This is a continuation (and, hopefully, finale) on my last relationship. Related posts:
Breaking the Cycle of Domestic Violence and Emotional Abuse
Have you ever imagined confronting someone who’s wronged you? Maybe someone who stole from you, or a friend who betrayed you, or someone who physically assaulted you, or a lover who abused you and broke your heart a million times over. What would you say to them? Would you yell and scream? Curse them out?
On July 4th, I was presented with this opportunity…
It was my last full day in Prishtina after a week-long visit (I was scheduled to fly out to Germany the next morning). In the early afternoon, I was at the grocery store picking up a few items and a bottle of wine for a barbecue. I remember distinctly how one song was looping continuously through the overhead sound system. The lyrics to the chorus were:
I don’t need your love
‘Cause I already cried enough
I’ve been done
I’ve been movin’ on since we said goodbye
I cut you off
I don’t need your love, so you can try all you want
Your time is up, I’ll tell you why
But it’s too late now
So save it, get gone, shut up
‘Cause if you think I care about you now
Well, boy, I don’t give a fuck
(It wasn’t until two weeks later when, after hearing it again at a bar, I learned that the song was called “IDGAF” by Dua Lipa. Very ironic given what was to come next.)
After I arrived back to my Airbnb, I started getting ready for a meeting, my one and only work appointment for the day. A few minutes before I was supposed to leave, I received a message from him. He asked me if I could meet him for coffee. Out of mostly sheer curiosity, I said yes–I could meet him in a couple of hours.
Since April, I’ve imagined different scenarios of us meeting up again. The one that always ran through my mind was of me throwing a drink in his face and cursing him out. In reality? When I saw him, I froze. My mind and my body went numb. My gut told me to run. He didn’t ask for a hug–he told me “Let’s hug it out,” as though we were old schoolmates who had a small tiff. I immediately stiffened up as he pulled me into him.
The next hour felt like a week. I remembered how easily time used to slip by when we were together. This time, that easiness was no longer there. Instead, there was an invisible wall between us. He made sure to take the seat across from me and not next to me. We both sat with our arms crossed. When I looked at him, I only saw darkness. There he was–the source of my countless anxiety attacks, all my nightmares, restless nights, and heavy heart.
He told me he was trying to work through his issues. He said there was a point when he did want to be with me, he did want things to work out. Now I know this was a continuation of his lies. If he had honestly wanted to make things work, he would have. If he had honestly cared about me, he wouldn’t have treated me the way he did. In those 60 minutes, he never once uttered the words “I’m sorry.”
I called him a liar. I told him about all the anger I’ve been feeling every second of every hour. I called him out on all the times he had lied to me, and he denied all of them of course. He always had an explanation ready for everything. This time, I didn’t believe any of them. I wanted to describe to him all the trauma, abuse, and torment he had put me through. I should have told him that every single day since April, I’ve wanted to scream at the top of my lungs and to cry angry tears. Instead, I told him that all I want is to forget about him–pretend he never existed. I never once said, “I forgive you.”
But I did tell him I regret not ending things between us after I had left Kabul last September. Maybe if we had ended things there, we would still be friends and I wouldn’t know him as an abusive manipulator who used me and tossed me aside when he decided he didn’t want to commit to me, to put in the work, to fight for us…
Immediately after that one hour, I felt exhausted, completely drained, and all the anger that had been slowly fading, receding, rushed back like a giant tsunami wave. I continued to feel this way for several weeks after I got home. Then one night, yet another evening ahead of me that I should have been putting towards other things instead of laying on the couch, it hit me: I was tired of being angry. And I realized the anger had taken over my life. Even though this person had been physically absent from my life for months, the anger and chaos he caused were still there, and they were coming out in very unhealthy ways. He was still controlling me and I wanted it to be over. I needed to get better.
I still miss him and I still love him, but now I know the person I love was NOT REAL–it was a version of him that he pretended to be. As soon as I became aware of all the anger and how it was affecting all facets of my life, peace started to settle in. I was finally free.
East to West 