Wednesday 30 August 2006

Emotional Prostitution.

Kind of like my journal, public so that I can trade my deepest feelings for just a little more attention.

Look out. I'm angry and sad and possibly fatally wounded, psychologically anyway.

He wants me to make myself vulnerable to him, to let him in, let him help and let him see what's in my head and my heart. I let it all out and then he becomes frustrated and shocked by what's there to sift through.

We've developed a dangerous pattern of trading angst for passion. I give him an open door and he claims ownership. I am his wife now and that's a confidence he wanted very badly.

I've been down this road before, but in reverse. And it ended badly and every night I curse myself for falling into traps like this. Tell that to Jacob and he'll rip your face off, because he's not that kind of guy. He's talked himself into an innocence where my feelings are concerned.

I feel like a dangerous game that people play if they're brave enough and only after they develop an alarming addiction to me do they realize they're in over their heads. Not even a fair comment, but we jumped on the train of thought today in therapy at lunchtime and discovered we're in more trouble as a couple than we realized.

I'm not the impatient one.

You probably guessed that.

Me? I thought I saw it but then I was assured that I must be mistaken. Only it turned out to be true and I am not the one sabotaging my efforts to heal. And yet Jacob refuses to see his role in this. In the urgency to put the past behind us.

I said I'd like to go off the meds. He instantly thought that was a great idea because he's hating the birth control and we'd be on our way to adding to our family and being happy, as if I am somehow holding us back on purpose. He tries so hard not to see what a mess I am. Bless his heart.

He'll say he's nothing, saw he's flawed, broken, and just a man and be humble until you call him on it. Then he's insulted and ired and not so content to sit back and take criticism. He wants to be the one to fix it and god forbid anyone else gets a credit or a chance. Or calls him out. Or tells him to slow down.

He refuses to see his own selfishness. In the interests of preventing my own nervous breakdown likelihood I was forced to point it out. His response was to lash out at me and tell me I had no idea what I wanted, that I enjoyed my power over men and I liked to have fun and I had no interest in creating a healthy stable life for myself with a real future and maybe I really was just a whore.

Way to impress your bride of less than one month, Jacob.

I had no words, I just stared at him, my eyes welled up and I shook my head, not even believing that with three little words at the end of his diatribe he could hurt me more than I had ever been hurt or humiliated before but he managed to pull it off in spades.

The minute it came out he tried to take it back but the damage was done. Claus ground the session to a halt right there. I left the room and asked his receptionist to call me a taxi. Both Jacob and Claus came out and I told them to keep talking, the session was paid for, but I had had enough and I was going home. I was so cold on the outside and I was holding my coat together so I didn't crack into little pieces. Fragile indeed. Who wouldn't be after that? From Jake of all people.

Jacob grabbed my hand. I wrenched it back. The look on his face would have crushed anyone with sadness but I had nothing left to feel for him right in that moment except the coldest, loneliest rage I have ever felt in my life. He has no illusions when it comes to me and I thought he saw nothing but good when he looked at me and instead he sees nothing but my flaws and mistakes and weaknesses. And that changes everything. All of it, a beautiful magical illusion and like all good things, temporary because Bridget doesn't deserve happiness.

Oh no.

I guess I don't. Whores are not worthy people, are they?

So do you think his love for me is real or did I simply trick him and draw him in with my charms, since it's what I do best? Now that he's fucked me a few hundred times and had his fill he's comfortable laying blame and pointing fingers and saying what's really on his mind.

Who knows? I'm not talking to him. I don't even know where he is. The expected panic is lightened by the shock of his outburst. Prostitute indeed.