What’s In A Name?

19/10/24

Since EH left I’ve changed his name on my phone several times.

It had never occurred to me to do this, and then at some point around May, within a single week, two different people independently suggested it as a good, helpful, healing step.

My incredible, feisty, take-no-shit, adult niece (Isla) was the first to come up with it: her suggestion was ‘Dead To Me’.

Sarah Millican was the second person to put the idea forward, and I believe she did it at least three times via her book, plus podcast interviews.

Now, I’d resisted the concept when Isla first suggested it. I couldn’t see any real value in it, and it seemed a teensy bit childish.

However, repeatedly hearing the same suggestion put me in mind of something said to me years ago, way back, when I first started working as an office junior.

I’d been talking to one of the lovely, wise, helpful, caring, senior secretaries (she seemed ancient to me at the time, but she was probably about 50).

I can’t even remember the specifics of what I was whining to her about, but her response still sits clearly with me; she said,

“Jess, if enough people tell you that you look sick, maybe go have a lie down.“

She didn’t mean, just believe what other people say all the time, y’know, like if enough people tell you you’re shit then you’re probably shit.

What she did mean was, if you get the same message over and over, perhaps have a think about it.

• Consider that maybe there is something in the feedback others are giving you. Or maybe it’s not actually about who you are, but how you deal with others’ projected issues. Or… Regardless a growth opportunity could be on offer.
• Consider there may be a higher power trying to guide you; maybe this is a boat?

So with this in mind, and having been prodded about the issue so frequently, in such a short time span, I finally thought, “Why not?“

I then pondered for an excessive amount of time as to what to change it to. Back then, it felt like quite a monumental step and I needed to feel good about it, so the name needed to work for me.

Eventually I found one: Cunty McCuntface (a nod to you, Boaty).

It was juvenile but I don’t care – it did what it was supposed to do and made me smirk.

The bigger pay-off was the change in my emotional and physical responses when he messaged me.

Instead of having that horrible moment of ‘freeze’ on seeing his name flash up on my phone, I’d get the smirk. That moment’s pause on my reaction to receiving contact from him seemed to give just enough space for me to start having a more conscious response, rather than an emotional reaction.

It was a huge detachment step; much bigger than I’d anticipated from such a seemingly silly thing.

After a short while, that first name, despite it’s expletive base, felt too ‘cute’, so I changed it again. This time, it was simply ‘the ex’.

It was about the same time that I also stopped referring to him in my journal as ‘Him’, and started calling him ‘the ex’. This wasn’t a conscious decision; I only noticed the transition of title much later.

Now, the pedantic side of me has objected to calling him ‘the ex’. In fact, that side of me has continued to have unresolved issues around what to call him.

Anything involving the word ‘my’ (eg. my estranged husband, my ex) has been wholeheartedly rejected almost from the outset – he’s not ‘my’ anything, and for that I’m (now) truly grateful.

Having settled on ‘the’, rather than ‘my’, Jess the Pedant refused any capitalisation, as that gives too much importance to him. Also, ‘The ex’ makes it sound like he’s the one and only, or even worse, the big one, the one that matters; that’s not the case at all!

So for a while, that name was simply Three.

Reason? The marriage with him was my third; he was just number three in a series of mistakes/personal growth opportunities.

Jess the Pedant excused the capitalisation purely because it was likely to be less confusing to read.

I don’t know why that didn’t stick – it’s all very sensible, but it somehow felt too kind.

So ultimately, he was labelled on my phone the way he is in my head – that cunt.

All this to say: I thoroughly recommend making that name change on your phone.

Also, my apologies for any chopping and changing of names within these blog pages – it’s just how it was at that the time of writing!

Taking back power happens via the small steps too, not just the massive ones. Sometimes the little actions have unexpected, bigger results.

For me, it lead to the cutting of several of the toxic ties that used to bind me to EH.

A butterfly flaps its wings….

JP