Strange that this memory still stops me in my tracks

[Associate of Daniel]

Every now and then memories come to mind of different things that happened during my marriage.

UNPD exH left over 8 years ago and most of my memories of the bad stuff don't bother me any more.

But for some reason there is one memory that still gets me.  It's like a symbol of how he just. Did. Not. Care. About. Me.  And I'm flabbergasted that anyone could care that little. Even a distant friend or relative would care more than he did.

And the memory is of nothing particularly important.

Just the servicing of my car.

He always wanted to have the cars serviced by a mechanic close to his work. About 40 minutes drive away and very difficult to access by public transport.

His car was always being attended to by him and by his mechanic. But he wouldn't help me to organise the servicing of my car. 

The easiest thing would have been for him to take my car to work and leave it with the mechanic for the day.

But he just would not do it.

Of course I could have taken it myself to a mechanic closer to home.  But then, I was in the FOG, you know.

I just find this memory always stops me in my tracks. I almost can't breathe when it pops into my head.  Weird.  Thankfully it doesn't happen very often.

Does this happen to you?

AOD

[GettingOOTF]

These memories are very triggering for me because they highlight how small I made myself and the terrible things I accepted as I was so FOGgy and battled with codependency and self esteem.

Now it's very clear to me that my BPDxH didn't care about me at all. The less he cared about me the harder I danced for him. It's very painful to look back on that time for me.

[notrightinthehead]

The pain for me in these flashbacks sits with my own behaviour.  What I did. That I allowed that to happen. That I -sometimes secretly protesting- followed  his unreasonable rules and played along. That I did not speak out or stand up for myself.

[1footouttadefog]

There are some memories, ie there were some events that i habe memoroes of that are very representative of a much larger picture.

They are for me flash cards that remind me of not just a single moment in time but of realizations much larger than the particular event.

One time we were in DC area. We stayed in Springfield VA and took a bus toward DC and a subway after that.  It was hot and we went back mid afternoon to shower and change clothes etc before going back to DC to find a nice dinner and see the city lights etc.

While I was showering he took every dime from my wallet and money belt.  He is OCD about knowing how much money we have to the penny. 

Later that evening he jumped onto the wrong subway train as the doors were closing. I was left behind with not a dime.  This was before cellphones and cards with magnetic strips.  Back then you used cash to buy tokens  from folks in a kiosk.

He made his way back quickly enough but I was very angry about being in DC subway at night pennyless.  Later we did not have small bills for the bus becaise he had changed small money into 20s at the hotel desk. 

This event is representative of his so often OCPD over riding any need to protect myself and later the kids from potential harm or major iinconvieniences

Now he is declining and will steal change and money from my adult kids purses. 

Sometimes very early on they show us who they really are and will always be.  The question is do we believe them and heed their truth.

[BeautifulCrazy]

AOD this happens to me!

I have around a dozen memories that make my breath catch and my heart want to stop.
These things didn't affect me so much at the time. They were maybe lost in a larger picture? In retrospect, some of them should have been huge red flags at the time. He was quirky and a bit of an oddball. I let them go. Some were singular incidents. Some were ongoing things.

Why are they now so crushing to think of?
I can't even type about them right now, despite wanting to.
Ouch.

[Poison Ivy]

Not a memory, but it's stopping me in my tracks.

Ex-spouse, our two adult children, and I just had a Zoom gathering in honor of older child's birthday. I'm okay with talking to my ex and I don't mind the group gatherings (actually, being with a group is better). Anyway, we were talking about long-term plans and I mentioned what I called my 5-10 year plan: to gradually get work done on the house so that it will be in reasonable condition to sell eventually. My ex made a comment, in a kind of sad or depressed tone, about being disappointed with himself that he doesn't do projects such as this and that his father had made some major renovations to their family home (where my ex still lives).

I didn't respond to his comments but they're still weighing on me, because they remind me of the fact that the house I'm in is in the condition it's in because my ex didn't want to hire out but would (1) start projects and not finish them, (2) do projects to the end but poorly, or (3) claim that something wasn't a problem because he didn't want to deal with it.