My Verbally Abusive Marriage

Over the past couple of years, I’ve written this blog straight from my heart. When I look back over the posts, especially the ones in the beginning, I see errors in my thinking. In many posts, abuse and its effects clouded my thinking; I doubted myself at my strongest, persevered with bad decisions when I was at my weakest.

Last year I began writing a more structured blog at healthyplace.com. I enjoy my blog there, but it is not like this one. Over there, people get the impression that I am an expert on the topic of verbal abuse. Unless they visit this blog, they do not know that my expertise originates from experience, not education. They do not realize that I am but one story in a sea of many.

The biggest difference between my readers (you) and me is that I put the stuff in my head and heart on the screen. I share with you what I’m thinking although I know that I don’t know everything. Every time I write this blog, I realize that next week or next year I may have to humbly reverse my actions, eat my words. Never once have I regretted writing any post or sharing any feeling. I figure you will see something helpful even when I’m wrong. I hope you sense my best intentions are sometimes flawed. I hope you act on your hunches. 

When I blogged during my marriage and early separation, everything was open for discussion. I laid it out there on the line. But since I’ve broken free of that relationship, I began to withdraw a bit. I thought in the back of my mind that I had little left to offer you. Especially when the judge gave primary custody of my children to him. I thought you would be afraid to leave your abuser knowing that it was possible to legally lose custody of your children.

But shit happens. And shit happens for a reason. Even the really crappy stuff happens for a reason.

On top of dealing with my ex during the incommunicado period, I was participating in a relationship drama that I promised myself I would not revisit. Get ready for some spoilers… Continue reading

My brain hit the ground running this morning. I tried unsuccessfully to feel the warmth of Max beside me, the soft wind from the fan and the cozy-soft microfiber sheets. But my brain wouldn’t have it. It was like while sleeping, it discovered all the answers and couldn’t wait to put me into action.

Unfortunately, those answers got lost in transitioning from sleeping to waking, and I found myself bombarded with noisy kids, messy house, and the other signs that I wasn’t in control of much at all.

I want to have my peaceful home back, the one that I miraculously found in May of 2010 that enabled me to think to myself without interruption. I miss my safe, silent, cocoon. Continue reading

In The Dark

“In The Dark” ( A Song For Battered Women) off the hot new Conscious Earth E.P. by Indie Artist J.D. Smith who says, “Please help me raise money and spread the word through this song and my new E.P. benefits an overcrowded women’s shelter called PROJECT SAFE in Athens Georgia.- Peace out”

Now available for MP3 download on iTunes, Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk , & Napster. Catch it today!

 John Keane (R.E.M., Widespread Panic, B 52′s, Indigo Girls, 10,000 Maniacs etc…) produced J.D. Smith’s Conscious Earth E.P.

Last year, I tapered off from this blog because I was afraid of what would come of it in court. Nothing came of it in court. This blog was either irrelevant or the battle didn’t get nasty enough for his attorney to use it.

Or maybe there was nothing to be said about it. Will’s name isn’t here, my name isn’t here. I don’t push this blog onto our children. This blog, like it was always intended to be, is mine and mine alone.

The saddish part about it is that I didn’t recognize that fact. I worried that he would somehow take this piece of me away. Under the heaviness of that fear, I did like I so often did during our marriage: I shut up.

Then, miracle of miracles, new people came into my life. I didn’t know how to mention them on this blog. I didn’t care what Will thought, but I worried about what the new others thought. Continue reading

Lately I’ve been thinking about you, the readers of this blog. You readers are my core; without you, I probably wouldn’t have had the courage to continue the leaving process after it begun. Without you, I think I may have resigned myself to more years of abuse – maybe I would have stayed until I died. Your encouragement, support (and in one case, your negativity) helped me to cement the idea in my head that leaving my abuser and staying gone was the right thing to do.

I consider those of you who didn’t contribute in writing but viewed the blog my silent army (I can see “how many” but not “who”). I think you were either suffering or knew someone who was, and I just couldn’t allow myself to let you down. Freedom from abuse was my only choice not only for me, but because I felt responsible to you. During my darkest hours, I thought of you, and my imagining that you were looking to me for guidance, to see what would happen if you left, allowed me to find the courage I needed to go on.

I know you are all “strangers” to me, but you’re the best damn strangers anyone has ever not known, and I thank you for being here for me. I’ve never been so grateful for the prayers and thoughts from strangers as I am today, as I look back.

Thank you. I appreciate you. I hope you’ll continue forward with me.

More to come tonight…

A few months after I’d left Will, I had worked through the grief stage and moved into such a euphoric state that I thought it would never end. I thought to myself, “So this is what I’ve been missing all these years!” and with a smile and artsy flourish of my wrist, I chucked my last 11 anti-depressants into the trash.

Here it is, almost a year later, and I feel a familiar numbness settling into my joints, radiating outward. I bet you can see it, murky and olive green, if you look hard enough.

Well, in hindsight, I guess I had a good run.

Over the past year, several good things happened for me: Continue reading

If I were married today, Valentine’s Day,

• I wouldn’t have received a bouquet of beautiful flowers from someone who loves me.
• I wouldn’t feel special, precious, or loved.
• I wouldn’t be working, so I wouldn’t have received Valentine’s Day gifts from my Secret Pal.
• I wouldn’t have wonderful people around me every day who appreciate my strengths and help me overcome my weaknesses.
• I wouldn’t feel like showing appreciation for anyone except for my boys.

On the other hand, I would BE with my boys and we would have dinner together as a family, at the table, with candles. Nevertheless, I’m taking dinner to them (heart-shaped pizza!) and will get some lovin’ from them tonight. Then, I’m invited to dinner (he’s cooking!) and a movie, and I’ll be happy and content, hoping that my presence helps the one I’m with feel wonderful too.

Life is good.

I’m so happy that this is not the same Valentine’s Day as last year. This time last year, there was confusion and doubt and I wondered what to call myself. None of that this year. I call myself “loved.”

I received a comment on Facebook recently that said I was amazing and strong (thank you, Amber!). I think I share qualities with every other person in abusive relationships.

• We’re optimistic AND depressed/anxious
• We’re giving.
• We all have a bright light that other people, even our abusers, recognize; the difference is the abuser wants to absorb it all for them self and if they can’t own it, they want it GONE.
• We’re helpful.
• We’re strong. We have to be to withstand the abuse.
• We’re capable of intimacy to the DETRIMENT of our selves within the abusive “relationship” and the benefit to any other.
• We’re intuitive in that we “know” something’s wrong (but maybe haven’t put our finger on what “it” is).

In short, we’re amazing human beings who embody characteristics that any person who doesn’t selfishly want to steal them from us will admire and cherish.

If you look at that list the opposite way, you can see those characteristics how the abuser sees us:

• We’re always living in an idealistic and therefore unrealistic world, we don’t understand how the world works AND we look for sympathy when we should be able to solve our own problems (“get that look off your face!” or “your life is so easy!” or “what’s wrong with you?”… and on and on)
• We’re always too generous, too friendly, too trusting, …
• We’re show-offs, know it alls, drama queens, and holier-than-thou …
• We’re nosy, looking for trouble, flirty, whores …
• We’re weak. We would have to be to rely on him for “everything” and do “nothing” to further ourselves.
• We’re too close to our family, we take other people’s opinions ahead of his, we use poor judgment in relating to friends, we tell too many secrets, we complain too much, …
• We’re always looking for trouble, we wouldn’t know what to do with ourselves if we couldn’t make up some problem, we read into things, we make mountains of molehills and think too much …

The questions with no right answers are:

• When will you decide to reject, completely and utterly, your abuser’s interpretation of you?
• When will you decide that YOU are the best judge of your character and capabilities?
• When will you trust yourself above all others?

No one can answer those questions for you. But when the day comes where your answer is “TODAY”, you will feel the seed of courage germinate and it’s roots will spread to every bit of your being. Continue learning, keep reading other people’s stories, observe, see your truth, and soon the seed of courage WILL spring forth and bloom. You will overcome this mess and you will be free.

Along with the twice weekly blog posts at healthyplace.com, I will also be doing a monthly audio post and a monthly video post. The first audio post will be from my sister. It will be a way to shrink your verbal abuser down to size. I use my sister’s meditation all the time, and it helps me regain my sanity. Look for it the first week of February.

Yes, I’m in school full time. I’m working toward a 4 year degree in psychology. I’ve been very busy!

On top of work and school, I’ve been tolerating my ex’s evaluation of why I haven’t filed for divorce yet. I told him that even if I paid the $175 filing fee to my attorney, she’d apply it to my DEBT I owe her, not toward a new motion. Or filing. Or whatever you call it.

Trust me – the papers are coming. And why can’t HE file? I don’t know the answer to that. I guess I could pay another $10 to SEND AND EMAIL to ask, but I’ll be seeing my attorney in court soon enough. I will pay my attorney, out of my settlement, and I will file for divorce. Nothing would make me happier.

Of course, my explanation for why it’s not already done isn’t the true one, according to him. He says that I want to suck on his insurance instead of doing the “right thing.”

He’s got a lot of nerve, telling me what the “right thing” to do could be. Ha.

Between you and me (and him and the light post), I’ve done everything I could to take care of as many lingering health issues as possible this past year. The last dental appointment is tomorrow – two grand, out of pocket, to crown some teeth and get 3 fillings since March. If I’d known I would have been able to “suck off” his insurance past our separation date, I wouldn’t have missed all those days at my NEW JOB – which I LOVE, by the way.

But, back to medical issues, the one thing I haven’t needed to charge to the awesome insurance coverage his job provides are anti-depressants. So, in essence, leaving him saved his insurance company money. It was the best thing that ever happened to TRICARE.

And do I need to remind anyone that the bulk of the reason he still has his job is because I signed papers that in effect said I would like to dismiss the domestic violence charge? (Justice vs. Right post from March 24, 2010)

Good. I feel better. Now I’m going to do my fricking homework! (YAY!! I have HOMEWORK!)