After the newly-married glow wore off--within the first week--I became about the business of saving my marriage. Though interested in becoming "something" in a career, my most fervent goals were to have a happy family. My husband had voiced the same strong inclination up to the night of our wedding, for all of the cameras, that "within the next couple of years, we'll have a couple little 'poopies' running around the house." We were on the same path. Thank God I'd found a man who expressed the same goals and timeline as me for our immediate future. He said numerous times that he was "going to take care of you, Baby. You can stay home to raise our kids, and I'll take care of everything else."
My husband was a dreamer, a boastful bright-shiny-future dreamer. Dreams can be incredible, they drive invention and so much positive change in the world. But my husband lacked application, discipline, fortitude, and a work ethic. He lacked other ethics as well. Add to it a daily & nightly proclivity to marijuana, and a big gulp sized nightly "one-for-the-road" Crown n Coke, or Vodka 'n Sprite... well, it was not the kind of fuel needed to propel him into success in any employment.
I'm pretty sure he got fired, though he came home drunk announcing he'd finally quit his abhorrent job, that he'd got tired of being pushed around and told what he could do! (when he was the only one in the office and called all of the shots, except for a few spare visits from one of the two owners of the company). He siphoned money for himself through the company's "referral" program. He got chummy quick with other like-minded opportunists, offered to continually split the cash pay-out between them & him if they would continually refer their own potential loan customers to him instead of the their own company. He earned some thousands this way, under the table. I think the owners figured it own. I think one of the owners showed up, caught him off-guard on it, and perhaps he quit before they could actually fire him in the same sentence.
He funneled his grandma's money, his mom's money, then my money into re-labeled pyramid schemes. All in the name of professing he was a self-employed entrepreneur. He'd scream at me if I questioned his financial "investments in our future." The pyramid schemes, now called a "down-line" of gophers with the same buy-ins upfront, were carried by the same daily fuel as before: pot, alcohol, bravado. I pregnant working three jobs at this point--within months of marriage--to keep the mortgage, keep the utilities on, and hold onto insurance for him and our upcoming baby. And he hated me for it. He hated me for it. The more I worked, the more he said I was trying to "make him look like a piece of shit!"
The more I desperately I tried to keep our marriage, house, and finances from going under, the more he hated me for not "believing" in him, that "any day now" he was going to make it big. From the couch with empty bottles of booze beside him. Any of my words of encouragement were all twisted into his daily madman's rant at me. He let me know I "wasn't successful at anything, so why would he ever listen to a word I said to him about business-- or life!"
Every vile thing he threw at me, I'd try to counteract by showing him how dedicated I was, how helpful I could be, getting him presents, cards, showering him with my embedded love. I would love that man well again, and he'd come out of the other side realizing how he'd treated me had been so wrong and discover heartfelt understanding of my endless devotion to him and our vows, for better, for worse.
There were sparse moments he'd decide he loved me again--one of the most notable was the night before he thought he was going to jail for getting caught stealing $15,000 from a new set of employers. They were onto him having written an "erroneous loan" for a fake car title. They made him work it off over a period of years, in lieu of jail-time. But the money had been stolen and spent in a period of the few months I'd had a restraining order against him. I never knew where that money went. He didn't pay the house note, his car note--both got taken over by banks. He convinced me that was all in the past, and to come back to him-- to sign a house rental lease with him. The day I moved back in with our son, the house reeked of marijuana.
I never saved the house, the car. I never saved our marriage. I never saved him. There was never a light-bulb epiphany from him as to all of meaningful efforts, any remorse, any re-commitment... Just his spite. Resentment. He would literally tell me that if he were "fucked up and in rehab, how much more fucked up and sick was I for being with him!" He meant that. There was always some bizarre comparison he had going, a competition I never signed up for with him--but his subconscious kept score. He had to be doing better than someone--and I was the closest someone. So he put me down. Over and over.
Abusers are never grateful you tried to the point it was killing you, because if you're dying, they're doing better than you. If you are the only thing they can control, then so be it. My husband hurt me on purpose. He hurt me and our child on purpose. In jealousy, anger, spite, rage... because that meant he was in control of something.
And as little as I meant to him, being better than me was enough.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Breathe Again
Sometimes it feels like I am suffocating. Literally like I am being crushed, my lungs, heart, my windpipe, my head. When I think of him, whether us being together or us not being together... either way, I feel like I am having a panic attack, like way too much hinges on the next few seconds going into minutes going into hours and days.
How could I be intimate with him again? He hurt me! He wrenched my arm and shoulder up and nearly out of the socket, causing a rotator and labrum tear that has caused me to rock on the floor back and forth in pain for many, many months. He is without any true apology, and still yet could nearly care less. I had to have it surgically repaired. I could not move it for a month post-op. And now I still cannot move my arm in needed directions.
And yet, he charms me into going back to his house, the scene of the injury, back into his bed, the scene of more injuries, and letting him back in to my heart, the scene of utter slaughter more often than not.
I do not want to admit this, that he could make me believe again, that I could have sex with my arm in a sling with the man who put my arm in the sling. It hurt to move it, or if it got moved. And even so...there I was again. I don't want to admit it, it seems so sick. But that's what we are, right? That's the crazy sick part of being in domestic violence. Going back. And going back. And going back.
I am talking about this here because maybe we can all figure this out together. Maybe we can figure out why, after so much verbal, emotional, and physical trauma, we go back... It's not like all the danger sign have been removed. it's rather that what we want to believe is so much more powerful than the truth.
I think I go back because I want to finally get to that happy ending. You know the place where you return to the guy who has now had time to contemplate his losing the best thing that ever happened to him, and now, finally, now is so sorry and so very much wanting to be the man you thought he was when you got married... or something close.
Do you know that each time he hurts me it is worse. Then each time I go back, he is less sorry, not more, and he believes that somehow I must make this up to him: my leaving--and it better be good, because, I really don't deserve that shot at possible happiness that he might offer though, honestly, never fulfill. Because, who are we kidding? He never thought enough of you, of me, in the first place, to treat you like most real men should treat their wife, or their children.
I should never have had to stand there in front of the man I love, and had to ask him to be sorry that he threatened me. That he shoved me. That he deliberately dropped our baby. That he tore my shoulder in front of our son...
I used to trust him. Most nearly completely. But then he lied to me. Then lied some more. And more. Then yelled at me for questioning his transparent lies. Then threw things at me and our baby. More lies. More yelling. More lies. Lies. Yelling. He'd hide things that he should never have kept. Why did he keep receipts of partying? Why did he keep video of the girl he was having sex with in our bedroom, chasing around our kitchen? When I discovered them, he'd lie and yell some more. When I found condoms, then later more condoms, then another time condom wrapper, then more condoms, then new house, new condoms, then again. WHAT THE FUCK WAS THE MATTER WITH ME!!!??? How little value did I have that he would bring others into our home, then abuse me over finding evidence that he did so? It made me sick, yet I'd so desperately want to believe it were not true.
What kind of monster sets up that kind of scenario for a wife he SAYS he's trying to work out his marriage with, who he swears to he's a changed man, and swears to that SHE is the one who has not and will not change. What kind of monster sets up that scenario, packed full of lies, then tells his wife she may "look wherever you like, I have nothing to hide" whereupon she does "look" with him present, and he DOES have something to hide, and in fact HURTS HIS WIFE FOR FEAR SHE HAS DISCOVERED IT.
WHO does that?
My husband was labeled a sociopath by our child's counselor just prior to the second time I moved out. It stands to reason. Notwithstanding the alcohol to lower his inhibitions, my husband seeks me and our son out when it suits his purposes, then casts me or us off with magnified irritation just days later when he wishes to be single again, to go out partying, drinking, using.
My part is much like an addict too, isn't it? Why else would I go back there when he has only been bad, chaotic, threatening, depressing, troublesome, cruel, painful... Why else would I be there asking him to hook my bra because I can't use the arm he hurt to hook it myself? That's fucked up.
So, I have been steering clear of it, of the dangerous irony in getting close to him again. Sometimes, when my shoulder hurts too terribly, I will not go near him in the house, just watch cautiously from the staircase. Some days I would kiss him hello, then the next days, hurting, somber, careful, on alert for something not quite right, I would move about him with great trepidation.
It hurts so bad when he is not with me, not just in person, but with me, part of my life, together again? But it hurts to be that too. Somebody please fix the circuitry in my head that makes me think it might all work out ok. I believed that since this was the worst he'd obviously hurt me, it would be the worst he'd obviously feel about such a thing, and certainly be the horrible catalyst in final change for good. But abusive people--people who choose to be abusive to their wife or child while choosing not to hurt others and not to act out violently in front of others, are not menders. I keep asking when he's finally going to get the picture, when I need to ask when I'm going to get it. God, please, rewire my circuitry. Fix me. I have trouble breathing in all of this. He knocked the breath out of my hopes and dreams. My beliefs. Please, God, help me breathe again. Just breathe again.
How could I be intimate with him again? He hurt me! He wrenched my arm and shoulder up and nearly out of the socket, causing a rotator and labrum tear that has caused me to rock on the floor back and forth in pain for many, many months. He is without any true apology, and still yet could nearly care less. I had to have it surgically repaired. I could not move it for a month post-op. And now I still cannot move my arm in needed directions.
And yet, he charms me into going back to his house, the scene of the injury, back into his bed, the scene of more injuries, and letting him back in to my heart, the scene of utter slaughter more often than not.
I do not want to admit this, that he could make me believe again, that I could have sex with my arm in a sling with the man who put my arm in the sling. It hurt to move it, or if it got moved. And even so...there I was again. I don't want to admit it, it seems so sick. But that's what we are, right? That's the crazy sick part of being in domestic violence. Going back. And going back. And going back.
I am talking about this here because maybe we can all figure this out together. Maybe we can figure out why, after so much verbal, emotional, and physical trauma, we go back... It's not like all the danger sign have been removed. it's rather that what we want to believe is so much more powerful than the truth.
I think I go back because I want to finally get to that happy ending. You know the place where you return to the guy who has now had time to contemplate his losing the best thing that ever happened to him, and now, finally, now is so sorry and so very much wanting to be the man you thought he was when you got married... or something close.
Do you know that each time he hurts me it is worse. Then each time I go back, he is less sorry, not more, and he believes that somehow I must make this up to him: my leaving--and it better be good, because, I really don't deserve that shot at possible happiness that he might offer though, honestly, never fulfill. Because, who are we kidding? He never thought enough of you, of me, in the first place, to treat you like most real men should treat their wife, or their children.
I should never have had to stand there in front of the man I love, and had to ask him to be sorry that he threatened me. That he shoved me. That he deliberately dropped our baby. That he tore my shoulder in front of our son...
I used to trust him. Most nearly completely. But then he lied to me. Then lied some more. And more. Then yelled at me for questioning his transparent lies. Then threw things at me and our baby. More lies. More yelling. More lies. Lies. Yelling. He'd hide things that he should never have kept. Why did he keep receipts of partying? Why did he keep video of the girl he was having sex with in our bedroom, chasing around our kitchen? When I discovered them, he'd lie and yell some more. When I found condoms, then later more condoms, then another time condom wrapper, then more condoms, then new house, new condoms, then again. WHAT THE FUCK WAS THE MATTER WITH ME!!!??? How little value did I have that he would bring others into our home, then abuse me over finding evidence that he did so? It made me sick, yet I'd so desperately want to believe it were not true.
What kind of monster sets up that kind of scenario for a wife he SAYS he's trying to work out his marriage with, who he swears to he's a changed man, and swears to that SHE is the one who has not and will not change. What kind of monster sets up that scenario, packed full of lies, then tells his wife she may "look wherever you like, I have nothing to hide" whereupon she does "look" with him present, and he DOES have something to hide, and in fact HURTS HIS WIFE FOR FEAR SHE HAS DISCOVERED IT.
WHO does that?
My husband was labeled a sociopath by our child's counselor just prior to the second time I moved out. It stands to reason. Notwithstanding the alcohol to lower his inhibitions, my husband seeks me and our son out when it suits his purposes, then casts me or us off with magnified irritation just days later when he wishes to be single again, to go out partying, drinking, using.
My part is much like an addict too, isn't it? Why else would I go back there when he has only been bad, chaotic, threatening, depressing, troublesome, cruel, painful... Why else would I be there asking him to hook my bra because I can't use the arm he hurt to hook it myself? That's fucked up.
So, I have been steering clear of it, of the dangerous irony in getting close to him again. Sometimes, when my shoulder hurts too terribly, I will not go near him in the house, just watch cautiously from the staircase. Some days I would kiss him hello, then the next days, hurting, somber, careful, on alert for something not quite right, I would move about him with great trepidation.
It hurts so bad when he is not with me, not just in person, but with me, part of my life, together again? But it hurts to be that too. Somebody please fix the circuitry in my head that makes me think it might all work out ok. I believed that since this was the worst he'd obviously hurt me, it would be the worst he'd obviously feel about such a thing, and certainly be the horrible catalyst in final change for good. But abusive people--people who choose to be abusive to their wife or child while choosing not to hurt others and not to act out violently in front of others, are not menders. I keep asking when he's finally going to get the picture, when I need to ask when I'm going to get it. God, please, rewire my circuitry. Fix me. I have trouble breathing in all of this. He knocked the breath out of my hopes and dreams. My beliefs. Please, God, help me breathe again. Just breathe again.
The Fatal Thing...
MAY 2012-
The fatal thing is...What? Even if we could isolate it, it doesn't seem to be extractable to allow the victim to think rationally when it comes to their abuser. I still believe I love my husband. My husband has abused me, so badly emotionally, and into physical abuse. His careless, often damaging, choices are fueled by his sense of entitlement to do whatever he wants, no matter the harm, no matter the circumstances. His immediate reward is whatever self-satisfaction strikes him in the moment: the lull of liquor, the high of a drug, sexual use and climax... His greatest annoyance is to see someone who is supposed to be one of his cheer-leaders in life, cry when she's been hit by his ball, perhaps deliberately, or see that he's working other cheer-leaders at the same time, and question his game-plan. He's the hero, and I am but a sub-character, easily replaceable, not very worth while except in what I can do for him, which is usually forgotten by the next morning. No matter the harm or cost to her or her child, even his own (who is also supposed to also be a cheer-leader as words are learned and spoken)...
A pastor at one of the largest churches in the states said in warning of marriage, that if your future spouse says you are the reason he's stopped drinking/using/gambling/cheating, you will eventually be the reason he goes back to drinking/using/gambling/cheating. An innocent soon-to-be-newlywed might wonder "How could that be?" but many marrieds will say it's an amazing and incredulous reality. I've experienced just that. It's just a matter of time.
In reality, if the single man you are dating has a drinking problem, when you marry him, he will only be a married man with a drinking problem. If the woman you are dating has a gambling problem, when you marry her, she will only be a woman with your last name with a gambling problem. The problems do not change once you are married, they are just 2 single people's single person problems brought into a marriage.
I married a single man with an anger, drinking, drug problem, with a propensity for flirting- though he "wouldn't do that once we're married," as if the marriage fairy sprinkles magic abuses-be-gone dust on us both with the wave of the "I do" wand. These abuse "issues" that he was changing because he loved me so, only worsened once he had me, and became truly threatening once I was pregnant with his child.
So the fatal move is...going back to the game, having to pay for entrance, having to be at the top of the cheerleader pyramid and okay with him selecting or not selecting you this time. The fatal thing is to go back to the game, to face the music he plays for you... Sometimes it sounds like a death knoll.
The fatal thing is...What? Even if we could isolate it, it doesn't seem to be extractable to allow the victim to think rationally when it comes to their abuser. I still believe I love my husband. My husband has abused me, so badly emotionally, and into physical abuse. His careless, often damaging, choices are fueled by his sense of entitlement to do whatever he wants, no matter the harm, no matter the circumstances. His immediate reward is whatever self-satisfaction strikes him in the moment: the lull of liquor, the high of a drug, sexual use and climax... His greatest annoyance is to see someone who is supposed to be one of his cheer-leaders in life, cry when she's been hit by his ball, perhaps deliberately, or see that he's working other cheer-leaders at the same time, and question his game-plan. He's the hero, and I am but a sub-character, easily replaceable, not very worth while except in what I can do for him, which is usually forgotten by the next morning. No matter the harm or cost to her or her child, even his own (who is also supposed to also be a cheer-leader as words are learned and spoken)...
A pastor at one of the largest churches in the states said in warning of marriage, that if your future spouse says you are the reason he's stopped drinking/using/gambling/cheating, you will eventually be the reason he goes back to drinking/using/gambling/cheating. An innocent soon-to-be-newlywed might wonder "How could that be?" but many marrieds will say it's an amazing and incredulous reality. I've experienced just that. It's just a matter of time.
In reality, if the single man you are dating has a drinking problem, when you marry him, he will only be a married man with a drinking problem. If the woman you are dating has a gambling problem, when you marry her, she will only be a woman with your last name with a gambling problem. The problems do not change once you are married, they are just 2 single people's single person problems brought into a marriage.
I married a single man with an anger, drinking, drug problem, with a propensity for flirting- though he "wouldn't do that once we're married," as if the marriage fairy sprinkles magic abuses-be-gone dust on us both with the wave of the "I do" wand. These abuse "issues" that he was changing because he loved me so, only worsened once he had me, and became truly threatening once I was pregnant with his child.
So the fatal move is...going back to the game, having to pay for entrance, having to be at the top of the cheerleader pyramid and okay with him selecting or not selecting you this time. The fatal thing is to go back to the game, to face the music he plays for you... Sometimes it sounds like a death knoll.
Friday, April 27, 2012
My "Place" in his Heart
It has been months since I last wrote anything. I have made it 8 months without seeing my husband, the man who treated me like trash. There have been rare phone conversations, but not much communication or change. In the last 2 weeks, my husband sent me a few more links to u-tube love songs, videos, photos from a weekend retreat "thinking of me..." I blinked emotionally, started to let him back into my heart, hopeful, hopeful, hopeful for that Miracle I'd always kept tucked into my soul. It was near instantaneous since, after all, I'd emphatically told him not to contact me personally again unless it were about my Miracle, or our son. He didn't contact me about our son. But he opened the floodgates to my hopes and dreams, since he was contacting ME personally with images and songs about loving me, about me being so beautiful to him...
I responded with return texts of questions and uncertainty. He left me hanging the rest of the day, no answers at all. He called after I'd nearly fallen asleep; I was exhausted and asked if he would be available the next day when I was awake and alert. He said yes, but then he was not available. Nor did he call me back. The day after, he said he'd "just now seen my 'missed call'." That was a lie. Still the lies. My heart sank, but I forged ahead about no more "could've been's" just a need for what CAN be now and in the future.
He said I need to be responsible for MY part in HIS VIOLENCE toward me. He told me how ridiculous I was for filing a restraining order, that I was "punishing" him with a restraining order, and how I went over the line "making him leave HIS own house !!!"--not OUR house. Not sufficient injury in his mind to cause me to be afraid of him for me and our child. Plus, he reasons, I must deserved it, because he doesn't have "any problems with anyone else, just you, Julia."
Except it was not "just me." It was our infant son, then our toddler son, then our child... And I learn and believe more every day that no one DESERVES to be abused, verbally, emotionally, daily, nightly, physically, spiritually--not even me.
He says like he always did before, that his life is great now, without me in it, so much happiness, so many good things happening, so many people touched by his good heart. He says like he always did before that he "was in a bad place" when he would treat me poorly, but that he's not there anymore. He always excuses his violence on a "bad place," " a bad time," not that he is a bad person, not that he is very evil at times. He was being evil still, what he was trying to still put onto me. My fault still that I MADE HIM act that way. I know that's not true anymore.
He tells me, as always, how much he's changed, and, as always, how I won't get to experience that. Because of ME. He's always holding that unobtainable prize in front of me: the happy, healthy marriage and family I'd prayed so fervently for, worked so hard to create and maintain. He bolsters this lie by saying his family and "everyone who knows him" knows how wonderful he is, and that the problem with us is ME.
Except it was not "just me." It was our infant son, then our toddler son, then our child...And I learn and believe more every day that no one DESERVES to be abused, verbally, emotionally, daily, nightly, physically, spiritually--not even me.
I am having surgery to repair the damage he did to my shoulder and elbow, cartilage torn, nerves damaged. I will be off work more days, the majority without pay. I will not be able to use my dominant arm for 6 weeks. I've already missed many days due to duress, doctors' appts, police appts, domestic violence center appts, domestic violence counseling... And the physical pain has endured even with pain medications, nerve medications, muscle relaxants... I haven't been able to work out physically for all these months. I've been so very depressed. I lost function in my arm, foot, and I lost the outlet for my frustrations at the same time because of the same loss of function.
And yet, I will still occasionally pick up that ringing phone, I will tell him how I am still in love with him, how I still hold on for my Miracle. But it's just a call to remind me of my place. To remind me I should laud him like all others. To remind me of my place. My "place" in his life, my "place" in time, my "place" in causing the abuse. I've changed his title on my phone to "abusive sociopath," to remind me of my "place" in his heart. I am no where. I am nothing to be concerned about, no one to feel remorse to.
Solomon says somewhere in the Bible that a "fool" is someone who knows the difference between right and wrong, but doesn't care. My husband doesn't care. Never has. God wants me to be safe from harm. God wants my son to be safe from harm. I must be mindful of the company I keep. I cannot keep company with my husband anymore. Not and live.
I responded with return texts of questions and uncertainty. He left me hanging the rest of the day, no answers at all. He called after I'd nearly fallen asleep; I was exhausted and asked if he would be available the next day when I was awake and alert. He said yes, but then he was not available. Nor did he call me back. The day after, he said he'd "just now seen my 'missed call'." That was a lie. Still the lies. My heart sank, but I forged ahead about no more "could've been's" just a need for what CAN be now and in the future.
He said I need to be responsible for MY part in HIS VIOLENCE toward me. He told me how ridiculous I was for filing a restraining order, that I was "punishing" him with a restraining order, and how I went over the line "making him leave HIS own house !!!"--not OUR house. Not sufficient injury in his mind to cause me to be afraid of him for me and our child. Plus, he reasons, I must deserved it, because he doesn't have "any problems with anyone else, just you, Julia."
Except it was not "just me." It was our infant son, then our toddler son, then our child... And I learn and believe more every day that no one DESERVES to be abused, verbally, emotionally, daily, nightly, physically, spiritually--not even me.
He says like he always did before, that his life is great now, without me in it, so much happiness, so many good things happening, so many people touched by his good heart. He says like he always did before that he "was in a bad place" when he would treat me poorly, but that he's not there anymore. He always excuses his violence on a "bad place," " a bad time," not that he is a bad person, not that he is very evil at times. He was being evil still, what he was trying to still put onto me. My fault still that I MADE HIM act that way. I know that's not true anymore.
He tells me, as always, how much he's changed, and, as always, how I won't get to experience that. Because of ME. He's always holding that unobtainable prize in front of me: the happy, healthy marriage and family I'd prayed so fervently for, worked so hard to create and maintain. He bolsters this lie by saying his family and "everyone who knows him" knows how wonderful he is, and that the problem with us is ME.
Except it was not "just me." It was our infant son, then our toddler son, then our child...And I learn and believe more every day that no one DESERVES to be abused, verbally, emotionally, daily, nightly, physically, spiritually--not even me.
I am having surgery to repair the damage he did to my shoulder and elbow, cartilage torn, nerves damaged. I will be off work more days, the majority without pay. I will not be able to use my dominant arm for 6 weeks. I've already missed many days due to duress, doctors' appts, police appts, domestic violence center appts, domestic violence counseling... And the physical pain has endured even with pain medications, nerve medications, muscle relaxants... I haven't been able to work out physically for all these months. I've been so very depressed. I lost function in my arm, foot, and I lost the outlet for my frustrations at the same time because of the same loss of function.
And yet, I will still occasionally pick up that ringing phone, I will tell him how I am still in love with him, how I still hold on for my Miracle. But it's just a call to remind me of my place. To remind me I should laud him like all others. To remind me of my place. My "place" in his life, my "place" in time, my "place" in causing the abuse. I've changed his title on my phone to "abusive sociopath," to remind me of my "place" in his heart. I am no where. I am nothing to be concerned about, no one to feel remorse to.
Solomon says somewhere in the Bible that a "fool" is someone who knows the difference between right and wrong, but doesn't care. My husband doesn't care. Never has. God wants me to be safe from harm. God wants my son to be safe from harm. I must be mindful of the company I keep. I cannot keep company with my husband anymore. Not and live.
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