Saturday 19 October 2013

Post Four: Dropping the Rope - The Dynamics of Dysfunction


The game of tug-of-war can be an endless exercise of push/pull, push/pull. It gets tiring, and I am so very tired.

In a game of tug-a-war one person wins when the other person is pulled into line (or falls in a heap). The game also ends when one person just decides to drop the rope and walk away. Game over.

I have decided to drop the rope. This is called 'no contact' (NC).

NC is the last resort available to me and NC is my decision. I have no other choice if I want to feel safe and work on getting healthy. No other choice if AB and I want to repair 'us'.

I can't control what she says about us, her smear campaign, what she thinks, what she does. That is her stuff. I can't fix anything. I also can't control your decisions. They are yours, as are the consequences.

I can only control what I say, think and do and I take full responsibility for my decision and it's consequences.

No contact means - no contact. No engagement at all.

In short, she is dead to me, and in all honesty, she 'died' when I had my light bulb moment. I kept nudging the corpse, hoping, but no, I can no longer make excuses for her choices and her behaviour. 

Or my own. 

The seven stages of grief are well known. It has been 16 months since the person I have been kidding myself she was, 'died'. It is time to pick ourselves up and get on with life.

Dealing with grief is not easy. It's like a bad flu - you think you are over the worst and then Wham! There you are again, flat on your back, reaching for the tissues, burrowed up in a darkened room. 

It will take time, but grief passes. Eventually. As does life.

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