I’m the queen of ignoring red flags. I dated someone who was 15 years older than me and never been in a relationship for more than a year. I asked him why a year. His response, “That’s when they wanted to move in.” He didn’t want them moving in. He broke up with them.
Our relationship lasted 9 months roughly. If you ask him what happened, he’ll tell you “I was pushing too much to see him.” We were long distance. I saw him once in the 7 months, but I was being too push. This ending surprised no one. Not even myself. I ignored the red flag. An obvious red flag, I obviously ignored.
I ignored the Doctor’s red flag too. His wasn’t so obvious. In hindsight of course I should’ve said something, asked something, dug a little deeper, but unfortunately it wasn’t that clear at the time. As I mentioned last week, I did a really good job in this relationship sticking up for my needs. Something I hadn’t done in the past. I feel stronger in this skill now. One test pasted here check!
Test not passed, new red flag. The Doctor was also an older gentleman. I’m sure many therapists would love to make a connection between my parents’ marriage dissolving, putting the relationship I held with my father on edge to dating older men. Wouldn’t be shocked if there were some daddy issues there. I wasn’t only attracted to older men, but I did date two back to back. Interesting side note…not the point to this post. Doctor was older, 51 to be exact. He was a damn sexy 51-year-old who had taken great care of himself. Thus, he passed more for early 40s. He had been in 2 serious relationships in his life. One was just an engagement. The other ended in a divorce.
The woman he divorced hurt him badly. From the description he told me about their relationship alone, I don’t know why he stayed. Besides some societal story he told himself that “he should be married by 45.” Society is a bitch you probably shouldn’t listen to…in my honest polite opinion. He stayed in this awful relationship and was hurt deeply. Between their dating period and marriage, they were together for roughly 5 years and during this entire time she was dating other people right under his nose. The country club they belonged to was looking for a way to kick them out without straight up telling him it’s because his wife is breaking up marriages. She had more than one complaint on the matter.
I’m giving these details to validate his pain. I’m not telling you or myself this as a way to excuse the pain he caused on me. I’m saying he had been through a traumatic event. He was deeply hurt. It turned his entire life upside down. He had every right to be upset and in pain and hate his ex-wife after the divorce.
The divorce was finalized 2 years before we met. He had two years to process. He had two years to work through these deep feelings. He hadn’t even started to clear the feelings around his ex-wife. He still talked about that woman like she was the worst person on the planet. To him, she was. I get it. I’m not invalidating his feelings. However, this was the red flag I ignored.
His process for processing the trauma he experienced in his marriage and the divorce that followed is on him. Only he could know or understand when he had done the work to clear all that bad energy from his life. I couldn’t do it for him. No one could’ve done it for him. However, the first time I heard him speak about her something went off inside of me. As the conversation continued about their horrible relationship, the alarm was still going off and I chose to ignore it. I chose to brush it off as something I didn’t understand. How could I…I’ve never been married after all. I’ve never been scorned in the same way. How could I possible judge him for his feelings.
I couldn’t. I could have addressed the issue. I could’ve addressed the concern I felt about how much hatred he still had towards his ex-wife. Maybe I haven’t been hurt that deeply before, but I have had to accept apologies from people I never received in order to move on with my life. I had to forgive them for the hurt they caused me without their acknowledgment of the pain. Even those who I out right told I wanted an acknowledgement. I wanted an apology for over a year. When it didn’t come, in order to move forward in that relationship, I had to accept an apology I never received. I had to forgive that person (my father) for how he hurt me without him actually acknowledging how he hurt me.
I should’ve spoken up about the hatred the Doctor still carries around for his ex-wife. I should’ve asked earlier on, are you sure you’re ready for another relationship?
Opening up again after being hurt so badly is scary I get it. I’m not sure that question would’ve made a difference. I’m pretty sure he would’ve told me how wonderful I was and how I was nothing like his ex-wife (BTW around the time of the breakup he said I was saying all the things his ex-wife had said to him originally when they moved in together.). I’m sure he would’ve gone forward because I felt good. We felt good together. I helped him forget about his pain. I couldn’t help him forget about the fear.
That’s what happened. The fear creeped in. The fear of reliving his past relationship. The fear that the past 2 years getting back to a hemostasis would eventually all be for nothing when I hurt him in an undetermined amount of time. He allowed the fear of the pain, the memory of the pain. From my experience, this is what happens when you shut out your feelings instead of feeling and healing from your past pain.
I’m not giving him an excuse. Or saying what he did was the right move. OR beating myself up for not acknowledging the red flag. I’m just aware. I’m aware now to speak up if I find myself reliving this scenario. Typically, I try to stay away from divorced men because of the baggage that is usually present. Men who haven’t been deeply scorned by women have enough issues. I don’t want to add it to the list, but if I find myself there again at least I will know. I’ll know what to look out for. I’ll know to ask the question, “So on a scale of 1 to I want I want to murder her…how much do you hate your wife?!?”
They may not be honest, and I may still dive deep in with them. But at least I know I’ll have asked. And it can be a conversation that I can refer back to or bring up in general since I’ve shown awareness to it! Because let’s be real, typically topics like this aren’t completely over in one convo. They are too deep and intricate to be that simplified. By bringing it up once, personally I feel I’m giving myself permission to bring it up again anytime in the future if I feel triggered again.
That’s all I got this week…my food for thought while further analyzing my most recent break up. I wanted to write about it for 2 reasons:
1. This red flag can apply to ex-girlfriends too. If they have a lot of hate towards any ex it’s probably not completely over. You have every right to be concerned and bring this to the forefront of a conversation.
2. To remind you to….SPEAK THE FUCK UP FOR YOURSELF! Plain and simple!
That is all my loves! Have a great week!
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