January 2012-
I haven't seen my husband in over 3 months now. I miss him. Pause. Right? Sometimes the pain in my left shoulder into my back is so incredibly, indescribably awful that it is very difficult to manage. I have spent cumulative hours with my back flat against the floor, no relief from the pain medication. I've been getting migraines as well. I cannot pick up my son, albeit, he's five now. He cannot pull down on me as he hugs me. It hurts my shoulder and back to turn a doorknob and pull open a door with my left hand. The slightest pressure of handling a pen or pencil, stapler...I'm left-handed. So much I took for granted, generic movements. Previously, I first put my right arm in my jacket, coat or sweater, then pulled the balance over with my left arm. Now it's a mandatory reverse: gently maneuvering my left arm in first and reaching for the balance of the clothing with my right arm.
Unbelievable, but true of the majority of abused spouses: I miss my husband. The man who did this damage to my body. The man who expresses no true regard for it, nor feels any sense of duty to amend the damages. In my case, this time, the injuries are much more significant and unrelenting, so it has an element of more frightening permanence. This time.
Next time. This time. Next time. this time. Tick tock, like hours on a clock. The rhythm, what I am used to. The horrible build up from my husband from nothing at all really. The build-up I only manage to delay, not block or derail. He wants to explode at me. Then, once we had our son, he easily transfered the blow-up from me to our newborn, to me, to our toddler. Really, it wasn't so much a back a forth between our child and me, it was more like we were a set to him--and he could be equally angry at us as one unit, so that if he started with me, but I went to work, he'd continue with our son, until I he came back home to me and our son. A set. I should've know when my husband started screaming at us collaboratively that there was no true root of blame in my particular words, lack of words, actions, or lack of actions--because our newborn inspired my husband's anger just as easily, just by being there.
But I didn't quite catch on then. i was too mired in assuaging my husband's ill temper, or too busy trying to build up his ego, er-go self-esteem--because, if he could only see how I loved him, he could then love himself, and if he could love himself instead of hate himself (as the books I read told me), then he could love me too, and our child. But the knowledge held in books is not always the knowledge held inside or outside one's self. My husband didn't buy any of this "crap" I was reading to help him, and to help us. he knew without a doubt it was most nearly all my fault.
My husband would cite that no one else he knew had this "issue' with him; that he was not angry or mean or abusive to anyone else who knew him, thus, it must be me.
But he was this way to others. Friends, random waitresses or waiters when he was drunk enough. He'd wake up in a sweat from a dream where he was literally kicking and starting to throw punches in his sleep, saying, "I want to killl him! I just want to beat the shit out of my dad!" I thought it was all a part of my husband's upset that his dad had cheated on his mom, once more, this time divorcing her for the other woman. I thought my husband was just that loving and honorable regarding his mom and fidelity in marriage, that he wanted to hit his dad for hurting her and their family like that. But he'd flirt just as carelessly with enough women in front of me, then yell how dare me! for quietly, sweetly, with more than a few "pleases" asking him to stop.
One evening his father told him to "Go ahead, hit me, Son. Hit me. I know you want to. I can take it. Hit me if you want to. Right now." He didn't hit his father. Even though he'd dreampt it numerous times, that he was "beating the shit out of my dad!", even though he was drunk at the time his dad challenged him to follow through in person. He didn't hit his dad.
He hit me. Not that same day. But he hit me. He threw things at my head, at the baby in my arms, screamed over insignificant things, nothing to next-to-nothing. He hit me. Instead? As a cumulative effect?
Tick, tock. This time. Next time. Tick, tock, like the hours of the clock. I still miss my husband. Like it was yesterday that he loved me, and years ago that he hurt me. Careful. Is that a clock or a ticking time bomb?
