Maybe the penny is finally dropping for me

I've been mulling over ex's behaviour recently because something's not quite right about it. And not just his behaviour with me, but also towards other people. They don't see it of course, because they don't hear the denigrating comments, the impatience in his voice, the under-his-breath mumblings. I must point out that he doesn't do this all the time, but enough for me to notice.

When you meet ex for the first time, he is pleasant. He's nice, generous and can play along with the silly stuff - sometimes. With the kids he's cheery and enthusiastic (now as opposed to being almost non-existent before), always putting out new ideas about what we can do at this time or that. He's polite and aware and will help when needed. He's careful about imposing on people, about doing things the right way. He doesn't like to bother people and he doesn't like US to bother people either.

These days he's concentrating on being able to 'let things go' - as in not getting stressed when other people do things that are not to his liking, for whatever reason. He finds it hard to tolerate inefficiency and clumsiness or things that he thinks should be preventable (why make things harder for yourself than they should be). Being with me has made his impatience with these traits a lot worse.

But in trying to let go of the stress that's generated within himself, he comments, mumbles and most annoyingly hums inane tunes to fill his head with noise so that he doesn't think about what's going on around him. These are the behaviours that I'm noticing more and more now and the ones that trouble me.

With the website that he did for the flood, he was often annoyed about people asking for road closure advice when he'd mentioned umpteen times that they should look at the government website or ring the police stations. I guess it did get tedious, but that's the nature of people - they want the shortest way to get the information they need. When I mentioned to him about the nice thing a friend had said about him on the web site he dissed it and said "ahh, that guy's into all that sort of thing". I couldn't ask him to clarify without seeming sarcastic - "what, you mean appreciating other people's hard work". I mean i get it that he didn't do the website for solely for personal gain, he did it because he could and knew it would help. But if someone chooses to compliment your efforts, take it gracefully. If I was that guy, I'd be offended.

What I'm trying to say is that ex is never what he appears to be. That's showing through more now than ever before. It used to really (understandably) upset me - I can't count the times in our relationship where I thought we were doing really well and he'd say "well I've been really angry/upset with us for the past two weeks" - and it would surprise me each and every time. I had no idea and could never figure it out because it never showed up in his behaviour.

Now I know better. Now, I can see subtle (and not so subtle) cues of stress that tell me that all is not right with him. And I have no delusions about how he feels about me anymore. Unless I'm with the kids or he needs my help or I need his, I'm pretty much non-existent to him. He proved that with his behaviour in the last post. I wonder if his friends notice it. He does have friends, just not anyone super close as far as I know.

His exercise in 'letting go' looks a bit futile to me - he tells himself to but then it's seems like such an effort to do it. It's like he's not doing it with a good heart - there's resistance there and it's not helping him at all. I know from what I've been through that it's only when you truly surrender your mind and heart to what is, that genuine change will take place.

I've been writing this post for the past two days and in that time, a lot of the behaviours that really irk me have taken a back seat and a gentler, more compassionate ex has emerged. Strange. He's asked about my arm, whether it hurts and asked if the cast gets heavy and commented (without a hint of sarcasm) "I'm sure you didn't want this..." - no I didn't I replied, but left it at that. He's also been talking to me like I'm an adult and not a child, which I've appreciated. But I'm careful and reserved with him - I don't trust him to keep treating me well and I'm not buying into it.

Previously, when it's been like this, I've let my guard down and thought "oh, he's so good, it must have been me" but when I think about it like this, I think 'dysfunction' on his part and I remember that he's responsible for this mess too. Incredulous as it might seem to anyone reading this, sometimes I still forget, especially when he sounds so rational. So perhaps after all this time, the murky waters of this 'relationship' are starting to clear.