Hello, Stepville, you're looking well these days. Xero here. It's been a long year since I last wrote, and I am now here to get these things off my chest and put a close to the chapter I started many moons ago. This is honestly just for me to get words out and I could care less if anyone comments. But if you do, then kudos and thanks for your time.

Last I wrote, I was about to get married to the supposed love of my life. And we did get married. As far as the “love of my life” part… she was. Or so I thought. 

I was nervous about the kid situation like everyone else on this site, but even with kids in the picture, I was a hundred percent committed to my wife. I had my ways of dealing with things and I thought eventually the kid stuff (our only problem, right?) was going to iron out. I figured if I just bite the bullet, I’ll get over it because being with her is worth it.

Boy, was I wrong.

I was completely, stupidly, un-******-believably blind. And now I'm in a world of pain and I feel like such a #$@& idiot because of it.

Well, now my dang eyes are open. And hindsight sure is freaking 20/20.

Mostly, I'm furious. At what? I barely even know. Mostly myself? Yeah. Myself. Because I am a bloody academic and I am supposed to be smarter than this... One of those annoying, philosophical self-reflective types that everyone loves to hate. So I should have seen this coming, right? Pitiful.

When you love someone so much, it's painful to admit when they are royally screwing up. It's even harder when you know she’s a good person who's just ignorant. “But she loves me, and I should be able to sacrifice and compromise, right?” (Also thanks, Dad, for instilling in me an almost-lethal dose of “Savior Syndrome.” I now understand the error of my ways.)

At some point, you realize they'll never change. 

At some point, when you least expect it, while you’re underwater ignorantly pretending to be a fish, something suddenly propels you to the surface and you instinctually inhale a glorious, deep, earth-shattering breath into your lungs.

And everything changes.

The world stops turning for that brief moment that your lungs are full, and suspended in that pure instance, the sunlight finds its way onto your face and into dark, forgotten corridors. Fleeting, but unmistakable: You’ve just tasted Truth Concentrate.

“My God… I’m not a fish! Not at all!”

And from that moment on, it is painful to return to life underwater.

Blissfully ignorant before in the Garden of Eden, but now, dangerously enlightened by the fruit of knowledge. 

I've never felt like this before. So "awake" to my own stupidity now and also so angry that I lived in such a deep, blind state of kidding myself for so long. 

I. Spent. YEARS. Going full beast mode for this relationship. I was gonna be the one that was “different” and fix the problems and go the distance and bust my behind and work hard for our family and sacrifice and compromise and blah blah blah.

“I don’t know any other couple that works as hard as we do!”

That’s true. But also THERE WAS A REASON IT WAS SO HARD, DIP$#!T!

WAKE. UP.

There is a difference between making understandable/normal sacrifices for your marriage and sacrificing entire pieces of yourself that get repeatedly disrespected, manipulated and devalued.

I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid. 

All this time, I was waiting for her to wake up and handle things like a mature person and not manipulate the living crap out of me. But that doesn’t work with a co-dependent, unstable person.

“She can’t help it, she’s just so emotional. You can’t understand, so just go with it. Just man up and let her have this one.” 

I justified it every time.

Until “just this one” became the next, and the next, and the next, and the next.

I fought for her. I stood up for her. I went to battle for her. We went through a lot together, which is why I thought we would last. We’ve got the scars to prove it. I validated her, consoled her, changed for her, contorted muscles I didn’t have for her. 

And then I backed down for her. I let myself lose for her. I lost myself for her.

Sound like someone who’s… uh… well… whipped, huh?

Well then call me whipped. At least I used to be.

Not anymore.

So I here I am. Moved out. Picking up pieces and figuring out where in this pathetic puzzle they’re supposed to go. Basics like friggin dignity and self-respect. And anger, that old, wise friend.

Mostly though… I’m just inscribing these words repeatedly on the inside of my skull: I. Am. Not. A. Fish.