It’s Been A While

Actually, it’s been a very long while. I’ve posted a couple of meme’s here and there but other than that. Nothing. I considered just getting rid of this blog all together but I can’t bring myself to do it. It’s actually been a really big part of me moving forward in my life. It’s been the only place that I truly express what I’m thinking. No modifications, no omissions. Just everything. Actually, that is one of the reasons why I haven’t posted anything in such a long time.

Like I said, this is a place where I come to be completely honest. Given that, when I was completely honest with myself, I realised that it was also a place I came to complain. Complain about everything, but predominantly The Husband. I also realised that I was doing a lot of complaining but not really doing a whole lot in terms of trying to fix the things that I was complaining about.

After seeing The Psych for a while, she made me realise that I couldn’t just keep talking about all the things that bothered me and not doing anything about them. I looked at my role in my marriage, how my allowing The Husband to do the things he does was simply giving him permission to continue doing them. That is what I worked on. The Husband is quite adamant in his belief that I have done nothing to try and fix our relationship, that he’s the one doing all the work. I’ve tried explaining to him that the work I needed to do was on myself. Stopping myself from playing his games. When he’s sulking around the house, making me feel like I’ve done something wrong but won’t tell me what it is, I’ve stopped walking around on egg shells and sending myself crazy trying to work out what his problem is, all the while with him sitting there just watching me getting worked up. When I want to go somewhere, spend time with my daughter (Miss Independent) for instance, when he gets angry about it and starts throwing out reasons why I shouldn’t, don’t need to or can’t, I can now just say ‘Okay’ to his reasons and then tell him I’m going anyway. Without the guilt. Without caving him and having to tell my daughter that I can’t go with her because Dad doesn’t want me to. There are a dozen more little scenarios I could describe but I think you get the point. Do you have any idea how hard getting myself to do all that was/is? It is quite possibly the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life. I’ve lived this way for 20 years.  Having the ability to stand there, while he attempts to manipulate me or any given situation so that I will do or he will get what he wants and not caving in, actually standing up for myself, completely and totally, is the most amazing feeling. It sounds terribly, but I actually smile sometimes when he walks away after trying to manipulate me and it doesn’t work. When I watch him get so frustrated and angry because I won’t cave him. I smile to myself when he walk away.

A point came where I just knew we weren’t going to be able to fix things between us. I can’t look at him anymore without feeling overwhelming anger and resentment. I wanted to get on here and post about it, just let everything I was thinking and feeling out. I even sat down a few times and started writing it all out. Then I thought about why I hadn’t been posting and how I was just going to do the same thing I always do and that is sit down and write a big post complaining about The Husband and talking about all the things I want to do. Then I would hit ‘Publish’, get off the computer and continue along the same path I was currently on. So I deleted my half written posts and instead spent an inordinate amount of time getting the courage to tell The Husband that I didn’t believe we could fix our marriage and that I wanted him to move out.

It took me months to get it together. I was so frightened, you have no idea. He’d told the kids that if I ever left him that he would kill himself (he has a couple of guns and takes a large amount of valium, so it was a possibility), he’d told The Psych that the first thing he would do if I asked him to leave was smash my computer (he hates my computer, he thinks I spend too much time online), he’s told me in the past that he would take all the children from me (and once, when Miss Independent was only about 18 months old, he took her from me, waited until I got out of the car and just drove off with her), and on top of all that I just had this horrible feeling that he might hurt me. He’s never hurt me physically in the past but I just had this strange feeling that he might try and hurt me now. So, I spent a long time building up the courage to tell him and also trying to find a way to tell him where I would be safe at the same time. In end, I asked our Psych if I could tell him in her office. She agreed and so I did. I told him. I. Told. Him.

I can remember a few weeks after I told him he actually laughed at me, saying that I thought he was going to break my computer and completely loose it and how funny it was that we all thought that. I just stared at him incredulously, he was actually laughing. He thought it was funny that we were frightened of him, that I was frightened of him. Miss Independent was there at the time and she just looked at him and said, “Why wouldn’t we think that, you told us all that you would do something stupid.” He just smirked and walked away. He’s continued to do manipulative little things since I told him and each time he does it just confirms to me that I’ve made the right choice. As much as he continues to claim that he’s worked so hard in the last 18 months to change, he hasn’t really. Sure, I’ll be the first to admit that he’s made improvements in a number of different areas but, (there’s always a but) nothing he’s done is for the right reasons. I told him at the beginning, when we began seeing The Psych, that he needed to make the changes for himself first and foremost. He’s not done that. The only reason that he’s tried making any changes is so that I will stop doing what I’m doing. I’ll stop making things hard and just go back to the way that I was. He’s told me this.

Given that this is my blog and I can write what I want here, I probably will continue to complain here, that’s my right. Having said that though, I want this to be a place of action too you know. Where I can say that sure, I complained about something or other but then, when the time was right, I did something about it.