My Verbally Abusive Marriage

My husband found my website and blog. I figured he already had found them, but I suppose he just wasn’t interested or didn’t make the connection between what he saw me doing at home and what was going online…or whatever. At first he was angry, but now he isn’t.

At least, that’s what he says, and maybe I’ll explain it later.

But right now, my greatest challenge is to NOT alter what I write because I know that he may read it.

1. This blog and my website cannot become “messages” to my husband. I cannot let my codependency dictate what I write. (If I am codependent – I haven’t faced up to that possibility yet.)
2. I must remember that I no longer have the “cloak of anonymity” in my own home. Although I knew he knew about my online stuff, I also knew he wasn’t interested in it. I knew he wouldn’t be looking for it. I was “safe” in the most public of ways and if you can comprehend that then drop me a line! LOL

Maybe I can explain it better: because I write about my CURRENT thoughts and feelings, I must remember that anything I disclose to “you” is also known to him.

On second thought, Number Two isn’t really a problem. I always tell him what I’m thinking and doing. The “cloak of anonymity” is only an illusion created by our abusive relationship.

You see, I tell him everything – but he chooses what to hear, when to hear it, and when to use the information I’ve given him. Sometimes he chooses to twist that information into something ugly, and sometimes he doesn’t.

So in reality, the anonymity I feel online and within our relationship is yet another illusion I’ve lived with for a very long time – I made it up. I’ve come to believe that I am “anonymous” – that no one hears me. But in reality, someone always hears me. It’s just the opposite of anonymity.

Anonymity is “safe” and believing I have anonymity is also safe. But in reality, believing I have anonymity became another facet of the abusive relationship. I’m NEVER really “safe”.

Geesh. This is complicated.

Let’s see if I can walk through it sequentially:

1. I voice my concerns or opinions to my husband.
2. He “seems” to listen because he’s looking at me.
3. An argument over why I’m wrong immediately follows OR he tells me that I’m right and says he will act on my concern or opinion.
4. If we argue, I know whatever I’ve said is going to be ignored and I might have to endure some twisted form of my opinion thrown back at me in the future. OR
5. If he acts like he wants to address my concern or opinion, things may temporarily change for the better.
6. IF the relationship temporarily changes for the better, then that’s good, right? No, it’s bad because when he tires of the effort it takes to “change” he reverts to his old behavior. What I’ve said is ignored or twisted into something ugly and thrown back at me during an argument.
7. Either way, I am returned to the “anonymous” state. Over 17 years, I’ve learned that I am and always will be “anonymous”, voiceless, even when it seems like I am not.

My mistake is in believing that “anonymous” is the same as “safe”.

Walking through it like that actually helps me understand something else. My husband says that he has changed since we’ve been married. He’s changed so much that he refuses to change anymore.

Fact is that he has changed. He’s changed over and over again, and he probably is truly tired of changing for me. The thought of changing again probably makes him sick; no wonder he’s been saying, “I’M NOT GOING TO CHANGE! GET USED TO IT!”

The only problem is that when he changes, he always returns to his “original” behavior. I am right in feeling like he has never changed AND he is right when he says he has changed time and time again.

Maybe he is sick of the EFFORT it takes to change only to find out that he’s FAILED to change. Not that he admits that failure to me (or to himself). Maybe he’s not tired of the changing but instead he’s tired of the failure.

The idea to make a website documenting the verbal abuse and my reactions/thoughts relating to it came to me around the time I realized it was happening – about October or November of last year (2008). I never hid the fact that I was making a website about verbal abuse from my husband.

In fact, he passed behind me often, glancing over my shoulder and making “tsking” sounds when he saw verbalabusejournals.com in FrontPage. If he was upset and found me working on the site, he’s say, “What a load of bullshit,” or something to that effect as he walked behind me. In addition, he would use my computer (rarely, but it happened more than once) when I had the website open.

My point is that I never hid the fact that I was making this site. I never hid it from him. I told him after I made it “live” that the website was now officially online. I didn’t make this site in secret, I didn’t try to hide the fact that I was creating the site, and I told him when it was online and ready to go.

So why was he so surprised and upset when he ran across it yesterday? How could he have been so blind to what I was doing? But then it dawned on me.

In Patricia Evan’s book, Controlling People, she addresses a weird phenomenon. In an abuser’s mind, his victim doesn’t exist unless he is with her. She doesn’t do or think or say anything when he’s not around. She has no mind of her own. She has no thoughts that he didn’t implant. And when there is evidence in his face that she does in fact do, think and say things independently of him, he is truly surprised. He feels betrayed, angry, and violated. (Here’s a good summary: Getting Verbal Abuse out of my Life: Teddy Check).

In essence, whenever I show a “sign of separateness” from my husband, he comes down hard on me. He tries to squash “me” back into the mold he has made for me in his own mind. To do that, to squash me, he uses a variety of techniques designed to intimidate the real me into submission.

This time he used a threat (“good luck”, implying that I’ll need it for what he’s got in store for me).