Bitter Lovers

Today at work (I work in IT in case anyone doesn’t already know that) I was trying to assist a young woman who was trying to get all of her account names changed back to her maiden name. She was having some trouble with it so I was doing my best to assist her, even though I don’t have access to change it. It literally takes five minutes to do, but they’re giving her the run-around for some reason.

Anyhow, as we were talking she decided to tell me about her “marriage.” She was telling me how she was now a member the of the Happily Divorced Club. I gave a non-committal response which evidently wasn’t as non-committal as I had thought. Basically, I just kind of grunted in agreement with her. She must have heard something in my tone. She told me she could tell by my response that I knew what she was talking about. Again, trying to keep the conversation professional (this was work, after all), I merely told her I understood what she was going through. Then she told me that she drew the line at having a loaded gun pointed at her face.

Now, I’ve dealt with certain abuses in my past. I’ve been given ultimatums of staying or she will commit suicide. I’ve been verbally and physically abused. But, as I told her, I’ve never been threatened with murder. That’s one thing I cannot identify with. But her ex-husband evidently pointed a loaded gun at her face one day and that’s when she took off. To this day, she told me, he still chases her down the highway screaming obscenities out his car window at her even thought she left him over a year ago.

I then thought to my own struggles after I left the twins’ mother. I dealt with mostly emotional abuse prior to leaving her. There were some incidents of verbal and physical abuse sprinkled in, but the majority of it was “stay, or I’ll kill myself.” It wasn’t until after I left her that the verbal and physical abuse began in earnest. Every time I dropped the twins off at her house she would storm out of her front door and start yelling and berating me for not coming home to her. This went on for a year and a half after I left her. Sometimes she would punch me or kick me. Often times this would happen while the twins looked on through the front door.

As we continued our conversation I began to wonder: what the fuck is wrong with people? I’ve been hurt. I’ve had my heart-broken. I’ve been left. Not once have I ever had an urge to physically assault, or even murder, one of those people. What is that makes people feel the need to physically harm those who have decided, for some reason or another, that they don’t want to be in a relationship any longer? What possesses these people and makes them perform acts of unimaginable horror? Why can’t they let go? Why can’t they move on? How do they get held in this eternal grip of anger?

The twins mother, 5 years after the fact, recently apologized to me for her “behavior” after I left her. Better late than never, I guess. At least she finally recognized that what she did was wrong. But why did it take so long? Why didn’t this occur to her while she was doing it? At what point does this happen? I mean, I had to call the cops on her once. Why didn’t it sink in then? Why didn’t it sink in when I told her she needed to stay away from my mother because she was scaring her? My mother is the most easy-going, passive person I know. And she was freaked out by the twins’ mother after I left her. She went THAT crazy. My mother doesn’t judge people, but she judged her during that time.

In fact, when I told my mother how the twins’ mother really was, my mom didn’t believe me. It wasn’t until my ex came banging on her front door one day and commanding my mother to make me take her back that my mother truly saw who I had married. Then she knew. And she understood.

This is kind of a rambling post, and I apologize for that. I’m sort of drunkies right now, but the question remains…why? Why do people behave like this? Why, despite the hurt, can’t people grieve then move on? Why must they torture those who they allegedly love? Why do they become more possessive than a squirrel with a nut? Why do they become so insane?

I just don’t understand it.