Ok, here we go…

 Robb…. What he did, in my opinion, is really walking a razors edge of something morally questionable. Nothing illegal but that’s not really where the razors edge always lies.

So, I had ZERO knowledge of this. Supposedly we tell each other everything. It’s easy to do when there are no repercussions. He’s a trained therapist so you know, it works for me. Now, I don’t mean that I tell EVERYTHING but pretty damn close. 

Things had been “off” between us like we found ourselves bickering a lot. Which is weird in a friendship. I’m always bouncing things off of him about Christianity and the things I feel that don’t add up and how it’s downright embarrassing to even claim to be a Christian right now, in my personal opinion. I’ll get into all of that in another really deep diving post I have coming up.

Now, historically he finds these conversations interesting he likes to dig in with me and think about the different topics , we like to question and throw answers at the wall to see what sticks. We have done this for YEARS. 

But suddenly he’s attending two churches, one Catholic as that’s his main religion and one an Evangelical ( of all Christian sects it’s the evangelical that causes my most intense reactions having been raised in it my whole life and seen up close and personal how hypocritical it is. Keeping in mind that my entire older extended family were either pastors or married to pastors) 

Then he starts taking classes to be a pastor and also attending two Bible studies a week too so it’s a 24/7 thing. That’s fine. You do you, as long as you don’t 1) shove it onto me 2) do not judge me or give me your opinion on my life. Like, you practice how you want and leave it at the door. 

But his whole personality starts changing and when he posts something religious , which was basically all he posted, and I’d comment he’d get all pissed and send his 17 yr old daughter to my page to school me on how to speak to him and how he’s the next closest thing to Jesus himself and….. frankly, no Ma’am. I wasn’t going to snap at this kid on my page so I blocked her.

Problem one…. That pissed him off. Now, I have known this girl since she was 7yrs old and her sister since she was 5. They call me Auntie Tracy. But this child is, I know this sounds terrible, is a bad seed. She’s a fire starting, animal abusing, parent and sibling abusing, hard to handle child and we’ve never been close like I am with her sister so it’s right up her alley to be the one to be a dick to me. That’s cool, but I’m not going to deal with it. 

That happens three times before I cut her off. 

Then I call him one night and he freaks the fuck out. I mean, like I don’t even recognize this person and he starts verbally punching where he knows my weak spots are, you know, like my KIDS. 

So we get into it and it finally comes out that he’s been doing this thing in the dark for a few YEARS. He thinks that I’ve figured it out and when we’re talking about Christianity and other things like that that I’m actually talking about him and directing my feelings of hypocrisy towards him…. Keep in mind… I had no fucking clue and I am NOT someone who just takes digs on the down-low just hoping you’ll pick up what I’m putting down. I am not a person who hates confrontation, ok? I’m direct and if anyone should know that besides my family and friends it should be him! I mean, he fucking knows me, you know.

So while he’s been taking these verbal body shots over the last few months and making me feel little and shitty, he’s just been deflecting. 

Like, a lightbulb went off in my head about the conversations we’ve had over 10 years and how it could feel liked it’s all about you if you’re sneaking around doing this thing that defies all your talk about being the best Christian that ever christioned and is so completely hypocritical that your guilt feels like it’s being attacked.

So I’m fuming mad and utterly gutted by how he verbally abused me over his guilty conscience. Like, Well you made me hit you. 

It took a week of me rolling this over and over in my mind and the way I’m built is to push that button that says “Well fuck you then. You’re dead to me” and I’m struggling with that because we have literally saved each other from jumping off the edge. Have talked each other off a ledge. My husband calls him my Therapy Bestie. And Robb leans on me during his tough times. That is exceptionally hard to find in a friend. In fact, I haven’t had that since Cheryl. 

Then while my husband and I were out, luckily driving, he called me and….. Again, I’m not proud of the fact that I am able to burn your emotional house to the ground. I learned it from not only my mother but me dad who was a pro at it ( we settled that ages ago and he took all the responsibility for how he was) my dad in particular had a way to push my buttons that would just cause me to have rage like the fire of a thousand suns. He LOVED doing that( again I loved my dad and we became very close but not for a long time. We were adversaries for a long time.) 

So Robb made the mistake of tap dancing on one of those secretly hidden landmines that even I don’t know is there. Just some young kid whose brain planted them as self defense decades ago and BOOOOOOM!!!! 

There goes a bomb loaded with sharp painful feelings, shreds of betrayal, slices of rage and pellets of disappointment. The explosion of lost love turned to hate to stop my heart from feeling the cuts.

I was seeing red and hearing a white noise…. My husband has never seen it. ( and of course he’s seen me furious before!) Never danced on a landmine. Robb yelled  all the things that he thought would be an attempt to break me, gaslighting me as if it was my fault. I brought a grenade to a gun fight and returned those lobbed comments. Drilled in where I knew it would hurt most. Met his rage with my own which I have pushed down for decades knowing it’s just a scared and hurt child. One that wants to destroy everything in its path, pour the gas and light the match. 

She’s shown up a a couple  times as an adult, tell me my daughter asked for being ***ed because she fell asleep in my friends house….. Well, you’re gonna meet her. Tell me your son the ***ist wants to off himself because he ***ed my daughter and that’s what matters, Hello, you’re dancing on a landmine. 

I landed the shots I took and he became quiet. Good… do you feel that pain? That’s how I feel, the child said, calmer now… exhausted....It became deathly quiet. He had chosen to pour the gasoline, I had chosen to not feel it and threw the match. 

That is not where things have ended but it’s enough for me today. Things are different now and I’ll tell you how next time. 

Song, jeez…. 

Winner Takes it All By: Jae Hall ( yes it’s a cover but, ugh, it’s good) 

Now, I’ve been honest here. It’s not pretty or cute or funny. It’s definitely not something I let happen, nearly ever in 57 years. We are all what we’ve experienced. Don’t go judging me. Don’t go making me feel unsafe on my own page. If you’re thinking of writing to tell me how you would have handled it or to point out that you think I was wrong then don’t. I already know.

Night guys

Tracy