Open Heart Surgery

I think I’m finally ready to talk about this.  It has been a strange, choked three years for this blog. I’ve not been anonymous, an issue I’ve been struggling with on all my other social media channels too. But specifically on my blogs, where I talk about relationships, where other people’s emotions and involvement are present, it’s harder for me to speak. And I’ve been in a serious relationship and then the equally heavy fallout of the break-up after that. A broken heart killed me.

Let’s talk about what went wrong, why we broke up, I and the man I called ‘Mr.Everyday‘, the one I was engaged to.

We were very different people to start with. In time our differences became too great to deal with. No, that’s not quite it. True and yet, not what I want to talk about.

It ended because it was a toxic, abusive relationship. Yes, I said that. Abusive. Violence. It ended because voices were raised and at some point in time, hands too.

Take a second to digest that, but only a second, so you don’t have the time to jump to a conclusion. Let me tell my story.

At some point of time, it just got to be too much for me, the things that hurt me so much (which I won’t get into now, I’m determined that this one post won’t be about vilifying him). When that happened, I stopped being who I wanted to think I was. I gave up my lifelong battle against anger and let myself go.

I broke a teacup. I tore up a book I’d gifted him. I set the torn fragments on fire.

Things settled for a bit, cooling off like the burning shards. And I naively believed that our problems had gone too. We started talking about marriage a few months after that, a stupid notion, now I know.

The next time the pressure built up, it went a little further. I don’t even remember the sequence of events now, it’s all such an angry, teary blur. But I do remember screaming,

“If you say that one more time, I’ll slap you”

I don’t remember what his words were that incensed me but whatever they were, despite my warning, he did. And I slapped him. Then he hit me back. I remember flying across the room, hitting the wall and falling down, surprised, very surprised.

Stuff after that blurs again. Another memory. Similar. I slapped him. He lunged back. This time I staggered back and fell onto a sofa and everything was a red blur for a bit. I lost a few seconds before I figured out my nose was bleeding. And still a few more seconds before I realized he was pounding his own fists into the wall. My nosebleed turned out to be a minor internal cut, not a fracture as I had feared. And his fists had bruises on them.

The rest is, well, the rest is just words. I still maintain that there was undue interference from outside which put a severe strain on an already troubled relationship. But truthfully, the rot in our relationship was sown by the two of us – him and me.

It was an abusive relationship. We stopped respecting each other and began hurting each other instead. A handful of incidents changed the course of our relationship from ‘difficult’ to ‘non-existent’.

Why have I chosen to come out with this now? This is not a personal vendetta against him. His crimes in our relationship are numerous. But I can never forget that I raised my hand first, an act of violence that would set the tone for the future of our relationship. I need to acknowledge that, to myself and here, in this space where I talk about my relationships, who I am and how I love. This is me then. I love passionately. But also violently. I’m dreadfully ashamed of it.

I don’t want us to be together anymore (and understandably neither does he). My next thought is usually to wish I hadn’t said this or done that. But I honestly don’t see how my reactions could have been anything else. At that point of time, I just got pushed too far.

Today, I know a little more than I did then. I’m not as proud about never backing down from a challenge. I want to believe that I think before flaring up to anger. I’m still learning. In all fairness, that ‘being pushed too far’ situation has never risen after that. But perhaps one of my lessons is in avoiding those situations too. I’ve learnt fear, a difficult lesson for me. And this time, it’s fear of myself.

I don’t like who I was then and I hope I never go back to that place. That may mean that I never get that close to anybody again, never let myself love or trust so much again, never let myself be so bitterly disappointed again. Because if disappointment frustration and hurt bring out such a monster in me, it’s best that the monster be caged and never taunted out.

But life is a long journey and I don’t anymore believe myself to be the strong, proud person I once thought I was. This hurt, this disappointment in myself has lain heavy on my soul for a year now. I don’t want to punish myself for the rest of my life. So I’m going to try to make my peace with this – with my ugly, violent side as well as the selfish, survival instinct that makes me want to love again.

That’s all. Thank you for listening.

P.S. – I found this blogpost very helpful.