pushing onward… this, item 9 from ‘the list’.
despite the knowledge that many times they seriously hurt my feelings, often to the point of weeping or despair, this other was literally incapable of acknowledging their actions as hurtful, expressing remorse or sorrow for them, or in any way aspiring to put an end to them.
this was a thing that truly hurt. it is among the most hurtful of things of him.
i was very aware very early on that he was not unaware that he hurt me, he simply did not care that he hurt me.
to express to him that his words, actions, or lack of action in accord with his words was a hurtful thing more often than not only set him to great, long justifications… anything to avoid acknowledgement, anything to rebut his responsibility for his words, actions, or the variances between them.
in all the time i knew him, there was one apology given, and it was not as much an apology as a terse nod toward it followed by why ‘i made them’ do such and so.
i knew this for carelessness. i knew it for lack of mindfulness. i knew it for selfishness. i knew it for pride and insecurity.
i tried to demonstrate their opposites, but it was not a thing he would accept. knowing it, i continued to slog against the impossible. this, my fault, utterly. i should have turned long ago.
the negativity of me in relation to this was no different than to many of the other things that hurt. i was unwilling to accept he was as he was… as he is. i foolishly thought i could demonstrate by my remaining and willingness to strive… and that eventually, he would understand and be willing to give the same.
of course, eventually, i could no longer demonstrate. i was too busy trying to staunch my own bleeding and by then, had allowed him to create in me the very things i initially sought to heal of him.
i forgave him constantly. not saying what he did was ‘ok’, it wasn’t. but refusing to permit his actions to change my aspiration to be good to him. when it got to the point where i could no longer forgive him, i knew it had to end… but even then, i struggled against it.
one day to the next i swung between poles of remaining and departing, and his persistence in cutting i allowed to set me wielding my own blades. in the end, i let him make me like him. i am still trying to forgive myself for this.
ironically, it was his selfishness that saved me in the end. it was not until he cut me for caring that i woke up. cold water. he had cut me in every possible way, and i had chosen to remain for hope that at least he would see and know i cared and perhaps, somehow, that could nourish him enough that he might be willing to set down the blade.
the one thing he had managed to avoid slicing at was the truth of my care for him. i think he knew that would be a final severing. and i think when he could no longer face i really did mean it, i really did intend to remain, and i really wasn’t going to abandon him or be only superficially caring of him, his own fear insisted on that final cutting.
he has never expressed remorse toward it. he has never expressed any degree of sorrow for it. he has never apologized. and i know now that he cannot, he never will.
i forgive this, too. turn hurt and resentment to understanding and compassion. i know such inability as this hurts him. i am saddened for such hurting, even as i will never again place myself in a position to know it as fully as i have these many months.
i no longer need his apologies. which is just as well.