My Verbally Abusive Marriage

In the spirit of the “good mood” I currently find myself in, I’d like to share a fun, informative site on which you can get a short and lovable handwriting analysis. And a pen recommendation.

Try it here.

I received my copy of “The Crazy-Making Husband” by Muffy Gibson today. In it, she says,

“Tragically, and totally crazy-making, when we wives see unused potential, or the capacity for greatness in our husbands, rather than feel grateful, they feel criticized and attacked.”

YES! Why is that? During one particularly memorable argument, I said to my husband, “Do you realize that you said you are angry with me because I believe that you COULD do it?” [I'd had an idea for an alternate power source for vehicles; I had no idea HOW to do it, but I believed HE could figure it out. He's a genius with mechanics and problem-solving.]

Anyway, I said to my husband, “Do you realize that you said you are angry with me because I believe that you COULD do it? You’re angry at me because I BELIEVE IN YOU?!”

And I remember that he paused, maybe only for half a second, but as if he realized how crazy this argument was. As if, in that half second, he came face to face with the realization that he was behaving erratically and irrationally.

But at the tail-end of that half of a second, he decided to ignore the idea that he was acting crazily.

Instead, his demeanor turned to contempt. He said something about we were arguing because I was too emotional and said something like, “Look at your SELF, Kellie! You’re the one in tears yelling at ME as if I were the one out of line! It’s your STUPID idea!”

Silence ensued.

A long one.

We haven’t spoke of my idea or the possibility that he could develop it since.

I’m an INFJ. I’m thinking that the reason I seem so confusing to myself is because I’m unlike so many other “categories” of the population that I’ve read about. Many of the books I’m reading right now read like the author can “peg” me under a lable that will magically clear my thinking and get me on the “right course.” It’s not working.

Maybe I can get my hands on an “abuse book” written by and for an INFJ. That would be so much easier than figuring it out myself (although not nearly as satisfying).

I’m in a better mood after cleaning up around the house, making a “Free Kittens” sign (because I actually HAVE free kittens not because it sounded like a fun thing to do), and talking with my boys about nothing for a while.

It’s amazing how “getting out of myself” can regenerate and rejuvenate me. Now if Mother Nature would drop the monthly load on me, I think the rest of my depressed mood would disappear.

I just ran across Brian Fox’s website. He wrote a pamphlet entitled “Why Don’t They Just Leave?” to help the friends of domestic abuse victims understand what they can and cannot do to help their suffering friend. Here’s an excerpt:

Hope is something that you need to be aware and careful off. When someone is using hope as their defense, it means that they want things to change, and therefore still believe in the partner that is abusing them.

First off, his words are true. After all, I just wrote about HOPE and how a feeling so positive and worthy is usually diminished and falsified in an abusive relationship. I encourage you, friends of abuse victims, to read his pamphlet. I also encourage you to read my thoughts on the subject on my website: How You Can Help Abuse Victims

Here is a link to visit Brian Fox’s site so you can download and read his pamphlet entitled “Why Don’t They Just Leave?”

My thoughts hurt. My heart aches. My body is tired. I’m breaking into tears on the outside, but breaking into pieces on the inside.

This is too hard. I want to give up even caring if I’m in an unhealthy relationship or not.

But I won’t because once you’ve seen the truth, there’s no going back to the lies.

Fight. I’m still fighting to be heard and understood. The fighting is what sabatoges my efforts to end the gaslighting.

For whatever reasons, including my desires to be heard and understood, I am still reacting to his behavior in an unhealthy way. I still think that if I rephrase what I’m saying, if I talk-over or yell, if I interrupt the gaslighting with words to correct it,…if I still think that I can halt the manipulation with logic or persistence, then I am misleading myself AND keeping the gaslighting fires in full burn mode.

For some reason, my husband will not respond to me as if I am capable of being different from him. For some reason, when I am different from what he thinks I should be, he is threatened. And when he is threatened, he tries to regain control and comfort by putting me in my place. The place I “should” live in his mind. The person I “should” be in his mind.

I have no problem with the fact that he is different from me. Some of his opinions and beliefs really baffle me, but they are his and I cannot change them. (I’ve tried and only made our marriage worse because I did to him what he’s done to me – make him feel unworthy and unloved.) Even though I’ve tried to change his mind about some things, I’ve always known that it may be impossible to do so. I’ve always known that at some point, it was time to live and let live. But I think that the “live and let live” idea is foreign to him.

Perhaps I am so important to him that he feels we should be as one mind. Unfortunately, this thought seems to translate into we should be of “his” mind…and my mind should disappear and stop causing so many problems.

Anyway, it’s my FIGHTING the control and manipulation which allows the gaslighting to continue. Sometimes even to flare up uncontrollably.

There are ways to “defuse” the behavior without fruitlessly fighting it. There are things I can do and say to control my reaction to manipulation, nastiness, intimidation, threats,…, the whole abusive bit. Notice I said I can control MY reaction; I cannot control his behavior.

And the ability to control my reaction to him is what I am going to work on now. He may hear me say things or see me do things that he doesn’t like as I control my reactions. He’s going to see me enforce quite a few boundaries that I never had before (after I tell him what those boundaries are). And he’s probably not going to like the fact that I am using boundaries to “lock him out” of my heart and mind – the two places he relies on having free access to in order to get what he wants from me.

For example, Skype. I recently cut off that source of contact with my husband. He can still Skype our boys on their computers. He can still call me and our boys on our cell phones. But he cannot Skype me on my computer. He cannot interrupt me as I work via Skype; more importantly, I don’t have to worry that he will interrupt me in any way while I’m working (or relaxing) on the computer.

His reaction to this was anger, as demonstrated in the cell phone call I received from him today. He was acting like there was no possible way to contact me or the boys (even though he can call our cell phones). He acted like I was taking away all communication with us, period. He seemed to forget that I was in fact speaking with him on the cell at that very minute, or that he can email me, or in a pinch, have his chain of command or the Family Readiness Group get in touch with me. He seemed to forget that he could write a letter and put it in the mail (for free!).

He was angry because I turned off Skype. How dare I?

Eventually, I hung up the phone on him. I had gotten out of control. I didn’t know whether I was coming or going. I didn’t understand why he’s brought up the idea that me writing these blogs meant that I would be fucked in front of any judge. I was upset hearing that he would never reply to my emails (meaning verbal “conversations” were my only option when it came to communicating with him). I was confused as to why he thought he had no way to contact me “in an emergency.”

I was tired of hearing that I was making it obvious that I didn’t want our marriage to work, that it was my way or the highway. I was tired of having the subject changed and tossed back and forth like a dinghy in an open water storm. But most of all, I was tired of reacting to him angrily and hearing myself decompose intellectually, emotionally, and mentally to the point of shrillness and inability to remain calm.

I was tired of the same old shit, so I hung up the phone. I didn’t do it to punish him, I did it to regain my sanity.

But “my sanity” sometimes seems a long way off.

I’m reading a book called The Gaslight Effect by Dr. Robin Stern. I read it almost cover to cover yesterday, knowing there were parts I wanted to go back to in the next couple of days. What I’m taking away from it right now is the idea that it is possible to keep a relationship in which “gaslighting” (control and manipulation) exists, but to do so, I have to be willing to leave. I don’t have to leave, but I have to be willing to leave; otherwise, the techniques to overcome and hopefully stop gaslighting cannot work.

Only by recognizing the fact that life would continue, that I would not “die” without my husband, can I possibly begin to think that life CAN be better – that I deserve more from my relationship than what I’m getting. Only by believing that I am worthy of respect EVEN IF HE DOESN’T GIVE IT TO ME, can I hope to stay married. And then, after I believe that (which I do), I can work to end the gaslighting.

As I work to end the gaslighting, because I believe I am worthy of respect (and the other bits that I’m being denied), there may come a time where the “work” is not worth the effort. If I remain exhausted and he continues to deny my right to have a separate opinion, a separate mind, THEN, because I know in my heart I deserve more, I may choose to leave him. Not in search of another man who gives me what my husband refuses, but I can leave because I know I will find more joy and peace outside of my marriage than I find within it.

All of the above does come from the book, but it is also what I’ve been thinking independently, before reading the book. In fact, when I was going through the quizzes and questions in the book, I realized that I had two answers for almost every question. One answer is for what I have been doing in response to his gaslighting, but the second answer was what I want to do NOW in response to his gaslighting. In some cases, the second answer was what I AM DOING now in response to his gaslighting.

But, here’s the rub: some things I am doing right now are aggravating the situation. In most ways, I’m not doing it “right”. In some ways, as I fight against his gaslighting, I am making things worse. That is NOT what I want to do. My ultimate goal is to make our marriage work. That’s what I want. That’s what I’m trying to do.

I’ll write some more about the techniques I want to begin using after I personalize them to myself and my marriage. Right now, I’m going to start another post because I see the word “fight” in the paragraph above, and I want to expound on that word.

If you’re a man reading this blog, I understand how hard it is to hear “HE” is the abuser over and over again. It’s not just my blog, it’s everywhere. Men are not fairly represented as abuse victims/survivors.

There are probably many reasons for this, and I give my opinion on “why” on my site. But like I wrote there, my abuser is male. That’s the perspective I come from, and I can only write my own truth.

However, today I did find a blog written by an abused husband. He hasn’t posted in awhile, and the last post was rather disheartening, but maybe if we (guys and gals too) head over there and flood him with comments and encouragement, he will come back.

Please read the Husband Abuse Blog, and please make a comment!

I am feeling really really good right now. My blog is spot-lighted on The Crazy Making Husband!

Actually, I’m surface happy and surface dancing. I don’t feel deserving; I don’t feel like I’ve done anything.

Why is it so hard to feel good about something so grand?

But, you know what? I’m going to continue Snoopy Dancing until it feels real! Does anyone know what music he dances to?

Martha, thank you for including my blog in your thoughts on the web. You’re helping me to think that just maybe what I do and what I’ve lived will have a positive impact after so much negativity.

Please read her new book, “The Crazy-Making Husband” by Muffy Gibson (aka my dear Martha Trowbridge). In it, she writes, “Are you starting to wonder if every marriage ends up with the wife in the nuthouse?” Humor is a vital component to healing (and strictly forbidden in my relationship unless it’s sarcastic and biting). I think this book will help me inject some laughs into his otherwise crazy behavior.  I am expecting my book tomorrow!

I just realized that I do not have any current strategies in place to help me deal with my husband’s abusive behavior. Sure I am working on this site and blogging, but HOPING he doesn’t call is not a valid strategy! At least, it’s not working for me.

A quick update: My husband is deployed right now. His main source of contact is via Skype. The Skype ring now causes me to feel uncertain, anxious and wary. Just as Pavlov’s dogs salivated at the sound of a bell, I feel my heart pound and my thoughts start to race whenever I hear the Skype ring.

Why am I allowing myself to go into emotional spasms at the sound of a bell? Because the only thing I am thinking when I hear that bell is “Shit shit shit. What? What’s THIS call going to be like?”

And let me tell you, that feeling is no different than hearing his truck pull into the drive at 7pm. It’s no different than watching him drink beer after beer with his friends. It’s no different from seeing the “pent up” expression on his pinched face while watching television.

The only thing I’m doing is bracing myself for possible attack.

HOPING “it” will be different, be better, be smoother, be anything other than scary does not work.

Hope can be a wonderful feeling leading to positive actions and thoughts, miracles, and even the motivation we need to propel ourselves forward. But in this abusive situation, hope is anxiety-ridden. It’s become exactly the opposite of what hope is meant to be.

So “hope” that this situation will change is not a valid strategy for dealing with abuse. Suck.

I just now set my Skype to “unavailable” and that is a valid strategy. I feel better already. At least now I don’t have to “hope” I’m not interrupted as I try to devise a better strategy.