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.