Uncle B...why I can't move on

I was doing some research online yesterday about the human brain relating to failed relationships. You see, getting over Uncle B has not been as easy as I had hoped it would be. A few months before Uncle B departed from my life, we were both going to separate therapists. It was sort of fun. We would tell each other what we had "learned" from our sessions and how we could relate that knowledge to our lives. Since March 2012, all of my sessions have been about Uncle B. His departure has brought about a number of issues in my life. I have been unable to process why I have been so uprooted by his departure. Yesterday's research has gotten me closer to an answer.
In order to understand why this has been so traumatic for me, there are two key elements everyone needs to understand. The first being elemental human nature. Humans are wired to bond with other humans. We like the sense of comfort and belonging other human beings bring to us. When Uncle B left, he took with him the closeness my heart felt for him. We had shared very intimate parts of our lives with each other. He was my confidante and near best friend. We shared our hopes, dreams, and fears with each other. Many of those things included each other. Our futures had become intertwined. When he left, all of those things and what I thought was my reality went with him. I loved him for every little flaw he had. He claimed that he loved me for all of mine.

Secondly, I've also learned that it was the way he left that is causing me the most stress. I've come to explain "Wendy" to people as "Logical Wendy" and "Emotional Wendy". "Logical Wendy" knows that she should hate Uncle B with every fiber of her being. "Logical Wendy" knows that had Uncle B been decent and human, he would have given her the courtesy (based on the closeness they had shared) of a face-to-face "break up". Most humans, with true human emotions, know that such an event would be life-changing for the other person and give them the respect of doing it in person and with a solid explanation. It is not adequate to share your deepest thoughts and secrets with someone for an entire year and then simply say, "I found someone else. Bye." A true man would realize that his decision is going to upset the other person, if she truly cared for him. He would face his actions like a man. Uncle B never did that. He started having a relationship with someone else during the same time he was telling me that he loved me. He lied. I knew all along, but I suppose a part of me wanted to hear it from him. He has never given me that verbal reason for why he left. "Logical Wendy" also sees that Uncle B has some horrible patterns in his life. What "Logical Wendy" has seen thus far in his new relationship is everything he would have had with me had I not been married. One of the final things Uncle B said to me in our last chats (yes...he seriously never has verbally spoken to me about our break up...great guy, right?) was in reference to my marriage. Thinking back to the first few months of our relationship, he did the same things he is doing with the new female. He wanted to run off with me. He quoted Robert Heinlein and gave me Heinlein books. He wanted to have kids (twins, a boy and a girl). He wanted to come home to me and home- cooked meals in our country home. He wanted lazy days cuddling on the sofa watching movies and just being together. Had I been single, we would have been living together within the first two or three months of knowing each other. But, "Logical Wendy" had some sensibilities about her and didn't give up my current life for this man who had nothing really to offer me but sweet words and dreams.

Then there is "Emotional Wendy". "Emotional Wendy" thinks that perhaps Uncle B actually loved her. She knows that he was extremely insecure. She knows that he would never be able to do something as manly as face a break-up in person. He had wanted to leave his wife since the beginning of their marriage yet he waited for her to make one tiny mistake before he left. That way, it wasn't he that was leaving, but it made her the bad guy. That wasn't fair to her. A great deal of the way his wife treated him was, surely, in response to his actions. "Emotional Wendy" knows that Uncle B is a little boy wrapped in the body of a man. "Emotional Wendy" cries for Uncle B because she wanted to help him. Uncle B doesn't know what a healthy marriage is being that he never grew up with one. "Emotional Wendy" wanted Uncle B to see what loving families are like. She wanted him to be a part of a family that loved him. She wanted him to meet her mom and dad and see what marriage is all about. He needed a strong male head-of-household to show him how to be a good husband and father. He knows how to bail on people. He knows how to lie. He knows how to evade. He knows how to be someone else while typing on the computer and another person in real life. He knows how to hide and be scared. He knows how to let others speak for him while he cowers behind a stronger person. He can't differentiate between being submissive in bed and real life. He can't stand up for himself. It hurts that when things were tough, he used me and then just transferred himself to someone else who was more available. He treats himself like property and not a human. "Emotional Wendy" knows that this is the key. He doesn't respect himself and therefore he doesn't know how to respect someone who loved him so. There, unfortunately, is something flawed in a person's mental wiring when they can do what he has done to me, the way he did it.

So, what now? I still cry every night for the friend that I lost. After a few days of chatting with Uncle B back in 2011, he made the statement that in 10 years we would look back and see how cute we were when we met. My therapist said something very profound. I am still crying over Uncle B. I have human feelings. I was actually in love with him. I still love him. This makes me a beautiful human being. This makes me the genuine one in the relationship because had I not cared, I would be over him and not grieving. This makes me a wonderful, caring, human being. Uncle B has shed no tears for me and in the aftermath has done some pretty cruel things (instrumented by his whacked-out new female). Therefore, he is the flawed one...the non-human.

Uncle B moved on and so must I

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

 By: William Ernest Henley

When I was a student in middle school, I was given the task of memorizing this poem for my seventh grade “gifted” English class. We were to memorize the poem and then recite it in front of the class. Being the theatrical person that I have always been, I set out to make my version a grippingly memorable rendition that would go down in the annuals of famous seventh- grade poem recitations. I practiced and practiced with the ferocity of a professional actor. Not putting much thought into the meaning of the words I was to recite, I memorized the poem flawlessly and with the exuberance of a crafty seventh grader. I got an “A” on the project and the accolades of my fellow students.

Fast forward to 2012. Back in 2011, I posted about a “friend” that I referred to as “Uncle B”. Uncle B. proved to be quite the mendacious one (I’m trying to be nice by not using layman’s terms for what he turned out to be). Back in February 2012, his true colors finally shone through. Being nearly two months outside of him removing me from his life, I have clearer vision of what kind of person he is as well as what kind of person I am. It has been a tough time. I never want to believe that my judgment would be so poor in allowing someone such as him to enter my life, but it was. It wasn’t until yesterday that I had the emotional breakthrough I had been praying would come for two months. This breakthrough came out of nowhere. I was sitting at a stop light crying about how I missed Uncle B’s “friendship”. The tears were running down my face and neck when all of a sudden I started laughing. Here I was, sitting in 5 o’clock traffic, tears streaming down my face and laughing hysterically. I thought that perhaps this is what happens when one finally goes insane. But, I started to realize what was happening…I was finally letting go.

You see, Uncle B. “dumping” me, cut to the core of everything I believed about people, life, and myself. His rejection brought out every insecurity I had ever felt about myself. When he made it clear (by text and chat…not even with the decency of a human being to verbally tell me either by phone or in person) that I was no longer welcome in his life, I took it as an attack against me personally. Who wouldn’t? When someone rejects you, most of us feel that there is something wrong with us. Even though he time and time again wrote that it wasn’t me, I refused to believe him. Now, I see that he is the broken one, not me.

The breakthrough didn’t come without many sleepless nights and many days of lack of desire to live. I cried for what was lost—not just the friendship, but the future. I only knew Uncle B. for one year, but he had become engrained in my brain and my life in that short period of time. Looking back, that friendship was doomed for failure based on how we started. I gave and gave; he took and took. That should have been the first sign of trouble. I did the standard thing one does when they get dumped and threw out the things that he had given me. Unfortunately to say, I didn’t even fill up a plastic grocery bag with mementos. With a clear mind, I’ve come to realize that this person used MY strength to get him through a very difficult time in his life. When he got what he needed from me emotionally, he tossed me aside.

After Uncle B. broke off our friendship, I started to do things to take my mind off of the hurt. There wasn’t much I could do about the pain at night when I was lying in bed thinking about the things he said and trying to decipher the lies from truths. My brain would just take over during those times. Recently, I’ve started to see life in a different way. I want to include people in my life that add positivity and value to my life. I want to add activities that enrich my being. The first thing I did was take a look at what I have right in front of me. I have an amazing husband, family, and friends who love me. They don’t just love me because they “have” to. They love me because I add something to their lives. They also love me for just being  who I naturally am.  These are the people who love me whether I’m fun to be with or having a mopey day. My husband could very well divorce me if he weren’t happy. He is free to leave, just as I am. We’ve known each other since 1994 and he loves the good and bad parts of me.  He stays no matter what. My parents make me feel like I’m the coolest person they know. My family and friends think I’m invincible and can do just about everything. It’s strange because I don’t see myself that way, but they all do. I may have arguments with friends and family, yet they love me so much that they don’t want to give up on my being in their lives. That’s what true friends do. Uncle B., had he been a true friend, would be reading this right now and laughing at his quirky friend Wendy. But, he is not and was not a true friend. Sadly, he just never was. He gave me up too quickly to be anything but an acquaintance. I also know that he was never my friend because friends don’t cause you tears—they are the ones who hold you while you wipe away the tears that your enemies have caused.

I’ve started doing things that I won’t associate with Uncle B. In the process I’m becoming someone I am starting to like. A part of what drew me to Uncle B. in the first place, was my own lack of self-worth. I’ve heard people say it, but I never believed it—you attract what you give out. I attracted Uncle B. because I didn’t care much about myself. Negativity drew negativity. I single-handedly brought someone into my life that would do exactly what Uncle B. did to me because that was the kind of person I thought I deserved to have in my life. He was a poison being injected into my system every day for one year. But, now that he’s gone, I can see who I am without the stench of his garbage in my life. I’ve started to lose weight. My finances are starting to get in order. Because Uncle B. is no longer festering in my world and consuming my valuable time, it’s opened up my life to new people who have brought hope, possibility, and positivity into my world. I’m learning to laugh, play, and enjoy life again.

And, so, I’m learning to be a new Wendy. I’m doing something I’ve wanted to do for many years—reinventing myself. It’s been an exciting adventure discovering the things I like. It’s been liberating, freeing myself from the things that I don’t like. I don’t need to impress anyone except myself. I’ve taken up stand-up comedy as a way of easing the pain of Uncle B.’s rejection by making jokes about it. In the process of doing that, I’ve discovered that I really like performing and I’m actually pretty good at it. I’m meeting new people and selectively allowing other people, who were once merely acquaintances, to get closer to me.

There is endless speculation on the meaning of William Ernest Henley’s poem Invictus. One of the things I think is so fascinating about humans is we have the power to take abstract things and give them specific meaning to our lives. We have the freedom to interpret things any way we choose to. I choose to relate this poem to my life. In the darkness that has surrounded me in the past few months, I have decided to, with unbowed head and unearthed strength, become the master of my fate and the captain of my soul.