More about Ben

No one should be subjected to listening to me talking about this again, so here it is. Those readers who have been privy to my various rants on this topic are encouraged to stop reading.

Turns out I’ve still got a lot of venom left. I just keep realizing, with time and distance, how little I actually liked him. And how much I really disliked him. Hate might even be an appropriate word, as little as I want it to be. I was so afraid I’d be lonely without him, that I’d miss him when he was gone, and that’s just not how it is. I had never believed it was possible to stop loving a person, mostly because I had never done it, but even in the abstract, I just couldn’t see how it would work. I mean, does all that feeling just go away? I could understand it turning into something else after a certain amount of grief, like the years I spent hating my mother as only a daughter can, but real tenderness and affection are always still there, buried underneath all the anger and hurt, and with time and distance they usually come back to the surface. I didn’t think this was a thing that could be changed or chosen; I always assumed it just was.

And so I figured, given time and distance, my anger with Ben would fade, the hurt would get dealt with, and I’d remember the very real affection we used to share; I’d miss him. And maybe it just hasn’t been long enough to come to that, but if I’m honest with myself, I really don’t think that’s the way this is progressing. I don’t miss him. I don’t think of calling him or stopping in to say hello, and in fact the idea of doing either is entirely unpleasant. If I pause in a moment when I feel happy, safe, collected, and capable of sorting through the emotional quagmire of a failed relationship, mostly I feel nauseous. Some of it is definitely leftover anxiety, the sense of dread I had for so long with him, just waiting to see what horrible lie would be uncovered next. But there’s more, and I haven’t sorted through the stuff on top of it to be able to describe it very well yet, but it’s something to do specifically with him. His actions, his intentions, even his physical form. He’s… icky.

Maybe this emotional turnaround is possible because I didn’t really know who he was at all when I first started to care for him. He lied to me so often about so many things that when I remember the first year or so of our relationship, I’m remembering someone who I realize now doesn’t really exist. This conflicted, big-hearted, tender and considerate guy… Doesn’t exist. Even after almost three years I can’t say for sure how much of it is a conscious fabrication, and how much he really believes. I’m not certain whether or not his motives were ever actively malicious, though they were consistently self-serving and almost pathologically narcissistic. He lied about who he was, what he wanted, where he had come from, what he liked about me and what he wanted from his future. He lied about his friends and family. He lied about me when he talked to other people. To be honest, I don’t know what was the truth in most of these, just that he told different stories at different times, each conveniently making him look like the good guy at the time. God, I HATED that. I hate him.

I really do. It’s scary. Behind the anger, and the hurt, and the petty desire for some kind of revenge, I hate him. I don’t want him to be happy. I don’t want him to be.

I really don’t have enough distance yet to know what I’ll feel about this in years to come. But I seriously doubt I will ever find myself missing his company. And if I do, I’m pretty sure I won’t be remembering things as they actually were.