today i have made the difficult decision that i can no longer hold hope to be at all involved with my former partner's life. we have maintained simple and sporadic contact over the last two weeks. today i have decided this can no longer continue, after a painful and inappropriate exchange with him. i have been holding hope in my heart that he is genuine in his desire to change... and i now recognize it is simply another part of the cycle, and i don't want to fall for it again. i have been thinking of him too much - thinking of his well-being, safety, and mental health. i have been thinking too much of womonfolk who have let me know they have felt mistreated by him and the womonfolk that are still currently in his life and at risk of being hurt by him. i need to shift my focus inward and begin instead focusing on healing my self.
i do not know if he is making a conscious decision to not see his behavior and treatment of my self and others as abusive, or if it is subsconcious - a need to disbelieve such things about himself could be true. i am going to try my best to stop worrying about this, and instead to move on. it grieves me, but that is the best and most healthy thing i can do. i have to let him go.
i also have to let his secrets go. i am grateful that there have been witnesses to some of his acts of abuse - it helps me feel validated when people in my life come forward and let me know what abuse they witnessed, and how uncomfortable it made them feel. i am less alone in those moments. however, there are many more moments that no one human witnessed... moments between he and i that are within our respective memories alone. those are the more painful memories for me - that there was no one to bare witness, no one i can discuss incidents with who has any sort of knowing about what occurred, no one who can offer perspective. it was a sense of shame that kept me from discussing some of these memories... shame that perhaps i deserved the treatment, shame that someone i loved and trusted could treat me such a way, shame that i was in a relationship that involved such behavior that i actively defended. so much shame. i want to break the shame and the silence.
my former partner was accused of rape as a teenager. he told me this after we had been involved for some time, confessed it to me amidst tears, let me know that he had told very few people and that i was one of the only lovers he had ever had who now knew. i was silent and dumbfounded. i did not ask the questions i wish now i had asked. the information he gave me was minimal - he said he had been accused of rape by a womon he had been sexually involved with, and that later she had dropped it. i have no idea what happened beyond those pieces of information he told me. he asked me not to tell anyone, to keep it a secret. he said it was a misunderstanding.
i have carried this information as a weight. i have held it close to my heart, a piece of information i did not even my self want to examine or expose. i am tired of how heavy and exhausting a burden it has been to carry. it is not my place to carry it, it is not my responsibility, and i refuse to keep his secrets any longer. this is a piece of information that should not be a hidden secret. my former partner is an outspoken political activist and organizer, someone that identifies himself as an anarchist and feminist ally. i feel that if he wants to be these things he must be honest, most especially with the womonfolk in his life with whom he desires to have sexual or intimate relationships with. his being accused of rape happened while he was a young teenager and on the other side of the country, at a time when he was going by a different name. i feel and fear he has detached himself from the experience, and has not made an effort to be accountable for it. the fact that he has chosen to tell so few people (i was one of two people in his current life that he told) frightens me. in my mind, accountability is intrinsically linked with honesty.
i want all womonfolk to be safe, to be able to consent with full awareness of what they are consenting to. womon deserve to know if someone they are wanting to be involved with sexually or intimately has been accused of rape. i wish i had this piece of information at the beginning of my relationship with my former partner. i also wish i had known, as he later told me, of his history of unhealthy and unsuccessful partnerships and relationships. if he had desired to be held accountable for these things and had wanted to have an honest and consenting relationship with me, i feel these are pieces of information which should have been given to me forthright.
i am not maintaining silence anymore. i am going to break this cycle of shame. i am going to talk about my experiences as i need to - they are my experiences, after all, and i no longer feel any sense of obligation to protect my former partner from public opinion. i am breaking the silence and i am breaking free of the abuse.
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