To nice…hmmmm…..

Earlier this week I woke up with an amazingly wicked headache. Drama does not do good things for me. I had a fight with STBEH the night before that got UGLY. We’re talking the kind of ugly that makes me look like I fit right into this ‘hood. I like to be able to sleep at night so I try to conduct myself in a way that’s conducive to that. I’m a ruminator. If I behave in a way that is contrary to who I am at my core, I lose sleep over it. I’ve been told I’m being too nice as I’m going through this divorce process (I’ve also been told that the gloves are off and this is the UFC, but boxing ain’t my style so I’m rejecting that reality and substituting my own) and maybe that’s true, but it’s me. Don’t get me wrong, I can go from zero to bitch at a speed that could break the laws of physics but just because I can, doesn’t mean I should.

So what to do…go against who I am and lose sleep, or dig in, tough it out and work through this process in a way that honors the 16 years I’ve known this man, even though they weren’t all good. Zero to bitch would definitely be easier, but digging in would be more productive at the end of the day (besides, digging in is more my style anyway). Now, how to do that without losing my serenity…hmmm…as with most things in life, that’s gonna be easier said than done. Since my best thinking usually gets me into trouble, I decided to ask Therapist Chick about this today during our session. She validated that the knock-down-drag-out fight style of divorce is the easy way out and the honorable style of divorce is the tough, but doable option. She also reminded me that harder still is the honorable/knock-down-drag-out hybrid style that you get when one person has thrown down the gloves and the other still wants to choose honor. Finally, she gave me marching orders to get us back on the honorable track, but if I thought it was going to be that easy, I was wrong…

As she always does, Therapist Chick challenged me to think about why I went from zero to bitch so quickly earlier this week. The answer wasn’t rocket science, I don’t trust. I haven’t been able to willingly trust anyone for the last 22 years. I don’t choose to give my trust because my rapist was someone I knew. There have been less than a handful of men that I’ve been able to trust implicitly in that time and when that trust has come, it has chosen me, not the other way around. I simply can’t explain why I’ve trusted these men, but I don’t spend a whole lot of time thinking about it either, the fact is when that trust has chosen me, it hasn’t let me down…my trust has not been breached. Unfortunately, STBEH isn’t one of those men. I also don’t spend a lot of time thinking about if I’ll ever be at a point where I can choose to trust, I’m putting that one in the hands of the universe…like I said, my best thinking usually gets me into trouble.

So am I too nice, I don’t think so because what we’re working on here is the honorable style of divorce. What we’re working on here is a better life for each of us and our son. What we’re working on here is ending things in a way we can both be proud of. So, I guess that 75 lb body bag he gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago will have to stay in the garage. Oh well, I don’t have anywhere to hang it anyway…