In my final blog entry of last week, I felt rather chewed out for not having cut all ties with Bozo. As previously stated, I'm working to break a cycle of continually falling into bad relationships. I have always cut all ties and simply walked away from these men in the past. Yet the same or similar problems keep happening again with new men. In this instance, I took my space and got grounded enough to observe the cues that I'd been (erroneously) falling for in the past.

It hasn't all been sweetness and light. Knowing that my hopes for and shared dreams with Bozo will not be realized indeed makes me sad. Seems like a pretty normal feeling of loss to me. That's not enough justification for me to simply hop right back in there to start all over with Bozo again, as much as he hopes so. Been pretty clear he does, as long as we can keep chugging along in misery with no effort to change anything.

What has been fascinating to me has been his tossing out verbal hooks. "I don't know what I'm going to do for the winter." "My relationships never work." Instead of biting the hooks, I just say "oh" and nod my head, then continue about what I was doing or change the subject. I don't instantly dive in to fix/change his problems any longer. It takes all the power over me out of his hands. It keeps my power and good with me, where it belongs. That works. I'm glad to have gained some valuable experience at it!

That said, we did share a revealing discussion about spirituality last week and I wound up spending a depressing weekend alone researching and pondering about it. Bozo grew up a Jehovah's Witness. It's the only faith he's ever known. Doesn't take much to see that there is too much activity and guilt involved with being a JW to allow even a moment of independent thinking or feeling. He and his family have long been inactive with the faith, but it is clear that none of them ever truly left the JW way of living behind. Basically, they're a tiny self-contained cult, ceaselessly chugging along from one failed effort to the next on automatic pilot. Bozo's compulsive beer drinking and pot smoking is his way of drowning/fogging out any temptation to think or feel for himself. That's probably why so much drinking and substance abuse is quietly supported and enabled in those family members who use by family members who don't. They're such a wonderfully loving, close knit family unit who stick together, yanno? :sick:

My core belief and "truth" is that every individual has FREE choice to LIVE happy and content (heaven) or exist in torment (hell) in the present moment. I have spent most of my life encouraged and free to think and feel for myself. No wonder our relationship always seemed so schizophrenic! I fell in love with a genuine, tenderhearted man who would occasionally join up with me and break away from old ways and people that make abusive demands and guilt trip him to total detachment. When back on familiar turf, immersed in old ways, people and their constant chaos, he treats me as an object (rather than a whole, thinking, feeling person) in a very mindless passive-aggressive way, often boiling over to frank emotional abusiveness.

Not that it makes any difference. He's been clear in word and action that he can't commit to me other than physically sharing my home and bed without actually being together with me in mind and spirit. That his top commitment is to the only living death he's ever known. I'm not going up against such a deeply ingrained system of existence and Bozo has shown little will or spirit to do so himself. At least I've gained a fairly clear understanding of the dynamic at play. Bozo treated me like crap. It wasn't personal or anything to do with me. It was not my fault and I didn't deserve it. Honestly, I don't think Bozo deserves it either. I grieve for him, but I can't stand in his place to say "no" to his ceaseless torment; or change the tormented existence he alternates between passively accepting and actively welcoming.