There is a saying that goes somewhere along the lines of,

You shouldn’t change yourself for some one else.
If you’re to change, change for yourself.

My head was so fucked with, that at one point I tried to rationalize it as:

I’m not changing for her,
I’m changing for myself.
Because I want to make her happy.

In retrospect… Yeah, I was still trying to change myself for some one else.
I never realized that through “manipulation” and “mind games”
how far gone I already was.

“I feel ashamed of myself.”

My mom even mentioned to me that, instead of bettering myself throughout the relationship. I lowered myself, and my standards to her level.  And, yeah, I see it now… As an example..
I got tired of fighting about keeping the house clean, and cleaning up after herself, that, I stopped saying anything about it. Not meaning that I started being the same way, I was still cleaning up after myself and the kids. But the fact that I lowered my standards so much as to allow her to create such mayhem in the house. I lowered my standards, Myself.

These past couple weeks have been a real eye opener for me.
Though I still have a long way to go. I’m glad I can now stand
back and see everything for what it is/was.

Another quote that comes to mind…

“Loving someone should not mean losing yourself.
Love empowers you.
It shouldn’t erase you.”

I guess it wasn’t love then right? lol…
Over the past decade, I was slowly being forced to
erase me, who I was as a person, my ideals, my standards,
my mannerisms.

“ME”

Now that I’m a half erased work of art, now would
be the best time to re-write, re-draw, and make improvements right?

One last quote as a send off…

“You won’t believe how
much I’ve changed since you left.
It took me losing you, for me to find myself.”

Just a quick clarification though,
“It took me losing you”
I didn’t lose her. She lost ME!

-KSmith