*Warning! Post contains adult conversation! Viewer discretion is advised!*
On most days, my marriage to my first husband feels like it occurred in a past lifetime. My days are spent in wedded bless with only a faint haunting of times gone bye. But then there are days like the past couple, when I found out that I had been the butt of my ex's mean spirited, degrading, and utterly humiliating April Fool's joke... at which point all the pain, anger, humiliation, and hurt I experienced during those 5 years comes rushing back, and I'm having a hard time stuffing them all back into the Space Saver bag that I keep them vacuum sealed in.
I don't often speak of him here, for many reasons. First, it's in the past, and seeing that my present and my future are so bright, I try not to spend too much time thinking or worrying about that past. Secondly, I want Jay to hear about him as little as possible. I truly feel that Jay is my one and only true love and don't want him feeling that he is constantly having to heal the scars that someone else made. Third, in general I don't feel that it's appropriate to bad mouth someone in a forum like this. Often times the person doing the posting ends up doing nothing but showing their own asinine tendencies. And the words reflect badly on the writer instead of the subject of the writer's anger. However, after the April Fools incident, I feel it is acceptable for me to post one blog about what it was like to live through a difficult marriage, and the struggles associated with leaving an unhealthy relationship. Maybe someone sometime will see my experience and find the courage to leave the unhealthy relationship they are in.
H. and I met many moons ago. His father was the assistant paster at the church my mom and I were involved in. His step-mom would always let me know when he was coming into town with this grin that revealed her hope that we might one day get together. I wasn't much interested. He was always bragging and showing off. He played the piano which I found very interesting, but he always played really loudly and in very conspicuous places so that others could hear him. I always got the feeling that he wasn't playing because he liked to play as much as he was playing so that others would praise him. That annoyed me to no end!
Well, we lost touch for many years. The winter after I turned 21, I started school at UNC Charlotte. It was one of the most tumultuous times of my life. I had been forced to move home from Jacksonville, FL just the spring before and had spent the last 6-7 months drowning, desperately grasping for anything to hold onto because I could feel the life slowly slipping out of me. I was truly an empty shell of a woman, beat down from years of a difficult family life, an over bearing father with an undiagnosed mental illness, and a suffocating religion. I was the epitome of the dog in the "learned helplessness" studies who trial after trial finally learns that no matter what he does the shocks are not going to stop... so he just lies down and takes them.
By the winter, however, I had my ducks in a row enough to be starting school again. Coming in mid-year, I lucked into an on campus room in the upper classmen apartment building. H. had moved into the apartment across the hall from me mid-year too after leaving his first wife just months prior. I used to think of it as fate, but I now see it as purely unfortunate chance. We met a couple of weeks later and became fast friends.
He was very wounded himself. His ex-wife had been emotionally abusive according to him. I see it in a different light now. Any interaction with her (she was at UNC Charlotte too) would cause a visible shrinking of his inner self. I saw a broken man who needed my encouragement and loyalty. He even asked me one time if I was going to just date him for a little bit and then leave him. I promised him that I would not do that. Now I see that even the question should have been a bad omen in my mind.
There were many bad omens even early on in the relationship though. He was my first real boyfriend and being so wounded and empty of any self esteem or confidence of my own I probably put up with things I would never allow now. He subtly insisted that I take an online IQ test and then gushed over my high score, saying that he could never date anyone with an average IQ score. He insisted that I take the Meyers Briggs Type Indicator. Which is a personality test. He predicted my scores, and in an unconscious effort to bolster his self esteem I used my knowledge of the test and psychology to swing the results to match his predictions. Which just happened to almost match exactly his personality. Additionally he often made fun of me and put me down in front of our friends.
We often got into fights, and I almost left more than once. One time, I was moving from one dorm to another for the summer. I only had one day to get out of the old one and into the new one and had never done anything like that before. He had to work early in the day but said that he would come over and help as soon as he was done. (Me and two of his friends had moved him into his apartment just a few days earlier.) When he didn't show I called him to find out where he was. He said that he had gotten a new phone while he was at work and was activating it and looking over the user's manual. I was furious. I called an acquaintance to help me move the last few heavy things and a couple of hours later when I finally finished up, I went over to his apartment. I was so angry I could hardly see straight. He couldn't see why I was so upset and had expected that I would just wait until he was ready to help me. I remember finally collapsing in the floor of the kitchen, sliding down the cabinets until I was in a sobbing heap in the floor. He came over to me, put his arms around me and apologized. I thought maybe I had made him see. But I was so wrong.
Another melt down occurred after a house warming party put on by him and his roommate. (He had ended up with this roommate because, instead of making plans for were he was going to live that summer, he waited until the last day and signed a lease at the first complex off campus for $700 a month. Seeing that there was no way he could afford that, he convinced his friend to ditch out on his brother with only a few days notice and come split the rent with him.) During the party, the apartment got to be rather hot, which happens with a bunch of people crammed into a small space. Well, his roommate cranked the AC up, setting the thermostat to something around 50 in an effort to cool it down quickly. H. saw this and berated his roommate in front of all the guests, insisting that he was a moron who was going to freeze the pipes and that anyone with a brain would know that turning it down that far wasn't going to make it cool off any faster.
I was mortified, not only for him but for myself as his girlfriend. His roommate handled the situation very calmly as not to escalate things, but H.'s behavior was simply inexcusable. We got into a big fight that night as I was packing up my stuff to stay at my apartment. He begged me to stay and apologized to me and his roommate even though I don't think he ever truly saw, nor cared, about the hurt he had caused or the inappropriateness of his actions.
A few weeks into the relationship he started pressing for sex. Being a virgin who was convinced I would go to hell (or at least reap unknowable consequences) if I engaged in sex before marriage, I was hesitant. We were already spending the night with each other but not going "all the way". I soon learned that there were other things that I could do to satisfy his cravings without having to engage in intercourse. I did not do these things because I wanted to or even had a desire to, but because they would shut him up for a while and I could get the cuddling I so desperately needed. After only a few short weeks, I finally gave in. I was not coerced or assaulted in anyway, but I did not feel that I was free to say no for any longer. Although a virgin, I was familiar with my body and how it worked. But being more experienced, he took the lead insisting that he knew what he was doing. I learned very early on that faking climax made the anxiety in my head stop, plus it also built his confidence. I was also too scared that if I was honest about how difficult it was for me, and about how inept he was at taking care of my needs, it would crush his fragile ego. A year later when I finally fessed up, I was proven correct and our sex life was never the same again.
During these early times, my parents were extremely against him. They did not like that he had been married before, the way he treated me, or the arrogant attitude that he carried around. He offended my grandparents on his very first visit, and the first split with my dad happened over him. When you get two alpha males in the same space, things never go anywhere good.
About a year into our relationship, H.'s roommate decided to move out with only a few days notice. (Yeah, Karma's a bitch!) So, in order to help him, and because I was staying over there anyway, we decided to move in together. This about killed both of our families. I thought maybe things would get better after we had a place of our own. I see now that I was doing the same things I had watched my mom do all my life. I was trying to control the environment around H. in an attempt to control or at least mediate his inappropriate behavior.
I swear, I couldn't take him anywhere without being embarrassed. He would always dominate the conversation, going on and on about topics no one at the table had any interest in, either unwilling or unable to read the body language and reactions of those around him. He always had to be the best and the smartest, and had a hard time knowing how to behave in a situation where he found himself falling short even at something as inconsequential as bowling.
About 9 months into our relationship, we got engaged. We had plans to go to Asheville so we could view an upcoming meteor shower on the parkway, away from the city lights of Charlotte. We ended up leaving out late and the shower was already starting while we were driving up the parkway. I kept begging him to just pull over at any over look. But we were not the only ones with this idea and he kept insisting on going to another one. We ended up stopping at a very secluded spot with a very bad view of the sky. I was very anxious seeing that I had always been told not to be up on the parkway alone at night! Come to find out, he did not want to ask me in front of anyone else and it didn't matter whether I got to see the shower we'd driven all the way up there to see or not. It was all about him and his plans and not about me. Welcome to the next 4 years of my life.
Planning for the wedding was only more stressful. He could not be bothered or trusted to gather any information or even communicate with his family. I was trying to do everything on a shoe string seeing that we were going to have to pay for the majority of the festivities. I asked and begged him for months to create a map so that people would know how to get to his mother's house were the wedding would be held (bad idea, I know!). I did not feel that I had the skills to create one on the computer, plus I felt that he should have at least some responsibility in this whole thing. A WEEK before the wedding, I give up and start doing it myself. At which point he decided he was ready to do it. Yes, you read that right, the invitations to my first wedding (something I had been dreaming about my entire life) went out a WEEK before the date. The day of the wedding, the living room furniture had been moved into the garage, and there I am as the bride trying to set up the chairs alone. H. had decided that that moment would be the best time to shine his shoes, something he had never done in his entire life. After asking politely for help and receiving none, I began to lose it and screamed that I needed him down there right that moment. It worked, but at what cost and with what resentment.
My wedding day was one of the worst days of my life. I was the last person to get into the shower. Both my bridesmaids got in before me. I had less than an hour to get ready. I felt more like the hired help then the bride. And where was my soon-to-be-husband in all this. God knows were having a wonderful time. I don't think I ever recovered from that experience.
About a year after we got married, having both recently graduated and having no luck finding decently paying jobs, we were in a financial crisis. The school loans had run out, our college jobs were not going to pay enough, and although I had looked into smaller, less expensive apartments, H. had insisted that we could not survive in anything less than a 2 bedroom apartment and was very particular about where he wanted to live. So, with very little options we decided to move in with his family. This was a tragic error. Up until then, I had a fairly positive relationship with his family, or so I thought. But by the time we moved out 3 months later, irreparable damage had been done.
We lived in the Asheville area for about another year. Struggling to find jobs that we liked, and attempting to survive our respective families. All the while I continued to feel less and less of a priority in his life. For a while we worked almost opposite shifts. He worked a normal 8-5 and I worked nights and weekends at Starbucks. When I would come in at 12pm or later, or after a full day on the weekend, he would be on the computer playing video games. I would go in to say hello, he would kiss me and continue to play his game. It would be anywhere from 45 minutes to over an hour before I could get any of his time. No matter how many times I expressed my dissatisfaction with feeling ignored, with being the only one to handle the finances, do any of the housework or laundry, or stormed out after a fight, things never got any better. In fact after I went on anti-anxiety medication they got worse.
I could usually control my anger and resentment while I was fully medicated. But when I would miss a pill or run out of meds, things would get worse and I would often have a melt down. H. would ask anytime I got upset if I had taken my pill that day, which infuriated me and revealed his arrogant belief that if I was unhappy it must be something wrong with me. By the time I would get back on the meds he would have convinced me that this was in fact true and that I had simply overreacted. Even my mom can attest to this as I would call her furious over something, only to call back a few days later saying that I realized I had overreacted. Additionally I made the tragic mistake of telling him time and again, that although we had our problems the good outweighed the bad. Unfortunately, this allowed him to stay in his unmotivated complacency. Obviously it must not that bad, and I certainly don't have to change, if she's still saying the good out weights the bad. I truly believe my statement to be a coping strategy. I was speaking the words for myself as much or more than for him. I knew I did not have the strength to leave at that point and didn't even want to face the fact that my relationship was not going to work forever.
Throughout this time, our sex life was getting more and more unsatisfying for me. No matter how I phrased it, how many books I bought, or how many times I expressed my wants and needs, nothing ever changed. And looking back now, I can see that the more I expressed my unhappiness, the more it bruised his ego, and the more he resorted to porn and time alone.
About a year and a half after we moved to Asheville, H. was offered a position in California. Moving day was awful! My mom was there along with my dad and his girlfriend. H. spent most of the day supervising and packing the trailer as none of us could be trusted to arrange everything correctly. By the grace of god, the skin of our teeth and the amazingly high limits on our credit cards, we got to California. Only 3 weeks later, H. got himself fired from the position we had moved out there for him to take. During this time, he went through a deep depression. I would come home to find that instead of job hunting he had been downloading porn all day. I was about at the end of my rope, but saw no way out. I had just moved to a new city, 3,000 miles away from my family and any friends, I had only a temp job which I hated, but I had already fallen in love with the area. So, after exhaustively searching for jobs for H., he finally landed a new position.
I truly believe that when he got that job, was the beginning of the end for us. I began to feel that my job was done. I had taken this poor lost puppy dog and I had gotten him to the part of the country where he needed to be in order to be successful, he had a good steady job, and he had somewhere to live. The final nail in the coffin though was his sister's wedding.
Over the last year or so, my relationship with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law had only gotten worse. His sister is a diva in the worst sense of the word. With the preparations for the wedding, you would have thought that royalty was getting married. In hind sight I should have just stayed home, but I was afraid that would cause more problems then if I went. In the months and weeks approaching the wedding, many hurtful emails were sent. Anything that H did that they didn't like, was blamed on me whether I sent the email or not. By the time the wedding actually came along, his mother and sister were refusing to speak to me which lasted the entire wedding weekend. I had two full on melt downs where I had to leave the festivities. Each time I would tell H that I was leaving to get some air. He never followed or came to check on me. Thank goodness for my mother who was always available on the other end of the line when I needed her the most.
By the time we got back home to California, I felt like I was bruised and battered, assaulted by a family who had said they loved me and by a husband who was supposed to have protected me. That was in September. That Thanksgiving we went to Michigan to spend the holiday with his dad and step-mom along with extended family. I asked his step-mom (who was always nothing but loving and accepting and understanding of me, as was his dad) to coffee alone. I told her that I didn't know how much longer I could do this! I cried and expressed my frustration with the situation, to which she said that she wasn't too surprised. Everything I told her were things she knew about H and had hoped he would overcome. She advised me to let him know the gravity of the situation and that there would be consequences if things did not change. Later in the weekend she and his dad told us that they would like to pay for counseling for us.
When we got back I started trying to find some help for us. It was always a struggle to get any cooperation from H. He was usually too busy on the computer, either playing games or posting to forums in order to show off how much he knew. He said that he was willing to go but made sure that I knew that it was not a priority for him nor was he going to put any effort into making it happen. I expressed my dissatisfaction with all aspects of our relationship and let him know that something had to change one way or another. I stopped short of threatening to leave which was probably my fatal error, but I didn't want to use leaving as a threat until I was actually ready to do it. Nothing changed, in fact the belittling and verbal attacks got worse.
There is one vivid memory that I don't think I'll ever be able to shake. We were in Barnes & Noble and I was looking at a book on astrology. I personally do not believe in astrology, but I find it fascinating and enjoy learning new things in general. I had been wanting to find a book that would give me an overview so I could see how the whole thing worked more in depthly then just looking at my horoscope. H. came over to where I was and saw the book I was looking at. He said, "Ok. Now this is were I put my foot down. You are not allowed to buy a book on astrology." Completely dumbfounded that the words had even come out of his mouth, I put it back and we left. I told him later how much that hurt and infuriated me and he said, "Well, you should have told me to F off and bought it anyway." To which I screamed, "I don't want to spend the rest of my life telling my husband to F off and buying it anyway!" He never saw how he was forcing his atheistic beliefs off on me in the same way he always accused Christians of doing to him. He simply said that he could not respect someone who would be so stupid as to believe that the position of the stars at birth had anything to do with a person's personality.
Although this occurrence sticks out in my mind like a beacon, there are a thousand others that have thankfully faded from my memory. A thousand instances were a mistake or misspoken word had to be addressed regardless of its insignificance or the fact that the mistake had nothing to do with the story being told or the experience being expressed. In fact often times the feelings or story being expressed were forgotten because of the mistake, leading me to think that he wasn't really even listening to me in the first place. A thousand conversations were I found myself having to defend something I didn't know if I believed or not simply because, unfortunately, I had not married a supportive husband, I had married an evangelical skeptic who believed that anyone who thought differently then he was unintelligent and therefore less. I not only had to defend my thoughts, but my right to even have them. Anytime I expressed an opinion or thought that was deemed unscientific or unintelligent, then I dropped another rung on his ladder of respect.
Our sex life dropped to a new low, too. It seemed like nothing I did could intice him. I vividly remember a time when he was on the computer (seeing a trend here?) and I took off some of my clothes and suggestively tossed them over to him. He looked at them, laughed, and went back to what he was doing. I was crushed! Another time, when my mom was in town, I went to sit on his lap while he was on the computer and he asked me to get up because my "boney butt" was hurting his leg. Again, once I got up, he continued with what he was doing on the computer. Soon I began to wake up in the middle of the night to find him having some "alone time" with some of the gigabytes of porn he downloaded on a regular basis. When I confronted him about it later he said that he was too tired and lazy to put the energy into having sex with me, that it was easier and took less effort to just take care of it after I went to sleep. That was the proverbial straw. We were done.
Just a few months prior, I had gotten an out-of-the-blue communication from Jay, and we had been catching up on the last 5 years. A few months later, I knew I had found the motivation I needed to end this hell. 5 years of being taken advantage of, ignored, belittled, unloved and uncared for were finally going to be over. For once in my life I was going to stand up for what was right for me!
H. will tell you that I cheated on him with Jay, and left him for Jay. What he doesn't want to admit is that he had been slowly losing me for years. And it would have been blatantly obvious if he had looked away from the computer for more than a few minutes at a time. I gave him ample time to change and more than fair warning. But he was too self centered to see it. And by the time he did see it, it was too late. This is a tragedy, and I do feel for him. But I sacrificed 5 years of my life to him, and I know him enough to know that any changes that might have been made, would have been short lived. People don't change for someone else. They change because they want to.
Getting out was not easy, and I probably could have done a better job of ending things. But the bottom line is, I did it. And I'm stronger for it. Maybe I'll write a follow up blog about the struggles to let go of the relationship another day.
H., if you ever read this, know that all your April Fools joke did was to let me know that you are still that broken little boy playing the piano really loud so that others will praise him. I truly hope that one day you find peace, that you find someone who can help you build true self confidence, self confidence that doesn't depend on putting others down to build yourself up, self confidence that doesn't rely on arrogance and elitism. And finally that you find a way to look past yourself and really care for another, because deep down I wish you nothing but the best the world has to offer.
But for today, I can finally say, that I feel better. Now off to spend quality cuddle time with my wonderful, loving, caring, self sacrificing, amazing husband.
Bonnie
