I wanted to set a boundary

...but he never respected them in the first place...

I wanted to set a boundary, but he never respected them in the first place.

I sat there writing out texts and emails, and thinking about what I would say, ruminating like crazy, for what? To set a boundary with someone who continues to gaslight me?

Hoping he’d finally hear me—finally see me—when he never has, never wanted to, and likely never will.

It’s painful as hell to accept. Because it caused me to realize that I’d been pouring myself into a black hole, expecting something in return that he just can’t, or won’t, give me. He doesn’t have the capacity.

We do not work off of the same script.

And it makes me angry to think that over the course of the relationship, he kept dangling the possibility of being seen, being heard, but he never actually did show up for me.

It’s was all smoke and mirrors, designed to keep me hanging on, thinking “maybe he heard me this time, and maybe his promise to change and work on this is true.”

But in a year there was no next time. This is who he is. This is who he is.

There is no point in setting a boundary because he will never hear me.

Because hearing me means taking responsibility.

And taking responsibility means taking accountability.

And taking accountability is something he is fundamentally incapable of doing because he only does it when HE BENEFITS FROM IT.

The boundary I can set is with me.

The boundary is about taking control of what I have control over.