A few weeks ago, when I was right in the midst of terror and crisis, I got back in touch with my old psychotherapist, whom I first started seeing when I needed the support to be able to leave Tom. I’ve had a few sessions with him recently, but after today’s session, I realised something. Rather than wait for next week’s session, I wrote down all my tangled thoughts and feelings . . .

I have come to realise, over the past few weeks, just how difficult I find it to speak openly in my counselling sessions. When I write, the thoughts flow more readily, and I seem to be able to be more honest about things – more true to myself.

I don’t always feel I’m getting what I want from the sessions, but I realise it’s because of my inability to really let go during an hour that is focused solely on me. An hour when I am expected to speak. Not only do the words get blocked, but the thoughts and feelings do too. I have realised this over the last two weeks when, within two minutes of being in my car, I’m having to pull over, take out my notepad and start writing – the thoughts that should have come in therapy come as soon as I stop talking and start writing.

This week, I have had a lot of thoughts coming to me daily. It started with a friend saying, ‘What is love, anyway?’ I relayed what I had said to my counsellor in one of our first sessions.

Love, to me, is acceptance.

I compared it to the love for a child – how a mother or father accepts that child totally, despite, or rather because, of any imperfections or disabilities, and therefore that is what love is.

It made me think about accepting a man and loving him totally. I thought I had never achieved this, but thinking hard about it this week, I have realised that I loved Tom unconditionally; even when things were really awful, I still loved him deeply. The difference between what happened with him and what would happen with one of my children was that I gave up on him, and on that love.

I would never have walked away from one of my children had their ‘behaviour’ been something I didn’t like; in fact, I would have worked harder to get to the bottom of it to work towards resolving it. All of this would have been done with a great faith that it was a phase and all would be right in the end – with love and acceptance, we’d have been great again. I find myself asking, why could I not do the same for Tom, a man that I have loved as much and as deeply as I do my children?

I know he triggered a lot of old wounds, but so too have my children at times.

I was not a good partner to him. I accused him of being abusive to me, and yes, at times his words were abusive and hurtful, but I have been hurtful to him. We are both guilty of hurting the other with words, and with actions – of being selfish and inconsiderate to the other’s needs. Maybe I was triggering something for him, too?

I became totally wrapped up in my own pain of feeling unloved. I focused totally on what he wasn’t doing – not spending quality time with me, not supporting me the way I needed, not wanting to have sex with me – and not what he was doing – working hard to provide a good home for me and my children, remaining cheerful and optimistic even when things were really bad, trying his best to ease the pressure I felt with Annie and much more. Yet despite all that he did do, I chose to only see the bad, never the good.

I have always said to everyone that he is a good man, with a heart of gold, who is kind and considerate, loving and giving, but it has never been recognised by me, for me, until now.
No doubt, there are behaviours that he displayed that, if changed, would have benefited the relationship, but on the whole the bigger problem all along has been me.

I have allowed hurt and anger to completely take over. My mood swings are indescribable but are a constant. One minute I felt really happy, and I adored him, and the next, I felt really hurt, angry, and depressed, and hated him, even though he did nothing to warrant this most of the time.

My feelings are still the same now. Deep down, I’ve never stopped loving him. I can’t stop, but on the surface, what he sees is a completely different thing. He sees an angry woman who wants nothing to do with him and says such hurtful things one minute, then a vulnerable but strong, loving woman who wants deeply to support him throughout everything, who wants to hold him and love him completely. Sadly, this never manages to fight and win against the horrible part of me.

I have become a Jekyll and Hyde character, and instead of being open and honest about this, I blame him for everything. I even blame his childhood, which I have no right to do, and actually no real knowledge of. I know I am probably projecting my own childhood pain onto him, to avoid looking at it.

I know that for him to have a happy and loving life, I should cut all ties and let him go to find someone who can love him as he really deserves. Selfishly, I don’t want to do that, although I will if I can’t put an end to my behaviours.

I hold him in great esteem and power and want him to take all of my Hyde away, but as I’m in Jekyll mode as I write this, I know this isn’t possible. I also know this is my responsibility, my battle to win and nothing to do with him.

Tomorrow, I could awake in Hyde mode, and I will believe that this writing is all bullshit, and will probably blame him for it in some way. I’m aware this makes me sound mentally ill.

I really want to get to the bottom of all this, whether it’s because he loves me in return or not. I want to live life on an even keel and stop riding this emotional roller coaster. It really is just big highs and then really big lows, and this happens daily. He has tried telling me for years. It’s exhausting, mentally and physically, but mostly, emotionally.

Most of all, I want to protect my children from it; they do not need to grow up thinking this is normal behaviour.

I think my nature is predominantly happy and positive; at least that is what it is like when I am alone; alone with my children, with friends and family. It is really only when I am with men (all past relationships) that my behaviour is the opposite. I often feel that I have adopted my mother’s negative and aggressive ways due to the high level of conditioning she gave me about men. The inner battle I have seems to be a lot about living my life with my set of beliefs or living it with hers. When I try to live with mine, her voice starts up in my mind and doesn’t stop until I take notice and act on it, resulting in me ‘attacking’ him.

If I could erase my memory of all words and actions she ever put into my mind, I would be loving, caring, affectionate, happy, easygoing, funny. I would be supportive and gentle. Instead, I have the messages running in my mind constantly that men are bastards, they are unsupportive, never there, angry, will only use me for sex, only want me for a dogsbody, they’re abusive, nasty, will treat me like a doormat, controlling, selfish, and on and on they go. All words and phrases my mum used far too frequently throughout the whole of my childhood, and they’re fighting with what I feel deep down.

Like a lesson on a loop, it eventually went in.

I have learned to ignore and have no faith in my instincts on how to love a man. In fact, I’d go so far as to say I’ve not even allowed myself to love a man fully. I have taken on board all the messages I have had drummed into me over the years – from all sources – and it has left me feeling confused, hurt and unable to love how instinct tells me to.

Maybe the only thing I need to learn to do is trust what I am feeling.

Trust my instincts and ignore all the non-loving messages that have bombarded me over the past 37 years of conditioning.

I know this to be right. Having children has taught me I don’t want them to be as unhappy as I feel. I have, especially with the girls, been teaching them that men are lovely, kind, strong, loving, funny, supportive. I want them to have a positive attitude towards men and love, but I also want them to trust their instincts and not be sucked in by what I say, or what anyone else may say to them. The realisation then, that if I can teach this to my daughters, then I know this as truth. Yet I find it so hard to live it on a day-to-day basis.

As I write this, Tom is visiting family. We’ve been apart for seven months, and yet I miss him; there is a void; I feel it physically. When he’s ten minutes around the corner, I feel safe, knowing he’s there and that he will be there for me if and when I need him, no questions asked. He is, in fact, very supportive. He is a far cry from the man my mum taught me he would be, but I still can’t always see this.

Now he’s away, I have five days of feeling scared and insecure, knowing that he’s not physically there for me. This is terrible behaviour to inflict on another human being. I am treating him like my own personal yoyo; pulling him towards me when it suits me and throwing him back out when it doesn’t. Yet, none of this is done intentionally.

I often find myself thinking back to when we first were together, especially when he’s away, and I’m missing him. At that time, I was, on the whole, loving towards him – kind, supportive and a good girlfriend. Either my instincts were very strong at that point due to feeling so madly in love, and the haze that comes with a new relationship, or something else was going on. At this time I don’t know what. Maybe I knew somewhere within me that he wouldn’t love me if I acted in this way, in which case I tricked him; I think I tricked myself, too. Waiting until he loved me and loved my children was not only controlling, but callous, too.

Writing this is making me see something that I don’t like. (I don’t like much of what I’m seeing, in all honesty.) My mum’s description of men – are these not all of the behaviours that I have been displaying towards him?

• I have been a bastard.
• I have been, on the whole, unsupportive of his needs.
• I have never really been there for him, always thinking I know better, never listening.
• I have been angry, constantly.
• I may not have used him for sex, but I have been very angry with him for not wanting to have sex with me. It could have been a man being angry with my mum for refusing sex that made her believe men only want you for one thing? Actually, I did use him for sex, to make myself feel loved. I didn’t do this all the time; most times sex was about loving him and wanting to connect with him on an intimate level, but sometimes it was about needing to have his love validated through sex. I realise sex makes me feel safe.
• I have probably used him as a dogsbody at times.
• I have been abusive.
• I have definitely been nasty.
• I have treated him like a doormat, allowing him to do more than he should and then complaining that it wasn’t enough.
• I have been controlling. Not intentionally and not consciously, but I can see how my behaviour would make another feel controlled. Saying one thing, then doing another later. Saying everything is ok when it’s not.
• I have most definitely been selfish.

Now I have the question in my head, ‘Why have I become the man that my mum despised and the man she warned me about?’ Is it so that in doing so, no one can do it to me, or is it connected to a misguided attempt to protect my Dad from her venom?

Her poisonous words were meant to stop me from forming a strong relationship with my Dad; she also tried to stop a relationship with my grandad and uncle. The one male relationship that was permitted was with my stepfather, John. No doubt because she was in love with him, she wanted me to love him too.

I feel drained.

I want Tom to know all of this, but I fear his reaction. He has every right to be angry, to reject me and see the light – that I am actually no good for him – but what I really need is for him to understand me and tell me that he loves me, and that we can work through it together. I really need him to share the blame for the deterioration and end of the relationship. I need him to acknowledge his part, even if it was smaller than mine. I need to know he takes some responsibility and doesn’t blame me entirely for all that went wrong.