Hi there.  So.. I have a question around relationships and giving away my power.

I have an ex-husband who was very abusive to me. I am embarrassed when I think back to how he treated me, especially during my pregnancies when I needed support.

My third and last pregnancy was especially challenging. I was having an alloimmune response to my daughter which made me feel like I was having a nine month long flu.. plus I got the flu and I got something even worse, called crud. The doctors said I should go on bed rest but my husband wouldn’t let me.

In fact, he cancelled our rental lease and then went and got a temporary three month rental and so I had to move twice – three times, actually because for 5 weeks we had no place to live and so we had to move into a storage unit and fly to our house in Uruguay even though I was warned that an overnight flight was dangerous for me in my condition.

I begged and cried to stay back and stay in bed. I wish I could have been stronger and gotten in bed and not gotten out but I had two small children and my husband would leave and not help me so I had no choice and my family all lived thousands of miles away.  AND he went behind my back and got rid of our house lease so I literally had NO where to go.

Now… I am having health issues that the doctors say are a result of not going on the bed rest that was advised. I am so angry that this is haunting me. I am angry at myself for not standing up to him and I am angry at him for not caring about my health. I don’t know what more I could have done though.. I even dragged him to the doctor so he could hear it from her and not just me… he still didn’t care.

My unintentional model is this:

C- Doctors say I need surgeries (several over the next two years – to the tune of $25,000) that could have likely been avoided had I laid down for that pregnancy.
T – Husband didn’t care enough about me and my health to do what the doctors told him was in my best interest… and what I begged for.
F – Unloved
A – I spiral on ALL of the horrible thing he did to me that prove that he didn’t care about me.
R – I feel angry and spend inordinate amounts of time ruminating and finding more and more evidence.

Intentional model
C – Same – doctors say I need all of these surgeries to repair the damage.
T – Maybe this all happened for some reason I don’t know yet…
F – More curious…
A – Still kind of spirally….
R – A little better but… still angry…

ugh sigh…

My ex is asking to be friends which makes me feel crazy in light of what I am going through. He is in therapy and says he is evolving.

I asked for an apology or some ownership around what he did to me. He claims he doesn’t remember any of it. He apologies for me feeling this way, but not for his actions which is not an apology in my mind.

I say I don’t want anything to do with him, but I think I have some addiction to the drama. I want to be the type of person who moves on. I want to get over this, but these doctor appointments and doctors bills and the fact that I cannot even afford all of these surgeries is making me so angry.

I think a lot of my anger is the juxtaposition of how terribly he treated me and how wonderfully he treats his new girlfriend.. having completely different rules for her than he did for me.

If I cut him out of my life does that give him power? I don’t want to give him any more power, but I also don’t want a person in my life who was so abusive and cruel to me. He was abused as a child so he blames that, but he isn’t abusive to the new girlfriend… so.. what is that and how am I supposed to be ok with any of this? I know this is a lot in one post…

Thanks!