My Verbally Abusive Marriage

Verbal Abuse: A Transformative Experience

This is an email I sent to him today. I wasn’t going to send it, but after rereading it, I thought it would be good to post…so, if I’m going to post it publicly, then it was only fair to send it to him first. I’m responding to an email and phone conversation we’ve recently had. It’s not pretty. The military JUST NOW sent word down the pipe that we were having “problems” in the form of physical abuse. It’s amazing. One instance of physical abuse and we’re celebrities. 17 years of verbal abuse and there’s nothing done to help. That’s the military for you.

Here’s the email:
Do you really think that I don’t KNOW there are different types of people in the world? Why would I think [N] was like [L]? Just because they’re both officer’s wives, I am going to assume they’re the same? And I didn’t say anything to [N] that I wouldn’t say to anyone else, and for that matter, I didn’t say anything inappropriate to her. I didn’t say anything she didn’t already know. Why wouldn’t I assume she has her husband’s best interests at heart? Don’t we all WISH the best for our husbands? Especially me – your career is MY career. I tied my hopes, dreams and all my love to YOU a long time ago, and if you don’t believe that, then there’s nothing I can do or say today that will make you believe it.

If I didn’t WISH the best for you, if I wasn’t loyal to you, then why would I still be fighting for you? Why would I still be here? Why would I still love you? I obviously cannot change your heart. I obviously cannot make you or force you to understand that the only change I wish IN you is that you SEE and CARE about how your words and actions hurt the people you love the most. I wish you could take responsibility for the things you do and say ALL of the time – not only when the chips are down and your career or your marriage is at stake. You only seem to care about how you act or what you say when there’s a possiblilty that someone besides me will see or hear, or that I might actually have a “documented” reason to leave you because of some “case” I’m trying to build against you. And of course, that case would be heard by someone besides me. You don’t care what you say to me or do to me, because when you’re wrong, you go out of your way to make me the bad person.

I am the most loyal person you’ve ever known. I’ve always tried to protect you and your reputation. The only people I’ve EVER been honest with about the trouble you and I have are my family and a few of my friends – the people who can do NOTHING to you. They are incapable of doing anything to harm you, but you act like they’re your worst enemy. Then, when it suits you, you elevate those very women ABOVE me insinuating that if they can love a piece of shit like [T], then why can’t I love you? You act like I am your worst enemy, and that’s how you treat me. You put me down, you don’t raise me up. You use my weaknesses to your advantage, you use me to excuse your actions, you use me to keep up with the appearance that you’ve got it all together, all the while telling me that I know nothing, can do nothing – that I am powerless against you.

What would you have me say to [N] or anyone else for that matter? Why are you trying to tell me that what I did say to her was wrong? I told her the truth – the same truth I’ve told you. I’ve been completely honest with you even when I knew you could turn it back on me, and it seems like you always do that. You have the ability to take what I say or do and make it all about you. Then you tell me that because I say or do things that are right and good for ME, that I need to rethink it because it’s not what is best for you. It sounds like you love yourself more than you love me, because if you loved me, you wouldn’t consistently berate my decisions, my thoughts, emotions and beliefs.

You question my decisions, you question my child-raising ability, you question my ability to be the person I want to be. This whole “thing” isn’t about me trying to CHANGE YOU. It’s about a change that is going on inside of me. For better or worse, I’m sick to death of being told I am naive, disloyal, incapable, irrational and “wrong” about everything I know to be true.

If this was about me trying to pin the blame on you for “my issues” then I could have stuck with the first “lable” of alcoholic that I attached to you. I didn’t have to move into something else to prove a point. Your words, your nature, and your attitude about what you and I are going through throw me further into the belief that you won’t ever admit to or even try to see that how you talk to me, how you treat me, is wrong and definately fits the lable of “abusive”. You do these things without seeming to know or understand, but I know better. You think it’s funny when you do it to other people, and I have a feeling that when you do it to me, you think it’s funny, too.

If you love me, if you really truly love me, then you’ll stop acting like you don’t. My love for you IS unconditional; I’ve never asked you to be someone you aren’t. I’m asking you to be good to me, someone you profess to love. That’s all.

I wish I wasn’t going to send this, but I am.

The dangers of living in an abusive situation mess with my mind. On the one hand, I know that abusers can and will escalate abuse when they feel as if they’re losing control. All the literature warns of it. More personally, I can now clearly see my husband escalating the abuse when he feels that he’s losing control.

I guess I cannot be certain he “feels that he’s losing control.” I only assume to know because of what he tells me during the nice times. He’s told me how good he felt about putting a co-worker in her place, how well he did it, how there can be no retribution because he didn’t do anything “wrong.” The whole time knowing he did do something wrong by that person, but not caring because it worked out well for him and sent her into a high-pitched tailspin.

On the other hand, it is painful and hard for me to remember that he would, could and has hurt me physically – but it’s happened three times now. Nothing that will create a bruise where it will show. Something that he can deny to himself, to me, to anyone. Something that ultimately can be blamed on me.

Therein lies the danger. If it is so “painful and hard” to remember the abuse, then aren’t I mind fucking myself when I allow or force myself to forget?

He has hurt me. He has threatened to run me through a wood-chipper and dump pieces of me all over Texas – starting with the pond because the fish need feeding. (He’s shared that “joke” with my mother and sister, too.) He’s threatened my life if I left him. He’s threatened my life if I take the boys away with me. He “doesn’t know what [he] would do” if he suspected me of cheating on him. He bought a gun that’s only “good for killin’ folk.”

I believe that if I left him, I would turn up dead but no one will be able to pin it on him. But his face will have been the last face I saw.

The victim of verbal, emotional, mental and physical abuse constantly lives with the threat of escalating abuse. I constantly live with the threat of escalating abuse. It doesn’t matter if the last incident was yesterday or three years ago – he’s done it before and is capable of doing it again. The question is “When?”

Really think about that for a moment. “When will I be abused again? What will “I” have done to “cause” the abuse? How bad will it be? How much will it hurt?…”

It’s worse after I start thinking, “He’s different now. That was a long time ago; it won’t happen to me again. He’s a good father; he’d never treat the boys that way…” Then guess what? The abuse happens again. I’m surprised, shocked, knocked off my rocker. I feel the betrayal all over again. I want the pain to stop, so when he says, “I’m sorry” or “You’re so dramatic!” I want to believe him. I just want the pain to go away.

Maybe he is changing. Maybe the past month HAS been “different”. Maybe he has seen that he has a problem and wants to really truly fix it.

Maybe he really does love me.

Howdy, Pap! I love you! I miss you.

(And just for the record, he has absolutely no connection to my verbal abuse history.)

my dad holding my oldest son