How on earth did he explain that?
I can't remember the exact words,but the gist was that it was my fault.
The only thing I remember with any clarity is that discovered seriously nasty unexpected shocks get me right in the tummy rather than the heart. Tragic romantic heroines swoon with a heaving chest, I end up locked in the bathroom being everything other than a fragrant ingenue.
You have to ask yourself why the "thing" didn't snap right there. I think maybe I didn't feel strongly enough that I deserved better at that time.
Maybe that was the key, at some point, for some reason, I suddenly decided that I did deserve better and at that point something when "ping" and I just didn't want to play at history repeating itself again and again and again anymore.
I think one feature that stands out, prior to that I had always focused on what it would be like to split from him, the pain and loss I mean. I had never tried to imagine my life post the pain of split. And I had never allowed myself to think about what it would be like to not leave in the long term.
In retrospect I would have done better by myself if I had focused more on visualizing all three scenarios rather than just the one, so that the leaving him option didn't get to stand out as the negative option. In contrast with the other two it would have looked less like the sole scary and overwhelming choice. Cos god knows staying wouldn't have looked pretty, even in my overly hopeful imagination.
I also really regret not taking the opportunity to speak to a professional third party far earlier on in the relationship. I felt like a walking statistic with added "told you so" stamped on my head taking my marriage to Relate at just 19 years old. So when the appointment came through I canceled it. My 26 year old self could have happily kicked my 19 year old self for that, even if my 43 year old self lets her off the hook due to youth. Some stuff is complicated and a non involved, trained helping hand can't half speed up the learning curve that gets people to the other side and knowing where they want to be.
If my second marriage got into serious trouble I'd be down to counseling like a shot. Not necessarily to save it if that was not a good idea, but to helpme get to place, relatively quickly, relatively intact, relatively supported, so I could find it in me to do what needed to be done one way or the other and avoid the oh so slow "natural" process of getting there by myself.
What about you love, do you think about all the possibilities open to you, or does just one get all the attention ?