okay, this is hard. but there is no way for you to run into me on the streets, so here goes.
i was never the big femme fatale, sort of really was scared to death of guys...i was a severely abused child....both my parents were abusive, my father physically (he was a cop, need I say more? the man had a gun and I knew he would use it), my mother was completely unhinged if not insane, violent physically, abusive physically, emotionally, it is not a stretch to say this woman was an expert at all forms of torture.
soooooo, i always had 20 extra pounds on my body so i didn't have to deal with guys/men as a sexual entity. i had lots of guy friends, but never was really attracted to anyone until i met my husband. and i really only married so i didn't have to return back home to that house after graduation...back then, in the middle ages.... if you were a nice girl, you certainly would never LIVE with anyone and as the product of a severely catholic home, no way would i be allowed to live on my own. Nice girls were monitored and stay home where they would be safe.
I met my husband my sophmore year, and hello? everyone drank in college, even i was known to have a few and i rarely drink, especially to excess...who knew he was an alcoholic? again, gotta remember the times, there was no such disease called alcoholism...alcoholics were skid row bums living on the sidewalk under newspapers and cardboard, not nice white boys at a very good college. I graduated. He did not. Got kicked out by our senior year for never attending classes, he was drunk full time, but amazingly was a star athlete too. I thought it was over, devastated I returned the ring, was into my student teaching gig, then he shows up in the middle of a blizzard on a Harley in February of my senior year, we decided we couldn't live without eachother and were married right after I graduated because he promised his wild days were over and he wanted to achieve something. He was enrolled in college up in Connecticut and that's where I lived for the next 30 years of my life.
From day one it was a nightmare, same scenario, never came home, rarely went to classes almost from the get go.... got my first beating from him six weeks into the marriage....phoned home in the pouring rain, black and blue, bleeding, sobbing hysterically , my mother answered and said was, "you made your bed now lie in it and besides, what would the relatives and neighbors think if you came home after we spent all that money on that wedding?" it WAS a gorgeous wedding, the kind most only children would get from guilt ridden parents who knew they dropped the ball on you most of your life.
So, there I was, little miss Catholic Princess, two states over having to cope with this insanity called drug and alcohol abuse. At first it was just grass and booze, heck, second year of marriage I figured if I couldn't fight it, I'd join in.... yeah, did the water bong thing, went out every night at the same all you could eat/drink restaurant with his friends..... then after a few years of that, and the violence escalating, I decided to get pregnant, that would settle him down and maybe the beating would stop.
HUH? What was I thinking? Got a killer beating in my 8th month, (in fact, two weeks later just at the start of my ninth month, I went into premature labor) I just knew I didn't want the shame of being the only ever divorced woman in my family (as my parents kept reminding me), knew i'd never have another guy as gorgeous as him look at me, i had no self esteem, i totally was just wrapped up trying to sober this guy up and have my fairy tale marriage... after awhile, he segued into using lots of cocaine, because cocaine cleared him out and he could then drink another case, another fifth....and hence why i often had to work 3 or four part times job to pay the bills and yet still be around for my kids.
So, I spent the next three years giving birth to two kids, cause the first kid didn't sober him up, make him responsible and the second kid didn't make him stay home either, i got my father to foot the bill for the downpayment on a house that would now supposedly keep him at home with kids, a yard to mow and a house to care for, yeah right..... kept getting beaten on regularly...cops never did a thing... and let's not forget, not one social service agency I went to or counsellor or therapist ever mentioned alcoholism, honestly...there was no focus on it as a disease, not one professional i went to for help put two and two together.... i forget which horrific beating was the catalyst for trying to get a divorce when the kids were around 4 and 3, I think it was the one where he smashed a fan over my head while I was holding my littlest one, I realized finally my children were at jeopardy....hired woman lawyer I thought would protect me and fight for me.... HAH... what a fiasco... she was as money grubbing as any man lawyer, I NEVER received one penny of child support, not one penny, and I had tiny children I was trying to support, going back to school (now brain dead, really, I think some of the more severe beatings did a number on my brain, I thought teaching was out of the question, so took secretarial courses) working a full time job too....and day care was really not in existence back then, there was one day care center. one in the area.... i interviewed about a hundred people trying to find the loving, safe home for them that wouldn't charge me an arm and leg for two toddlers.... thought I did find that home, at least the woman professed to be this big christian church going woman (who it turns out had been fired from her church for embezzling funds i find out later) i'm stressed, i'm exhausted, i'm run down, i'm overloaded, he's now in treatment again (for the third time I think at this point, up at a drying out farm in New Hampshire), I do a surprise visit at the day care provider's home like they say you should....and found my kids, on a day when it was 101 degrees in the shade, locked in a tiny room that had no furniture, nothing in it, while the rest of the kids this woman cared for were out in the back yard under the sprinkler. Aghast, shocked, dismayed, hysterical, I asked why? why? why? as I gathered up my groggy, probably dehydrated kids and she says, "You don't pay me enough to watch em properly".... three days later I wake up one big HIVE, I wake up and can't open my eyes, I was so stressed I turned into a huge Hive, swollen, can't see, this is how much the stress was affecting me..... by now I was in alanon, a support group for people who have to deal with alcoholics...and leaving a meeting one night, there is this note from my husband on my car windshield, begging my forgiveness, he's now in AA and doing well, please let me come home.
I was so exhausted and tired I said yes..... and lived on the merrygoround of him going in and out of treatment facilities for the next 11 years.... and taking beatings all the while...until I came down with cancer. And do not tell me stress isn't a major cause of cancer. it is. it totally is. And something just snapped inside of me, I filed for divorce practically from my bed in the hospital, got me a pro-se divorce kit in the mail and divorced that AH..... never got a dime, heck, I HAD to make a financial settlement on HIM, take out a second mortgage on my house to give him $25,000 for his "life long contributions to the marriage"....HAH.... seriously, in a no-fault divorce state this will happen, and let's not forget, I'm destitute and doing this divorce myself cause am I going to trust another attorney, hell no!
So I divorce him, but keep getting recurring cancer, and keep taking him back because I often couldn't work, had no means of support while on chemo or recovering from major surgeries.... took him back 9 times in 7 years and then he leaves for the 10th time, and again, what cracks or snaps or breaks your back? I dunno, something just did crack inside of me, I changed the locks on the door at 8 am the next morning...going out to work at 10 am, there he is, back in the driveway, shocked I would lock him out, and please take me back....I dunno, I just became this robot for the next year, refusing to talk to him at all, returning all his letters begging, telling the kids to stay out of it, they constantly plead his case. I became emotionally dead, refused to think about him at all.... my pride was irrevocably destroyed and this was the only way i could look at myself in the mirror..stick to my guns and not be taken in anymore by this man, who by the way had stopped the physical beatings as he had stopped drinking at this point...but was a dry drunk, (turns out real men do not need AA, a real man doesn't need help and he never got any support or therapy for all the issues that go along with his drug and alcohol problems) an angry still stinking thinking emotionally abusive unhappy man who now took out all his losses and unhappiness on me, just like my mother did. yep. just like my mother. always berating me, going for my weak spots, hurting me verbally like my mother, tearing me to shreds with these tirades and outbursts that eviscerated my soul. When my father died at 9/ll, i escaped back home to where I grew up, i dunno, you just feel safer at home I guess, and had to get away from the constant pressure and whining of my ex.
Soooooooo, does that answer it for you???? Can you understand just what it was about this man that didn't satisfy me? That stole my entire life away from me? Oh sure, I let him, no mistake about it. But some of it was ignorance, didn't know until 8 years and two children into this marriage that he was an alcoholic...and really? so emotionally damaged a person that I would accept anything, any form of torture or abuse from another human being just so long as I didn't have to be alone again, all my identity as a woman, as being a real woman, a viable worthwhile human being was thru being married, SEE WORLD???? SOMEONE THINKS I AM WORTH SOMETHING. HE MADE ME HIS WIFE.
NO LIE....that is exactly it. I became real the day someone loved me, offered love to me, no matter how many beatings I took, oh how he loved me and was so sorry he beat on me, and he treated me so wonderfully afterwards, see? He really did love me. He never meant to shatter my ear drums and break my nose, fracture four ribs, kick me in my stomach when I was 8 months pregnant, he never would have fractured my mandible, or my orbital socket or bounce a fan over my head while holding my child, crack drawers over my head, break chairs over my head, strangle me until I passed out unconscious, pummeling me black and blue I had blood in both my eyes and so swollen, couldn't leave my house sometimes for a month until the swellings from the fractures and the bruises went down to a sickly yellow that finally makeup could conceal.
Yes EVERYONE OUT THERE READING THIS, this is what could happen to you if you persist in only seeing your worth in relation to another human being finding you attractive. I know all of you are lonely and all of you are desperate to find love....but I am here to declare from the rooftops that LOVE never HURTS. It just doesn't, You do not deliberately try to hurt anyone you love and if you do, then you do not love, you do not know how to love. period. end of story.
I finally seem to have conquered the cancer, last bout was back in 2003 and so far, I'm cancer free...but it has been a long haul and I am lonelier than hell, and in my worse and most vulnerable moments I do wish I had someone, anyone, even HIM back in my life, anything anything anything is not as bad as this fear, this debilitating terror that I will be alone forever, destitute and alone...... and then I somehow get a grip and realize I cannot go back to a person who treated me like I was the lowest of the lowly.
So..... no matter how sad and lonely you are, do not accept just anyone, just anyone who is a warm body to stave off your feelings of insecurity and low self esteem. YOU have to work on yourself every single day of your life...if you are age 16 or age 18 or in your twenties and just so so so needy for love in your life, like it will make things all better for you, wake up. NO IT Won't!!! You must love yourself and believe in yourself and your self worth...no one can give you your self worth, only you can. Please do whatever you have to do to come to grips with why you are here, feeling so down on yourself, feeling like you are the biggest the loser, I mean, how sad are we to be here? Lonely Losers? LOSERS???????? This is how WE see ourselves, believe in our souls we are....lost and incapable of winning anything of value in life, especially love.
Only we can change this. WE CANNOT keep giving in, whining about no one loving us....blaming mom and dad and the rest of world for hurting us. Don't take it anymore. DO SOMETHING, Anything, be proactive, get away from anyone who hurts you and makes you feel this way. Do not say you are financially dependent on mom or dad or your husband and that's the reason you have to stay.... there are agencies in place today that will protect you. Back then, there were no domestic violence shelters for women like me.... well, actually there was one, over two hours from my house, with a waiting list five miles long, but there was no place at all for me to go and get the counselling and support I needed. That is not true Today, even teenagers and college kids can get support systems in place, YOU have to do some work and it is hard and you have to be brave, but DO IT!!! DO NOT GIVE OTHERS POWER Over you...you become your best friend, you become your own mother, your own father, nurture and care for yourself. Seriously.
QUICK EDIT: THE NAME OF THIS SITE, WHILE ACCURATE, for it is how we feel, IS FEEDING INTO OUR PROBLEM, reinforcing our self image. Maybe LOUSY LIVERS is more accurate.... they should really qualify it, call it Lonely Losers, and underneath it say " For those who can't find a happy life" ..... and maybe a better blurb that explains to especially the younger people here that we never grow up, not really, growing up, learning to cope, change, find ourselves, is a life long project and things like love, success, marriage and careers do not necessarily fall into the acceptable time tables of society or our families. No ONE IS A LOSER.... rather, most of us have emotional issues that have kept us from seeing our true potential, worth and value..... it's never too late and even if you are 60 years old, like me, you are never too old to keep trying to make your dreams of happiness come true.
jjam said:
deirdre said:
i never had a boyfriend until i met my husband and why did he become my husband?????
Probably because I was totally freaked that I would never find another human being who would want to date me...figured I better hold onto this one and not let him go. really. that had a lot to do with staying with this man.
so watch out for desperation, fear and the I-just-can't-go-thru-being-alone-again syndrome
Is your husband good to you? What is it (if anything) about him that dissatisfies you?
