Thursday, 3 April 2014
Tuesday, 30 June 2009
unHappy Anniversary !!!
(May 2004 – May 2009...)
[initial, unedited]
Five years ago today (June 30, 2004) I was preparing to travel to Estonia, to be with Eva for a month, amid her family and friends there. But that's not the anniversary we're commemorating here; this posting is about seven weeks late.
Five years and seven weeks ago, in early-mid May of 2004, I began to try to start a conversation on certain issues in my relationship with Eva: issues that had long been obviously important, and long neglected. These issues had not been apparently urgent before May, 2004. So when I had broached them before that date, and Eva had deflected them one way or another, I had let them drop, to be picked up another day.
[these dialogues: rough, from memory, paraphrased except where in “quotes”]
| Mal: Do you think that, maybe, your overwhelmingly intense love for me might be grounded in ideas about me that are incomplete or partially wrong, that the basis for your Love might be partially unreal? |
I knew that those Issues would eventually become unavoidable, and our relationship would have to adjust to take account of them; but as long as things continued to seem more-or-less fine (or extraordinarily wonderful), and as long as Eva was reluctant to think together along the paths down which those Issues lay, they could wait -- to fall like ripe fruit, perhaps, in the unhurried course of our shared development. No need to push; I wasn't worried.
| Eva: I really want to have someone local, to help me with the kids, to maintain the house, to be there physically, every day. It's frustrating, that you're so far away. |
Somewhat suddenly, between the end of April and the middle of May, 2004, the tone of Eva’s emails, and her instant messages, and her voice, began to change – as when a timeless, bright day's sun dips behind low clouds, beshadowing everything with a chilly warning that the day is getting old.
There were certain understandings which we had reached, explicitly, in the earliest months of our relationship. I had always remembered them, and honored them (albeit somewhat imperfectly). But it had seemed to me that Eva had either long-since disregarded them as relics belonging to an ancient era, or (more likely) that she had simply forgotten them, possibly very soon after we had settled on them. ["More likely": in light of her tendency, throughout our relationship, to evince no memory of some agreements from shortly after we made them.] More than merely forgetting our agreements, she was increasingly behaving as if we had reached different agreements that contrasted with (or even contradicted) our actual agreements – reached them somehow, implicitly, without ever having discussed them. The main ways she revealed that she had tacitly changed the rules of our relationship typically involved complaints or accusations, directed toward me.
I was not the author of our initial understandings; we reached those together, mostly on the phone, as a practical way of ordering our relationship around our then-current complex of desires, imagined possibilities and practical limitations, both individual and shared. I would have been happy to change our shared understandings; but it wouldn't have been healthy (or fair to me) to simply drop the old ones without so much as acknowledging that they had been a factor (for the very reason that we had agreed to them and I, at least, had remembered them). Nor did it seem right that we should embrace different understandings under the pretense that they had always been in play: that my observance, and Eva's violation, of the old agreements should be retrospectively understood, upside-downly, as her observance, and my violation, of contrary understandings that we had never discussed.
Change was never unwelcome, and I always expected it. But I've always thought that it would be possible talk our way through our changes, no matter how far-reaching – including differences, and even sharp disagreements. Quarrelling would never be necessary, never more than superficial or transitory. Whatever the changes, we could enter them without setting up rigid emotional blocks against our listening to each other as to ourselves, and our hearing accordingly; and we could always come out somehow better.
Five years ago last month the sun-scape of our relationship suddenly came under a shadow, and I knew I would soon have to stop allowing Eva to defer or deflect certain conversations. The ongoing misunderstandings and miscommunications in our relationship would no longer hover benignly in the background, but would come seriously into play in the center. We would have to talk about them; if we didn't, they would only become exacerbated, aggravated, and possibly grow cancerous. Good thing, I thought then, that I can trust us to work through this potentially difficult period with seriousness so that, however we come out of it, everything will be fine.
In the month-and-a-half before Estonia, Eva didn't want to talk about "those things" because she was "too stressed out" with the demands of her life in Polson, and with preparations for Estonia. OK, I thought, it will be easier anyway when we're together, face-to-face, in Estonia. But my attempts in Estonia also were rewarded with deflections and deferments [later...another time...I can't deal with those things now...] and seemed always to result in tense conflict, intensely frustrating for both of us, without any meaningful points of mutual contact from which to even start the necessary conversation.
OK, then, I thought. After we've returned to our respective homes in August...and after a few weeks, or months, for Eva to wind down, during which time our relationship might languish in below-the-surface conflict and misunderstanding - then, at last, we might dig in to our Issues, and deal with them head-on.
That Fall Eva informed me that she "needed a break" from our relationship – some time to work it out for herself in her own time. I said, OK, but before you do, let's talk over some issues about which we have some serious miscommunications and misunderstandings. She evinced no hint of awareness that I had been waiting for half a year already, with a major department of my life in tumultuous suspension: til then, she seemed to think, I’d had everything I might reasonably expect, and now it was awfully selfish of me not to obligingly wait just a bit while she worked out, for herself and by herself, issues related to her relationship (apparently not equally my relationship).
I didn't tell her at the time (though I did mention much later) that I made my request with this understanding: if she took it up seriously, we could finish in about two hours. The reason I didn't mention this at the time was the thought: If she takes it that I'm simply asking for two hours, then she might dither, delay and distract for two hours, consistent with her behavior since May, and then require that I be satisfied with that -- and if I'm not, then take that as proof that my request is actually open-ended, or that I don't really know what I'm asking.
Why did I think she might do such a thing, even if I had explicitly linked "two hours" to the condition that she enter fully into the process and take it seriously? Because this was entirely consistent with the pattern of her relationship toward me, as it had been developing, gradually, since the previous May: it hadn't been only the avoidance of a serious, substantive conversation about our relationship, but also incipient patterns of control, manipulation and what I would eventually call (months later, and thereafter) "abuse".
Another thought that I spoke to myself at the time, without mentioning it to Eva, was this: if she won't do it now, she probably never will. The intuition was simple: in justifying her avoidance, she had been portraying me increasingly in over-simple and/or wholly-inaccurate negative terms, while dismissing or ignoring anything I might have to say for myself. She was clearly trying to engineer a separation on her own terms, having long-since signaled (at least since mid-July) that she was taking possession of our relationship, and that I would not be allowed any role not pre-assigned (or at least pre-approved) by her. So if she didn't have any live input from me, she would be unrestrained from making me out to be whatever might justify her treatment of me. She could recognize the injustice she had been systematically doing to me, and dig herself out of the hole; but it seemed far more likely (given my sense of her tendencies) that she would dig herself deeper in. Thus my slogan-of-that-moment: if she won't do [a serious conversation] now, she probably never will.
And now, five years and 7 weeks after I decided that long-delayed problems finally needed to be addressed – 4½ years after I asked for a conversation simply to clarify what we needed to discuss and why (not mentioning that I thought we could do it in two hours on the phone) we have not had five minutes of serious conversation over our very serious issues.
Instead (considering that the first instances of Eva's behavior that I took to be clearly abusive occurred in mid-July, 2004) I have endured five years of horrendous verbal and emotional abuse (3 active, 2 passive) as my assigned role in an intensely desperate – and totally unnecessary – battle which (unlike our relationship) belongs entirely to herself.
These pages will detail (and, alas, detail...and detail...and detail...) many of Eva's abuses. Many of them...but far from all. Many others will remain forever unmentioned, since not all have been documented, the documentation of others has been lost, and memory is a sieve with big holes.
But that's ok. It's not important that all abuses be detailed, only that enough be documented in sufficient contextual detail so that, if Eva ever finds it within herself to explore the possibility that seeking forgiveness is a real and serious moral urgency, she will be well-equipped to start with apologies that are not, in their total emptiness and intolerance for any mention of specifics, further crimes and insults requiring further apology . . . .
Monday, 14 April 2008
FLASHBACK: Admitting Error
I told her I had told her.
She insisted I hadn't.
I insisted I had.
She brought it up again, definite that I hadn't.
I…
I was quite sure that I had, but couldn't remember specifically doing so.
"Could I be mistaken?" I wondered.
Feels unlikely, but not impossible.
Feels...uncomfortable, that doubt (however slight) in my own position, on a point she's making out to be highly significant. Like a grain of gravel in the shoe, I would have to stop and remove it, if possible. For the moment, it didn't matter that her motives for making such a big deal of it were suspicious. (That issue would be dealt with eventually, I expected and hoped. Vainly.)
I would check the only possible evidence (our written communications) in the only probable place (the relevant period, over 2 years prior: September-October, 2002).
I located our emails and Yahoo! chats, and began reading. While they didn't provide a definitive answer, a number of clues strongly suggested that…
I had been mistaken, and she was right. So be it.
It was a demonstration in Life's classroom, that strong feelings don't ensure the accuracy of beliefs – even beliefs in the domain of one's own life-experience. (Significantly, I didn't have a specific memory to support the belief, which was based on general impressions of how things were at the time. Also, that I recognized that as the basis of my doubt.)
Now, having read our old emails from that period, I seemed to remember being doubtful that she was as accepting as she seemed to want to believe…and not trusting her to be ok with it. Still, I wished I'd told her, instead of avoiding the matter. I hadn't trusted her, hadn't honored her right to respond to the reality in her own way – however acceptingly or jealously, sanely or neurotically: it wasn't my business to control her access to matters of valid interest to her, and it was dishonest of me to do so, to not tell her. And though then my failing to tell her obviously didn't trouble my conscience enough to burn the memory into my brain (perhaps because I hadn't lied about it), in the current mess of broken communications it was clearly an Issue, and had been one for her all along, even when she was consumed with Love for me, when we were blinded by it. It was a characteristic fault of our relationship that we were just now talking about the matter.
Even if things would likely be pretty much the same now if I had told her then, my not doing so seemed, now, so...pointless. And, yes, wrong. I should have trusted her with the whole truth, come what may. How I wished I had!
And while now seemed, in principle, a fine time to resolve the matter, the actual prospects weren't promising. It had been quite clear lately (in
So I told her, with my very sincere apologies (my remorse was quite genuine and agonized).
Did she show understanding, or offer forgiveness? Did she move forward, with seriousness and sobriety, to discuss the significance of this matter in the larger context of our ongoing relationship? Did she take my admission and apology as a further opportunity to bring our problems out into the daylight, where we might resolve them reasonably well, and thus transition reasonably smoothly into the next stage of our friendship, whatever it might be (even if "goodbye")?
Or…did I detect a clear note of triumph in her voice, and unsoftened combativenesss in her attitude?
I'll leave to you those speculations upon the nonverbal. In words, she called it "cowardly", and said she would never again be so trusting of men (elaborating the point by abstracting that instance from its context and spreading it across the whole of my character).
I told her that, while it's good to maintain a healthy scepticism toward both men and women, and to never be naïve or gullible, it's not fair to all men to implicate them for her disappoinment in me. I emphasized that, whatever the lesson from this might be, hard, bitter cynicism shouldn't be it.
I mentioned that it was not fair to me, that she was skipping an opening-up discussion into this matter and passing straight through to the blanket conclusions about me that she was taking it to exemplify. But I didn't press the point (very) hard because, it seemed, any way I might put it, she would take it, programmatically, as delusion and denial. I couldn't force such a discussion; she had an agenda.
The only likely result: a quarrel.
LESSON: How to set a trap as a decoy for a TRAP!
| |
Brief Guide 1) If your Target doesn't fall for the idiot-trap you've set for him (even clumsily and in plain view, as Eva does in this example), it doesn't matter: just say and do everything exactly as if he had fallen for it. Don't just refuse to acknowledge plain evidence that he didn't fall for it: don't allow even a speck of credibility to the idea that there ever was a trap.That's the TRAP!2) He's bound to complain, even if just by calmly but persistently trying to reason with you and call you to account.3) But since (by your Law) there's nothing for him to complain about, he's left spinning in the wind, grunting and yelping irrationally, and you're free to ridicule him for his insecurities. Or (if the mood strikes you) you may don your victim-suit and a supercilious air of annoyance, and request that he stop abusing you for Deep Personal Problems that have nothing to do with you.4) Of course he won't cheerfully (or otherwise) accept blame for his own abuse, and crawl away in undeserved disgrace so that you may have unearned relief and satisfaction, so(5) Observe to him that you have asked him nicely to stop accusing you and harrassing you and needing whatever-the-hallelujia from you, but in his blind, bottomless neediness he has not listened to you (= "obeyed you"), and in his derangement he is obviously insensitive to your wholesome needs and precious emotional well-being, so(6) Fuck'im, you're now justified in ripping out his guts and strangling him with them. And much worse. |
How to set a trap as a decoy for a TRAP!
Offline Yahoo! Messenger messages from Eva to Mal, Sunday, December 5, 2004
good night, good night
Joe is coming over in a week or so and is planning to cohabit for a while
will see how it goes
good thing he is bringing a queen size bed with - it would be rather cramped in my little twin bed for two people for some extended period of time
[...]
Email reply from Mal, December 5, 2004:
[sahkerdaja:]
Joe is coming over in a week or so and is planning to cohabit for a while
will see how it goes
good thing he is bringing a queen size bed with - it would be rather cramped in my little twin bed for two people for some extended period of time
[First reaction: this has been developing for some time, yet she's told me nothing of it until now. Would have loved if she'd wanted to share, had shared. Slight sting that she didn't. A further sign of how I've been shut out from the center of her life. The way it is.]
Email reply from Eva, December 5, 2004:
M -
"[First reaction: this has been developing for some time, yet she's told me nothing of it until now. Would have loved if she'd wanted to share, had shared. Slight sting that she didn't. A further sign of how I've been shut out from the center of her life. The way it is.]"
My first reaction: to laugh. Kind of sad-funny laugh. How symptomatic this statement is – a gross assumption. So, I didn't provide much detailed information for you to draw any such or any different conclusions from, I understand. In a strange way I did expect you to brew up a more negative reaction of the possible two, assuming my ill intent toward you. It is sad.
We have not talked for months, and only twice between now and May: a brief "hello" and an update on his travels. No talk about interpersonal politics or much anything else.
2-1/2 Years later, Mal emails to Eva the three commumications excerpted above, adding only the subject line: "Were you ever more serious (& less manipulative) than in this "model"? Sadly, not, I'm afraid."
Email reply from Eva:
Sent: Monday, July 02, 2007
Subject: Re: Were you ever more serious (& less manipulative) than in this "model"? Sadly, not, I'm afraid.
He was going to cohabit for a while. And we were lovers. He did stay here for a while (though not in my bed but in his traveling van in the back yard) before moving back to CO as he had planned to. It was never a "moving in" deal, just a transitional arrangement. What's so manipulative about that? We never had an argument and are still good friends.
Email reply from Mal
Sent: Tuesday, July 03, 2007 2:52 AM
Subject: Re: Were you ever more serious (& less manipulative) than in this "model"? Sadly, not, I'm afraid.
He was going to cohabit for a while. And we were lovers. He did stay here for a while (though not in my bed but in his traveling van in the back yard) before moving back to CO as he had planned to. It was never a "moving in" deal, just a transitional arrangement. What's so manipulative about that? We never had an argument and are still good friends.
= The Entire Exchange =
Sent : Sunday, December 5, 2004
sahkerdaja:
good night, good night
Joe is coming over in a week or so and is planning to cohabit for a while
will see how it goes
good thing he is bringing a queen size bed with - it would be rather cramped in my little twin bed for two people for some extended period of time
no e-mail from you
looks like all your efforts were for nothing
hope you saved it
nevermind - I have the full 2 versions of it in my inbox
will read
contemplate
reply if i can
when i can
not tonight
From : Mal
Sent : Sunday, December 5, 2004 4:01 AM
To : Eva
Subject : Joe, phone sex, lying (down) and videotape.
sahkerdaja:
Joe is coming over in a week or so and is planning to cohabit for a while
will see how it goes
[First reaction: this has been developing for some time, yet she's told me nothing of it until now. Would have loved if she'd wanted to share, had shared. Slight sting that she didn't. A further sign of how I've been shut out from the center of her life. The way it is.]
How this came about? What are you & Joe respectively thinking/expecting/planning? What are you going to do with your old bed? (You know, the twin wouldn't be so cramped if you loved each other)
Will be good for kids to have him around. I look forward to report of his/their doings.
I expect that you and Joe will fight before long (history as my guide). It may be good to prepare in advance a strategy for dealing with occasions of tension and conflict.
Some questions not for you to answer me (though I would welcome if you did) but for your own consideration...
When those feelings of irritation arise, how will you deal with them?
Will you carefully consider what you're doing to exacerbate the situation, and invite him to do the same? [Humorous ambiguity here. Ed.]
Will you be able to trade off some of your personal reactions for consideration of his point of view?
How well can you accept, in advance, his present limitations, and do can you think of ways to help expand them in advance, outside any quarrel, in calm?
Can you anticipate things you are likely to quarrel about, and think of ways to discuss these matters with him constructively before you end up fighting about them?
Any considerations that I haven't mentioned?
The idea is maximize positive action over blind reaction, by intelligent planning in light of emotional awareness. Something you and I might have benefited from, instead of just hoping for – or expecting – the best.
I don't even know what Joe looks like (apart from the sexy, long hair) but if you felt friendly toward me (not aloof or hostile), then I can imagine that the thought of him making love to you would be...hot. Watching anonymous porn didn't stir much erotic feeling in me, but I know you and love you, and remember what it was like to be ravenously consumed with lust for your then-perfect body. (Lately I haven't felt those things at all – the opposite.) But if you were feeling warmly toward me, I bet watching you and him eat each other and penetrate each other and fuck each other senseless and come for each other would be a huge turn-on for me. (A former fantasy: me & Joe working together to pleasure you.)
So, when you and Joe make that first porn video, do I get a complimentary copy?
Must go to work. 24-hour shift, off tomorrow afternoon. I won't check email before then for an answer, but...will you be free and willing to talk on the phone tonite/day? I suspect that when Joe is there, the likelihood of interested/able will become even less than it has been lately. I'll call, probably around 4 or 5 Sunday afternoon, your time.
M.
From : Eva Oruste
Sent : Sunday, December 5, 2004 9:12 AM
To : Mal
Subject : Re: Joe, phone sex lying (down) and videotape.
M -
"[First reaction: this has been developing for some time, yet she's told me nothing of it until now. Would have loved if she'd wanted to share, had shared. Slight sting that she didn't. A further sign of how I've been shut out from the center of her life. The way it is.]"
My first reaction: to laugh. Kind of sad-funny laugh. How symptomatic this statement is – a gross assumption. So, I didn't provide much detailed information for you to draw any such or any different conclusions from, I understand. In a strange way I did expect you to brew up a more negative reaction of the possible two, assuming my ill intent toward you. It is sad.
We have not talked for months, and only twice between now and May: a brief "hello" and an update on his travels. No talk about interpersonal politics or much anything else.
He was going to cohabit for a while. And we were lovers. He did stay here for a while (though not in my bed but in his traveling van in the back yard) before moving back to CO as he had planned to. It was never a "moving in" deal, just a transitional arrangement. What's so manipulative about that? We never had an argument and are still good friends.
What's so manipulative about it??? Eva...did you actually read it? The manipulation isn't of Joe, but of me. Could you have actually believed I would fail to see what you were doing? Well...apparently so, or you would have been too intensely ashamed to go forward with such a stunt. But I can't believe you're so dense that you can't see how you carefully set the trap: that when I took the bait -- the expected (that is, most reasonable) interpretation -- you were ready with a condescending, put-down. But maybe you are so dense; after all, you did write it, apparently unaware of how transparent the trick was. But I'm going to assume you just didn't read it this time around, because I know you're really too bright not to see what a fool's trap you set up (with me as the intended fool). Please read it again (in the bottom section of this email, below the triple horizontal lines).
Problem is, there's nothing unusual about it as a tactic of yours, except that it serves especially well as an example because of its transparency. On the scale of crass manipulativeness alone, it's pretty ordinary, by your standards.
For a more recent example, consider this (which you wrote yesteray):
Your continuous diatribes, reiterating all my crimes, have not allowed any room for me to chime in in any useful way, though. What am I supposed to say to another "you have wronged me, bitch" letter? And, quite honestly, if your yelling and screaming is supposed to account for an attempt at anything but shutting me down, I sure don't understand what the hell is going through your highly intelligent mind.
By itself, that sounds pretty reasonable (except the word you want is "continual"...though that's wrong too, for different reasons). But remember, one of my criticisms has been that, when you have conceded some general fault or failing of yours (while prohibiting discussion of its particularities and ramifications, contrary to the way you've been quite happy to discuss those things with respect to my faults and failings, in detail!), you have usually made sure that yours are considered in context (which can be partially exculpatory), while (this must sound familiar by now!) denying mine the same contextual treatment, leaving them stuck to me, as deep (and presumably unfixable) features of my character. (No, you haven't done that totally on every occasion, but spare your objections: the trend is beyond merely clear, as I have indicated from time to time.) As I have pointed out, this general bias is so socially widespread and normal it, has a name: the Fundamental Attribution Error (though you seem to have practiced it with much more than normal purposefulness, I think it's fair to say).
So, let's consider yesterday's statements in the context of the larger arc of our post-Estonia communications. It is true that I've begun to embrace the use of harsh epithets against you ("stupid, mean cunt", etc.) and language that, in text, can still be considered "yelling and screaming" as you put it. True enough. But that's not just the kind of character I am, as you will acknowledge if you can allow yourself to be minimally honest about it. So: why such harsh language from me recently, and what is its significance in the larger context?
a.. fiercely resisting what I neither asked nor offered,
b.. while remaining apparently oblivious to what I was actually asking,
c.. and demanding of me what no sensible, self-respecting person would accept?
You may disagree that that was actually the case, but you may not disagree that that's what I actually said about my experience: I cut 'n' pasted those exact words several times over the last two years (beginning around May, '05, though they express an understanding that really gelled the previous October, in '04).
Have you ever tried to imagine what my experience must have been like, if the way I described it was actually how it was for me? Seriously, truly, really: I have seen no clue that you have considered the matter. It's almost as if you took my descriptions as like lava pouring out of a volcano, or diarrhea pouring forth from my ass: just that stuff coming out of my mouth, whatever it is: nothing of serious significance in your relationship with me, nothing you ought to take into account.
Did you ever ask me a single non-rhetorical question about those things, though you clearly did not understand my meaning, and often rejected my words at the surface level? I don't know, but if you did, it never became significant in a conversation; and since I would have been very happy to answer such a question, I'll assume you never asked. (You certainly did ask rhetorical questions, and have been happy to answer them for me, too!)
Anyway, my attempts to explain those very words or (more often) the sentiments behind them met with two typical "responses": (1) resistance/attack upon the surface; and (2) dead, black silence, without echo, as if nobody were there, nobody hearing me. Never was the response healthy, active curiosity or critical engagement.
| If you would like to disagree, I will send you the entire body of our written communications, and promise you $1000 for every counterexample you can find. Game? (We'd need an impartial judge, to ensure that things like "fuck off!" and "what are you having for dinner" are disqualified as counterexamples, eh?) |
Now, you have presumed to castigate me and lecture me for what you perceive (rightly or wrongly) as my failings and crimes in my relationships with women generally, and you have asserted that you want a "healthy relationship" -- which implies that you want to do the business of relating, in a healthy way. Ok, then: what lesson are you teaching me about healthy relationship? I mean, I don't know what Planet you're from, but here on Earth, healthy relationship is incompatible with prejudicially resisting, dismissing and disregarding another's self-expressions, while dictating to them one's own self-serving account as The Reality for both. Now, you recently claimed, categorically, that you have answered my major concerns, and that *my* problem was that I didn't like your (implicitly adequate) answers. And, I have repeatedly complained that you have been denying me a voice for myself, while ramming your self-serving (and internally inconsistent) Reality down my throat, and demanding -- yes, DEMANDING! -- that I shut up and swallow it. I made such complaints a number of times, in a number of different contexts. And the answer I "didn't like"? ...Just one of them, Eva?
Silence and mockery, mostly. (Previously, I would have taken the trouble to find clear, specific examples for claims like this. Now, after so much wasted time over these years, I'll just assert it, with the offer to produce examples if you ask.) I suppose if I were from your Planet, I would understand how ignoring and ridiculing are the same as answering. But Earth is a boring Planet; logic works here.
Years on, and I still feel like a simple, ordinary conversation, by which we might resolve our relationship in a way healthy for -- and satisfying to -- both of us, has been prevented from starting -- by you! And feel that you have been obsessed with blaming me for the spectacular failure: blaming me for the wastage of my own precious life energies consecrated to achieving a simple, sensible solution both of us, but made pitiful (in one perspective) by the stinking, diseased state of affairs that (in one perspective) is all that might be called their "results"; blaming me for the years of ugly and violent abuse of me by you, recast -- like gold-plated shit -- as your defense against my clueless and needy and abusive attempts to win back your friendship -- or whatever it is you now may think I'm trying to get from you. (Though you have allowed that you no longer think it's your friendship that I seek, you haven't explained, simply, what you think you're now waging your cosmic anti-Malcolm battle against. Which is...what, by the way?
Whatever. It's more likey that you'll wake up tomorrow blonde, straight-haired and in love with Dick Cheney (in other words, as Ann Coulter), than that whatever you're so maniacally resisting will turn out to be what I've been trying to achieve. But I was tired of this shit 2-1/2 years ago, when my bag of tricks was relatively full. Please forgive me if now, in my weakness and weariness, I more freely use direct, personal, insulting language against you like you have long used against me. I know it's not right, or good, or healthy. But it's just about all there is left that I haven't earnestly tried; what else do I have to put my hopes and efforts into (and against what acceptable alternative)?
(Of course you know the answer: your friends. If you remain determined to prejudicially b me and deny me a voice, I will seek legitimacy and an audience with your friends -- hopefully, I'll pick ones who can be trusted with your best interests and most sensitive personal details. Dunno. You still haven't answered whether you're still hanging with kim.walterskirchen@nexgo.de?
I still have those old Yahoo! chat archives, by the way. You might like to look at them, if you could bear it; you might learn some interesting things. Would you like me to copy them into Word documents for you? (Or would it be more convenient for you to read them on the Internet?)
You will notice in those chats that, while you (in a victim-role that was based, I offer, on profound misunderstandings) are ripping into me bitterly and, yes, violently, with insults and, yes, abuse (very unfairly, that is, in my considered judgment), I stand my ground without letting you dominate me, but I remain relatively calm in the face of your sometimes astonishingly harsh (and, I say, unfair) attacks, and do pretty well (I think) at not getting drawn into your fight. I generally maintain the discipline to keep my remarks on-topic (and, I offer, accurate), and directly relevant to the most important points of what you are saying, even as you may be throwing "everything and the kitchen sink" at me.
Not that I didn't express anger at you, but it was focused and disciplined, not wild like (I claim) yours is. That's no accident: It was *important* to me that my criticisms be fair to you, and I reckon the few pot-shot liberties I took were minor, and did not amount to failure. Yet some of those chats were some of the most spectacularly failed communications I've ever been involved in (this entire three-year fiasco itself standing lonely in a large class of one, with no competition in sight).
I would bet a dollar against a penny that you don't remember those chats the way I offered, and didn't experience that way at the time. If so, I wouldn't take that as reflecting on my performance, but on the quality of your perception – the quality of your *caring* enough to *try* to get things right, as a higher priority than beating me down however you might. Priorities, ya know. I bet you remember us both fighting, toe-to-toe, in good, old-fashioned quarrels, like you used to have with
"Discipline", did I say? No accident. So perhaps there are some reasons why lately I've been experimenting with some good, old-fashioned "yelling and screaming"? Perhaps because, after all these years, my repertoire is becoming exhausted just like I am, and so far you've managed to turn *everything* into a brilliant, spectacular failure that is somehow my fault no matter what, and a reason for further harsh and unfair attacks from you? Yeah, that might have something to do with it, indeed. I guess you could say that I'm running out of tricks, and I have become *almost* convinced that you will never allow Reason to lure you away from your abusive Control-Freakery and World-Class hypocrisy [more on this below], and I'm just really tired and weary and worn-out from the years of unfair attacks, and being told that I should just shut up, accept it, surrender my dignity, and walk away in a disgrace I don't deserve so you can have a validation you don't deserve. But I'm not going to be the scapegoat for y/our failures that you demand I be: almost three years later, my answer [not that you asked for it!!!] is "no". Can you handle that? To paraphrase you: I don't know if you can understand how reluctant I am to accept that the enormous amount of earnest energy I have poured into this affair has produced nothing but years of frustration and piles of Eva's shit on the dinner-plate of my soul. Can you possibly understand how a person might be reluctant to accept that? I doubt you can. [N.B. The way I just put that question and self-answer is insulting to you, isn't it? Then, can you see how it might have been insulting to me when you have put questions in the same way: you don't know if I can understand...really simple things! An object-lesson, baby. I won't do it again, unless you do.]
Your continuous diatribes, reiterating all my crimes, have not allowed any room for me to chime in in any useful way, though. What am I supposed to say to another "you have wronged me, bitch" letter? And, quite honestly, if your yelling and screaming is supposed to account for an attempt at anything but shutting me down, I sure don't understand what the hell is going through your highly intelligent mind.
Isn't this pretty cool, now, in some historical context? Innit? After years of frustration over your screaming and shouting at my attempts to establish an ordinary, open, honest conversation ("where you listen to me and respond appropriately, and I listen to you and respond appropriately, back and forth, and back and forth, until we achieve some level of mutual understanding", as I put it two Junes ago) -- after years of your "shutting me down" and "denying me a voice", I finally give in, let go, and, fuckit, start "YELLING and SCREAMING" back at you, in ways I'd only done in brief, occasional moments previously.
Then, suddenly, you draw back, sniff with disdain, and condescend that "[my]... diatribes have not allowed any room for [you] to chime in in any useful way", and you charge that it seems like my "yelling and screaming" is an attempt to shut you down -- as if you're the one who wanted a sensible conversation, and I've been the one preventing it: – a perfect role-reversal!!!
That's really excellent judo, Eva. Try it on me in 40 years – maybe I'll have Alzheimer's by then, and it will work! But it's still really good, in a disreputable sort of way; I appreciate it, sorta the way I appreciate Jack the Ripper's expert knifework. If it wasn't such a hateful art, I would be proud of you. You have some raw talent but, more, I've been watching you practice these recent years, turning almost anything I might do, at will, into something wrong and corrupt (or beautiful and noble, depending, it seems, mostly on your whim), for which you can attack me self-righteously (or intend for me to be soothed and placated, though you have often become outraged when I didn't respond the way you intended).
That 'Joe's really only staying a couple days, and we're not really sleeping together, and you're *sad* for thinking otherwise' trick was a bit amateurish and crude, but it showed brilliant promise. You know, if there were an Olympics with sports like Hypocrisy and Manipulation and Deceit – maybe even PseudoMoralistic Judo! – with a bit more practice, you'll vie for the gold medals in ANY of those sports.
"Gold medals"? Sorry, I meant "shit medals". That "gold plating" is thinner than the Emperor's dandy new duds.
Now how about cutting that shit out, finally? Ok? Here on Earth, we generally don't approve of treating people that way, and I personally don't approve of you treating me that way. I still welcome your sincere, thoughtful criticisms and properly-qualified suspicions, as always, but my tolerance for manipulative, hypocritical, abusive bullshit from you is well below the water line. If you don't like the harm to your self-esteem that you associate with this relationship, perhaps you should consider earning a higher level of self-esteem, rather than trying to steal it at my expense?
Just a thought, from me to you. Don't save it for your birthday, but think it today, for a happier tomorrow. (I was going to say a sunnier tomorrow, but a glance at the weather report shows you were pushing 90F there, so I figger you can better use happier than sunnier.)
M.
----- Original Message -----From: Eva OrusteTo: MalSent: Monday, July 02, 2007 4:20 AMSubject: Re: Were you ever more serious (& less manipulative) than in this "model"? Sadly, not, I'm afraid.He was going to cohabit for a while. And we were lovers. He did stay here for a while (though not in my bed but in his traveling van in the back yard) before moving back to CO as he had planned to. It was never a "moving in" deal, just a transitional arrangement. What's so manipulative about that? We never had an argument and are still good friends.----- Original Message ----
From: Mal
To: Eva Oruste <sahkerdaja@yahoo.com>; eva_oruste@skc.edu
Sent: Sunday, July 1, 2007 6:50:05 PM
Subject: Were you ever more serious (& less manipulative) than in this "model"? Sadly, not, I'm afraid.Sent : Sunday, December 5, 2004 2:52 AMSubject : Eva Offlines 12-5-04sahkerdaja (5:26:15 AM): good night, good night
Joe is coming over in a week or so and is planning to cohabit for a while
will see how it goes
good thing he is bringing a queen size bed with - it would be rather cramped in my little twin bed for two people for some extended period of time
no e-mail from you
looks like all your efforts were for nothing
hope you saved it
nevermind - I have the full 2 versions of it in my inbox
will read
contemplate
reply if i can
when i can
not tonightFrom : MalSent : Sunday, December 5, 2004 4:01 AMTo : sahkerdaja@yahoo.comSubject : Joe, phone sex lying (down) and videotape.sahkerdaja (5:26:35 AM): Joe is coming over in a week or so and is planning to cohabit for a whilewill see how it goesgood thing he is bringing a queen size bed with - it would be rather cramped in my little twin bed for two people for some extended period of time[First reaction: this has been developing for some time, yet she's told me nothing of it until now. Would have loved if she'd wanted to share, had shared. Slight sting that she didn't. A further sign of how I've been shut out from the center of her life. The way it is.]How this came about? What are you & Joe respecively thinking/expecting/planning? What are you going to do with your old bed? (You know, the twin wouldn't be so cramped if you loved each other)
Will be good for kids to have him around. I look forward to report of his/their doings.I expect that you and Joe will fight before long (history as my guide). It may be good to prepare in advance a strategy for dealing with occasions of tension and conflict.Some questions not for you to answer me (though I would welcome if you did) but for your own consideration.When those feelings of irritation arise, how will you deal with them?Will you carefully consider what you're doing to exacerbate the situation, and invite him to do the same?Will you be able to trade off some of your personal reactions for consideration of his point of view?How well can you accept, in advance, his present limitations, and do can you think of ways to help expand them in advance, outside any quarrel, in calm?Can you anticipate things you are likely to quarrel about, and think of ways to discuss these matters with him constructively before you end up fighting about them?Any considerations that I haven't mentioned?The idea is maximize positive action over blind reaction, by intelligent planning in light of emotional awareness. Something you and I might have benefited from, instead of just hoping for - or expecting - the best.....From : Eva Oruste <sahkerdaja@yahoo.com>Sent : Sunday, December 5, 2004 9:12 AMTo : MalSubject : Re: Joe, phone sex lying (down) and videotape.M -"[First reaction: this has been developing for some time, yet she's told me nothing of it until now. Would have loved if she'd wanted to share, had shared. Slight sting that she didn't. A further sign of how I've been shut out from the center of her life. The way it is.]"My first reaction: to laugh. Kind of sad-funny laugh. How symptomatic this statement is - a gross assumption. So, I didn't provide much detailed information for you to draw any such or any different conclusions from, I understand. In a strange way I did expect you to brew up a more negative reaction of the possible two, assuming my ill intent toward you. It is sad.We have not talked for months, and only twice between now and May: a brief "hello" and an update on his travels. No talk about interpersonal politics or much anything else.
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