and this laid the groundwork for the ruination of the relationship. She is very intense and overbearing and has a serious rage problem and instead of getting in fights I would modify how I presented myself to her, which eventually over the long course of it led to leading a double life (mostly in relation to drug use and Bluelight). Despite this, most of our time together was primarily good and loving. We loved each other very much, so much. Since we got together so young and she has issues from her parents' divorce, and because I basically let her define the parameters of our relationship, it became codependent early on to a very unhealthy degree. I wrapped everything about myself up into her, and she did the same. As I got older it became harder and harder to deal with the amount of suppression of myself that had become the way it was. I began feeling like I had lost myself, I even forgot how I ACTUALLY felt about a lot of things because of how tied up the lies (which were made in self-defense basically) were in my life. Over the last 2 years of it (3 years into the marriage) we began to harbor serious resentment. I didn't even realize at the time how much pain and frustration I held in, I could never express it to her because it would enrage her and we'd have horrible fights where she was verbally and occasionally physically abusive and I would shut down and try to hold it all in so I could still feel love for her. Near the end I was so frustrated that I broke my hand on the refrigerator (last July - she had already left me then due to the constant lies from trying to hide and maintain my opiate addiction) but we were living together still until the beginning of this February.
It was horribly painful, but I still wouldn't trade it, not just because I learned so much but also because I know her heart, and I know it wasn't intentional, we were both just unwilling to accept that we shouldn't be together because we were so in love (and for most of it, I really was mostly happy with her, we had so many wonderful times). And she was (and still is) unwilling to get help for her own personal issues. And I am thankful to have been able to share that kind of deep love with someone for so long, even though it hurts so much for it to have been destroyed. I still love her, as a person, and I harbor no ill will nor does she to me.
Relationships are complicated. The hardest part now is that her family and I are super close, my only nephew, who I have a special connection with, is her sister's kid and that really hurts that we won't be in each others' lives anymore. I no longer doubt it was the right decision to split up/divorce, because I am SO MUCH healthier and happier now. I realize that my opiate addiction was a product of the internal pain that I was not even willing to accept was real. We could never have made it. But it still hurts despite that. If I see a picture of her it still sends a jolt of pain through my heart. Even now, if magically all of the issues could have been fixed, I wish that this breakup had never happened and we could be together. Because at the core we have a special connection and an innocent love (we were both kids and virgins when we got together), and so much of our lives have been spent together, over a third of them and our entire adult lives. But I know that this is impossible and I accept it.
I finally have a crush on someone else though.
We'll see if anything comes of that. I keep feeling like I need to date in order to finish the process of letting go, I keep thinking I'm totally over it and then something will trigger a cascade of emotions that lets me know I am still hanging on. It's hard because we promised to be together forever, we thought we were soulmates for most of our relationship. I still sometimes get a voice in my head telling me that this is wrong, that I'm giving up, that this isn't the way the future is supposed to be. But I have to listen to my intuition, all of which is telling me that splitting up is the right and only choice. And the sheer amount of better I feel since she left is something I can't deny.
