Not very long ago, I received a facebook message from the man who is now my ex-husband. It contained a link. A link to a blog post written by a man named Matt Forney. It was titled “5 Reasons Why Girls with Tattoos and Piercings are Broken.”
Like an idiot I clicked on the link, and spent the next several minutes reading a vicious, cruel, abusive attack on such women. Of which I am one. I have a tattoo. I once had my belly button pierced.
I finished reading. I cried at my desk for a good little bit. I read the article again. Hoping that I had misread the intent. Maybe it was tongue in cheek and although offensive was actually meant to be funny. Nope. 2nd time. Same effect.
He was sober. This wasn’t the alcoholic talking. Completely abstinent from alcohol after completing a month long stay in rehab. Still the same man who never hesitated to bring me to my knees with a cutting word or criticism, or when angered an attack in the places I was weakest. I wasn’t a good mother. I was just like my mother. I was the reason he drank. I was the reason we struggled financially. He would have done things differently and Izzy would still be alive. I made the house messy. He could do so many things differently if I wasn’t dragging him down. His family hated me and that’s why they didn’t come around. I was thoughtless. I was careless. I didn’t keep the children safe. Me me me. It was always me. It’s ironic that, in assigning so much power to me, he actually rendered me completely incapable of having any power at all.
Before he went to rehab, I was thinking about escape. I felt physically stooped under the stress. He was hacking into my email and facebook accounts, checking my bank account daily to track my spending. If I went to Wal-Mart on a Friday morning, within 10 minutes of checkout, he would text me and ask me what I bought. I was angry with the kids. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t live anymore. And then he went to rehab.
I had 30 days of freedom. The kids had 30 days of freedom. I couldn’t recall a time in my adult life when I felt more calm. I paid the bills and didn’t have to explain why I paid them. No one messaged me questioning why I wore black underwear that day. I didn’t have to have change all of my passwords and codes at the end of each day because he’d been watching the movement of my fingers to hack into them while I slept. I got a full night’s sleep. Several actually. And in the defining event of the summer of 2014, the kids were less stressed too. We felt like a family. We weren’t tiptoeing around the house, wary of upsetting or angering the one member who spent the least amount of time with us, but had the biggest effect on every single aspect of our day.
I told him during his last week in rehab, that I couldn’t go back to pretending to have a marriage with him, in the way that he expected. That I didn’t think that anywhere deep down, that I had any feelings for him that would return. That I didn’t think we had anything left to rebuild on. I cried. I sobbed. I don’t think he believed me.
I think he viewed rehab and sobriety as a magic reset. He’d been functioning with a .40 blood alcohol content for a decade and had no idea what I’d been through. How I felt. When I pawned jewelry to buy groceries, he still used that money to buy beer. He never was the one asking family members for help to keep the lights on and keep things normal for the kids. He never suffered. And that was my fault. I was adept at keeping his ship steady thinking that if I could steady his ship, it would make things steadier for all of us. I was horribly, catastrophically wrong. I know that now.
So he came home. The rehab hero. Publicly lauded for his brave choice to get help and get sober. I was, still am, very proud of him for getting help, for getting sober, for staying sober. I can’t imagine how hard that is, how it feels to deal with the temptation every day. I can’t. But no matter how hard I tried, I didn’t feel anything. I wanted to be his friend. I told him I thought we should try just being friends, and see if we could even rebuild that. It only took about a month before we were back where we’d been before rehab. Tracking my phone, tracking me via my bank account, I even started carrying cash so that charges wouldn’t show up for him to see. I once changed my bank password so he couldn’t log in. He withdrew all the money from the account and refused to give it back to cover the household bills until I acquiesced and gave him the password. One night was so horrible that I took all 3 kids to a friend’s house so they didn’t have to hear the fighting. He messaged me that he was just going to throw in the towel and get drunk. Actually went and bought a 6 pack of beer at the drugstore. He told me often that I was the only reason he ever felt like drinking.
And then he sent me that link. I started seriously gathering and lining up ducks. I knew I couldn’t stay. If I did, he would drink again. I was losing my mind. I could no longer recognize myself at all. I trusted no one. I thought the worst of everyone. I assumed that every question I was asked was a trap. I felt worthless and stupid and selfish and horrible. I sat at my desk that day and I realized that not only did he think all of those horrible things about me that were in that post, that he had convinced me that that was the truth. I THOUGHT THOSE THINGS ABOUT MYSELF.
We told the kids we were getting divorced on August 5th. He insisted on that date because it was our wedding anniversary. I went along because I was too numb to argue anymore. I’m sure it was intended to be a passive attack of some kind, but I was too numb to care any more. I moved out of the house Labor day weekend. Our divorce was filed and final on October 2nd.
Every day requires conscious effort on my part to keep all of the self doubt and loathing that I acquired during my marriage in check. Most days I feel unworthy of love, or respect or even basic common courtesy. I remained convinced that perhaps my ex-husband knows me the best and knows that I am unworthy. That I’m just really good at pretending to be worthy and as soon as people figure that out, they’ll stop talking to me. I have been assured that that is not the case. And I try very very hard to not hear his voice in my head, and I try very very hard to embrace the logical facts that I know to be true. It is an every day process, and it is hard. But I can’t quit, because when I can go about my day and I forget about his “truths” then I feel unencumbered and happy. And so I persist.
Like an idiot I clicked on the link, and spent the next several minutes reading a vicious, cruel, abusive attack on such women. Of which I am one. I have a tattoo. I once had my belly button pierced.
I finished reading. I cried at my desk for a good little bit. I read the article again. Hoping that I had misread the intent. Maybe it was tongue in cheek and although offensive was actually meant to be funny. Nope. 2nd time. Same effect.
He was sober. This wasn’t the alcoholic talking. Completely abstinent from alcohol after completing a month long stay in rehab. Still the same man who never hesitated to bring me to my knees with a cutting word or criticism, or when angered an attack in the places I was weakest. I wasn’t a good mother. I was just like my mother. I was the reason he drank. I was the reason we struggled financially. He would have done things differently and Izzy would still be alive. I made the house messy. He could do so many things differently if I wasn’t dragging him down. His family hated me and that’s why they didn’t come around. I was thoughtless. I was careless. I didn’t keep the children safe. Me me me. It was always me. It’s ironic that, in assigning so much power to me, he actually rendered me completely incapable of having any power at all.
Before he went to rehab, I was thinking about escape. I felt physically stooped under the stress. He was hacking into my email and facebook accounts, checking my bank account daily to track my spending. If I went to Wal-Mart on a Friday morning, within 10 minutes of checkout, he would text me and ask me what I bought. I was angry with the kids. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t live anymore. And then he went to rehab.
I had 30 days of freedom. The kids had 30 days of freedom. I couldn’t recall a time in my adult life when I felt more calm. I paid the bills and didn’t have to explain why I paid them. No one messaged me questioning why I wore black underwear that day. I didn’t have to have change all of my passwords and codes at the end of each day because he’d been watching the movement of my fingers to hack into them while I slept. I got a full night’s sleep. Several actually. And in the defining event of the summer of 2014, the kids were less stressed too. We felt like a family. We weren’t tiptoeing around the house, wary of upsetting or angering the one member who spent the least amount of time with us, but had the biggest effect on every single aspect of our day.
I told him during his last week in rehab, that I couldn’t go back to pretending to have a marriage with him, in the way that he expected. That I didn’t think that anywhere deep down, that I had any feelings for him that would return. That I didn’t think we had anything left to rebuild on. I cried. I sobbed. I don’t think he believed me.
I think he viewed rehab and sobriety as a magic reset. He’d been functioning with a .40 blood alcohol content for a decade and had no idea what I’d been through. How I felt. When I pawned jewelry to buy groceries, he still used that money to buy beer. He never was the one asking family members for help to keep the lights on and keep things normal for the kids. He never suffered. And that was my fault. I was adept at keeping his ship steady thinking that if I could steady his ship, it would make things steadier for all of us. I was horribly, catastrophically wrong. I know that now.
So he came home. The rehab hero. Publicly lauded for his brave choice to get help and get sober. I was, still am, very proud of him for getting help, for getting sober, for staying sober. I can’t imagine how hard that is, how it feels to deal with the temptation every day. I can’t. But no matter how hard I tried, I didn’t feel anything. I wanted to be his friend. I told him I thought we should try just being friends, and see if we could even rebuild that. It only took about a month before we were back where we’d been before rehab. Tracking my phone, tracking me via my bank account, I even started carrying cash so that charges wouldn’t show up for him to see. I once changed my bank password so he couldn’t log in. He withdrew all the money from the account and refused to give it back to cover the household bills until I acquiesced and gave him the password. One night was so horrible that I took all 3 kids to a friend’s house so they didn’t have to hear the fighting. He messaged me that he was just going to throw in the towel and get drunk. Actually went and bought a 6 pack of beer at the drugstore. He told me often that I was the only reason he ever felt like drinking.
And then he sent me that link. I started seriously gathering and lining up ducks. I knew I couldn’t stay. If I did, he would drink again. I was losing my mind. I could no longer recognize myself at all. I trusted no one. I thought the worst of everyone. I assumed that every question I was asked was a trap. I felt worthless and stupid and selfish and horrible. I sat at my desk that day and I realized that not only did he think all of those horrible things about me that were in that post, that he had convinced me that that was the truth. I THOUGHT THOSE THINGS ABOUT MYSELF.
We told the kids we were getting divorced on August 5th. He insisted on that date because it was our wedding anniversary. I went along because I was too numb to argue anymore. I’m sure it was intended to be a passive attack of some kind, but I was too numb to care any more. I moved out of the house Labor day weekend. Our divorce was filed and final on October 2nd.
Every day requires conscious effort on my part to keep all of the self doubt and loathing that I acquired during my marriage in check. Most days I feel unworthy of love, or respect or even basic common courtesy. I remained convinced that perhaps my ex-husband knows me the best and knows that I am unworthy. That I’m just really good at pretending to be worthy and as soon as people figure that out, they’ll stop talking to me. I have been assured that that is not the case. And I try very very hard to not hear his voice in my head, and I try very very hard to embrace the logical facts that I know to be true. It is an every day process, and it is hard. But I can’t quit, because when I can go about my day and I forget about his “truths” then I feel unencumbered and happy. And so I persist.
I'm so proud of you for putting this out there. Love you.
ReplyDeleteNo one but you knows how WORTHY you are. You are you and I am very proud of the young, strong beuatiful loving mother, friend and daughter you are! NEVER let anyone make their opinion your thought for more than a second.
ReplyDeleteI so needed this. Relationships can be so challenging and the aftermath can just be so explosive. I was married to an alcoholic and so I know the fear and frustration and stress that comes along with it. For a long time I felt guilty for leaving them because I felt like it was my responsibility to help them out.
ReplyDeleteJeffery @ New Dawn Treatment Centers
Thank you for sharing this. You may have no idea, but this itself shows and demonstrates your strength, belief in yourself, the heart you have to help others, and your own worth. Reading this assures me, you will come to see it in time, if you truly do not yet realize it.
ReplyDelete