the first end

When he broke up with me in August it felt like a relief.

I'd been away, working ten hour shifts serving coffee at a festival, with a good friend of mine. It had been exhausting, rain soaked and hilarious. We'd bitched and rolled our eyes at the undeserving hipsters wanting brandy coffees at 1am, we'd clutched each others arms when a very tall and very famous comedian bought one of her brownies, and we'd slept, in damp shifts, as the rain sleeked down, making getting out of the mire of a carpark a team effort.
All in all it was easy, and fun, though exhausting. I remember lying on the ground after we had taken down our tent and laughing about how I'd never been so physically tired in all my life. But for all the effort, it was like gulping down fresh air to be away from Lee.
Groups of marauding friends would stumble by with plastic tankards of cider in hand, giving boozy hugs and falling over, slurring about what they had seen and where they were going to get chips. during the day I'd sat by the main stage as groups of art-shoe wearing parents made barrages with their buggies, keeping the tides of children from disappearing into the crowds, or I'd browse the market stalls, looking at all the cowboy hats, wondering if I should buy one for Lee.

Being as far out in the welsh countryside as it's possible to be before musicians and hipsters alike disintegrate into a pile of ash or actually have to start fending for themselves, reception was pretty bad. And honestly I was happy for it to be that way. All around me were rolling hills, music, laughter and easiness. I knew well enough of the fresh hell waiting for me back at home.

He hadn't wanted me to go of course. Of course, what self respecting control freak would want their girlfriend to go away to a festival for a weekend when she could be spending it with him, away from all the sound and colour that blared in stereo around me.
In May I'd got an excited text message from one of my dearest friends; did I want to work at a festival for three days as a barrista? 'FESTIVAL!!! THE MUSIC SHIV! YES!'
'ohmygodImgonnagetafloweryheaddress....'
We were excited and naive. But mostly excited.

Lee had told me in some of our first exchanges that he had worked the bar at Glastonbury, Latitude and V festival, as part of a charity that raised money for probation services. He'd talked about how he organised the spaces for people every year, building from just a handful of volunteers at first, to more and more as time went on.
It was one of the things he defined himself with I think; being that sort of person who could enter the melee and thrive there, loving the atmosphere and excitement of being part of that scene.
That was very attractive to me. Someone who didn't want to pull me away from where the excitement was happening but to be part of it. Someone who wanted to have fun and join in with me. Good. Tick.

The year we got together he decided not to go to any of the festivals; coopting out his space to other volunteers. I thought it was strange really, that he didn't want to go, but figured that it was his choice, maybe it really was too tiring as he said. Maybe he needed a break from it for a year. I didn't question it.
I'd driven us both in the bright spring sunshine in my little red car and we stopped for coffee. It was warm, we sat outside and the sun shone in my eyes and on my skin at last.
I told him excitedly about the festival and the work I might be doing. Genuinely excited, genuinely expecting him to be excited for me.
'Well that's a bit selfish, don't you think?' he said, completely deadpan.
'Huh? Why?'
'I've given up going to any festivals and cleared my diary so that I can spend time with you is why and you're going off without even thinking of me!'

Generally I am so surprised when someone says something I'm not expecting that I don't challenge it at all. My thoughts go on mute, as if the sound of any objection is trapped behind glass, mouthing at me from far away. I've learned now that this is a dissociative thing - anxiety will literally shut parts of your brain down. I've also learned that this is a symptom of ADHD and very common in women, but back then I couldn't respond, or challenge, or articulate anything at all.
I just thought, how strange, I didn't ask him not to work at Glastonbury, I didn't know he was doing it for me...
I questioned myself, was I being selfish? As far as I could see we spent time together, it wasn't always plain sailing but I was trying my hardest. Wasn't I?
By that time I had already paid for a September holiday we would be taking to Cuba. My mum was on hand to babysit my son for the duration. This was a big deal for me, I was pushing the anxiety of being thousands of miles away from my boy to the back of my mind because I knew that if I didn't give him this one little thing he was asking for - a week away with me on our own - he would break.
I was afraid of what would happen if I said no.

But in this particular instance I would not back down. I was resolute. I was going to work at that festival and my mum was going to babysit.

'It's amazing how you can find childcare so easily when it's something you want to do, but when it's about spending time with me you don't even bother.'

I reminded him of our imminent holiday, and the fact that over easter we'd been away to West Wales together.
'If I hadn't pushed and pushed for that it never would have happened. You don't prioritise me. I can take being your second priority, that goes without saying (meaning my son), but I won't be your third'

Walking down the main drag at the festival explaining Lee's insecurity to my friend it seemed as if the excuses I made for him fell on to dead air... he was sent away to boarding school at 8. He felt his family didn't want him. The girls (his sisters) stayed with his parents but he was shipped off.
I understood that this is something you never get over. He'd told me that there were boys there as young as 5 crying in the night for their mothers. I though of my son, his wriggly little body climbing in to bed with me at the first chance he'd get, and even on those nights I blearily took him back to his bed, he knew I was there. Lee didn't have that luxury, he was very much alone...

... inspite of this I could feel my friend mentally biting her tongue. Was this any excuse for the way he tried to control me? I was becoming uneasy, unsure in the silence that didn't validate the excuses I made for him but only made them seem flimsy somehow as they hung in the air between us.
Sometimes your friends are the islands of sanity when everything else turns on its head. She didn't need to say anything. I already knew what she thought though she never voiced it. What she did was allow me to talk, to stay connected and grounded and to hear myself.
When someone who loves you listens, they reflect you back. In relation to their constancy, you can see where you are at, or where you are not.  You can hear yourself. It's not about advice they give, though that can be vital at times, it's that they know you have the answer, and even if you don't have it in your hand right then, they love you all the same.
Of all the things she has ever done for me, and there have been so, so many over the years, I think the fact that she listened to me saved me in the end.

Lee's messages were scant that weekend. Mine were too and I didn't try and smooth out the barbs that appeared between the words he sent. I was away for just 3 full days. When I returned home that night, muddy and exhausted and elated I didn't text him till the morning.

All he replied was, 'Are you going away again tomorrow?'

I was taking my son camping with a group of musicians for four days. I go every year. He loves it like I'd always known he would when I was child free and went there as a teenager. Children running in a field like loons, watched over by everyone there. Musicians singing and laughing round a camp fire. Unequivocally this was home to me.
Of course I'd asked him to come with me. But he had a 'proper job', he couldn't just 'take off'.

Yes, what's wrong Lee?

No reply.

And then I found that he was now single on Facebook. He hadn't told me to my face. I told him that he should let me know what was going on . On the phone he ripped into me. He was livid that I hadn't bothered being in touch over the weekend, said that I had been selfish for going, as if on some jolly, not to work and earn money. He told me I was sketchy and unreliable and a heap of other things he'd been saving up and saving up. He said I should be able to read the signs of how unhappy he was, not make him explain himself, and that he just wanted to be in a happy, healthy relationship. And then he told me he couldn't stand coming last on my list and that he was done. Done.


I didn't protest or tell him that I would change. I didn't actually know what more I could give him without loosing myself completely. And I was devastated, I couldn't even imagine how this pain would unfold in me, though I was sure that I would be able to grieve once we were safely in our field, our bags hitting the ground as reality kicked in. I would be able to cry there.


But then of course he realised that his plan to make me sorry and humbled hadn't worked. He started bargaining with me, couldn't there just be some leniency, couldn't I just be more flexible in future, to make some plans that included him, for once, please?
Please could he come over and drop my stuff round, please don't give up on me, I'm sorry I said hurtful stuff I didn't mean, it was misplaced anger. I'm sorry baby, please...

Later that evening, after he'd wrangled his way in, he stood in my kitchen, crying his eyes out, saying he'd pay me back all the money I'd paid for Cuba now that I wasn't going, and that he'd been such a fool.
I laid it out for him, exactly how he'd been behaving, how he made me feel, how sick and worried I'd been when I got ill, how he had frozen me out with his silence, his hurtfulness. I told him that when he stopped speaking to me for two weeks after I'd suggested he'd given me herpes it had made me feel awful and completely alone, like I was at fault for suggesting that it might have been him.
I reminded him that he'd been drinking that evening, having been out with a friend from work, I was sober.
I told him that when I didn't want to have sex and he accused me of withholding affection and of being emotionally abusive, that actually it was him who was the manipulative one, because no meant no and sex wasn't a bargaining chip.
I told him how I felt when he had sent me a message with a picture he had taken of his diary with all the days I had spent with my son, all the days I had spent with my friends versus all the times I'd spent with him.
I told him that my mum, my friends, my sister worried about me because of the strange silences that stretched out from him every time I wanted to do something on my own.
I told him they thought that he was being controlling and that actually, some of the things he did were quite controlling.
I told him too much.
At the time he was so sorry, I don't think I've ever seen anyone so completely sorry before, for everything. He accepted everything I'd said and agreed with it all. Work had been so unbearably stressful, he hadn't had a break for 18 months and he realised he shouldn't have put the pressure on me to go on holiday with him, he should have taken himself off somewhere.
He told me that he would make use of the in house counselling service. That he should have, but just hadn't because he just didn't see that he needed it till now. But working with the rapists, pedophiles, drug dealers, the manipulative awful people every day was taking such a toll...
Please, please can we try again?
And that evening I felt validated and heard and hopeful that now he saw my side of things, things would actually change. Even so, I said lets just see how we go, lets sleep on it.
I held him as he wept that night, sobbing that he just felt so bad about himself. That he couldn't believe how he had treated me.
But I woke in the morning and the air felt different. There was something off. I think the words I'd said were ringing and ringing around his head.
I'd made him feel so ashamed of himself, so awful and low. It's not what I wanted him to feel. I just wanted it all to stop - the controlling behaviour, the monitoring of everything I did, everyone I saw.
In the morning light I could already feel him rejecting everything I'd told him. Pushing it away and re-galvanising himself against any flaw that I might name.

The pressure began again, was I going to go to Cuba with him? I'll take out a loan he said, and pay you back. I'll get my sister to come with me, or my daughter. I just need to know for sure you aren't coming. I don't think I can get the money back, oh god I'm so stressed about it. I'll pay you back by friday... I might have to pay you in instalments.

It wasn't till after I'd agreed to go to Cuba, and try and work things out with him, that he told me his entire family were furious with me for saying he was being controlling and for making him feel so bad. I'd given away too much, confessed what I thought of him and he resented me for it. It was now part of his arsenal that he would twist back on me later.

He was good at what he did. Very, very good. All through our relationship, when I'd been unsure about the things he'd said or done, he accused me of being inconsistent, sketchy, flakey. Too emotional, too unreliable.
'I've never had anything like this, you are so up and down. I just want something easy and straightforward. I just want to be in a happy, healthy relationship'

I certainly was affected by things, way more than a normal person I supposed. I have a tendency to withdraw and think about things. To need my space to decipher what is mine and what isn't. I saw it as a flaw back then. Maybe I was too inconsistent. Fragile and sensitive.
How could I take him back only to push him away again. Everyone will think that I am the crazy one. They'd know that I was the crazy one then. Cuba loomed on my horizon and with all my heart I did not want to go.