Last Call

     I always blamed the drinking. My husband was abusive because of the ALCOHOL. After his 2nd rehab, he'd yell at me, "Once the alcohol is gone, then what?!! Then what are you going to bitch about!" I'd be silent because he was yelling, but he took it as submission and followed it with a condescending: "Ohhhh! I don't hear you so loud, huh!? Yeh, I don't hear you so loud!!!"
     The alcohol never disappeared long enough to deal with any other serious problems, let alone recognize what the other problems actually were. There was never a "last call." When he was mean to me, then mean to our son, I was told by my history, and reinforced by my present new family (his mom & dad), that it was the "alcohol talking."   The verbal and then not too much later physical violence was definitely more prevalent when he was drunk, I thought. And then, of course, when he was jones-ing for that next drink. And then, also,when he was hung over from drinking too much all over again.
     I tried to figure out the leeway I would have between the last and next drink, watching more carefully the spaces in between. I started documenting every episode, the things said, when he did or did not come home. Because he'd deny his words later, deny he was that drunk, or deny how recent it was. One work week of no alcohol would be relayed as 3 weeks out of his mouth.
     I started documenting the cruel things he said to me, because he'd deny it later, he'd say "that never happened." He'd say I heard it wrong. Of course, he was drunk and/or high when he said the hateful things, so I surmised he forgot once he sobered up. So I started writing the incidences down, right in front of him. He'd watch me write it down. He'd laugh derisively and snarl, "Yeh, get it all down. Get it all in your little book, Miss Paper Trail!"  That was one of his degrading objectifying names for me. He always worked from the premise that I was documenting what was happening to use against him  in an always any-time-now court scenario in his head.  I documented it to keep my sanity in the midst of all his lies. I'd readily forgive and forget anything of him...but I had to write it all down because he twisted horrible realities into nothing at all. I thought if I wrote it down, and showed him, he'd realize what was happening, what he was doing, and then he could see the truth right in front of him, and of course, want to change... But he knew all along. 
     One "incidence" --from the many times he stood me up--was while I was pregnant. All week as he spent time elsewhere until late, he promised to "be home early Friday to be with you-- just you and me Baby."  I planned one of his favorite meals. I was so excited that dinner at home with me was the only thing on his agenda, and that he was anticipating time alone together that we never seemed to get anymore "because of his work."  So, dinner it was!
     But then... it wasn't.
     As evening set in and I waited for his absent return call, yet another of his company's never-ending impromptu drinking events had presented itself.
    He falsely "complained" that he "had to go" to every single minute function, nearly every single day, every single time he relayed over the phone why he wasn't home yet again...and again...and again. He'd take near any and all opportunities to go out drinking, to any gathering, before work, after work, during the weekend.  I suggested a few times (due to his previous DUI, accidents, and 30 days rehab) that he "maybe not drink" at these supposedly expected nightly happy hours for "team-building."  He'd start with lying to be completely sober. If I pressed it or reminded him that's what he said last time when he got drunk again and drove home to pass out in the floor in the living room, he'd go to anger mode and snap he could have one drink!!...or two...that he couldn't tell them no if they offered to buy him a drink!
      I had to ask, err, beg, my husband to consider giving me "maybe one day a week, maybe, to spend together, just a couple hours, maybe...?"  He'd rapidly switch me asking for the sparsest amount of time into me being "ungrateful" that he went to the functions leaving me alone and then question my "lack of support" for his disappearances: "Don't you want me to network !!??!![his favorite word for going out drinking, and for Facebook transgressions, and for having to cancel on me or me and our son for so many things, like a concert or basketball game for which his friends would have an unforeseen "extra ticket" --"networking" applied to anything he wanted to do or anywhere he wanted to go without me or without me & our son] or "Don't you want me to mkae more money??!!  so eventually I won't have to be gone so much. Don't you think I miss you too???" Right there, the switch into silencing me into both hopelessness and hopefulness.
    Of course I supported him. By nodding my head in acquiescence. By shutting up. By next to never questioning him, unless the concern were glaring, and I'd be ever so careful in softly asking if something were not quite right--then he'd just yell and cuss me back into my place.
     This promised home-night "a lot of the big players are going to be at my boss's house, just tonight though, with their wives, husbands, girlfriends--"  My light bulb: "Oh, so I could come?"  He stammered a little, "Huh?" ["Huh?" and "what?" were used interchangeably to stall while formulating an unplanned answer for  cover ups, slip ups, and outright lies].  I repeated the question hopefully.  Delayed, he acted pleasantly surprised, syrupy sweet voice I mistook for sincerity, "Sure baby. Of course you can come. That would be great, really. You want to come?"  Absolutely!
     He even told me how to dress for it. He said he'd swing by after they get a couple things [liquor] from the Publix [package store]. I heard his "peers" calling out what liquor to buy.  When pressed, my post-rehab spouse explained "I'm just here by the liquor store, outside of it, I'm not in it.--" CHANGE OF SUBJECT:  "Can you be ready Baby in 30 mins?"  Yep. 
     He said he'd pick me up in 45 mins.
     He never showed. I waited, touched up my make-up, a little more mascara, fluffed my hair a little...an hour. Hour and a half. Another hour. Calling him, no pick up. No return calls for my voice mssgs or for the pages. Three and a half hours later, in tears, I packed my bags for the first time I'd leave him. I was crying as I got in my car, "God, how could I be so stupid? This isn't the first time. Something's going on."
     I left, sobbing, to my parents' house. En route I left one last message: "You have broken my fucking heart! I hurried home, got sooo dressed up for you, and waited excited for you to show up at our home. And nothing. You are not here. How can you do this to me?? How do you do a thing like this to someone you say you love??"
     A couple days later, he said it never happened. He said in one seemingly somber though fleeting moment, "If I did something like that, that would make me a really bad person..."
     I jumped right in to his rescue, I didn't want him depressed, "No, Baby, it doesn't mean that you are a bad person. It was just very mean THING to do."  He looked past me and chirped that he didn't want to talk about it, in fact, he'd decided to leave early to go out of town for the week again. To leave, "Right now." And he did.
     He was always leaving me alone. With the dog I couldn't get near.  Then alone with our son.  I became a single parent living in the same home as my husband. It was a very sad situation.  I just kept waiting...always waiting... for a loving present husband...for our son's father...Waiting for the last call.
     Never happened. He abused alcohol. He abused drugs.  He abused his wife.  He abused our son.  Just in the last few months, I realized that he could be just as mean and hateful without alcohol.

Just to Be Together

  Today felt incredibly lonely. I had people around me. I have my son, my parents. I have several close friends I can call... But it's not the same as having that "someone" love you.  I miss being loved ...I miss it a lot.  The last 7 years my husband dangled that carrot of this great love to be offered any day now...if...if... If I could just overlook the alcoholic binges. If I could be ok with him not showing up where or when we agreed, with him not answering the phone...for hours...for days at a time. We would have a great couple of days, then he'd check out again, emotionally and physically. He'd come home later and later. Or not at all.
     One night, during his 3rd rehab, he swore his deep love & renewed commitment to our relationship, so I stayed the night.  God I wanted it all to be ok so badly...  I left that morning, feeling all things were possible again. We might be ok...just maybe..I went to pick up our son for our family day.  Family day didn't happen. We showed up. He was gone. He finally answered his phone hours later. He'd used my ticket to the games to take his mom--so he could drink, which he didn't do with me the night before.  His last words to me from the NCAA games, not with me, was "two hot girls just walked into the box. Call you later."  It was days before we spoke again.  Other times it was much longer. Before I moved out, he'd threaten, "You're lucky I don't still live in Florida, then you'd NEVER see me!"  The message he delivered was smile and wave, don't speak, don't hurt, don't cry, don't ask any questions.
     Any expression of my hurt or lonely feelings were excuses to go get drunk and not come home. I had to pretend things were great for him to stay home for any length of time.  A lot of times even that didn't work.
      I really just wanted to be with my husband.  We spent quite a bit of our time together when we dated and when we moved into our house before we got married. There were some red flags I didn't admit were happening for a long time.  During our first boyfriend-girlfriend Christmas, he wasn't home after "The Nutcracker" with my friends. I'd hurried over to meet up as promised. His house was dark. His mom answered and said simply that he wasn't home. I instinctively knew he'd gone out to meet up with his best high school friend, Graehme, who was currently his drug dealer.  I'd met Graehme at his Halloween party, which was the first time Scott ignored me--even though he'd brought me. I mean, it started out great, but there was a moment's turning point when some girls showed up and it seemed the room turned cold for me. If I came up next to him, he'd quickly walk away.  I didn't get it. I struck up conversation with Graehme's mom. When Scott decided it was time to leave, he was very abrupt to me. Once in the car alone, I asked what was wrong. He took the opening to berate me about how embarrassing of me to take off my shoes in his friend's house--what the hell was I thinking? Except it was Graehm's mom's party, and she was the one who coaxed me to "take them off" when she did and dance with her. I was trying to have fun.  I was having  fun with her. He told me I had no manners. He said I had no class. And I, of course, apologized profusely for the offense.
     I remembered the way to his friend's house, oddly enough, to find them just getting into Scott's car. Scott looked right at me, got in his black SUV, and without a word, started to drive away. He hadn't answered the phone prior or returned my "where did you go?" message. I was confused. When he started to drive off, I honked. Suddenly my phone rang, and he said with a smile, "Hey, baby, what's up?"
     "We had plans tonight," I stammered. Right then and there, and still today, he slipped into his routine, "We had plans? I mean we talked about meeting up after your play, but I didn't know it was a 'plan'."  I asked if I could come with them. He acted like it would be no big deal. The other 2 guys were nice enough, but he avoided me. Barely talked to me.  Didn't feel like having sex when we got home that night. Drunk and high anyway.  But the plans and the reality did not match. I asked if he really wanted to be with me or not. He said yes, of course, why would I think otherwise?
     Another night, he had a good girl-friend coming into town and they wanted to go out. I was working 3-11pm shift, so he said to bring my fun clothes to change into and call him as soon as I got off so he could tell me where to meet them.  I got all dressed up, heading into the city to the backdrop of "leave a message at the tone."  He never called me back. I went home alone and unwanted and worthless.  Who does that to other people, let alone their girlfriend they say they love?  He stayed the night at another one of the girl's apt/house who he'd just met that night.  They slept in the same bed! Just friends, he snapped at me for having very uncomfortable reservation in my voice... Then he called his friend on speaker phone to demand she tell me aloud that nothing happened, that she and he were just friends. I didn't suspect something had happened with his friend. It was his friend's friend who's bed he slept in. She was audibly uncomfortable, "Am I on speaker phone?" He instructed her to let his "girlfriend (me) who is standing right here with me" know that they were just friends. She did that, but nothing else. She did not validate that nothing had happened. She said instead, "I don't want to be on speaker. We can talk another time." Gone. He humiliated me before his friend and mom.  I knew it deep down. But he corrected me that I was "just being insecure," and come sit next to me on the couch. Everything's fine. Sit.
    Sit pretty. Up. Down. Come. Stay.  After we were married and had our baby, he threw me into a wall to keep me from destroying his bong. When I dropped the restraining order --much too soon--hoping beyond hope that he had "changed-- let me show you I've changed..." we went right back into the same pretense. I wanted his love so badly.  We were married, we had our son together.  I just wanted to make everything ok for us all. I missed his love, when it was there. When he loves you, it's like sunshine.  I'd do a lot to get that smile, that warmth, that love again. The love in his eyes...
     He literally made me earn back the key to my own home.  Smile and wave. Ignore red flags. Pretend I believed he wasn't drinking anymore.  When I found a girl's blouse, and then underwear, he said they were a girl of Paul's who stayed there often. When I found a condom in my husband's pant pocket on the floor, he said, "It's not mine. I was holding it for Paul." A lie, but I wanted to believe him.  I was charitably doing his laundry because he had to be depressed with all that filth on the floor, trash, clothes... I was doing his laundry from nights out with another girl!!! How mentally enslaved. I found another condom in a different pair of his pants. That, too, of course, was "Paul's." His lies were quite verbose and always degrading. He always made a great show of defending his lies.  Following my discovery of 2 different condoms,  my husband took my son and me to eat specifically at the restaurant where his beer-buddy Paul worked-- to publicly humiliate me for doubting his fidelity, making a huge loud scene with other customers, raising his voice indignantly and with great accusation and shame, "My wife thinks I slept with another woman because she found condoms in my pocket! Tell her they're yours Paul. Tell her how insecure she is acting." Paul, as much as a jerk as he was, said, "Come on, man...this is where I work, I'm not getting involved in all this."
     I knew. Then I knew again. And again. He admitted to it, to "just one girl," the day he thought he was going to jail for stealing $15,000 from his employer. He thought he'd just be honest so I'd stay with him through jail time, wait for him to get out. But  his employer didn't put him in jail; they decided to let him work it off at $200 a paycheck. When he didn't go to jail, he immediately demanded that I " get over it. I'm not going to answer your questions, I'm not going to tell you who she is." This was ALWAYS followed by his repeatedly false remorse statements, as if I were badgering him. If I asked one single question about the cheating, he'd glare at me and snarl, "Fuck! How long do you want me to be sorry for it?! I said I was sorry yesterday!" But he wasn't sorry.
     I know he continued to lie, and cheat, and attack me for it, calling me insecure, telling me I should work on my insecurities; rather, than he should work on keeping his penis in his pants. But I was to blame. That's how he could feel no remorse. It was all my fault somehow.
     I thought he was just so drunk-- that things like those happened because he was drunk. Not sober. So, I resolved myself to help him get rid of the real problem: his drinking.  He said he loved me after all, he said he wanted everything to work out.  Just get rid of the alcohol, right? Yep. That's what I told myself, how I was raised to believe, and so I put a horrendous amount of time and energy into: finding the solution to his drinking and residual abusiveness.
     The cheating, lies, verbal and physical abuse continued, all insanely justified in his mind. It wasn't just the drinking.  His mind is warped to treat someone that way. I just loved him so much that I loved myself into blindness, into the false belief that my love could make it all okay. Love can move mountains.
     Real love, I suppose now.
     I wish I had REAL love. The consistent-you-can-count-on-understanding-supportive-faithful-enduring love I thought I was getting. I bought into the sunshine. I made a huge mistake every single day I stayed in this relationship.  Certainly, any day now, he'd have that epiphany.
     It never happened.    
     Today felt incredibly lonely... But my husband is not the solution. God, I was crazy to let him tear me apart. But crazy was slow in happening, little by little, with one word, then another, then another, then an action...And before I ever realized what hit me, I was in too deep in finding salvation for him, not me.  That kept me too preoccupied to find my own.
    

Past and Present

     I always over-imagined my husband's sense of shame after he'd hurt me again.  I would go in circles worrying at the self-hatred that drives him to hate and hurt me, having been confronted with the police involvement this time, how deeply ashamed and filled with great remorse he must be--which made sense to me as to why he'd then dive into another alcoholic binge.  I worried that the normally intense shame of physically harming another person might get so bad that he would accidentally or purposely hurt himself in drunken reproach.
     Once in response to me asking him via text how he could abuse then abandon his wife and child for days and weeks at a time, he texted "You make me want to kill myself."  Then no response to anything at all, so that I contacted his counselor to ask what I should do, that he wasn't well mentally and I worried for his safety. She said to text him that I would have to call 911 if he did not answer me back that he was indeed ok. If  he were playing a stupid, frightening game with me, he'd wise up at the mention of 911, and if no response, then I was to call 911 to make sure he hadn't hurt himself. I was shocked to see his suddenly absolutely fine reply, with thanks to having a "real family" who love him. His "real family" dagger excluded  me and our son.
     After he'd hurt me, I'd always go back to make sure he was ok-- fully expecting a deep felt apology and the sworn promise to never ever hurt me again.
     Part of my mistake in returning was based on the harm I'd seen other men enact upon themselves and others in conjunction with alcohol.  Obviously my dad going to jail after setting off a gun on my mom drove the extent of violence under the influence home.  Under the influence. Alcoholics. The alcohol made them say and do things they never would otherwise.
     Once I went to have a sleep-over with my little girlfriend Marci. Upon arrival, her dad was lit. Eyes glossed over as he slurred venom at his wife and daughter. He scared the living hell out of them both.  I knew he was at a dangerous point, violence-wise, about to unleash so much worse if his wife didn't IMMEDIATELY take me home and get her lazy, shitty self together. He told me I should never marry a fucking idiot wife like he did. He informed me that he was like this because she was a fucking mess, a stupid, lazy fucking mess. We never played together again.
     My mom's best-friend in my childhood had a hot-headed Mexican husband and 5 kids we'd all go hang out with.  My dad and Big Louie got along fabulously, drinking, telling stories, laughing their way through more beer. Then one of the two of them would have to "reprimand" one of their children because of something misunderstood under the influence or something that didn't even happen.  Louie was fond of inanimate objects to "discipline" his children: a toaster sailing through the air, electrical cords yanked out of the wall... My dad shook me up out of my seat at the kids' table one dinner to smack me outside.  He thought I was mouthing off, when in fact I'd never uttered a word.  There was no defense when dad or Louie were angry.  It was one of the other kid's voices dad had heard, but you never got the chance to explain or even speak once one of them were angry. The only option was to respect the anger. Dad and Louie were so funny before some unknown final number of drinks... Mexicans made me nervous after having him in our life.
     When I was 9, my dad's best friend Joe put a gun to his head in front of his wife and shot himself in a drunken rage over his wife's dogs. His original threatening intention in another-had-too-much-to-drink explosions was to shoot her dogs.  When she blocked them and pleaded, "Joe, no, please--" he decided aloud that she loved the goddamn dogs more than him, so maybe he should shoot himself instead. And he did. Joe was dead immediately. You know, he was hilarious too, so much fun when the parties started.  Just one drink too many, right? Yes. Alcohol could make you crazy and not know it, and of course, not mean it.
     If only my husband would stop drinking and using drugs.  Surely he would heal and be a good husband and father if he could stop the drugs and alcohol.  Yeh, there would be difficulty in getting through his emotions and problems without the aid of substances.  But I'd help him. I'd always be there for him. He must feel horrible about hurting me like that, right? That was my mistake, in conjecturing what a normal rational person would think about going over the edge with violence. God, I was scared of him, for me, for our son, and for him.
     Last year, one of my best friend's father committed suicide.  He was an alcoholic. It was a volatile home for my friend growing up. There were drunken threats of self-violence, but after years of such  threats, my friend took these as alcohol triggered rants. He would be fine in the next several days, everything still the way it was before.  Except last year, after decades of so much pain and alcohol, last year he finally did what he said he would.  My God, my heart went out to her.  It's devastating, the things that occur in a home under the influence.
     Then one of my husband's best friends from high-school overdosed. The hilarious stories the friends and family shared about the man...Such a tragic circumstance... The "Serenity Prayer" was printed on the back of the program.
     Look how bad these people really felt inside all along, that they went into the dark by it in the end...My husband surely felt as bad for the things he did to me and our son...That's what I conjectured.  That's how it was in the history and present. God help him not to hurt anyone any more...
     My husband is a funny and incredibly affable man. So much fun to hang out with.  Everyone says so.  I used to say so too. But my husband never felt bad about hurting me.  Or our son.  It didn't even register.  All the others' emotions I'd projected upon his psyche--their pain and remorse--he did not feel those things. He felt and stated in various ways all along that it was justifiable. He felt bad for himself. He felt pissed off that the police got involved. And he hated me all the more. 
   He's still publicly so much fun, but privately, he's mean. If you don't do as he wants, he hacks you off at the soul, so you do not exist for him.  He would "love" me in front of a crowd, but hate me when we got back home.

Excuses & Equations

 
Throughout my childhood, I associated inappropriately expressed anger & violence with drinking too much alcohol. The adult men I knew who drank too much alcohol were verbally and physically assaultive to their wives, children, and sometimes themselves. I'd watched my dad go into jealous rages over mom after the party was over.  Dad was an outrageous flirt under the influence. He seemed to forget mom was there when he drank around other women. Until they were alone again. He was the life of the party-- handsome, charming, funny.  Part of mom's reason to feel she'd made quite a conquest in the beginning (exactly how I later felt about my husband!). Apparently other women felt the same thrill about dad. So mom, no matter how pretty she looked that night, had her hands full keeping close to him.  My parents and their friends had occasional house parties.  Kids of the partying parents were potluck play-mates until bedtime, or until their parents decided it was time to go. 
     One of my worst memories of dad's violence was after another house party.  The tension was already built when we were packed into the back of the car for our ride home. Dad made drunk advances to mom in the front seat as he drove his drunken way home. Mom rebuffed these because she was hurt & humiliated over his inappropriate behavior at the party. Which triggered his sudden jealousy. If she weren't interested in him when he suddenly decided to shower her with husbandly fondling, who the hell was she interested in?
     That night my attempted humorous interruptions did not work to deflect his building rage at her. Sometimes I could slip right into the onset of certain arguments to distract him and change his mood or train of thought. Or target. Not this night. Last time, dad knocked out a couple of mom's teeth over something inane and unimportant. We stood in terror as she bled onto the kitchen floor and he threw her a towel snapping at his three children to stop that damn crying or he'd give us something to cry about. The last time it happened, mom told us to call the police the next time. Looking back now as an adult, the "next time" bore a crazy resignation of her inability to separate from a man she knew would hurt her again. 
     The "next time," dad tore the phone out of the wall when we tried to call 911.  Mom had locked their cheap hollow bedroom door to keep him away from her. Unlock the goddamn door! he yelled at her, or he would break it down. Two of us three girls made it out to the next door neighbor's house. We clung to each other in the back of our neighbor's closet, while she called the police. And waited for them to show up.  Then called the police. And waited. And called. And waited. And heard the gunshot.
     Mom went to the ER; dad went to jail.
     He used us kids to get her back eventually. But she wanted him back all along, just sober. It was the alcohol that made him do these things. He stopped drinking; they got back together. Simple as that, right? Yeh? No. But that's the equation my young subconscious noted and has been erroneously working from ever since. That was my husband's reason for violence.  In my head, my husband was violent toward me and our child because he had drank too much alcohol. For years I've excused my husband's reprehensible behavior on alcoholism.
    
    

Wishing & Reality: Expectations

     Sometimes there is no "bottom." If you are waiting for your loved-one, who is your abuser, to hit his bottom to then be there to help him back...  Well, there's a lot of hanging out in his gutter, which may be where's he's more comfortable in than in rising above, which takes a whole lot more introspection, painful admission of the person he has become--or been for a long time--and then the work of undoing what he's done to you, to your family, his family...  That's a whole lot of expectation from someone who does not even live up to the mere expectation of  human decency.
     My husband, honest to God, treats his dog better than me.  I love dogs, and I don't begrudge them the good treatment they deserve. My point is I didn't even get treated as well as the dog. When I became pregnant with our son I developed a severe allergy to, among other things, dogs.  If our recently acquired dog, Isabella, got too close, I'd vomit. We'd only had her a couple months, and I was experiencing a horribly difficult pregnancy, so I begged my husband for us to give her back to the breeder, a friend of mine.  My husband refused.  My husband, who came home later and more drunk, left me to care for a sweet but newly toxic dog.  When he was home he cuddled up with her, but not me. Sometimes I'd sit next to him on the couch to be with close to him-- like we were when dating just months before-- but within minutes, he'd get up to do "something" then return to sit on the other sofa, patting it for the dog to jump up next to him.  After I became pregnant, he almost never sat next to me on the couch if I sat down first. 
      I'd watch my husband lovingly rub our dog's neck and ears.  I asked at one point dejected, "Why can't you sit next to me, with an arm around me? How come you give the dog more affection than me? " He answered, more serious than I realized at the time, "She comes and gets it. You have to 'come and get it'." He meant that.  I had to beg him for a hug. Numerous times he actually told me I didn't deserve it. I'd be pleading in tears for him to just touch me, not sexually. He'd literally look right through me.
     It never changed for the better. It only got worse.  He was only nice to me if he were smoking pot. And, often broke, he couldn't always afford that. I begged for my husband's attention.  I begged for my husband's attention. If I'd been someone else looking into our relationship, I would have never let someone do that to me. To anyone.