The Anxiety Of Life

Task 20 March MHWA Challenge

Write about something or someone you had to let go of.

As I have explained, I think in my introduction maybe, my ex-boyfriend gave me reasons for my anxiety to return when I got into a relationship with him. He was trying to be sneaky and talking to other women. As well, numerous times, I'd wake in the morning to find him and my paycheck gone. No note, no explanation, no nothing. I felt like I had been doing something wrong. That I wasn't enough for him, that I didn't treat him right. His phone would go off in the middle of the night and there would be messages with kissy faces or hearts in them. They would call him sexy, on and on. So yes, I became anxious all over again after thinking I was cured of my anxiety.
He begged me to change. To stop cheeking on him, to stop worrying about what he was doing or not doing. I did love him. When we first met, he seemed great to me because he seemed to understand me. I told him about my failed marriage and we had realized we had things in common as far as relationships go. He treated me good, as good as he could at the time. Gave me attention, gave me space when I needed it, and so on.
Then after our first kid was born, he changed. He started accusing me of cheating when I needed my space. He started checking my phone, which didn't have anything on it. He started logging into my facebook and reading comments I had left for friends, thinking I was messing around with them. All the things he was actually doing, yet accusing me of doing.
Because I did love him, and he asked me to change and I didn't want to have this anxiety anymore, I decided I would do just what he asked. Since he had already left several times, taking my rent money with him, leaving me without anything, I was able to start to not care about him anymore and my anxiety was decreasing. After he beat the shit out of me one day, I was able to completely stop loving him. I needed him there to take care of our kids since I was the only one working, he had issues way worse than me, and couldn't hold down a job, but he also refused to try and get SSI either. So, I used him, just like he was using me. He needed somewhere to stay and I needed someone to take care of the kids so I could continue to take care of my family.
But, I couldn't take the morning and nightly rituals of him belittling me and telling me how horrible of a person I was. When he was okay, we were ok, but the minute he got into his emotions, I was always at fault. Everything me or my kids did affected everything about him. He threatened to leave again and again and though I had reached a point where I didn't care for him personally, I did care if he was going to take off with another rent payment and such. The day before I left him, he was once again telling me he was planning on leaving, again. I had planned to leave him for months. I learned my lesson from my marriage about making a plan instead of just up and leaving.
He never saw it coming. I felt bad, but then again, I didn't. There was no love there anymore. But I did feel guilty for the way I left. I didn't tell him. I 'went to work for a retirement party, taking my daughter with me since it was a party' and never came home. I went by and picked up all my kids from school and left the state and never looked back. I don't regret anything I did, but I did feel a little bad for not giving him closure, but then again, he never did all the times he took off on me in the middle of the night either. 2 wrongs don't make a right, but hopefully, the next time he decides to leave someone in the middle of the night, he'll think twice about it because now he knows how it feels.


Shhh. Whisper.....