My Cat Nip and Kryptonite

It's no secret these last few years of my life have been filled with joy, happiness, anger, and sorrow.  Unfortunately I always tend to keep the bad experiences with me and let the good things in life scattered to the back of my mind, rarely recalling them.

When looking back on it all though, the most heartache, has been brought on by my husband.  I use the word husband because that's what he is.  I have friends who tell me I can call him my ex, and maybe things are looking that way, but I am the type of girl who looks at things in black and white.  He is not my ex until the t's have been crossed and i's dotted.  Therefor until a divorce is official he is my husband.

I realized recently that while I have lost many people in the past 2 years, I have still been able to grieve for them.  While they are all still greatly missed the pain isn't the same.  It dulls slowly over time and isn't constant, but still present.  Whereas the pain inflicted by my husband seems to be harder to handle, like every time he's around he sticks a knife in my back waiting for the opportune moment to push it deeper until I can't breathe.  There isn't a break for me from him, and until the divorce is final, there is no grieving.

From the beginning, my husband was like cat nip to me.  When gone he was all I thought about, wondering when the next time I'd get to be with him was, sorta of like an addiction, it was uncomfortable when he was away.  Upon his return I originally would go crazy for him, hyped up on lust and love.  I never wanted the feeling to end.  I longed for his lips on my neck, whispering in my ear how beautiful I was, his hands slowing stretching across my back to pull me in for a tight embrace.  The kind of embrace that makes you feel safe, protected, and as if you could never fall.

As time moved on though everything changed, I no longer felt the butterflies in my stomach that I once did.  The feeling of being safe was interrupted by screams, flying objects, and punches.  Tears took over as my smile faded.  Pain flew through our household like an unexpected hurricane tearing apart everything in its path.  My husband became my kryptonite.  The one thing that hurts me every time its around.

So why haven't I left him?  It's like I said earlier...he's my cat nip.  Even to this day I seem to crave that feeling I once felt with him, and every now and again he knows the words to say, that stir up that lost feeling.  His words captivate me, sending me into this fantasy that somehow every wrong can be righted, and we could still have this happily ever after we use to dream of.  Yet, every time I open up and welcome him back in my heart with open arms, it's destroyed quickly, as the kryptonite storms through once again.

It may sound like an easy decision to most, in fact I use to be that person.  The person who could never understand why people would stay in an abusive relationship...emotionally abusive or physically.  But I get it now, the abusers have this gift, a gift that gives them the power to draw you back to them as soon as they want you to.  It truly is an addiction, an addiction to that feeling, not the person.  An addiction to fantasy, to the happily ever afters we see in movies and books that we strive so hard to live like.  An addiction to love.  And if you've ever had an addiction to anything you understand....it's not as easy as people think to give up an addiction.  It's something that when gone, pulls at you constantly, voices inside yourself tell you, you want it, or need that addiction in your life, that there's no way to go on without it, it's your comfort.

So here it sit with inner conflict trying to push it all out the door, rid my life of it all.


Still at the end of the day he's my cat nip and my kryptonite.