When someone shows you who they are, believe them. A saying I’m sure we’ve all heard. An apology, conversation, and mutual understanding were great. Much better than the ongoing chorus of dissonance that seemed to be every single conversation that took place between us. Athough I walked away from that conversation content, I also walked away from it better informed. I learned a few things. I now knew, based on everything she’d told me, I’d unavoidably walked into the situation at a deficit. There was nothing I could’ve done to make her like me. No matter who it was that stepped into my husband’s life next, they would be the enemy to her and it wasn’t personal. She was carrying the weight of so much past trauma it was bound to trickle over into her personal life.

When I got home later that day I played the recording for my husband and told him everything that had happened. I did end up skipping through most of it because he didn’t care to listen to the whole thing. He had no interest in hearing her talk for that long. So, I answered the questions he had and told him the main highlights. When I told him about how skewed her timeline was he didn’t seem surprised in the least. All of her accusations against him, throughout the years, now making perfect sense. However, it did occur to me how awful certain things must have been between them. If he wasn’t really one to remember the details of everything and she was the type to often over embellish or skew a story to her benefit based on how she felt, then how many times did communication between them go awry? How many times could she have possibly used his memory against him because he didn’t want to or couldn’t explain in exact detail what had actually happened in any given situation? How many times did he cave in frustration because he didn’t want to have to explain or defend himself against her. The more I got to know her the more I realized they were like oil and water. They never should have even been together. He hates conflict. She handles things in a conflicting way. He’s triggered by loud voices, yelling and any real or perceived acts of violence toward him. She gets loud, aggressive and at times violent when she’s angry. He wants and needs to feel understood and she hardly knew who he was as a person. How they lasted outside a year shocked me but it also explained why they were so on and off during their relationship.

I also realized I was an emotional trigger for her. As much as she may have wanted to move passed it personally, she had some unresolved feelings within herself that wouldn’t let her. I think her attempts landed somewhere between having a curiosity about me and a genuine need to not want conflict but she just couldn’t help it. When you’re dealing with emotional triggers, unless you are well aware and well equipped, it’s not easy. Let’s talk about some common emotional triggers:

• Someone rejecting you.

• Someone leaving you (or the threat that they will).

• Helplessness over painful situations.

• Someone discounting or ignoring you.

• Someone being unavailable to you.

• Someone giving you a disapproving look.

• Someone blaming or shaming you.

• Someone being judgmental or critical of you.

… and these are just to name a few. With her, I feel like she unconsciously connected me to all of these triggers in one way or another and I would soon find out these triggers went all the way back to her childhood. Feeling rejected by her husband because of ME. Her husband leaving her because of ME. Feeling helpless to stop a situation she didn’t want (her divorce among other things) because of ME. Her now ex-husband ignoring her in favor of ME & being unavailable to her because of ME. Mine AND my husband’s disapproval of her and to be quite honest, if this was her perception she wasn’t completely off. When I’d first heard about everything she’d done, I did judge her. I very much disapproved. I know she felt blamed and shamed by my husband and then ME once we were together. And finally, the critical and judgmental views we had of her. Just 8 of a longer list of typical triggers and I checked all of them unknowingly. Even if most of those ideas were not true, it wouldn’t matter if SHE saw it that way. Looking back now, I understand exactly why I was her trigger. Knowing what I know now, even though I would have chosen to handle certain things differently, unfortunately, because of the place she was in, it wouldn’t have changed much in how she viewed me.

When she told me about the struggles she dealt with during that time as a single mother I sympathized with her. She didn’t have the same familial support system I was so blessed to have. She had to struggle and do everything alone. It might’ve been her karma, that’s true. But on a human level, we should never want to see someone that completely broken. Everything she had to struggle with sought me out as the one to blame. At the time, I had no idea who I was dealing with. All I could think to myself was, she got what she deserved… and that was heartless. But, I’d come to find out soon after, she was broken long ago by something I could have never imagined… more on that later. They say you never know what the next person is struggling with so it’s important to be kind. They could be one broken moment away from the edge of a railless cliff. You don’t want your actions to be what causes them to stumble over. She was awful to me, true, yet that still doesn’t negate the fact that I could have and should have exercised more empathy. Sometimes giving grace where you feel it’s not deserved reaps the biggest reward.

One of the last, but not only things I would learn about her, is her need to be accepted and viewed by others a certain way. This was easy to see just based on the “friends” she allowed to stay in her life. She would support and make herself endlessly available to others and do whatever they needed, whether it be deserved or not because it seemed important to her to be liked. Knowing her history would make this make so much more sense. Even though I would walk away from that conversation armed with new information, I would make a choice. It wasn’t my job to fix her. All I could do was offer compassion moving forward. Whether she realized it or not, with me being her trigger, distance was best. This time around I would keep our interactions on a much more basic, consonant level. I had to realize we could NEVER be friends. I may sympathize with her but I’d never trust her for so many reasons.

It may be crazy and this idea could live and exist purely in my head, but I sometimes suspected she considered and toyed with the idea of revenge. She felt rejected when my husband left her and her being convinced he left her for me only further magnified that feeling. I often wondered if her satisfaction would only come from some form of reciprocated interest from him. Some sort of validation. Even better if she could elicit that validity or interest while he was with me. She needed something to cushion the blow to her ego. I supposed she thought if she could create a friendship with him then she could possibly get the validation she so much hoped for and craved. She needed to not feel so rejected by him. She needed to feel worthy. This theory is why I so many times questioned her adverse reactions to his refusal to be friendly with her. But again, this could totally be in my head. It’s just what her actions showed me.

We could co-exist peacefully and even engage in superficial chit chat on occasion but having these ideas and realizations meant I’d never be comfortable around her. Not truly. Maybe it was the PTSD of years dealing with her but to an extent, I knew I’d always feel a part of her was out to get me. Boundaries were a must. However, I think on her end she thought things would just go back to the way they were before. It was almost like she picked up right where she left off the last time she liked me. Texts and all. Was she genuine? I think she was. The only problem was I’d experienced how quickly her genuine nature could turn to animosity with just one inconspicuously placed trigger. When she started reaching back out to me I didn’t know how to respond. I was caught between a rock and a hard place. How did I set a boundary that never previously existed without offending her? I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. I did explain to her it would take me a while before I truly felt comfortable again and she said she understood. But gut feelings are gut feelings for a reason. I knew it was only a matter of time before something else would cause her to turn on me. I just expected it to take a little longer than it actually did…