Unspooling

The day I knew my marriage was over was the day I received a barrage of text messages from my now ex-husband infuriated that I had secretly hired a cleaning lady.

I was sitting next to a colleague on a video meeting and she looked at my phone, after seeing my face crumple, and said “who talks to you like that?”.

I had to admit it was my husband.

I had done something he didn’t like and he got very, very angry.

I rushed out of the office without my customary goodbye to my team and started the 1.5 hour trip back home. Calling the house line repeatedly, he would not pick up or let me talk to my then 8 year old son for almost an hour.

When I returned home on that March evening there was no one there. The house was pitch black and the windows were all open (later, he said, to get rid of all the “toxic chemicals” the cleaning person had used). He would not answer the phone or tell me where he and my son were.

Finally they arrived 2 hours later having eaten at a restaurant and done some grocery shopping. He came in, put down the groceries, and walked back out. I put my son to bed and sobbed on the floor to my sister.

That night he slept on the couch and would only speak about the fact that I was a liar and hid things. And that I deserved to be treated that way.

It was the week of my grandfather’s funeral. I left that Thursday for Wisconsin where my cousins asked, after I gave a eulogy in front of 300+ people, why I was always alone at these gatherings. And I didn’t have an answer.

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Even after that, I still wouldn’t call it abuse.

I thought of it as “just his way”. That he’d had a hard childhood and took honesty very seriously. I “lied” to him and therefore I did deserve some sort of response.

I finally filed for divorce about 3 weeks later and moved into the guest room until the house was sold in early June. The first night I slept in my rented town house I actually slept through the night.

Within two weeks, I stopped waking up in the middle of the night with night terrors and panic attacks.

Within a month, I stopped grinding my teeth (after spending $4,000 fixing the four corners of my mouth that had broken by grinding).

Within 3 months, I stopped bleeding every time I used the bathroom.

And within 6 months, I felt bits of myself returning and I stopped trying to make the house perfect before bed.

By March of the next year, my doctor took me off of some of my medications because even my blood work had improved.

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But I still refused to call it abuse.

We would hobble along with shared custody for a bit, perhaps 6 months at a time, and eventually I would do something he didn’t like.

Buy the car I’d always wanted.

Start dating.

Buy a house.

Go on a cruise.

And he would find some consequence. Some way to punish me through some odd interpretation in our son’s custody arrangement. Or via a tirade email about how impossible I was to communicate with. Or refusing to look at me or say hello at a school event.

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And I still wouldn’t call it abuse.

Telling my family, friends and fiancé stories, really telling them the whole truth, helped me see unhealthy patterns and break them apart. My therapist asked hard questions. And my excuses for my ex-husband’s behavior toward me started to evaporate.

Had I been perfect – nope.

Had I done things wrong – absolutely.

Did I deserve to be treated the way he treated me, and whenever possible continues to do so?

No. Not even a little bit.

A few months ago I slowly worked myself through the book, “Was it Even Abuse?” and it finally fully broke open the box of excuses I had been valiantly holding on to for years. It was very hard to read and I had to stop and start at least 10 times. But I read it. And I cried (a lot). And I allowed myself to fully admit that what I had experienced had been abuse.

Today I define abuse accordingly… when someone who knowingly and deliberately does things to hurt you and is aware that they are causing you pain they are abusing you. When your voice, needs, desires and feelings are not valued by someone who claims to love you, they are abusing you.

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This past weekend I was sharing with a friend some of the work I’ve done to cut the spiritual chords I had with my ex-husband and I felt like I was doing a pretty good job. Within an HOUR I had a text from him asking for something I was not comfortable with. (The universe is funny.)

My no was not good enough.

My questions were dismissed.

My fiancé read the back and forth and said, “enough”. And for the first time, I agreed.

Enough of him trying to control and manipulate me whenever he is upset.

He is threatening to take me to court. I am fearful about what he might do if I see him in person. But, my people are holding me tight. And I’m holding myself with gentleness and acknowledging my bravery.

My ex-husband’s decisions and reactions are completely up to him, but I no longer have to play the meek, good girl living in fear.

The unraveling is going to continue to take time. I am going to have to keep working on it. Part of that is being honest with my story. Standing up for myself is a practice I struggle with mightily. But just like anything else, the more I practice, the easier it becomes.