10/14/2020: Forgiveness is hard

TIL: Forgiveness is hard

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm struggling with myself over forgiving Jeff. I want to forgive him. Part of me is still hurt though, and wants to be angry. That part doesn't want to allow him the same leeway I'm upset with him for not allowing me. That part doesn't want to understand his emotional state, to admit he was in a place where he felt he could better solve his problems alone, without me and my problems around. 

It's too bad we couldn't be there for each other. I never really felt I knew how to be there for him. I tried, but always ended up feeling ineffectual. As he kept most of his problems to himself, I assume he agreed. Pushing me toward therapy may have been the only way he knew to help me with my issues, but it came across as an unwillingness to listen. Believing that, I kept to myself things like how finding cancer in my thyroid affected me. Neither of us knew how to just listen without offering solutions. 

He was correct in saying we had communication issues. This is one area I'm having trouble forgiving, because he decided they were insurmountable and wholly my fault. We could have gone to couples therapy. We could have researched how to better communicate and tried different things. In his words: he tried yelling. When that didn't work he gave up. 

My failure to do what he wanted, even after he yelled at me, frustrated him. 

He left instructions on how to medicate his cat in OneNote. I instead followed the instructions on the medicine box, which it turns out were different. He deemed this a selfish and willful act that could have hurt his cat. He was in Portugal so had no control. This was the moment he decided he couldn't trust me.   

An addict himself, he still tried to control my addictions. He never fully embraced the joint account, but told me he didn't want me using it for gambling. I borrowed from it anyway, always and only when I knew I could pay it back the next day. He viewed my doing so as stealing, even though the only reason he knew I'd used it was my telling him I'd done so.

There was the issue of his house vs my home. When I moved in, he told me he didn't want me smoking in his house. Marijuana is not something one can just go outside and smoke, especially not 2 to 3 times a day. I smoked out the window in such a way he only knew I'd smoked in the house because he smelled it on me. He never smelled it in the house.  

These were my sins, the failures to communicate he didn't believe we could recover from. I quit getting high several months before the break-up. I banned myself from the casino 2 days prior. I'm not claiming I was RIGHT to behave the way I did, but I still don't believe it was worth breaking up a 13+ year relationship over.

All the blame makes forgiving difficult. I keep telling myself it's possible he said the nasty things he did because alcoholics in the throes of their addiction can be abusive. It surprised me he would behave that way at the time, but upon reflection it made sense. Verbal abuse is something he grew up with. Unfortunately, his choosing to see my behavior in the worst possible light, his inability to understand where I was coming from, still hurts.

We communicated recently. He says he's forgiven me, but the rancor he expressed during that conversation tells me he hasn't. How do I forgive his willingness to think so poorly of me? I can't rationalize it away. It doesn't make sense in the narrative where he loved me, because in my love for him I always tried to view his actions in the best possible light. 

I keep telling myself "it's the place where he's at." Maybe believing the worst about me allows him to justify breaking up with me, giving him the space he needs to work on his problems alone, away from me and mine. 

Maybe some day understanding that will be enough.   

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Today's accomplishments:

23K+ steps

Complete first steps of OMJ Tech Elevator financing application

Balance checkbook

Apply for Tech Elevator scholarship

Shampoo 1/2 basement carpet

Laundry

Dishes

Clean 2nd floor bathroom

Watch Critical Role Campaign 2 Episode 90/91

Research macramé patterns for air plant hangers