#conscious uncoupling

[vvvitch]

conscious uncoupling

ee cummings "i carry your heart with me (i carry it in" // daniel gerhartz "compassion" // regina spektor "samson" // hozier "francesca" // bon iver "perth" // searows "walk me home" // federico garcia lorca "sonnet of the wreath of roses" // danny schmidt "this too shall pass" // patd "folkin around" // waxahatchee "swan dive" // sanna wani "sorrow is a promise"

[thehalfwaypost]

[kismetkween]

An exchange of control

“I try in vain to be persuaded that control is anything but the intersection of rage and desire.” 

Today is an odd one, I went to my dad’s for Easter I did not pressure Ben to go. He had plans to fix his truck and help Chrissy move. The past week Ben and I have been sitting in the wake of the news that I am moving to Ohio. We decided not to divorce quite yet and play it separate. This has been very casual, and everyone is digesting it well. 

His GF(ish) is moving into a new apartment and starting over from scratch. He has offered her some of our furniture from the garage storage to give her a head start. Kurt and I continue to work towards a life together we don’t know what that looks like, but we know we want to love and support each other in our quest to be the best versions of ourselves. 

Ben and I have been together for 16 years. He has always yelled, and we broke up a lot and our day to day has been touch and go. Highest of highs and lowest of lows. I always thought we were a relationship and we loved each other and were strong and resilient and stayed together for better or worse. 

Then there came a time when he yelled at me when I did anything I enjoyed, or when we tried to have a discussion or debate or if I did not respond to something he said properly. I carried guilt for losing interest, but it was not that, I can see that now. It was not wanting to put myself in the way again.  

I lost my interest in sex but, … Who can bring them to fuck someone who hates them. I am not trying to be emo hate is the appropriate word. 

Anyone, (even your partner) Who finds the places and times you are to be the most vulnerable (in your home) and then chooses to be the most malevolent presence in your life, they are not your friends and they do not like you. 

If I am wrong how else am I to tell? Name-calling? check. Knowing the things I hate and doing them anyway? check. Being petty? check. 

If I was going to a party and found out this person was going to be there… I would not go. If I found out this person was to be educating my son, I would not allow it. Why do I go home? Why do I allow? 

I no longer feel bad. 

It does not mean he is a bad person I do feel these things that spark his rage are born in a conflicting place for him. I just don’t want to participate in it anymore. 

An example that became relevant today,  

A few months ago, (find date) I was working, from home, I was trying to update a game so Sterling and I could play together later.  

I asked Sterling to get my controller and start the update. Ben started helping him look, of his own volition, and I suggested moving the couch. To look under and in it. 

 He said something about the clearance of the couch to the floor and how would it fit under there, I did not understand why I was supposed to know that and why he was upset about me not knowing that. 

 We fought about it really badly, He called me a fucking idiot in front of my son. We went back and forth a bit longer about it and eventually got quiet. Noah stood between us, and I mumbled, “No wonder I want to fucking kill myself this is what happens when I try to have a good morning.” He piped back up that if I wanted to kill myself it was not his fault, it was because I was a weak person especially if that is all It takes to make me want to die” I called my dad and his mom. I wanted to leave but I didn’t. 

Cut forward to today he is hauling around furniture he bought me to give to her. Here is where things confuse me. I have no interest, even at times I have tried to force myself or move parts of me around, they are burned and can no longer connect with him.  

I even feel as though I have moved on at a higher level. I have found and loved and lost people more dynamic and more interesting. I am literally in love, and it is the best feeling ever. All he has done is like… fucked another and that does not interest me. 

I definitely don’t envy her, or him...  

I do, however, find it very very hard to admit I am not worthy of love. I cannot understand how she, a person he barely knows, is worthy of more respect and effort than his wife and the mother of his child. The person who does a lot for him. Who is always there to love him the day after he has fucked up. I have huge issues with these feelings of inadequacy. 

He does not treat me as a person he loves or has ever loved. 

I have written about this a million other times, but If I ask him to do something, or need his help with anything, it is always a huge fight. The kind with ugly words and screaming not the kind where you finger wag and say “boys will be boys” the kind where you wonder to yourself, who in their right mind wants to fuck a grown man who throws a fit about cleaning up after himself. 

But honestly, he is generous and helpful... Just to everyone but me. Free car work for his friends and family, his sister or mother need painting, moving, yardwork? He is on it.  

Others, people who only call when they need something, they had him for a whole weekend and he will call me annoying or needy if I called him and ask him when he is going to call him because I want him to spend time with me or his son. 

Last week he and I got in to a screaming match where he mocked me and made fun of me and threw my words up in my face. Because he was laid up in bed all week with some girl and wanted me to do all the dishes while I was out of town. I refused.  

His own dishes. 

This sounds like old sitcom wife stuff but it bothers me on a fundamental level that is “why them and why not me... and if them and not me... why do I?” 

But he moved an entire garage full of furniture for her on his only day off, on a holiday he could have been spending with Sterling. She needed it and she deserved it and he should have. It is not a matter of her getting more than me it is me seeing a baseline of his efforts and what he is willing to do for those people and then questioning why I do not qualify for those same efforts. 

What is wrong with me and my all and why does it not compare to a common person and their bare minimum? I sometimes am just embarrassed. 

 Embarrassed that I am still here, embarrassed that I have not done anything effective to stop it. Embarrassed that, I have changed so much of myself to make it work, and given so much of my time to a person who does not want good for me. Who does not want me to succeed. 

I think I am mostly embarrassed because it took me so long to realize. There is a part of me that is baffled, as I am not able to function in any other environment when I am humiliated. I don’t know how I am able to keep it together here. I think because I am using all my energy at home I do not have enough to do anything and it is just cyclical. 

When it comes to the yelling itself. I have asked for it to stop for the entirety of our relationship and he says he cannot help it but it is a weak excuse. 

 In the past 16 years, I have seen him get so angry, blood boiling mad at his siblings, friends, and bosses and other people and he has never yelled at them. I have tried to counter this in anyway. I have tried fixing the issues that he is mad about, I have tried talking to him, emailing him calmly, I have tried walking away, shutting down conversations and even try yelling back. 

 When I consistently used that approach, it was when his niece was here, this was just following I would say, that happiest period we had, the most relationship success we had. I complained a few times to him mom and sister who simply replied “yell back” it seemed just that simple. Maybe I had been overthinking it. Also it seemed to solve the issues I was having with my niece witnessing the yelling. I didn’t want her to think I was just, “taking it” I wanted her to see strength but instead I showed her desperation, being backed in a corner. 

 Either way the irony came when he sent me an email telling me that if I cannot stop yelling I need to leave his house along with several other threats to my security (not my safety.) 

So why does he do it to me if it is unsuccessful, and it is not a method he uses with anyone else? If I ask him I always get confirmation of my greatest fear. The problem is me, my issues, my health, my inability to understand. I am constantly changing. There is no way that every single version of me has been a problem. 

I know he is wrong whether he means it or not. He does mean it though. If he is in a good mood later, if he is better and open to discuss it I have begged for apologies that he has told me I do not deserve. I have given him a thousand sorries he has not earned just so he does not have to carry the weight around with him. I donot believe he does not care how I feel, I believe he wants me to feel badly. 

I have seen his behavior with Chrissy, He wines and dines her, goes to restaurants he hates, he showers, he cleans the room, cleans the house, he doesn’t disrespect her, he helps her with tasks. He treats her like a person.  

He won’t clean up after himself if it helps me, he WANTS me to work around him. He will not even wash the sex of someone else off of him before he crawls into my bed in the middle of the night because he wants me to be uncomfortable. 

I want to be treated like a person by everyone but especially a person I have to face at my most private and vulnerable, in my own home. I want all I do for him to be valued and in return I simply want to not be abused. 

He could have done these things for me, when I asked him too, long ago. He didn’t because he didn’t want to. He did not want to give me effort. If I say these things need to change or I go, and he does not fix them, he wants me to go. 

The amount of time I have stayed where I am unwanted is embarrassing but It took so long for me to realize this is abuse. Halloween really did it for me I have written about it a bit but not always in the mood to reflect on it. 

Now that I have a plan to leave though… I cannot put it back in the box. I cannot unsee it as abuse. Even if I am humiliated I need to go back to whatever lobotomized state that allowed me to stay and ignore the obvious. 

 Because the fear, and humiliation and anger at wasted time makes it so hard to stay. I don’t want to waste another minute. 71 days I keep telling myself. I just can’t pretend enough to make me stay or ruin all my progress. I think that is what scares me the most. 

Long story, less long. As he was moving the couch, after all the damage has been done and we both have new partners, when I can never look at him again without seeing every name, he has ever called me, the controller fell out of the couch.  

I don’t care about the controller. I bought a new one that day without rage. Knowing things get lost, living in the world in which we have to pivot. Where abuse will not unlose things or unruin relationships, or uncall someone an idiot.  

But it has taken me months to realize that he never cared about the controller either. When he found it, He brought it to me, beaming with pride, waiting for me to thank him. Waiting for me to tell the story where he was the hero. He cared not about the controller but control. For so long, he wanted to control me. Not even for what I was offering just so things don’t change for him. I used to be more angry, more willing to fight, sometimes I was the opponent he needed. I would fight my own nature to be what he needed. I think it validated him. I think all his life he has waited for someone to fight for him and not against him. He has trauma too and I acknowledge that but when mine has been an issue, I fix it. I take time off work, I get medication, I talk to therapists, I change things. When I asked him straight forward, are you going to change, and he said he had no interest in changing, I knew there were no longer things here that he can control. 

I see the irony, the OCD girly is remarking to others about control, but I am also willing to change to be kinder. To be nicer and I need an environment that supports that. 

I don’t know how to say this other than the fact I am wildly dynamic. But I don’t think he is bad, I don’t think he is a bad guy. I think we are like most couples, we did fine for a long time and somewhere along the way we started putting fights off for later and so many unresolved issues came up, and everytime we speak ot think of the other so much hurt and ugly comes out and no one wants to be hurt and ugly all the time.  // I know this just seems like a wild rant with no point but the point is, I am releasing my guilt, I carry it no longer. I do have a touch of guilt about introducing Ben and Chrissy, I don’t think it was very “girls’ girl” of me but ... I don’t think he will be cruel to her. I think they can find peace and happiness and I don’t believes he deserves to be alone.  

 There is so much more to discuss but I hope to be more coherent with my thoughts.. 

https://kismetkweenx.wordpress.com/about/

[chrhnchynoodles]

I need to stop reposting so much fucking shit because then I can never find the funny ass posts I make to laugh at and show no one because I’ll be exiled for having tumblr:/

[synthville]

“It’s good to see you.” / “It’s great to be seen.”

RAFFI MUSIKER - ST: PIC - S03E06

[borgeslabyrinth]

I'm going to see The Mountain Goats twice in December. The last tour's opener was so fucking good (Pool Kids) so I have high hopes for the opener of this tour. I've always enjoyed TMG's openers, but Pool Kids was so fun. JD even brought them on stage to dance during This Year. So like. Gonna be hard to top.

[baddingtonbitch]

i wish that when gwyneth talked about juicing she meant steroids

[ashotasfireandasdeepastheocean1]

...☝🏼!!!

Missing the days of Quality over Quantity...

..all these cheap clothing chains & this brand hunger of people ruin the mindsets & our planets future...

Stop overproduction!!!

Wake up people!!!

.

[everydayesterday]

6, 30, 135?

six. what kind of people are you attracted to?

cat people.

thirty. do you ever want to get married?

(again?) I'd want to retreat to a cabin in the woods with someone. I'd want to hold someone's hand while walking through the snow. I'd want to wake up and see someone smiling down at me.

one hundred thirty-five. dumbest lie you've ever told?

I grew up in a very isolated community. I told a girlfriend that we had to get water from a well in our backyard. I had no motive; it was innocuous; I didn't expect any traction except for momentary disbelief, but it wasn't revealed as a lie for months afterward.

[ur-mag]

Brutal celeb breakups are back…and I’m loving it after years of conscious uncoupling nonsense, says Ulrika Jonsson | In Trend Today

Brutal celeb breakups are back…and I’m loving it after years of conscious uncoupling nonsense, says Ulrika Jonsson Read Full Text or Full Article on MAG NEWS

[blorbocedes]

Hiii - for the fic prompts:

girlcedes - 7. Trapped in a room/closet/elevator

Lewis is glaring at Nico like she orchestrated this.

"I have places to be too." Nico says out loud, in her general direction. They're standing as far you can socially distance on an elevator. An elevator that the intercom buzzed in and reported would take fifteen minutes to send in the guys to fix. That was twenty minutes ago. Such glitz and glamour to live in Monaco.

"Not you. Claustrophobia." Lewis grits her teeth. She's sitting in a corner, squatting in her Dior running shoes. Probably showing off her knees can still take it.

Nico's leaning by the glass mirror because she's wearing a white pantsuit.

Oh right. Claustrophobia. Nico always forgets because it's always funny, the cars they drive in is more cramped than the spacious elevator. But it's about control, she gets that. Lewis in a Formula 1 car is just an extension of her body. But Lewis would always keep the door of the drivers room open, back in Mercedes.

"How are you scared of this and not jumping off a plane? It should be child's cake to you. Hm, that's not right. Child's play?" Nico frowns trying to locate the metaphor in the medley of languages in her brain. She speaks mostly to keep Lewis distracted. Nico herself is not, her positive outlook mantras covered this. Negative thoughts cannot happen if you don't let it. That's why she never checked her portfolio after the AI company she invested in rugpulled millions. It simply does not exist if she doesn't give it the power to.

"Skydiving is incredibly safe," Lewis bites the bait, "It's safer than scuba diving. And you're in control the whole time."

"All it takes is one parachute not opening." Nico shrugs. Even the thought makes her shudder. Absolutely not.

"Good thing they strap you with two then." Lewis drawls. She doesn't say it, too graceful these days, but the idiot is implied.

Nico rolls her eyes but is beaten in the marketplace of ideas.

She turns to the mirror, her shoulder length blonde hair bouncing. There's a pimple cropping up under her chin, she can feel it. She presses down on it, warning it to stay there.

"Don't do that - you look fine." Lewis is frowning, looking up at Nico from where she's crouched.

Nico used to obsessively poke and prod at her face staring at the mirror as a teenager. She's a little embarrassed Lewis remembers from their days of sharing rooms during karting.

"It's the only mirror time I get. Vivi and I are very mindful of not passing any body insecurities to the girls. Entering the pre-teens is a very impressionable time." Nico explains. She doesn't need her daughters rubbing off on her complexes.

Lewis gets up, lithe like a cat, in her oversized crewneck. She looks pointedly at the lack of ring on Nico's hand. "How's the divorce going?"

Nico purses her lips. "Conscious uncoupling. Very well, thank you. How's Ferrari?" She switches the subject. "Learn any Italian yet?"

"I've downloaded Duolingo." Lewis smiles, sheepishly, the gap in her teeth is still charming even after all these years.

"I remember teaching you some." In bed, tangled up in each other, another lifetime ago.

"I'm sure none of that was usable, man."

"Hm. You should try ti va di fare dolce su e giù?" Nico smirks.

"What does it mean?" Lewis asks.

Nico just smiles in that way when she knows something Lewis doesn't. "I'm sure Leclerc will be down. Happy to... accommodate." The double entendre in her voice gives it away.

Lewis takes a step closer, her hand on the railing where Nico is standing. And suddenly, the elevator feels like a much smaller space, with nowhere to hide. She shakes her head, the rings on her tattooed hands glittering. Nico feels strangely naked without hers. "He's not my type."

Nico leans forward. "And who is?"

The elevator doors ding open. They are on Lewis' floor.

[robinshill]

"A conscious uncoupling."

You, or Jamie and Claire?

"Who really knows where one stops and the other begins?"

Exactly!

[amokslime]

No "other" because these are mine alone, but feel free to let me know your favorites. I love talking about Star Trek

[itsnotamatterofif]

Goood morning campers, I’ve been awake since 6am for reasons unknown so I put our lad through suffering. Have a bit of ‘Hydra gets over pressured during testing’, hope this is okay!

✨Want a mini fic? Send me an ask!✨

17012020 - an unknown stretch of land south of Manchester.

For likely the first time since he's been conscious, the new DOT-113 tanker has been left alone.

It's cold out, incredibly cold, but that doesn't bother him - he's cold all the time anyway, the chill has become second nature to him, but the snow that settles by their wheels is new. It has a fun texture too, as he scrunches a ball of flakes into his hands with a satisfying crunch.

Frustratingly, he doesn't know why he's been left alone. He's left the research centre a few times, sure, but usually to be taken from one repair shop to another for various parts and upgrades before hastily taken back again. This time, they pulled to a stop on a stretch of exposed track, fields stretching around them as far as the thick January fog will allow. The diesel that brought them here - a kindly, older chap with a well-worn dent in his left side - uncoupled quietly, wishing them well, and making his way further down the track, leaving DOT-113 abandoned.

At first, this was fine; the tanker knows someone will come back for them eventually. There's been far too much work put into them to be dumped in the middle of a random track, plus leaving him here to rot would pretty much be polluting, which is almost entirely what the company stands against. It's just the why that's messing with him - this feels intentional, from the engine leaving him behind to the specific placement of him down the track, but he can't figure out what test needs him out of the yard and onto the tracks like this. There's a grogginess in him today, though, like all of their new parts that were put on yesterday aren't quite fitting together properly, which isn't helped by the bleakness of his surroundings

There's a crackling in his ear, static and painful, and he jumps at the suddenness of it all; the speaker has only been used once before, a strange test a few months ago where all the engineers had  to bunker down in a distant room, watching through cameras dotted around the room like hawks, and he didn't much like it then either.

"All clear," a voice reads through the speaker, and he spins to anticipate movement, but nothing shifts. As if the world holds a breath, nothing around him dares to even move; even the glass, dancing in slight breeze, seems to hold its position, but nothing changes. There's no jump scares, no explosion, no unexpected traffic on the lines, nothing. So they relax, roll their shoulders that were filled with tension, and take a deep breath of cold, wet January air.

Then pressure starts to build.

It's not an unfamiliar feeling, definitely not painful; they've been over pressured before, quite frequently in fact. Pressure capacity has been something that's been tested on him time and time again in various environments, so he knows this routine. In a few seconds his safety valves will blow - if pressure is still rising after ten more seconds, he's to activate the manual release which should solve the issue.

As expected, there's the familiar whistling pop of the safety valves on his collar, one then the other in perfect rhythm. Shutting his eyes tightly, he waits, ten, nine, eight, seven...

This is becoming uncomfortable.

Once they hit one, scrambling hands reach for the hand crank, peeling away the layers of padding and armour to reach the pop out wheel. With a hiss, the system gives, the familiar, if slightly strange looking vent in their right side opening wide; a cloud of gas erupts from it, white and cold against their hands as the water from the air seems to freeze against the vent instantly. There’s a second of relief as they take that second to grab one shuddering breath, before it soars back up. The billowing of gas from out of the two safety values and the relief vent doesn’t seem to be letting up, and the top half of his blank, unpainted armour is frosting over as he watches solid ice forming on all three valves.

Trembling hands drag blunt nails across the valve on his side, scratching and digging at the ice obscuring the exit. A few pieces shave off, but no large chunks like he wanted, and he can feel the ends of his fingers go numb as desperation sets in. Whatever pressure is stuck within him just isn’t shifting and he needs it to shift, he needs it to shift soon; he can’t see his gauges, but he can imagine exactly what they’re saying.

“Uh, Sir?” They call out to the expanse, praying there’s someone around to hear, “it’s not- the pressure’s not shifting like usual, something’s wrong- shit.”

A series of quiet warning beeps alert them to the fact that their left most safely valve is an icicle, and there’s a distinct lack of gas billowing from in. Instead, the pain is building as he grabs a stick to try and poke at the ice, like knifes or forceful hands in his tank, pushing and scraping and wrenching-

He can’t die here, he’s survived every test so far, he has so much to do. He doesn’t even have a name yet.

Something cracks and shatters forcefully; the ice, on their safety valve, the force of the escaping gas finally stronger than the ice. They’d breathe a sigh of relief if he could, but the pressure is so that they cannot expand their chest to breathe. So he goes back to digging at the bigger vent on his side, stabbing at it now, just trying to create whatever gaps in the ice they can before everything freezes completely-

“Air moisture overpressure scenario complete,” a staticky voice from the speaker says, and its distant in the tanker’s hearing to the point where he hardly registers it under the panic, “hold right there, DOT-113A60W, an engineering crew will be with you shortly.”

He nods mutely, ears mostly full of the cracking of ice and the rush of escaping gas. The pain has tunnel-visioned him, but he’s determined, now; he’s got to hold out until the team get here, because he’s strong and he survived this, and he wants them to know that.

They just have to hope they get here soon.

[greatgreenwelshadventures]

For those of you who have been following our adventures for a while, we wanted to be open and share a recent transition in our journey together.

After 29 years of marriage we recently took the joint decision to undergo a process of conscious uncoupling (Katherine Woodward Thomas, Mindvalley Quest).

It has been our wish to mindfully end our romantic relationship in a respectful and amicable way, honouring the blessings and positive aspects of our years together.

We are now separated and no longer a couple however, we intend to cohabit as friends and continue to run the farm in partnership, for our mutual benefit.

In a nutshell we have ditched areas of our lives that were no longer aligned and keeping the stuff that works...(and for those of you we suspect will understand, much of that was the complications and conflicting needs of one who is polyamorous and one who is relationship monogamous 😅 something which despite our best efforts couldn't be compromised upon).

It's early days and things are still a little raw as we find our way to the new normal. But the blog will continue as, no doubt, will our adventures ☺️