Well, I'm doing good, considering. Night before last, ex goes out for drinks at about 10pm. He's normally back within about 3 hours, sometimes longer - not that it's any of my business, but this night he didn't get back until 7am next morning.
Unfortunately, I'd gotten up at 4am to go to the toilet and noticed the light on so I knew he hadn't gotten home yet. As it was, I wasn't able to sleep because my mind went crazy.
Crazy with anger, crazy with worry, couldn't sleep because of all the scenarios going through my head. What would I do if something happens to him (worry), what will I tell the kids, what if he's not back and I need the car (anger), how can be be so inconsiderate (resentment), I hate being here, dependent on him for all these things (car, money), what if he's in hospital, injured in a car accident from drink driving, what if he's with another woman and everybody knows it but doesn't know we're separated (humiliated - (side note, adultery here is VERY common, accepted even), what if the people we both know, think I'm the worst woman ever and that's why he's got to go out and do these things. What if.... huge, ugly possibilities, all of them possible, none of them true.
When he walked in at 7am, he said was "it's OK" and went to go to bed. I told him he should have messaged me, I was worried. He said he wanted to be back before we all got up and he didn't want to wake me. A friend had gotten drunk and ex had stayed on to look after him. Fine, but I was still upset at not knowing where he was. One of the triggers for me in this situation is not knowing, and not being allowed to know, about the other parts of his life. It's hard to deal with because for 17 years, I knew everything. Now, I know nothing except for what goes on inside the house and what little he shares with me. I know I'm better off not knowing, it helps enormously with the emotional distance I need in order to maintain some kind of stability. But at the same time, I have this demented curiosity that wants to know, NEEDS to know. Maybe I'm looking for the THING that will be reason enough to leave. Maybe I'm just normal and curious. I'm too skewed to know which it is.
I could feel the rage, ebbing and subsiding as we talked. Submitting to it and letting it loose, was not an option, so I contained it, willing myself to send it to the back to the recesses of my mind, mentally cooling my muscles and trying to relax. It was like a physical beast, lurking underneath the surface of my skin and it felt hot, like thick molten lava, a volcano waiting to explode. Waiting for any excuse to jump out and pound him down, letting him know what an irresponsible father I really think he is. And I know, once it was out, there'd be no turning back and it's no longer about the issue at hand - 17 years of disgusting sludge from the past will all come out at once, taking hold and painting me as a victim and him as perpetrator of emotional, controlling abuse.
Of course, none of the sludge is true - we've 'rationally' agreed on that. I can never understand then, why the feeling are so intense, why they are there in the first place (my own research on this suggest I have misplaced abandonment issues stemming from my childhood). This is why I sometimes think I have borderline personality disorder, because my feelings just don't make sense.
I hate it when he's away, yet I'm much more relaxed when he is. I feel vulnerable when he's not around. It's rare here (in this town anyway) for a woman to live by herself - if not married, they usually stay with their parents. Me being a foreigner, with 2 small kids, somehow makes it worse. If something goes wrong with the house, car or one of the kids or me gets really sick, I'm at the mercy of friends and relatives for help. I'm terrified of getting sick here and needing to go to hospital. We don't have insurance and the nearest good hospital is in Malacca, about an hour and a half away. The ambulances here, the size of a normal van, look about equipped enough to transport someone with a bad flu, though I have seen bigger, better ones occasionally. So I hope for the best and am grateful for our extended family and the few friends I do have.
Writing this out, my mind is clearer now. The mess is tidied up and these things are out. In the past, I've kept a journal but never really got anything out of it. If I read back, I know I wasn't writing it for myself, I was writing it to please ex because he said I should write things down to clarify my thoughts. But they weren't my thoughts, they were our conversations about what I should do to improve myself and fix my problems. I'm going to burn them all, because they are not me.
This blog, is me. It's for me. I've been curtailing my thoughts and not writing as much because I didn't want to 'whinge', but that's what I need this blog for. Even though it's called living and teaching in malaysia, it's definitely not about that at all. I should have called it raging mind, mental head or something more appropriate. Pity those people who find it because they are searching for teaching resources in Malaysia or some such thing. They definitely won't find what they're looking for.
Anyway, I'm a lucky person today. No housework because the cleaner is here. I'm going to spend AUD20.00 and buy her and the family lunch at the local chicken rice shop where the lady who serves knows me very well, because I'm there once a week. Today we're eating roasted pork with sweet sauce on steamed rice. Yummo.
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