My Verbally Abusive Marriage

I spent most of yesterday reading through my old journal and putting new pages on the site. If you’re interested in reading nine new entries dating from 2003-2006, you will find the start of them at Wish Wash.

I forgot to breathe

Click the “Later” link at the top right to flip through the entries.

Turns out I was pretty depressed during this time period. We (my mother, sister and I) were attempting to turn Bluelady Muse into a personal coaching operation, but my heart wasn’t in it. I think the entries show that my heart was into beating up myself.

Oh well. Then conclusions I reached in those days fed my current realizations. All of this, the site, accusing Will of abuse, et cetera, began with me tearing myself apart.

I guess when I finished (am I really finished?), I knew our problems could not possibly be 100% my fault. I was damaged, but I wasn’t broken.

I’ll probably post some more entries soon. Reading them made me really sad. Sad for myself, where I’ve been; how lost I’ve been.

It’s better now. I’m better now.

Recently I’ve been accused of not seeking work even though my husband was very worried about me staying at home “alone” so much of the time without “friends”. Somehow I missed his words encouraging me to “go to work” and his subsequent “begging” that I find a job. He has a very different perception from me when it concerns my activities of the past 18 years.

So anyway, I’ve been putting together a timeline of my marriage. When I worked, when I wanted to work, when I went to school, when I didn’t. Why I worked when I did and why I closed up shop or quit working. It’s quite the exhaustive list.

However, I’m missing the years 2005 and 2006 on my time line. I know I was working with my mother and sister on Bluelady Muse, but I have no real “record” of events like I do for the other years. I haven’t found my journals covering the time period. Maybe I didn’t journal at all during that time (doubtful, but maybe).

So despite the fact that I have marketing research to conduct and two resumes to write and some work on a friend’s site to complete, I am going to ignore all of that for now. I want to find my record. I want to know I existed. I want to remember what I was doing or maybe figure out why I wasn’t doing much.

Hopefully, I’ll have some journal entries posted to the “other part” of this site by tonight.

On December 18, 2009, I wrote a post called “You’re a Housewife” in which I described how Will told me what I was. I wrote, “But to Will, I am a housewife. He said so. He also rejected any of the other labels I listed because none of them bring home any money.”

I actually remember that conversation well because he was yelling about being “King of the Castle” and was infuriated when I told him that was a title that was EARNED, not an ENTITLEMENT. That’s when he told me that I was a housewife and I should be happy because I “have a roof over [my] head, food on [my] plates, a home to clean, a man who is willing to work, and children to care for.”

I bring this up again because today Will again told me that he’s been wanting me to go to work since the children started full school days. That would mean that he’s been encouraging me to work for years and inferring that I have refused working, sucked an income off of his hard work, and sat around eating chocolate bon bons on his dime for all that time.

Interesting. Hurtful, but I’ll get over that.

It’s almost like he wants me to believe it because that’s what he says now. That’s okay. He’s trying to get out of paying me alimony.

I listened to the above bit of drivel, but when he said, “I told you I don’t like crawfishers. This isn’t a threat, but -” and that’s where I cut him off.

You can pretty much bet that when someone tells you “This isn’t a threat” that it is going to be a threat. (The “crawfisher” bit is due to his upset over my changing my mind about doing the custody battle in court vs. hashing it out with him alone.)

We were standing in front of the same attorney’s office to which I visited to sign the paper requesting to dismiss the assault against a woman charge that HE faced. Mind you, I just did HIM a favor (that I didn’t have to do and was very difficult to complete), and here he was telling me that because of ANOTHER of my “sins” I was forcing him to…WHAT?

I didn’t hear what he’d planned for me because I know two things:

1. I do not ever again HAVE to negotiate with him one on one. I can go through the court and mediation for every piddly request and complaint if I have to. I never have to face him on my own ever again.
2. The threat is this: “Kellie, no matter what you do for me, it will never be enough. I will continue to tell you how wrong you are for making the decisions you make. I will continue attempting to PUNISH you with whatever means are available to me. So long as you continue to be separate from me, so long as you choose to do things of which I do not approve, I will seek to hurt you.“

And that is that.

Here’s a story about abuse: Wherein I Talk About Abuse

Steven Covey says a paradigm shift occurs when you suddenly see a situation in a different way. The introduction of new knowledge can cause a person to change their thoughts, feelings, actions, etc.

I am having trouble shifting my paradigm. Intellectually, in my head, I know what abuse is and how it affects and has affected me. I know that abuse follows an textbook pattern. I know I have been abused, and I know who did the abusing.

However, what I know too slowly filters into what I feel. I wish that when I discovered the abuse in my relationship that I was able to completely detach from it. I wish that “knowing” solved the problems that come from feeling.

It would have been liberating if I had said to myself, “Kellie, that no good hunk of flesh abuses you. Do not love him anymore. Don’t listen to him anymore. Don’t try to help him anymore. Get out.” And then automatically FELT the same way.

But that didn’t happen. My emotions cling to Will even though my thoughts are free. My paradigm shift is held back by my heart.

Someone told me that when I found my thoughts and feelings focused on Will, that I could imagine Will attached to me by a taut rope, then imagine a pair of scissors, then imagine cutting the rope. Will falls away, leaving me the space I need to think on other things. It works (pretty well), but I think Will is attached to me by MULTIPLE ropes! It’s going to take a while to locate and cut them all.

I wish my paradigm shift was as simple as the examples in Covey’s book, The 7 Habits. One example is a man’s annoyance with unruly children until he discovers their mother died in the hospital hours before. Another is when an egotistical battleship commander sees an oncoming ship in his path and radios “Change your course; I am a battleship” only to get the reply, “Change your course, I am a lighthouse.”

When my paradigm shift does completely occur, this is what I envision:

A cordial relationship with my ex-husband in which we can discuss our children. When he acts out in “the old ways” I see it immediately and exit the situation. After leaving, I do not give what he said or did a thought other than, “He was right when he said he wouldn’t change” and I snip the thread that binds me and continue with my day, my thoughts, and my feelings unscathed.

I signed a form today that says I would like for the state to dismiss the charge against Will of assault on a woman.

I walked into the attorney’s office and told the receptionist that I was there to sign some kind of dismissal form for the domestic violence charge on my husband. A woman took me to her office, pulled out a form to fill-in, and asked me for my identification.

When it was time to sign the form, I started to cry. I moved my hand holding the pen behind my back and looked around for a tissue. I put my hand to the paper three more times before I managed to sign my name, and when I did sign, I did it quickly and without watching what I wrote.

I turned from the notary and she asked, “Mrs. Helget, are you sure?”

I wanted to grab the paper and rip it into shreds, but I told her “I am sure” and she notarized my signature on that piece of paper that will help dismiss the charge against Will.

He and his divorce attorney will go to court and say that I dropped the charge because I lied about what happened. His attorney asserted in court last week that “there was no abuse in Mr. Helget’s home,” and I’m sure she’ll say that line again and he’ll love it when she says it. And they’ll use what I did today against me.

So, why did I sign the paper? Because what is “just” is not always “right” and what I want cannot always be the best deciding factor between the two.

Justice would be served if  Will were pronounced guilty of the charge and ended up in an orange jumpsuit. It would be briefly satisfying to know that Will had to live in a situation where he was uncomfortable and unloved with the threat of violence (physical or mental) hanging over his head from day one.

I’ll flat out tell you – I feel vengeful. I want him to suffer as I’ve suffered. I want him to know what it’s been like to live with an angry, irrational man who thinks he is right and doesn’t apologize for anything. And if I could choose his cell mate, I would choose one who is just like Will but bigger and louder and who hits him on the first day and, after that, rarely does it again because the sidelong looks and muttered comments are enough to keep Will in line.

Will wouldn’t be surprised to read that. I’ve told him more than once that I wish he hurt like I hurt.

The difference now is that I know Will cannot hurt like I hurt. He doesn’t have the capacity to take it as I have. He’s told me more than once that if he felt like I said I do, then he would have left me a long time ago. I wondered how he could understand my pain enough to know he wouldn’t stand for it, but not enough to make him want to change his behavior. He seems to want me to be in pain, inflicted by him when he chooses.

His controlling nature will continue to reveal itself as Time goes on, in court and out. Maybe Time will reveal Will’s truth on my schedule, but most likely I’ll have a long wait.

So I signed that paper in order to give Time what it needs to reveal Will for all he is.

Vengeance is fiery-hot, but short-lived. If I got what I wanted, there’s no way to know how Will would exit the jail cell. Would he understand any better? I don’t think so. I think he’d emerge an angrier man, not a gentler one, and the “lesson” I sought to “teach” him would backfire on me and our children, in Time.

When I think back on the ways I’ve tried to “make him hurt”, I see that the only one who felt anything was me and those feelings were guilt and shame, not satisfaction. The guilt and shame caused me to become less of who I was because I absorbed the punishments he inflicted afterwards – I felt like I “deserved” punishment because I was a bad person, and it seemed fitting that the one I sought to hurt was the one who did the punishing. I suppose I tried to keep Karma “in the house”.

It is not my job to do (or seek) what I consider “just” – it is my job to do what is “right” to the best of my ability.

For one, a father who’s been imprisoned and dishonorably discharged is not right for Marc or Eddie. They love their father as much as they love me – we are equal, almost “one” in their hearts. What happens to him reflects on me, and what happens to me reflects on him. Will and I cannot end the “oneness” our boys consider us to be – we’re parents.

The choice to sign the paper was right for me because if I had refused to sign it, then I would know that I gave in to the lesser part of me. I would have given in to the part that wants him to hurt.

Now, the right thing to do, the hardest thing to do, is to let go of today and the fact that I signed a piece of paper that eradicated justice in favor of what I think is right. If there’s any justice to be had, it will come in Time.

Although I am busily updating The Woman’s Club of Fayetteville’s web site, I am also fantasizing about Will.

In my fantasy, he asks his friends to watch the boys for a couple of hours. He drives over here to the house and knocks on the door.

I hesitantly open it, and say, “Hi. What is it?” to which he replies, “Can I come in? I want to talk.”

I let him in, turn on the kitchen light, and we sit at the table. From his jeans pocket, he pulls out a folded up piece of paper and I recognize it as the “What I Want” document I gave to him a couple of weeks ago. He unfolds the paper and lays it out in front of us. Placing his hand on the paper, he says, “Okay.”

“What?” I say.

“Okay, Kellie, I agree to what you want. I’ll do the counseling – we’ll do the counseling. I’ve been more than an asshole, but I don’t want to give in to my abusive tendencies anymore. I want to fix it. I am so sorry for hurting you, Kellie. I want my family back.”

Of course, I start to cry. “Okay,” I say. “I want to do the counseling and I want us both to stop hurting each other, too. I’ll do everything I can, everything I asked you to do I’ll do too. I want my family back.”

He stands up and I walk over to him awkwardly. I give him a hug, then we pull away from one another. “When will you be home?” I ask.

“Tomorrow’s Sunday…” he says, “that would be a good day.”

“Okay,” I say.

I walk him to the door and he drives away. No kisses yet. Mostly unsaid words.

My family will be back tomorrow.

And that’s the end of the fantasy. Maybe now that I’ve written it out, I can concentrate on the site.

Despite the heart ache involved in separating from my husband, I am noticing something else that has always been present but that I ignored. Any one day has in it beautiful moments.

On Friday, I received a phone call from Marc. We talked about something important and things not so important, but we didn’t talk about “this”. We didn’t talk about how we were feeling or what we thought of the future. We laughed and I smiled. My phone told me I’d spoken to him for 32 minutes and 11 seconds, but for a little while, time wasn’t important. It was as long as it needed to be.

It didn’t matter where he was or where I was; it didn’t matter what has happened in the past nor what may happen in the future.

I was happy.

Later in the day, I picked up Eddie from school and drove to pick up his friends for an overnight. I haven’t had “boys” in this house since the end of January due to weekends spent at dad’s house. I heard them talk and laugh and checked on them without them knowing I was checking. I saw Eddie smiling and heard his now deep voice discussing things of interest to him. Things unrelated to “this”.

I was happy.

I am wondering why I didn’t pay attention to those moments before. I could blame the intolerable situation between Will and myself for filling up so much of my thoughts and stealing my emotional energy. Our relationship was all-consuming, at least for me, and I didn’t notice the happy times…at all.

No, that isn’t quite right. I noticed them, I experienced these small instances of happiness, but then I quickly let them fade as I chose to tend to the pain, confusion, and sense of merely living through the day. Maybe now, because I know the pain is constantly ready to surface, I am more willing to let the good feelings wash over and through me. I think I hope that the waves of joy will serve to diminish the pain, over time.

Joy became more important to me this week. Perhaps the darkest moments I’ve experienced are setting me up for the capacity to once again be happy.

That question headed the discussion at the Woman’s Emotional Abuse Support yahoo group. I wanted to answer it with a positive note, but I couldn’t. I am wondering the same thing.

The pain and agony, heart-wrenching gut-churning sadness that I am experiencing is worse than any I’ve felt before. It’s worse than when my grandfathers died, worse than when my dad died. It’s worse than when I lost those babies in miscarriages, worse than when I suspected that Will cheated on me. It’s worse than when we left Texas for the Army. It’s worse than the nightmares I used to have about my children dying.

It’s worse.

Every minute of every day feels like a do or die choice.

• Do I go to the Women’s Center and sign up for classes? (yes.)
• Do I wear sneakers or boots? (sneakers.)
• Do I get into the car or run back into the house? (car.)
• Do I listen to rock or AM radio? (rock.)
• Do I keep driving or do I pull over and cry? (keep driving.)
• Do I ask to see that one lady and then collapse into tears in her office? (no.)
• Do I pay $30 for this class or just forget it altogether? (pay.)
• Do I keep on deciding or stop thinking? (decide.)
• Do I let the tears flow or hold them back? (no choice. they flow.)

I miss the times Will was deployed because I could imagine that we were happy and pretend that everything would work out. I had peace and calm and security.

Now I have no peace or security.

It takes every ounce of energy to think, to decide, to move, to breathe. At night, I am exhausted but cannot fall asleep. I occupy my mind with thoughts of Eddie falling asleep in the next room, so close, still here, so strong, so trusting. I envision tomorrow being brighter, my breath coming automatically without having to remember to inhale.

Tonight, I’ll remember taking Eddie to shop for snacks and working in the front yard with him under the hazy sky. I’ll wonder what is going on with Marc, wonder how he can text me with happy news but stare at me with blank eyes and a smirk. I’ll tell myself to be patient, that there will be brighter days, and force my thoughts back to Eddie, by now sleeping soundly in the other room.

I’ll decide to hold back the tears that seemingly serve no purpose and instead visualize a happier time, away from now and this soul-less blackness that surrounds me.

In the morning, will I get out of bed or sleep and pretend this isn’t happening? (get out of bed.)

I decided to fight for custody through the legal system. Will has wanted to do a Consent Order in which he and I sit down together and hash out the details of our separation. Whereas this may be possible concerning our financial matters, I am not willing to do it for custody issues.

I am, at this point, very unskilled at negotiation when it comes to my spouse. I give up something I want in hope of creating a mutually satisfying agreement. I see now that I’ve been wrong to do that. He says that he gives me an inch and I take a mile…in hindsight, I do not see how that comes even close to the truth. There was a time when I would second guess myself on that point, causing me to give up even more of what I wanted or needed or thought was right.

So, when I imagine sitting down at a table with him to reach a “fair settlement” via a consent order, I smell bullshit. And I sense that I would give up things that I don’t legally have to give up – at least, not yet.

A few nights ago, Will and I were on the phone talking about our court date on March 17th. It was initiated by my attorney and was a custody hearing. Because Will and I planned to pursue a Consent Order, he did not want to go to court for custody issues, and on that night we spoke, I didn’t see the point in it either.

That was, I didn’t see the point in it until he told me what he wanted. He wanted primary custody of both our boys and for them to live in our house together. He explained that he should be the one to manage their day to day lives and make the final decisions on issues regarding them. I said that I wanted joint custody. He said that was an interesting idea, one he hadn’t heard of, and would be willing to negotiate it.

I smelled bullshit. He knows about primary custody but “hasn’t heard” about joint custody?!

At this point, I have two options: I could negotiate a consent order concerning custody with Will. OR I could go through the legal system and let a judge decide.

I know that I am not yet capable of negotiating a fair agreement with my spouse.

In prior conversations, Will has indicated that I should explain to the boys that when the time comes, they are choosing a residence, not a parent. I initially thought that the boys would be choosing a lifestyle, not a parent. I see now that both Will and I are wrong. In the eyes of a child, any such choice boils down to choosing a parent, one over the other, for some reason.

In Will’s version of a Consent Order, the children would be forced to choose. Not now, but definitely later.

I considered both Marc and Eddie’s positions. Marc has already chosen. He wants to live with his father. Eddie told me that he doesn’t want to “choose a residence” and that he doesn’t want to “choose” at all.

I cannot do anything about Marc. Even if a judge assigns primary custody of Marc to me, Marc cannot be forced to live with me because of his age. When he ran away, the law in this state would not even bring him home if they find him! They would call and tell me where he was, and it would be my prerogative to retrieve him – IF he agreed to come home. It’s screwed up, that law, and I wish someone would do something about it, but that someone isn’t going to be me so I have to live with it.

Therefore, because Marc has already chosen, I have only Eddie to tend to in this decision. By going through the court, it will force both the boys to talk to a judge. The judge will then make a decision in their best interests. Eddie will not be forced to “choose” because the judge will do the choosing for him.

I am fully aware that I may “lose” custody of both of my boys during this proceeding. I am distressed about it, I am worried about it; I am horrified at the thought of losing any of my legal rights as a parent. I know that my spouse (and probably Marc) will say everything possible to convince the judge that I am an unfit mother, a horrible mom, and that I am mentally ill and emotionally unstable. But I am willing to take that risk in order to save the heart of my youngest son. Choosing would absolutely hurt Eddie. But talking to a judge, nervous as he is about that, will not force him to choose anyone or anything over the other.

Eddie asked if the judge would ask him who he wanted to live with and I told him that I didn’t know what the judge would ask. I told him that I’ve never been in his position, but I will do everything in my power to get him in touch with someone who can explain the procedure to him – maybe a kid who’s been through it or an adult in “the system”. I also told Eddie that if a judge point-blank asked him that question, then he could answer, “I don’t want to answer that question.” In fact, he could say that in response to any question asked by anyone at any time (including me).

If I can save Eddie from “choosing” then I will have done the best thing I can do. Now all I have to do is stay the course and prepare my own heart for the worst as I pray for the best.