I appreciate that, it’s been a pretty long time ago at this point, though the breakup did really fuck my perspective of time all up.

Since you and I can probably relate on a lot of things, I’ll share a bit with you.

I definitely could have caught her cheating years earlier if I had looked, but I didn’t. I believed two things that kept me from looking. One, she was crazy about me. Two, she had a right to privacy.

If she hadn’t just been blatant about it and so comfortable lying, I might never have known and could have ended up with an sti, which she ultimately did end up with but fortunately for her it was curable. I didn’t, thank goodness. That didn’t stop her from going around telling people I gave it to her and praying that I had slept with her behind my girlfriend’s back. She really believed I started seeing my girlfriend before I left her, so I believe that she hoped we’d both have it so she’d leave me. It was nuts.

Once I caught her, I thought I could work it out, forgive her, and move on. It just opened the flood gates though. It was like I had permitted her to do whatever she wanted to do by forgiving her. She went around telling everyone that I beat her and kept her as a prisoner for all of those years. She’d disappear for days at a time leaving me and our daughter to worry about her. The first time, I didn’t panic until it was clear something was wrong and she was out beyond her normal time, so I probably traumatized our kid by driving around looking for her that night. I didn’t do that again, but our daughter was still terrified any time she didn’t come home.

When I finally left and started seeing someone seriously, that’s when shit got really, really dangerous. She started being abusive to our daughter, but because her family pulled the legal kidnapping, I had to work with her to get her back. After that, things seemed to calm down and she never did anything that would cause a court to take her away. She just constantly bombarded our kid telling her how terrible I was, how much she hated my girlfriend.

For a few years after we split she’d randomly message me and apologize for things. I’d respond, but something I’d say would spark her to attack me again. Once she got her cancer diagnosis though, holy shit.

I didn’t realize the extent of it until she died and our child came to live with me. I mean, I knew it got bad, but the girl was laying there dying a miserable death and that really complicated things.

The last conversation I ever had with her was an argument. She called our daughter a skank and I snapped. Fortunately her husband was listening in on the conversation and when I said to him, “Please, listen to me! I’m her ex. Nothing I say will ever get to her. You have to tell her that it’s not right and it has to stop. She can’t call her kid names.” He told her that it needed to stop. She actually did stop, spent the next two weeks watching movies with her and spending time with her, but that was all the time she had. I wish I had said something sooner.

I have my daughter in therapy these days. The kid has been through it. She doesn’t miss her mom, and I wish that she could have known the person I used to know. If I so much as compare her in a positive way, I end up causing her a lot of stress so I just don’t do it.

I hope that someday she can come to terms with who her mother was and get past it all.

It was a wild ride.

I’d happily read some of your story as well.

Sorry if this is a mess. I have a 4 year old making me stop typing to watch her do silly things. I can’t even proofread it, but it’s fun watching her. :p

Take care.

My ex. Jesus Christ man.

She moved in and adopted my whole personality. Naturally, her own personality was fighting to surface and a person can’t bury who they are forever.

After more than a decade, she just lost it. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever experienced, and you’re spot on about it fucking up trust in other people. It doesn’t have to, but it does take work.

In the middle of the chaos that was the collapse of my entire life, I remember one line from a letter she wrote me. “I feel more like myself than I have in a very long time. I know that’s probably hard for you to read.”

She had BPD too, so for three years, one moment I was god, the next she was sitting up in the bed at the end of an overall great day and saying, “I’m sorry. I just don’t love you anymore.”

She wanted nothing to do with me until I found someone else. She lost her damn mind, tried to kill herself, ended up hospitalized for mental health. That got her family involved and we had to fight them for our kid in court. It’s crazy how easy it is for a family member to kidnap your child. They told the magistrate that I held my family hostage with a knife, got a restraining order, and I just had to wait until court knowing that our daughter was scared to death and living through a nightmare on top of a nightmare.

Somehow, the woman I’m with survived all of that chaos with me. I figured she’d get tired of me driving out in the middle of the night over and over again to make sure my ex didn’t actually hurt herself.

Once she got to be herself though, she was alright. She met someone more like her. She went from laying in bed all the time hating herself and her life to taking care of things that she couldn’t before. She never got a drivers license and she was finally able to do that. She never cleaned and when I worked a lot our place was trashed, but her last place was immaculate. Poor girl died of breast cancer 4 years after we split. I wish she had left me years before honestly, so she’d have had a chance to really live.

Life is a mess. Some people do make it hard to trust other people, but we have to carry on and do our best. We’ve gotta work so that problem isn’t everyone else’s problem.

I have done my best to keep from carrying all that baggage into the relationship I’m in. I do my best to encourage her to just be herself. We get one short life, and I don’t want to have a hand in ruining it for anyone. Go see your friends, go be with your family. Don’t sit here alone because I do. Keep building your life outside of me. Maintain something of the world you lived in before you moved to ours.

Sorry for the book. I guess I needed to spit it out of my head again. I could write on this topic for several years straight and I still wouldn’t run out of shit to say about it. :p

Dreams are always fucked up like this, only we don’t remember most of it. Have you ever nearly ended a day when suddenly you catch a glimpse of something that triggers a memory of a dream you had the night before? I have. It can be a silly little thing, like the time I was standing outside at work and seen a girl strike a lighter. I suddenly had an entire story open up in my memory, and fortunately it was pleasant.

Have you ever woke up in complete horror and knew you had a nightmare, but you didn’t know what it was? It had to be really, really bad, you just can’t remember it.

It’s something to do with being in a coma, probably the duration or that the supply of chemicals that keep us asleep are exhausted. Take that with a grain of salt. I’m just an idiot. I don’t even remotely know.

I believe that dreams that I don’t remember directly contribute to my daily moods. If I wake up feeling wonderful, I must have had decent dreams. If I wake up angry, I must have had nightmares. This is consistent when I remember them.

Yeah but it’s one thing to be a fiscally conservative Republican who believes with all of his heart that his hard work got him everything he has because he worked hard and just fails to see his luck. It’s another to be a cult of personality republican, Donald Trump worshipping fascist.

I guess it’s easier for me to relate to those folks because I came from their world. I (a dirt poor nobody exploited by my wealthy family since I was old enough to talk) have seen what these people believe. They aren’t bad people, they’ve just been very lucky and they don’t get it.

My millionaire uncle for example; If I were to call him right now and tell him I was desperate, he’d do whatever I asked. He’d want me to do some kind of work for it because that is virtue to him. He isn’t a bad guy, he just has a system of values that don’t align with mine. That’s fine. It’s all well and good.

There is a difference between lucky rich kid republicans and Christo-fascist Donald Trump worshipping republicans.

I forget who said it, but there was once a Republican who was concerned with preachers taking over the party. Well. That happened. The god they worship and preach on behalf of is Trump. Allah bless the ones who aren’t like that and are willing to go against beliefs they hold close to their hearts in opposition to fascism. Seriously.

I knew what he’d say though. He’s made it clear through his actions what he wants.

If I worked at Apple, I’d hire you right here, right now.

Man I love this.

As a musician I used to say, “Leonard Cohen began his music career in his 30s. I can do this.”

I’m not Leonard Cohen in any imaginable way. Oh, and I’m past that point now too. :p

My god the world needs people like your wife. Man. Tell her that I said she’s amazing.

Damn, his kid is a writer too?

Don’t work when you smoke weed.

I rarely smoke it (haven’t in at least 4 years), but when I do and sex happens, I can’t breathe and I end up totally stopped up for at least an hour.

I have allergies too though.

It’s so wild to me that Nirvana is old, that I’m old.

I heard the older folks say that I would wake up and be old one day and it would feel like barely any time has passed. “Young people will treat you like a dinosaur and you’ll still think you’re 25.”

I just can’t believe it.

Time has slipped through my fingers. Everything I put off a week ago was actually thousands of years ago now.

30-40 has been a month or so.