Until today, I thought that losing my house, and the 80k+ in equity, in a case that was rife with bank and court fraud, was my primary adult trauma.

I’ve pointed to this event as cataclysmic and causative of much of my CPTSD response mechanisms. And in that case, I believe I’m right.

But losing the house was not my primary adult trauma.

Losing the respect of my ex-wife was my primary adult trauma.

And I didn’t even catch when it happened, until today.

I was talking to a friend today, and I was discussing this video from TikTok:

And it hit me. I lost her respect when she got pregnant the first time, and she told me: “I’m not working anymore.” From that point on, it was ALL on my shoulders, and from that moment on, I couldn’t trust her to help me with anything. Although she did help from time to time, it was not because she was obligated, in her mind. She did it because she was willing at the time. But I knew within that the entirety of the safety, provision, and health of the family. None of that was HER responsibility, because she had refused it, and handed it off to me.

And what did I do with that handed-off responsibility? I TOOK IT LIKE A MAN. I MANNED UP, I BUCKED UP, AND I DID IT. And I was deceived into thinking that it mattered, and that it would be appreciated. I WAS WRONG.

I had hope. Hope failed me. I had love. Love failed me. I had damned determination, and that failed me too, and it was all because my wife saw me as a resource, rather than a partner. She paid whatever price she needed to pay to keep me dedicated to the SOLE responsibility for the entirety of performing for the family to be “happy”. I sacrificed myself, believing that I was happy to serve, when deep inside, I had questions that I dared not ask.

I was a man. I am a man. But that meant I was biologically and societally programmed to be the GIVER. The obverse is true for the feminine sex.

My primary adult trauma was losing the (pretended) respect of my ex, and only realizing it many years later, when all of the damage had been done, and all of my kids were alienated.

The irony of her requiring me to be the masculine, and at the same time embracing and surreptitiously weaving the doctrines of feminist hate into my children is not lost on me.

I was wrong.

All of this frees my mind up to the frame of being me without actually holding onto any hope for redemption, and actually just wanting to close that chapter out of my life for good.

Onward.

P.D., Jay V. Shore