Guide #2 Refuse to be a victim…

As I sit here looking back on a conversation I had just moments ago I think I am still not over my marital situation.  I am not over the abuse.  I guess sometimes I don’t realize what really happened in that marriage even 2 years later.  As I discussed my situation with my old neighbor of thirteen years and friend of fifteen I realized that I am still a victim.

Honestly I thought I had broken the spell.  Thirteen years of a war with no complete casualties, just lashes thrown out three times a day every day. Then, once in a while a scud missile would fly in and attack my world.  I have controlled the war the last six months and scud missiles no longer exist in the separation.  We are 99.1 percent almost there.  The end .  The end of my marital chapter.  The end of our lives together.  I don’t feel any negative emotions.

I am purely positive at this point that anything would have been better than living that life any more.  There were so many good times.  I am not saying it was a terrible solid thirteen years.  That would be a lie.  There was just always this level of crazy happening.  Whether It be mean words circling around, yelling because things aren’t as they should be, limited positive reinforcement, barely any kind moments, extremely fearful moments, not being able to leave the house when a war started, trying so hard only  to fail at all points, common house hold chores not finished the way they “should be,” and a guilty-until- proven-innocent lifestyle.  There was no room to talk once you were found guilty of something. Fights would look something like this:

Him- Why isn’t the laundry put away?

Me- I haven’t had the time to get it into the drawers…

Him- What the f@#k did you do all day?

Me- I went to the store, food shopped, took care of the kids…

Him- Did you at least cook dinner?

Now by this moment I am welled up inside and my brain is ready to explode with anger.  Nothing kind has happened in the first moments he is home from work.  We have no road to come back from this treatment.  I feel sad inside, belittled, disturbed, stupid.  I am now a mess and explaining what I did today in a defensive manner. I am defending my day because he is insinuating I have been lazy by tone and mannerism.  Of course, he will deny that later on and act like I am crazy or dumb.  Neither of which I am.

It was this quickly that our life went from cute and happy to annoyed and miserable.  This occurred nine months into the marriage and remained there until the end.  We never bounced back in thirteen years.

I made up excuses for why he acted that way.  Anything from work made him tired, tired made him cranky and maybe I should be better at getting that laundry put away.  Maybe I am doing it wrong.  I started to accept that I did things wrong all the time and then tried to fix them.  Changing myself into what he needed and letting go of what I wanted.    It was pressure to be perfect for that marriage.

I often times wonder why I would keep fighting to make it all work but the truth is you don’t know that it is killing you.  Becoming a better person is everyone’s goal in life (or should be).  So I wanted to be better for my husband, after all he was the one I wanted to be with forever so I sure the hell wanted it to work come hell or high water.   I changed, altered, accepted and lived unconditionally.   Until one day I had enough.

Even though that one day had occurred, I still have moments where I believe I have ruined his life.  I am still holding myself accountable for a bad marriage.  He has me so trained that I still see him as the victim.

I realized today that I need to not feel responsible for the death of this marriage.

I didn’t ruin his life by leaving.  I didn’t make his life worse single-handedly.

I didn’t push things to go the ways they went.  I followed a leader and tried to stay on path.

I loved every way a person could love.

I searched for what would work for years and then one day I quit too.

I screwed up while trying to find the answers to a happier marriage.  I realize now that personality plays a gigantic part in relationships.  We marry people that we aren’t connected to 100% and we settle for that 75%.  We do it because society says to settle. Comments such as “He’s the best you’ll get.” “She’s not perfect but who is?” “The grass isn’t always greener.” “Everyone has rough patches in their marriage.”  Really?  Everyone?    There are rough patches and there are ROUGH patches.   Everyone may have arguments once in while however everyone sure the heck isn’t throwing dishes, plates, chairs in the middle of an argument.

Rough patches don’t include daily behavior.  A rough patch is a strange impactful moment, but just that–a moment.  When it becomes your new life then it is a lifestyle and I refuse to live a miserable lifestyle.   I have learned that the grass is way greener.  Sometimes it has a bit of yellow mixed in but with some more sun and water it grows back to its bright green.

 

 

 

 

Before the marriage…

 

Making strange decisions seemed to always be a trait of mine.  My parents would always shrug their shoulders as if to say “Oh hear she goes again.”

Coming home from Vegas and announcing that I was married to a man that I dated successfully for 3 months after dating not successfully for another 3 months was no surprise to them.  I can tell you though that this had become the most spontaneous thing I have ever done.  I could justify my behavior because we had indeed known each other since grade school.

At least this is how the cute story could start…  The truth is I really knew nothing about him except that he now had a son 1 year younger than mine and he was so in love with me that he begged for me to marry him after we had broken up from the 1^st half of our 1^st 3 months.

During the break up I had cried but solidly moved on or so I thought.  I had met a nice new guy in our 4 month break and I was ok dating him.  He was nice enough.

Unfortunately, my 3 month ex came back (after a surprise meeting in a court house because of a  traffic ticket) with 1000 apologies and asked me to forgive him and give him another chance.  I was fine with this as long as I could continue dating other people.  I was not about to put all of my eggs back into a broken basket and I knew there was something I wanted to hang onto.

This lasted for 3 weeks and then he erupted.  He didn’t want to date me if I was dating others and then he said he wanted to marry me.  He loved me that much?

Can you believe I said yes to that? … I said yes… to an emerald ring, no real proposal, an ultimatum really.  I said “yes.” I truly believed that he had found the one and I was it.  I believed that love was stronger than anything.  I believed that our 2 sons would make an amazing family.  I was finally about to graduate college and we were going to all move forward together.  I rationalized how this would all work out perfectly, despite not knowing this person very well at all and knowing that we were shaky already.

The way that he pleaded and the fact that he had purchased 2 tickets to Vegas meant he was serious.  I believed I loved him and I wanted to be a family.   I knew that I liked him a lot more before the break up.  The breakup had weakened us and trust was going to be an issue.

When we broke up he went back to his ex.  He said he didn’t but, the stockings with her name hanging from the fireplace in December when I went to pick up a jacket for my son where a tell-tale sign.  One I actually ignored because he said he did that for his son.    I believed what he said despite his son being 1 years old.  Again I have that naïve issue.

So even after all of this, we get back together.  I say “Yes” to this crazy proposal with the best of intentions.  I truly believed it could work. His mother freaked out when he told her (expected.) She had never met me before so this was a shock.  My parents were like “whatever, good luck, you know where your home is” and his father called him an “idiot.”  So that was our start.  A freaking out mother in law, an annoyed father in law and a way out when I need to take it!

We were really solid for about 12 months.  We moved in together 3 months after we were married because I didn’t want to move into his home ( remember the Christmas stocking) Yeah that wasn’t my home.   We bought our own new house.  We decorated it. We loved it.  The kids were happy.  The neighbors were awesome and excited to see us.  Life was perfect.

Until the first blow up……

The decision to get a divorce.

My divorce seems to be a main topic of discussion.

It is worse than the marriage itself, in some parts.

My attorney always makes the comment of “if he wasn’t kind in the marriage did you really expect him to be kind in the divorce?”  No I guess not.   I am sure she is right.  I just hate having someone out there treating me like I was the devil.

It’s amazing how quickly someone will try diligently to ruin someone else’s life if they feel slated by the other person.     Everyone walks away with their own stories of the war.  History has proven that even countries will eliminate crucial facts in their history books in order for each country to feel justified in their own decisions. I believe my ex and I also see two separate sides to our war.

His simplification of “I was an abusive asshole but you were a lying cheating whore” doesn’t make that my reality.  Although I will openly admit he was indeed an abusive husband and during those moments I wasn’t the best wife.   In reality never did I use the words asshole in this entire marriage.  I could never bring myself to say what I was truly feeling for fear of what he would do next.  I never wanted to try a new level of anger. Not to mention I knew everyone before me called him an asshole and it wasn’t going to be me too.

I survived my marriage out of shear naivetés.  I honestly believed that I was different so he wouldn’t treat me the way he treated his mother, his ex and the ex before that.  I watched him while we were dating throw a chair at a window out of anger.  I stayed because I felt bad for him.  I couldn’t understand why his ex was so horrible to him and she cheated on him.  I couldn’t understand why his mom kicked him out as a kid and was crazy.  I felt sorry that his father was an alcoholic who abused him. His stepmom treated him like he was just another kid off the street.  I believed every story and felt bad for the victim that sat in front of me sobbing about his ex-girlfriend not letting him see his son.

My first biggest mistake at 23 years old: I was determined to love this person that no one else had ever truly loved.  Not for my own sake but to help him know he was loved.   I did this unconsciously.  I believed that I truly loved him up to 6 years ago.  (Separated 2 years now)  We are considered married for 13 years now.  I’ve been sitting in the “divorce” through court since Black Friday 2014.

Thanksgiving 2014 is the day he decided to send my daughter back to me with information referring to her mother as a “cheating whore.”  Prior to this moment I had informed my husband that I will contact an attorney if he brings her into this situation.  My child needed to be protected and didn’t deserve to be a pawn of destruction.   We had already settled the child custody without any lawyer fees and I paid all the court costs out of pocket.  Up to this moment I was still restless in the decision to be done 100% from the marriage. My Thanksgiving was ruined, my child was making a scene in front of my entire family, and I had finally cracked with no protection.  I called my new attorney that a neighbor suggested and I had her send the first letter.  She informed my soon to be ex-husband, in a very lawyer way, that I had retained her as attorney and to keep the children out of further issues or we will be standing before a judge for child abuse.

This ignited a flame of anger.  Like I said up to this moment and even after I still was figuring out my life and what was happening.  It is a very hard decision to leave 13 years of your life.  I was holding on to what I knew regardless of the bad.  I was embarrassed to get a divorce.  I feared judgement of others both ways, one for leaving and the other for staying.  Everyone would tell me to leave yet they would also say to make it work.  There was no clear answer. I was confused.

I had left 4 times prior after major moments occurred that led me to identify this relationship as abusive.  It had become abusive across the board however, not abusive enough.  I could certainly justify that what was happening could indeed be a lot worse.  I have seen friends who had it worse yet they found their own happiness and I would too.  I would leave and go back.  I endured moments that made me question my own sanity, my happiness, who I was, whether I was actually a weak person or a strong person.  I doubted the fiber that made me who I was and I went back. 4 times I went back.  Until this time.

I became strong after my mother had died.  I become the person I am today.  I became fearless and I knew that if I stayed I would be dead inside.  My mother on her death bed begged my aunt to not let me go back into that marriage.  I didn’t know these truths until after she had passed.

I guess my mother had enough when at her Lung Cancer benefit  he said to her “Did you come outside for a last Cigarette?”