#disclaimer: domestic violence in any format is BAD and i am pro punching people who punch you

[holocene-sims]

next // previous

may 28, 2021 2:30 p.m. newcrest counseling center

(tw for violence mention)

[grant] i guess, um...on a related note…

[margot] yes! what are you thinking?

[grant] every time i've talked to her since the night she first told me about all this has been a disaster. we’ve tried talking about it or just talking to each other and...it’s a hot mess.

[margot] in what way?

[grant] just the way she treats me. i already mentioned it earlier but she got mad when i expressed being upset after she broke the news to me. since then, it’s like she’s chasing me around trying to catch me in a conversation to force me to change my mind about things. she's very aggressive about it and acts like she wants me to just gloss over everything and forget it all happened.

[margot] what happened the first time when you were expressing your feelings?

[grant] i don't want to relive the whole thing but let's just say that i told her i was not happy with her and couldn't believe what she did. then i asked if i could leave to be alone for a while and she got, like, outrageously angry.

[grant] and then she, um...she hit me.

[margot] she assaulted you?

[grant] yes.

[grant] she apologized later. and i guess she seemed upset with herself over it. i don’t remember. i blocked it out. a lot of it. i remember everything up to her hitting me and then everything is super fuzzy after that.

[grant] but an apology isn’t really enough. like no, you hit me. and not only did you hit me but you did that totally with the full knowledge that i was physically abused as a child. that shit was targeted. she knew it would freak me out! sorry doesn’t cut it, even if she did feel bad, and it doesn't even matter because her apology was still, you know, like she was trying to convince me to forget it. you know, there’s a reason i refused to break up with her until it got to be too much. i was afraid of her.

[grant] but that’s a different thing. i stood up myself in the end so whatever. i brought this up because i don’t know, i guess because i feel like i didn't get any decent answers out of her ever but i'm also really not sure why she’s acting like this. i've never seen her like this at all. she can be mean but not like this. this is different. i don't understand the cheating and i don't understand all this.

[margot] i think you may have answered your own question.

[margot] it’s very possible she’s actually upset with herself about the cheating and is lashing out to protect herself. and maybe she’s also desperately trying to save the relationship, even if her approach is deeply disturbing. but no matter what her reasoning is, it will never excuse her behavior and i'm horrified to hear she resorted to physical violence. that’s terrible and i am so sorry you experienced that.

[margot] is she still living with you? because–

[grant] i don’t think she’d do it again, if you’re worried about my safety. i really don’t. she’s done some crazy stuff recently but i just can’t see her doing that a second time. she won’t do it after i stood up to her. i know she acted that way because she knows i'm a pushover and she guessed she could get her way with me. i think i proved her wrong.

[grant] but for now, she is still at the house. she said she’d be gone in a few weeks once she got things taken care of. i know if i told like 99% of my friends and family that i didn’t kick her out, they’d think i was delusional, but i'm just not that kind of person. maybe that’s me being a literal doormat in the end anyway but i don’t know. it would be cruel to do that. so what if she’s treated me like shit the last two weeks? i'm not going to stoop to the same level or act like her or whatever. i'm not going to throw her out of the house when she doesn’t have anywhere to go and kind of doesn’t know a single person here in the state of michigan who isn’t my relative or my friend. her people are in another country. she’d be homeless or in a hotel and that’s…

[grant] you know, i still love her. that’s probably obvious. i do love her. i love her enough that i'm completely heartbroken over our relationship even though she’s done everything in the world to run me off. she fucked me over, ruined our relationship all by herself...but i still love her. i didn’t propose to her for nothing. i didn’t get excited about our future and about moving in together for nothing. loving her was something i wanted. and i know enough about her to believe she’s not an evil person. i have zero empathy for my mom but i have it for päivi because i know what the better side of her is like. i also think this version of her right now isn’t her at all. i don’t know what it is but it isn’t her. and, um, sue me, i guess, but i'm not trying to give people a real taste of their own medicine. i want her out of my life immediately so i can heal and move on with life the best i can but i don’t want to ruin her life or hurt her.

[grant] and i'm sure this sounds like i'm completely spineless and a raging idiot and you’d probably disagree with me for saying all this but this is what me making my own decisions looks like. i do want her gone. i will never forgive her. i'm not making excuses for her or letting her get away with cheating and mistreatment. i'm still afraid of her and i don't even know if i can explain how much it hurts to have been betrayed like this. but for my own sake, i'm being as cordial as possible. i don’t want to see her, i don’t want to talk to her, but yelling at her and cutting her out was enough. it doesn’t bring me any joy to lash out at her or get revenge. i just want this to end.