 |
| credit |
{In response to a friend asking about trust and rebuilding trust and love}
July 2012
The trust unicorn. So, so elusive.
I've been able to look back at my experience with Mr. Scabs and break it down into phases. First, there were the phases of shock, depression, confusion. Then there was the hate-phase, then the phase of indifference and then the hate-phase again. Then there was pity-party phase. After that there was the phase of feeling sorry for him. Then a phase of utter disrespect and apathy. And, a million other phases that changed daily or didn't change for month after stagnant month.
All this seemed to lead my path to the strangest outcome of all, compassion. But just a bit of compassion because it seems so unnatural, as if compassion doesn't deserve a place in our life. The compassion is fleeting, coming and going but finally it takes hold, bubbles over and reaches out to all the corners of my life. Compassion, like all the phases before me, led me to chapter I'm currently in...a little bit of love.
But, let me reiterate what I said to you the other night...i don't trust him. He has broken every vow and does not deserve trust. Trust is not my job to give. He's working to earn it each day with his actions, and when his actions match his words...I might begin to trust him. Trust is like a unicorn. I never think about it. I never look for it. I don't have a rainbow poster hanging over my bed fostering the unicorn delusion. No pushing, begging, screaming, crying or carefully contrived therapy sessions will make the trust unicorn appear. And so, I let it go. The unicorn is a myth.
And when trust comes to me, iI don't believe it will be mythical.
For now, I'm tentatively feeling out the phase of falling back in love. Maybe it's just a crush. Just a month ago I was telling another friend that I had no feelings of love for him at all and couldn't imagine it. Each phase bridges me to the next, navigating the impossible.
So yes, if you are both in a place to heal your marriage I believe all isn't lost. You can fall in love again! All things can heal. But if he chooses his addiction and our marriage dissolves I know that I'm still capable of falling in love. Although, I tell myself I would never get married again. I'd invoke plan B where I wander the world with my kids, midwifing for chickens or a bucket of rice and living a gypsy life.
But who knows, maybe I'll run into a unicorn.
Love,
Scabs
