322 - 9.9.26 - 24: Triggered

Tik Tok is filled with women who have been scorned. Women who tell it all. Who show how horrible their partners are. I was one of those women and I was completely triggered watching it. It brought back all the years when I was ignored and the passive aggressive behaviours, the demeaning comments, there is also a whole thing where men spend inordinate amounts of time in the toilet. Only that we had one toilet in the house. It got so bad that I would tell the children to knock the door because if I did it I would get a shouting at. Once I said, do you want me to shit in the garden? His reply was, I wouldn't put it past you. Oh yes. There are all kinds of crap I put up with.

The crap I could talk about.

But I am past all of that, still though when these things come up i can't help but think of how awful it was. How he never said Happy Mother's Day. We were in Donegal and I had just given birth to Ghin. As usual I was up looking after the boys and he was sleeping. Mother's Day. It came to around noon and he was no awake and nothing from him. Radio silence. I broke down in tears and said, It's Mother's Day, and you have nothing to say to me? He looked at me as if I had grown two heads. I said, take me to the bus station. And he did. And I sat on the bus crying all the way back to Belfast. A young woman approached me and said, are you alright? I nodded. No. I was not alright. I was going, what have I done? I have had a new child with this man who is a cold monster. 

There was nothing I could have done to make him happy. Nothing. There are two things which I regret in my life - possibly three. One is I didn't take my sabbatical earlier - last year - to spend it with Pa and Ma. The second is I didn't divorce him in 2013. And the third and this is the most shameful - is that I made myself smaller to comply with his idea of what I should be. But it did not matter how much smaller I became, I was never small enough for him. I changed for him, to my shame, and it didn't matter how much I had changed, it was never enough. He was a complete sadist. He loved watching me suffer. I detest him so so much. And he has everyone fooled. Everyone. 

When we 'tried' again - the more fool me - I said there were two conditions. First, that I would never compromise myself. Which I didn't, thank fuck. And secondly, that it would take 2 years. He hung in there for a year and a half and then said, this is not working. Fine. Good. At least I gave it a go and you said it wasn't working.

Everything I have done in my life, at least I can say, i did right by all of this shit. 

But women are calling men out all over the internet and power to them. Power to them. I have, locked in my journal, years and years and years of frustration and sorrow. Tears. Struggles. I once told him, the Earth is my witness. And indeed the Earth is my witness - as your goddamned buddha said. 

The Earth saw everything. 

I have two beautiful sons now... and that's all that matters. And I adore them completely. They are the best of us, although I did put in 89% of the work looking after them.

All the holidays in Singapore. 
Breakfasts and dinners - there for them.
Holidays in general.
I provided the structure, freely, gladly.

Like many men he just sauntered in and did what he wanted to. There was a time when he meditated 3 days a week at the Black Mountain Zen centre. I used to wonder what kind of fucking religion would allow someone with parental responsibilities to neglect them completely. And it turns out that when I did think when the boys were in his care, he had fucked off elsewhere, leaving them to fend for themselves. I have a record of his comings and goings which I had journaled for months. Quite often the boys would ask me, where is dad and I would say, I don't know. And he could really be everywhere. Someone once said that called him and he was in Nigeria. Of course he was.

I say this all allegedly, of course. Allegedly.

It doesn't matter. At this stage of the journey, its all good. But good for those women calling those asshole of men out on TikTok. Good for them. Do not swallow your tears in silence. Fuck em. Fuck em all.