codependency

I like being alone. I like only having my kids to worry about. I like the way I am able to honor what is best for me in a way I never have before. I am getting to know myself deeply. I am able to be whoever I really, truly am and I don’t think I’ve ever really met her before. 

I thought I had overcome all my codependency issues. I’d been made aware of them years ago; I’ve read books, I’ve listened to podcasts, I’ve been observing my behavior around it ever since. I’m no expert or professional, but I am very self-aware and passionate about my own psychology. But I’d thought I was healing from the issues I’d had clinging to people and obsessing over how to make them love me in the past; I’d completely missed that I was still living entrenched in that every single day. 

Since I was 21 years old (I’m 33 now), I have been hyper-fixated on Pete. I know the exact moment I laid eyes on him, I remember our first day together at work, and I called him “hot boss” and wanted to marry him from then on. It took years for him to even entertain the thought of spending time with me outside of work due to the age difference and our difference in positions at work. He barely looked in my direction but I set my sights on him and wanted only for him to pay attention to me. I changed my whole personality to make sure he knew I was mature and serious; I donated my entire wardrobe of hippie sundresses and thrifted a bunch of casual office wear. I stuffed all the jagged, imperfect parts of me down so I would seem more normal and appealing. My dysfunction and my mental health struggles and my recovery from bulimia and my previous couple years of partying and playing risk with my life. I wiped it all away, cleaned my own slate, and became an entirely different person in hopes that Pete would fall in love with me.

It worked, eventually, and after a few years we moved in together and got engaged and married. Bought a house and a car and had two babies. Loved each other madly and took excellent care of each other and became a perfect team. I loved parenting with him, I loved being married to him. I loved the life we built together. But I was never not ruminating over how to make sure I didn’t lose it—being the perfect wife and perfect mother and making sure I was always making Pete proud and happy and giving him the best life I could. I don’t doubt that Pete was always doing the same for me. But he was still able to be himself and he never gave a single shit who liked it or didn’t. I never had that. I gave every single shit, and then some, wanting Pete and his family to think I was the best and greatest at all times. Inwardly, I would struggle and have this huge emotional upheavals and I would just do it in silence as best as I could. I’ve spent the last 12 years of my life convinced that if I let my whole self be seen, I would be instantly unloveable. All my energy has been spent on making sure my true insides didn’t spill out.

And then I lost Pete. My entire world crumbled, and my insides all spilled out onto the pavement. There is no scooping me back up, there is no hiding me. I am showing up every day as I am, because that’s all I have. And now I am navigating life through a whole different lens, with absolutely no filters. What you see is what you get. And I don’t really know how that is going to be received. But I know now that’s simply none of my business.