My Verbally Abusive Marriage

I didn’t write yesterday because it was so crappy. I still don’t want to write because this morning already started off on a bad note. Or bang, perhaps.

7:30 AM, Sunday morning, I hear banging on the walls. I ignore it, falling back to sleep only to wake up again in 5 minutes. I’m thinking it’s the kids doing something silly, so I get up to tell them to knock it off.

Nope. It’s Will, fixing the door frame on my son’s closet with a mallet. “Will, why are you banging on the wall before 8 o’clock on a Sunday morning?!”

“I’m fixing Eddie’s door,” he says without looking at me. I say, “That’s inconsiderate.”

“Well,” he says, “It has to be done.”

“Right now?!” I ask, irritated, and go to the kitchen to see if there’s coffee.

The banging stops. He comes through the kitchen saying, “And you say I’m inconsiderate?! There’s a lot of that around here.” He goes outside. There’s no more banging.

I play mindsweeper, consciously willing the exchange out of my mind, but I cannot. When he comes back inside, I say, “I’m sorry for being cranky.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he says. So now, I’m writing.

Yesterday was a near horror. We went shopping for living room furniture together. It went pretty well until lunch at Long John Silvers. We started talking about our oldest, Marc. Well, I thought “we” were talking. Turns out, he wanted to talk out loud and have me listen.

After attacking my observations, which I thought he wanted (the ol’ bait and switch), I said, “I am feeling like you aren’t hearing me, aren’t listening to me.” He replied that he was listening to me and repeated the last thing I’d said back almost verbatim, then said, “I don’t agree.”

“Fine. I don’t care if you disagree, but I’m not attacking your viewpoints which I disagree with. I’m letting you say them, and I’m contributing my own ideas,” I say.

“No, you’re not,” he says. “You’re not hearing me either. You’re telling me things that I don’t agree with.”

So, of course, I stop to consider what he said. Then I say, “I don’t think a conversation is necessarily an exchange of the same ideas. I have different ideas, and I’m sharing them with you.”

“What’s the point?” he says.

“The point is that both of us parents can grasp an understanding of the other’s viewpoints, and we could do it without interrupting and rolling eyes or flat out saying we’re wrong,” I say.

“How did this conversation turn into something about YOU?” he says.

WHAT? So anyway, the rest of the Long John Silver’s conversation was wasted.

But we tried talking about Marc again in the car, later, after stopping at a military supply store where I waited in the car so I could catch a break.

The rest of the afternoon was more wasted time. He fell back on his old line that I made Marc my best friend, and that’s why I’m ineffectual with him. (I don’t think I’ve been ineffectual; I think I’ve done pretty good.)

When I told him that I was dropping out of the conversation, he pulled out his big guns to suck me back in. I resisted. He asked me where I was going to live when I left him according to my emergency plan. I told him an emergency plan was not a permanent solution; it was designed for emergencies only. I didn’t tell him where I would go.

He said, “Well, when you leave, I want to keep the house. It makes more sense for me to have it and I want the kids to be able to visit a house on the weekends or whenever I get to see them. You should plan for that.”

I ignored him. He got louder and brought in the cats saying that there’s cat hair all over the house and the fleas (which only he has felt biting him – I haven’t seen them or felt them and neither have the kids) are horrid and “Am I going to have to clean the house or are you going to do it?!”

“I am not participating in this conversation,” I said.

Finally, he calmed down. It didn’t take long after I dropped out of the conversation for him to calm himself, but I was keeping the corner of my eye on his hand which was leaping from his lap periodically. He didn’t make a move to smack me, but I was worried about it.

When we got home, he went to his dad’s apartment and the next thing I know, his father is driving Will to a friend’s house so Will can drink. He came home drunk, but fortunately, there were more people in the house than me and the boys. He talked to them for an hour or so, then fell asleep on the couch.

I guess that’s what the banging was for this morning. He wanted me up because he didn’t have the opportunity to say what was on his mind last night. We’ll see, but in the meantime, I’m going to go about getting myself ready for my afternoon engagement early so I can leave at any time.

Sigh.

No more arguing today, and it’s 7:30 pm. We did talk more today since my last post, so the “no more arguing” bit is significant.

We talked about how he is concerned about my abuse accusations. He said, “I don’t know what verbal abuse is, and I don’t know when I’m doing it. Judging from your reaction, I do it all the time and I am confused.”

He started talking about how he is a blunt and direct person. He is concerned that he will never be able to be himself with me. In the past, he says he has tried altering the way he speaks to me, but it has left him feeling uncomfortable and unlike his true self. (I’m starting to see the confusion he mentioned earlier. What is verbal abuse? When am I doing it?)

Instead of saying anything, I waited. He continued with “I’ve tried to change who I am to make you happy. But when I change who I am, you are still not happy and I am not happy either. I don’t want to change who I am, and I don’t want to change how I talk.”

Bingo. That’s one feeling Will and I share.

From continuing the conversation, I learned that Will is aware that it is not only the cursing that causes problems. It happens when he says, “That’s a stupid idea” (his example) and similar comments during conversation.

I told him that I haven’t (possibly EVER) been honest with him about what I like and don’t like. If I was honest with him in the beginning, then I stopped because whatever I said caused him displeasure. And his displeasure was something to be avoided at all costs (not only because of his temper, but because avoiding his displeasure was what I DID, it was my modus operandi). I tried to make it easier for those around me at the expense of my self.

I told him that wasn’t fair to him because it left him feeling like he doesn’t know me. He is left to flounder from one extreme to the other, trying to please me, only to find me angrier from his effort. (Sound familiar?) I told him that he must have worked very hard at making things right, only to find me unhappy, resulting in feeling that “nothing” he did was ever good enough.

He agreed. I was surprised; there was no fight.

I told him that I know he is worried about what he says to me and how he says it. I said that since I’ve never told him exactly when he’s crossed a line, so how could he know when to temper his words (stop cursing), tone or attitude? I told him to be himself. If I become uncomfortable at some point, I will let him know right away.

He said that he doesn’t want to hurt me. I hope he will learn what I like and what I don’t in time, and maybe changing his words won’t feel so much like he is changing himself.

He said an amazing thing today. “What if, after all the stuff we’re going to change changes, what if you still don’t like me?”

I wanted to cry a little. Of course I’m going to like him. I liked him loads of times before now. I liked him when we dated and when we were married and when we had kids and when we came back into the Army and when he deployed to war and when I felt like I was fighting for the right to be me. But I didn’t cry, and I didn’t speak those partially true, placating words.

I only said, “I don’t think that is going to be a problem. I like you right now, when you seem to be talking from your heart.”

There were other, private things said today. I know I made mistakes today, and he made his share, too. I am hopeful that when he gets into therapy he (hopefully) discovers what abuse “is” and how to stop his part in the cycle. Any “lessons” coming from me fall on deaf ears, and I do not want to be his teacher.

From today, I learned that this cycle is going to be tougher to end than I thought. I learned that he is willing to open up and speak from his heart from day one. He isn’t (or doesn’t seem to be) feigning reactions to get what he wants. Some of his old traits came into play today, but so did some of mine.

Thank you all for looking after me so well today and in the days leading to today. Tomorrow is going to be a good day.

Okay, I remember the advice. Science project. Calming down, not to go after it again though. I’m going to wait. And in the meantime, I’m going to write.

Maybe I’ll do a search for scientific method worksheets.

Actually, in addition to finding a worksheet and perhaps some eye goggles, lab coat and a clip board, I could stop focusing on what made him angry (via honey laced words). Instead, what made me angry, and why did I get mad?

I was not angry when he told me I was mistaken about him being frustrated when I told him about my way of thinking. I said, “Oh. Okay. When did you get frustrated? or maybe “what was it that made you frustrated?”

He replied that he was frustrated because until we see things in one way (his way?) we weren’t going to get anywhere.

That didn’t take long. That’s where I got angry. That is when my eyes welled up with tears.

I was frustrated because I felt he laid down the first “new” rule, which isn’t new at all but a restatement of all the old rules. And I’m angry because for all the “thinking” he says he’s been doing while deployed, it does not seem to point in a new direction. It still relies on me compromising not with him, but compromising myself.

I felt as if I’d somehow stepped into a pile of dogshit that had been lying on the living room floor for 10 months. A pile I’ve artfully side-stepped until he pulled me straight through it.

He continued with defining that a compromise leaves everyone involved 100% satisfied. I said that a compromise leaves everyone less than 100% satisfied but with more of what they do want than what they don’t want. He said, “No, that isn’t a compromise at all.”

So I asked what he was willing to compromise. He said that he wouldn’t engage in time-consuming projects and he would spend less time with friends. Cool, that helps, but what is he going to do beyond that? Perhaps he plans to use his newly-found free time to garner a compromise of me so he can be 100% happy.  There I go assuming again.

We “talked” a little about how my ideas don’t matter to him, which he pronounced “Wrong.” I told him what we were doing right then was the crux of the problem. I state something and he diminishes it.

When I said, “You diminish what I say,” he replied, “Now you’re telling me what I am doing. That’s not what I’m doing.”

Okay. Science moment. My mistake – “You…” statement. Next time, I will remember to say, “When you tell me everything I say is wrong, I feel diminished.”

How much do you wanna bet he’ll say, “That’s your perception, not mine; that is not what I intend to do”?

Perhaps I’ll say, “Fine. I’m going to go do something else because I feel this conversation is going no where.”

I wrote “He felt (?) that I was attacking his method, his way of thinking, his way of organizing data…”

Nope. He told me I was wrong about that. Evidently I was and am wrong about much more than that. Including the fact that I filled in a police report BEFORE telling him I was going to do it. I did this last December, after he put his hands on me.

He brought it up, not me. Evidently he’s been doing some stewing. Instead of understanding and forgiving. As if I had anything to do with being hijacked from behind and flung over the couch. I don’t remember asking for that.

Summary update: Not going well.

First argument, but I called a break. He was as unhappy about the argument as I was, I think. I’m writing to try to decipher when it started going south and why.

I was first feeling frustrated when he was talking about his Priorities 1,2 and 3. Priority 1: our oldest son; Priority 2: me and him; Priority 3: work.  To me, all three are important and all three are related. I mentioned that the one person he was leaving off the priority list was our youngest son, to which he responded “Valid point. I’ll think about that.”

He continued on into his worries about the future if we cannot straighten out our oldest son, then when Will tells him, “You don’t get the GI Bill, your brother does,” it will have damaging effects on us (as a married couple).

Oh. I just realized that he assumed he would be making such a decision whether I agreed or not.

Regardless, I pointed out that he is discounting the strength we, as a married couple, would have gained between now and then. Not only is there no way to know if such a decision will occur, there is also no way to know how we would react to it at that point.

My concern was that if Will refused to see “us” and “oldest” and “youngest” as a whole AND as separate “priorities” then we wouldn’t be coming from the same viewpoint. And there it is.

Although his viewpoint is important as well as mine, it is not important that we come to an agreement over HOW to view the situation. I don’t have to prioritize in his fashion, and he doesn’t have to “see the whole” as I do.

It was at the point of frustration for ME that his frustration seemed evident, too. He started saying things about how when things got bad for me I went to a book to find a solution and tried to impose it on him. When he refused it, I put up walls.

Possible. But I reject the opinion that I “go to books” to find labels for us. If I hadn’t already recognized a problem in our marriage, then how could have the words in any book I read be relevant to me? I think that I “go to books” for answers because the answers I provide to him (from me) are not worthy either. My answers aren’t good enough, so I seek to supplement them with others’ studies and reasearch.

Okay. I feel better. I may write more later today at the rate this is going.

In summary, he started acting out when I wanted him to adopt MY viewpoint. He felt (?) that I was attacking his method, his way of thinking, his way of organizing data. I was just trying to help (him) but my help is unneeded and definately unwanted.

Yes, Will returns home today. I hope to find him changed for the better. I am different, but I am not certain he will see it that way.

Yesterday I pulled out the Tarot cards, asking for guidance. A spiritual “heads-up!”, if you will. I look at that Tarot as a tool to help me pull out the words of my soul so my brain can hear them. I asked for some points of advice and tips to remember for the next seven days.

First thing I noticed was that not one of the cards was an “emotion” card. My gut feeling told me that this was important. My emotions are not to rule me. I can definitely FEEL them, but I should run them past the brain and ask some questions before I act. Questions like, “Kellie, is this feeling a result of what is happening right now or is it a residual feeling from something similar from your past?”

If the answer to that question is “Residual,” then it is wise to NOT DO anything until I think further.

Another key concept has to do with hope and trust. I do want to believe Will when he says he wants to “work on” our relationship. I want to believe he wants us both to heal. However, the statement “Trust, but verify,” (Ronald Reagan) kept running through my head. It’s important to hope and trust in Will right now. He needs to know I’m here to heal, too. However, I am to look for specific actions on his part to back up his words.

If he goes to counselling and comes home with new skills, if he catches himself or respects me when I say, “Stop that…”, or similar stuff, then I do indeed have reason to hope. However, if he explodes after 5 days for some reason and justifies his behavior with more yelling and abuse, well then, the verification process points in another direction.

Half of the cards in the reading pointed toward enhanced communication. It is my responsibility to communicate from a position of SELF. This idea gives a nod to boundaries, but I must also remember that acting after thinking, speaking after thinking – those things are vitally important. Will has been subject to my internal “shoulds” regarding what I think he should do in the past. He’s in the dark about what I want and expect because I’ve been focused on trying to do whatever ends the conflict instead of what is best for me.

The only card that dealt with external workings (writing, blogging, drawing, journalling…housekeeping ugh!) was a suggestion to use my creative ideas as an outlet. When I am unsure what to communicate to Will, I can vomit my emotions onto a piece of paper. This will help me to get to the heart of the matter, to a point of clearer-thinking.

So, my number one goal this week is to blog each and every day. I’ll be doing journalling and writing and drawing too, but I feel writing about it HERE is a goal I can accomplish. One I want to accomplish.

So, I go to pick him up in (yikes!) an hour and a half! I’m going to go make myself look pretty, which I like to do. I’m also gearing up to keep a close record of events, good and bad, which I don’t like to do, but it is necessary in order to keep a clear head.