How to walk out of your own horror show

I am not a fan of horror movies. I don’t like to see blood and guts splattered everywhere.  I don’t like being frightened, and I especially don’t like going home afterwards and worrying about what might be lurking in the darkened corners of the upstairs closet. But I have occasionally found myself in the theatre watching something of the genre nonetheless.

I remember a number of years ago watching “Alien.”  The suspense of the first 40 minutes or so really got to me. The tantalizing glimpses of the alien creature were truly frightening.  Until the baby alien popped out of the guy’s stomach and scuttled across the table like a Muppet. Then it was just stupid. And I couldn’t believe anything after that.

It got to be so over-the-top that it came back the other way. I knew it was all fake. I began to see through the artifice, and it no longer got to me.

And the exact same thing happened with ex-husband #1. I can remember the moment.

Through the previous months of our dissolving marriage, I was racked with guilt and disappointment. Even after I’d moved out, talking to him was awful. I always had a knot in the pit of my stomach, as I braced myself for comments that would play my nerves like a Stradivarius.  But a month or two of living on my own, and being able to breathe, was a superb tonic. There was one day where we had to meet at some office building to sign the papers for the sale of the house. I think it was the very last time I saw him. But I saw him in a completely new light.

The terrible spell was broken. Nothing he could say bothered me. Frankly, I thought he was kind of pathetic. The way his head would sort of bob when he thought he was making a particular witty point. His self-assured yet somehow insecure posture. The ridiculously meticulous grooming. What a jerk.

I was free at last.

The same thing will happen to you, eventually. There will come a day when your spell is broken too.  When so much blood and guts is spilled (figuratively, of course), you realize it can’t possibly be real. And you will almost want to laugh. Laugh at yourself for falling for it all those years…and laugh at him for being so incredibly absurd.

I mean, you think back to the things you listened to and actually BELIEVED. The stupid things you ACCEPTED as normal in your relationship. I think back to the crap I did. WHAT was I thinking? How did I ever think this was the way a marriage should feel? And I let this guy upset me? I GAVE him that power. I was willingly under the spell.

Until it was broken. I don’t know exactly how it was broken. I think time apart had something to do with it. The fact that I was living completely by myself, and I could reset my clock and figure out who I really was.  When a marriage breaks up, I think the absolute best thing you can do for yourself is BE by yourself. You need that time to regroup. Going straight into something else is not a good idea, because it’s your running away that propels you into the arms of someone else. You’re running away from someone, not towards a new man. But that’s a topic for another day.

Now it’s time to drop the tricks and treat yourself. The day you can talk to your ex without feeling an icy, clawed hand grabbing your gut is a hallowed day indeed.