During our time together my husband was very abusive and I was in strong denial. I was 15 when I started dating him, 18 when I married him and 23 when I left him for good.
I'm having a hard time letting go to all of the hurt from our time together, please help me figure out why I'm not getting past this. I'll try to keep this brief, but I want to give some context as to why I may be having a hard time shaking him.
So the history:
"Michael" and I were runaways as teenagers and we were there for each other from the start. We became really good friends months before he left for the military and I asked him out maybe two months before he left for bootcamp. We continued our relationship for years while he was stationed overseas. I was a homeless runaway, crashing on my friends couches throughout high school but no matter what I would call him. I would look for change to buy a $2 phone card to call him from a payphone while he lived overseas. I was very dedicated to him. I thought of him all the time. My happiest moments included when he would come visit on leave.
The moment I first realized I loved him should have been a warning to me about what our relationship would become. I was staying with my mother, I would occasionally try to live at home back them. She was angry with me for some reason and she smacked me really hard and really publically outside of our house. I don't remember what happened next but "Michael" stood up to me, and, I guess in some show of force, pulled on my porch and ripped part of it clean off. He was red, he was angry, but I didn't see it as something wrong with it, he stood up for me.
My mom told me he was crazy, and I needed to break up with him but at the time, my mom was explosive and abusive, my aunts and everybody I had ever known was explosive and violent. I didn't break it off and I just devoted myself even further to him.
I don't remember what caused such devotion. He was nice and affectionate. He was understanding when I was afraid of anything related to sex (a fear that was the result of some childhood abuse but mostly from a fear of becoming a pregnant homeless teen). When I was stranded in my home country after my father became abusive during a visit, he bought me a last minute plane ticket home.
Early in our relationship his mother, an abusive junkie, asked me if he ever hit me and I said no but her asking me that has haunted me and I wonder if he beat her up the way he eventually beat me up, or if he had some sort of other history that wasn't shared with me.
Sorry, I feel like this is really disjointed. I have a really hard time figuring this whole thing out.
Anyways, when he got orders stateside we got married.
From the beginning it was chaos. I was not very well socialized, I had spent the majority of the last few years as a runaway, and I guess I embarrassed him a lot. I was across the country from my home state and I was depressed and homesick. He yelled at me a lot. He worked long hours, he was tired. I didn't know how to drive and every time he tried to teach me the lessons ended in him yelling and with me in tears. I wasn't good at keeping the home clean and organized, which was the cause of the majority of our fights.
I don't remember him hitting me while he was in the service. I remember feeling like crap. I remember him getting red and leaving, I remember I used to run off to hide on the roof of our house, but I don't have any memories of him hitting me while he was in.
That changed when he got out.
Soon after he got out he got an office job and I quickly found good, physically demanding, night shift work. I made far more money than him. I worked more hours than him, paid most of our bills, but was still somehow responsible for the shape of the house. He'd have friends over while I was trying to sleep. We lived next to a middle school with loud children. I don't feel like I slept a good nights rest the whole time I worked at that place. I was around 20, 21 years old.
I don't remember what our fights were about. I don't remember the details anymore. I remember the cops were called a lot. I remember I always had bruises everywhere which I credited to my work or to iron deficiency. I never thought it was because he was grabbing me. Now I'm not so sure. I remember in one fight he pushed me out of the house, and somehow later that day I had a gross bruise on my face, but I don't exactly remember him hitting my face.
I got pregnant around this time.
I bought a stuffed turtle for the baby, which I still have. I talked to the baby all the time. I pictured holding him constantly. I wasn't sure about keeping the baby but I loved the baby so much. I thought about whether to keep the baby all the time, I swayed back and forth. Maybe if I leave "Michael" I could keep the baby? Maybe if I follow through with my goal to join the military I could support the baby?
I wasn't sure why but I was sure I was going to die somehow during my pregnancy.
I was constantly sick. I was very tired. My body hurt all the time. I was nauseous constantly, and I remember once I was car sick and "Michael" swerved the car around some. He denies it. But I remember it hurting me very deeply.
So, the worst moment of my life: we got into a fight about these two dishes. I had washed them, but he didn't think they were clean enough and put them back in the sink. I refused to rewash them and they lingered in the sink for weeks, eventually I put them on top of the refrigerator and when I got sick of seeing them there I threw them away and that was the cause of the fight. I don't really remember the details. I don't remember how it escalated but I remember I ended up on the floor with "Michael" kicking and punching me and yelling at me. I remember his face was redder than I had ever seen it. I remember he spit on me and drool was coming out of his mouth. I don't remember how it ended but I remember how cold the kitchen floor felt on my face. I relive this a lot. I remember thinking he was going to kill me, and maybe he wasn't going to do it on purpose but he was going to lose control and he was going to kill me.
Sometimes, I get panic attacks and I can feel the kitchen floor on my face and I can just feel him right there hitting me.
After, I sat on the floor crying and I remember trying to convince him it was wrong what he did and him just not getting it. He eventually agreed, but I now feel like he was humoring me and never saw what happened as wrong.
That moment cemented my decision about the pregnancy.
For the remainder of the pregnancy I was sure he was going to kill me. I tried to tell myself it was silly but I thought about it all the time.
Somehow I still had hope for him. I thought maybe he had picked up some shitty behavior from the way we grew up and with therapy he would get better, but he wasn't exactly running to get some mental health help.
I decided to join the military myself. It had been my goal to join since I was in middle school. I had tried to join before. I had my ship date for bootcamp, but I let him convince me not to go. I didn't let him stop me this time, but I had a long wait time ahead of me. Sometime during this wait time he destroyed my apartment. He didn't touch me but he just destroyed things and I hid in a closet and when his rampage stopped I snuck out and moved into a friends house.
Suddenly, he found the time to get into counseling. He saw two therapists but I refused to go with him. I didn't want to hear him justify his behavior to me.
He came every night to my friends house and cried and begged me to come home. A few weeks later I did.
While I was in training he was the perfect spouse. He sent me letters every day, and if you've been in the military you know what a letter means to you in bootcamp.
When I finished all of my training and got to my first duty station he came with me, but he left the perfect spouse behind. It was back to me working 10-14 hour days, and paying the bills, and somehow being responsible for housekeeping. He didn't work at all. He eventually started going to school. He mostly focused on his community college classes and on his own projects. Sometimes he made money from his project but none of it ever went into our home. I don't remember the fight but he ruined one of our doors. After he hit me when I was pregnant he didn't hit me directly again. He just destroyed the house. And when I made it clear I would call the police myself if I ever had to deal with that again, he just became terrible to me.
Honestly, he was kinder to me when he was hitting me. I became suicidal. I constantly thought of the attack when I was pregnant, I thought I was terrible and worthless. When I did bad at work, and I was very new so I made plenty of mistakes. I internalized it. When I forget to feed the cats, or left a plate with food in the living room, I also internalized it and soon I was just sure I was the worst thing that ever happened to anybody anywhere. I was sure I was a burden on my work section. I was sure I was a burden on "Michael" and I just wanted it all to be over. I was very tired.
I couldn't stop thinking of dying.
He took me to the emergency room one day when I wouldn't move from a corner. I was hospitalized for three days. I wasn't entirely honest with my doctors. When I mentioned the abuse, if I mentioned it at all to any of my mental health professionals, I downplayed it.
But eventually I did start feeling better.
And months later, after our five-year anniversary, I got very, very drunk and told a good friend and fellow service member everything. I didn't downplay it. He told me it was messed up and "Michael" was a messed up dude and when I told him he hadn't hit me since, My friend said something that clicked in my brain. He told me "Just because he's not hitting you right now doesn't mean he's not abusive." When I told him about my flashbacks he told me something along the lines of "Service members don't live with or hang out with the Taliban after they get PTSD," Mostly he just said it was fucked up and "Michael" was fucked up, and nothing I said changed his mind. It was the first time somebody who knew the full story told me that. Some of my friends had seen him mess up my house, and none had ever told me he was wrong.
I left "Michael" a few weeks later when he returned from a trip. I couldn't look at him the same. He didn't give me a whole lot of trouble. We had a long wait time because of the state we were living in for divorce. I filed a few weeks ago, and by early March I should be done with him for good.
Recently, a family member told me she'd heard a rumor that I had cheated on him. He mentioned having some suspicion when I broke up with him because he felt it was sudden. He felt we had a great relationship and I suddenly just left. I didn't tell him about the conversation I had with my friend. I didn't want to talk about the abuse at all with him, so I just told him I didn't feel the same way about him and it was over. I couldn't trust him. I didn't feel like he loved me. He said he loved me and maybe he meant it but I couldn't feel any love coming from him. I just felt used at the end.
I don't remember the good times well. I don't know what he holds onto as good times. All of my memories of him are poisoned.
I'm very hurt that he spread rumors about me, especially after I worked so hard to be good to him. I didn't cheat on him. He suspects the friend I had the conversation with. He became a big source of support, so I was talking to him a lot and I crashed on his couch for a few days after the separation. I don't feel like I should have to defend my name to my family.
I feel like I want some apology, some acknowledgement. I protected him for so long he never faced repercussions for treating me badly, and even now after it's over I get my name dragged in the dirt and there's nothing I can do about it. He just gets to keep hurting me.
I don't know what to do. I don't want to think of him. I don't want to think of what happened. I don't want to have to tell a family member "I didn't cheat on my husband."
I'm so hurt. Every few months something makes me think of him and I go down the rabbit hole. I feel sick.
I don't have access to health care right now. I just left the military and I don't know how long it will be before I can see a VA doctor. I'm not in some terrible place- I'm not suicidal right now. But I don't know how to get over the impact he had on my life. I just don't know what to do. Any input would be really great.
I'm sorry if this is just word soup. I have a hard time making all of this make any sort of sense.
TL;DR: My soon-to-be-ex-husband was abusive and even now, some time after leaving him I'm still dealing with it. I recently heard a rumor was going around, that he started, that I cheated on him. It brought everything back to me again and I just don't know what to do. I'm just haunted by my ex. I think I want some acknowledgement or apology for everything but I don't really know what I want or what to do.
Submitted January 28, 2015 at 03:46AM by ExWifeThrowaway http://ift.tt/15GKdNA relationships
No comments:
Post a Comment