Denial...

Is it just me or is this a common thing to do with abuses? Trying to pretend it's not happening or that it is but it was an isolated incident. Well when it happens for the hundredth time at what point do I stop facing this? So many times I've begun a blog piece on my other blog and then found it either unbelievable to me or just sounding whiny. I'm not sure why because I am far from being a whiner nor do I lie. Let me rephrase...I cover up which could be construed as lying so that part's wrong already.

I think my biggest problem lies with talking about my husband. To begin with he is so well liked by everyone. He is funny and gets along well with workmates and bosses at work. No one would believe what I put here if they read it and I'm certainly aware of that. It is why I've gone this long - I believe is is the reason I'm reticent to write. Just knowing this is inhibiting to me.
 
Last night I took a big step. It could be the end of my marriage…probably is. Or if he's angry enough, it might be the end of my life. At one time I would have said that was completely impossible. Now, I'm not at all sure. He becomes more & more like OJ Simpson every day.
People love him! Like OJ, he comes off as a funny, friendly guy who would do anything for anyone, including me. 

And having said that, I cannot deny that he's been a very good provider. It may not be for the right reasons (more on that later) but so far, and for a lot of years I have had a beautiful home and most of my material creature comforts taken care of. I think he likes to do this because he likes the feedback he gets from others when he does it. People remarking 'what a lucky, lucky woman she is to have such a stellar guy as he is!' And how caring and loving he is to shower me with beautiful things - his image with friends and workmates would be terribly tarnished if he didn't. I have no way of knowing if this is true or not because I cannot get into his head, but I know he's constantly telling me how people feel about him and how admired and well liked he is. He knows by the impassive expression that I am afraid to say a word at these times. But let me move on…or move back a little to fill in the gaps on how I got to last night. I finally risked confronting him about being an abuser and told him I would not avoid telling people any longer. He looked at me like I was insane. He despises me and has said that more times than I care to even think about yet I know if I were to tell anyone...even hint that things weren't perfect, he'd go into his 'I love this woman more than life itself' speil.

Long before the physical abuse started there was other abuses - ones I myself didn't understand were abuses. I was just accustomed to him wanting to be totally in control of everything and that included me. I didn't understand that withholding money and controlling my life is a form of abuse. It is emotional abuse and in many ways more damaging than physical wounds which can be healed by a physician. I have tried to explain this to him for so long…I have asked him to see a therapist. I have sent him therapist and psychologists write-ups on the subject.

I have sent him articles written by psychiatrists, explaining what exactly constitutes abuse. Some have had questionnaires to do (if honest) to find out if you are in any way abusive. Not only does he fail on a lot of the questions - he almost fails them all. Yet when I asked him what that might say about him, he at first said the questionnaire was bogus, then admitted he was in fact abusive and knew it but had lots of reasons to be and didn't intend to do anything about it.

And now, whereas before it was just verbal and emotional abuse, in the last year or two, the physical abuse has started, compounding my problems. 

He doesn't see himself in any of this! It is all my doing! I cause him to be the way he is.

Interestingly enough, one of the questions in the questionnaire touched on that, saying the abuser will always blame his victim for the way he is. How many times have I heard the angry words "Don't get me started, you antagonistic bitch?" Simply by asking a question like which channel a game is on or had he thought about what he'd like for dinner. 

Or I don't know how many times I've been accused of getting him wired when I mention a piece of news I think he'd be interested in. It doesn't take much. In fact sometimes saying nothing will get him going because then I'm accused of not talking to him.

For the most part I am alone in this. I have one brother who when I approached him on this, said he didn't want to be involved. He reminded me that I was made of tough stuff and I could handle whatever anyone threw at me. Nice compliment but untrue. And my friends are scattered about the country because as I've moved around I make friends but then have to leave them behind. The internet is a wonderful thing and I can talk with them everyday. They are very loving in providing support but it's damn hard to provoke a loving hug and just being able to touch one another. Our closer friends are his friends too, and they would never believe any of this about him. Even our GP is one of his biggest fans, feeling I'm in very good hands - little does he know those hands have broken fingers, sprained elbows and an assortment of other small injuries. Not mentioning the constant, and when I say constant I mean daily, sometimes hourly verbal abuse I get.

Acknowledgements...

It seems sad that the more he inches to what things really are like, how his actions can completely impact both of us, the worse he actually gets. I was mistaken in thinking that to let go of the denial would be like a cleansing of sorts for him - a move in the right direction that would perhaps have him as anxious to get help as I am for him to get it. We both need him to get help, not just him. However, he has once again moved into that zone of silent treatment followed by nastiness. Which is almost all the time now with no good behavior breaks.
I know I have a lot to worry about personally, but I worry about my cats too. They are really the only 'children' I have now and I love them as such. They don't understand what happens most times and have gone from loving, calm pets to at times, cowering fearful ones when he is like this. They run to me in another room, and paw and meow at me to make it stop...if only I could!

I went looking for the Flip video recordings that I have of his 'outbreaks' only to find many of them have been deleted. There are only three now and all from the same month so this might explain how they got missed in a delete. I'm not sure if this was done by accident or whether he found them and deleted them, but they are gone. The recordings have no video really...I ran the Flip only from a safe place in the house and caught just the audio of his tirades. It is hard for someone else to imagine I suppose, but these three short audios are Greg hanging a curtain, dropping soap and not able to find a receipt. But in truth, it wouldn't matter what he was doing when he feels he needs to do this - washing his hands, getting a drink of milk, or just sitting watching TV. Many times when he's watching TV I have to get up and leave the room because I can't take the hatred and screaming. Sometimes about politics, or just as often during a hockey game but as I've already said, it could be a cartoon or a commercial - when he needs to, he just goes off for any reason. Somehow, something pushes his ON button and away he goes!

I've never inserted a video/audio from my own personal library before so I hope I get this right.
The first is when I was in the den and he was hanging a curtain in the morning room. That is two plus rooms away but I still got this where I was sitting. He had placed the rod on the sofa behind him but then couldn't find it behind him.

The next one is done with me sitting downstairs and him upstairs in the bedroom.

To preface this, he is terrible for emptying his pockets into drawers and he panics and gets extremely angry then when he can't find a needed receipt for a return or to check a date of purchase. It's made harder by the fact that he keeps every cash tape and bill of purchase from as long as 10 years back and has to go through it all. I'm no doctor but I think this is obsessive/compulsive behavior which both he and his mother exhibited. At any rate it's another quirk I have had to live with and at times even found amusing...until it impacts me. I have had to move things in order to get his clothing into drawers and he will go ballistic about that - about me touching "his things" at which time I get verbally and emotionally abused about that as well. Trying to clean and keep closets tidy and not looking like a reality show on TV are a real trick!

So at Xmas time and birthdays, I give him nice storage boxes or decorative tins etc for him to keep his hoardings in. But they sit empty, shoved on a shelf somewhere while he continues to dump in drawers and the closet floor.

This next video/audio is done when he couldn't find something. This isn't rare - in fact very common. As I listen now, I realize I hear this at least once a day and sometimes a dozen times on days when he's at home all day.
This time it was a receipt he needed to return a cd. I made a few attempts to upload it and for some reason even though it's identical to the one above, I continued to get error messages while uploading. So I uploaded to my You Tube account and listed it as private but you may use this link to access the video. I'm sorry for any inconvenience here. Just click on The Receipt.

 This last is a short little blurb which got cut short because he was coming downstairs and it was worth my life to be caught doing what I was doing. The dropped soap...

Erosion of a mind...

Sunday April 15, 2012

My husband confronted me again tonight. Being confronted by him isn't new and isn't the issue but the subject matter was. And this was one of the most frightening things to date. 

Though he was there when my stroke occurred and though he'd been through the weeks that followed in hospital and the months that stretched into years of rehabilitation for me, he informs me tonight that he had read my entry in my blog Back To The Egg and that everything I said when writing about my brain event were lies. That I wasn't hospitalized for 7 weeks, that I wasn't paralyzed. And his argument was "You fucking lied about everything! You weren't paralyzed at all. You just had paralysis." This sent a giant chill down my spine as I realized the ramifications of what he was saying. Or better, how much of a grasp he'd really lost on reality.

When I had my stroke, May 29, 2001, (which by the way he didn't recall either) I was so extremely lucky to have all the planets lining up for me - doctors not just living next door but both of them outside in their front yards at the same time as I was outside and they saw me fall. Lucky that I wasn't home alone or wasn't just with Greg who would have thought I'd only fainted and likely carried me inside and laid me on the couch and left again. 

I was lucky to have a hospital just a mile away and some of the best health care insurance in the country. I was lucky to be made a patient of one of the best neurosurgeons in the nation too, Dr. Howard Yonas, who just happened to be on duty when  I arrived downtown at UPMC.

This man, this wonderful doctor was intrigued with my case from the very beginning. I had experienced a major Hemorrhagic stroke - a bleed which was covering the back third of my brain. I have brain scans on cd of the aftermath of this bleed as it shrank, but even after a year the hole was still the size of a quarter.

And...Greg knows all this. Or at least knew it. Not now apparently. Whether by selective memory or real deterioration of his faculties, all this has gone from his head. And truthfully, the obvious erosion of this man's mind is now beginning to really frighten me.  He knew the bleed was major because the doctor told him this with me sitting right there in the office. Dr. Yonas told Greg (with me sitting there) that he was amazed and thrilled at the recovery I was making and that he was discussing my progress with colleagues at seminars etc. He was even reticent to sign me off to another doctors care because to do so meant he wouldn't have me as a 'case' to discuss any longer. 

I guess what I'm saying here is that Greg was through all of this…the immediate crisis, the trauma of paralysis, the rehab and therapy and the discussions with Dr. Yonas, Drs Wright the second neurologist, Dr. Henderson my lead physiotherapist, the clinic rehab therapists, the nearly a year of first round therapies and homework...yet he "remembers" none of this. The world according to Greg is that I wasn't paralyzed, I didn't lose large chunks of consciousness or memory. I didn't have to relearn to walk or sit without falling over…he was there for the celebration the first time I was able to go longer than 30 seconds on a tread mill at a half mile an hour. He was there when I was able to walk from the front of a Target store to the back without seeking a place to sit.

He sat with my therapist and discussed botox injections in my foot and ankle to unlock tone because without any feeling or ability to move my ankle, I needed to unlock it. He went through the electroconvulsive therapy to my left arm, shoulder and leg, trying to 'wake them up'. He knew of the biofeedback sessions and sat in and helped with my first baby steps on the tread mill and bike as I began my journey back to walking. And he sat in with a few speech therapies and cognizance sessions as I learned to use my battered brain again.

But now all this is lying! I wasn't affected by any of this. I didn't go through any of this. It's as if a giant eraser went whipping through his head erasing all the stuff he doesn't want to remember. The only things he wants to remember are things that happened to him. He lost a job! People he trusted crossed him. His life is a miserable piece of shit because he gets fired. Or gets cured of cancer. Can't count that though…that's a good thing and good things never happen to Greg!

No, he gets a splinter and the whole evening's ruined. He spills a few drips of milk on his knee and there goes the whole fucking weekend. He spends the next hour screaming about what a pile of shit his life is and how everything happens to him all the time. His life is so hard…he wants to die. He prays to die. 

And he's loving every minute of this apparently because he makes no effort to change a thing! NOT A THING! All he wants to do is punish everything around him. And then he's angry because I am warning my friend Debra about how bad things are here at times. That a baby kitten would perhaps have some amount of stress being brought into our home, much as I want this kitten I am trying to stay focused on his little life and not my own selfish wishes.

I will continue this in the following days when I have some idea of what is going to happen. Something will happen though because it cannot continue the way it is.

Oscar night/hate night 2-26-12

The weekend, like just about every weekend before it, was filled with hopefulness (me) hate (Greg). He announced midweek that he was going to work on some long overdue house projects. Things he'd had planned and wanted to get started on. I wasn't about to even ask what they might be for fear of being accused of being antagonistic but waited to see what this project might be. He'd mentioned a number of them throughout the winter and there were the long outstanding ones still on a back burner, so I kept quiet and waited for him to be forthcoming with what it was. A hall closet revamp - good. I was happy and I was hoping this would be done with little to none screaming and fights started. My ex husband used to love to do things about the house and while he wasn't the handiest of guys, he still enjoyed learning and doing, singing and whistling. I would sit and watch, carrying on conversations and playing fetch for him. How different that was from now. But I digress...

I woke Saturday morning early to him screaming at the top of his lungs...waking me up all the way from downstairs. The cats were all in my room, two of them huddling in the quilt and not really knowing what to do - you'd think they'd be used to it but they, like me keep waiting for something to change I guess. We're the original dumb animals.

Both Saturday and Sunday afternoon there was hockey games. I felt that if our team the Penguins won, Greg would be in a good mood. I quickly found out how silly a notion that was. Not only did he not watch the Saturday game, but he hammered and screamed all the way through it so I couldn't enjoy it either. 

Sunday was a bit better because he decided to just not talk to me at all...but the screaming and cursing remained. Sunday evening when he finally did sit to (presumably) watch the Academy Awards show, he looked for any reason to snap at me or try to start a fight. Since I wasn't biting, it didn't happen but that's not to say that he didn't do everything in his power to make sure I wasn't going to enjoy the show. Name calling, telling me to shut my fucking mouth if I made a comment about a pretty dress or whatever...it really didn't matter what I said because he was just waiting like a viper to strike at anything I said. After the show was over, I went online to visit with friends and see what they thought about the winners and losers of the night. Finally a chance to speak with civil people again about trivial and fun things we enjoyed. While I was on the computer I was getting angrier and angrier thinking about what my life had come to and made a decision I hope I can see through. And while in that frame of mind, I shot off an email to Greg's work email account so he would see if first thing in the morning. It is so incredibly sad that the only way...the safest way I can talk to my husband is via email but it seems that is the way it is.

He responded first thing this morning with the same kind of answer I've gotten in the past, but with a tiny variation...he admitted he needed help again for the second time. What he doesn't seem to understand is that it's too little too late. You can't mend an amputation with a band-aid. He has managed to cut off all feelings I've ever felt for him and replaced many of them with hatred for him. I have never hated anyone in my life before. The feeling is so foreign to me I don't know how to deal with it, nor do I know what to do with it to make it go away. But for the record, here is the most recent discourse. Where I am going with all this I don't know, but for now I just need to get it all down. It seems surreal and I need to know it isn't - that I have reasons to feel the way I do.

My email sent to Greg at work --

Tonight was the last opportunity you're going to get to tell me to shut to f***  up or to f*** off & flip me the bird for asking a simple, reasonable question about anything. For that matter it's the last opportunity you'll get for any reason. All weekend long it was either silence interjected with ranting & whining...or telling me to f*** off, shut up, or remind me how much you hate my f***ing guts! I've been told by doctors to be patient & I've been patient as well as tried to be understanding.

I've actually been naive enough to think that something would change eventually. I've waited, against my own better judgment, for you to have a light go off in you & that perhaps you'd change. I know now that is the stupidest thing I could think because you have no intentions of doing anything but staying as you are. As long as there's someone else to blame for 'your situation' you don't need to do anything, just continue to ridicule me & treat me like crap.

I stand to lose so much by leaving. I knew I shouldn't have gotten attached to another house - & I knew I shouldn't have told you that I was! Never to tell you of the things I loved because they become your target, your method to hurt me. That I learned a long time ago, but fell into the trap once more.

And I am also aware that living without my babies is going to break my heart once & for all. I cannot go anywhere that I could afford to have them with me. But that only drives my hatred for you deeper. I'm sure you're rejoicing in all this...'getting mine" as you constantly scream in my face.
You want to blame me for all of this, be my guest. I quite frankly don't care anymore. I have no control over how you feel & it dawned on me tonight that neither do you. Nor do you care as long as I'm around to shit kick.

But if I'm out of your way you can't hurt me any longer so I don't care what you think or blame or do. I'm sick of being unhappy - I'm sick of being apprehensive about opening my mouth for fear of setting you off. Nicer weather is coming & I will look for a place to live. This week I will try & find someone to help me out of this...who, I don't know yet, but that's no concern of yours either. All I know is I can't stand being hated as strongly as I am & I really don't deserve to be. I don't expect you to do anything but when I find out what I need to do I will have to involve you, which is what this email is for.

Greg's response the morning of Monday Feb 27, 2012 --

I know saying I’m sorry won’t help. I have been trying to get assistance from a doctor but have not been able to find anything locally. I am asking the company to help too. None of this is your fault and you do not deserve to be the target of my anger. I’m wound up tighter than a drum with constant headaches and fatigue and just feel lost (I am totally stressed and at the end of my rope). I don’t want to be like this and I don’t want to hurt you. I know you probably don’t believe that but it’s true. I’m messed up and I know it. I try to do things to keep my mind occupied but that doesn’t seem to work. I have no idea what’s going on in my head. I admit I need help and now. I just don’t know how to get it done. Getting treatment for cancer was simple. Getting treatment for this is much more difficult. I have to learn to keep my mouth shut and not keep hurting people. I truly am sorry. But that’s not much consolation for the way you feel right now.

Try to enjoy your day with the guys.

Try to imagine...

 Try and imagine what your life would be like - how you would feel about yourself and your future if you had someone telling you almost daily, sometimes more than once a day that they 'hated your fucking guts'? Not just telling you this, but actually screaming it in your face so loudly that your face was covered with spittle. Or screaming for you to 'fuck off' or to 'shut the fuck up' almost every time you tried to engage in any kind of conversation with them? Hard to imagine? Well, I don't have to imagine any of these things because this is what happens in my life and quite regularly. I am trying to see someone through depression but the person in question has no intentions of helping themselves or even admitting there's anything wrong with what he says and does.

What's worse is when I ask that he get help, or say I know he needs help, he assures me he doesn't. That there's not a damn thing wrong with him except me. He accuses me of "wanting him to be sick"…??? A very confusing deduction or a red herring to avoid doing anything? I don't know. I do know he's always needed something or someone to blame for what's wrong in his life, but it's never himself. He is always the victim of someTHING or someONE.  

I do know he's had rational moments where he's admitted he needs help but as time goes by, as the years pass this happens less and less. It used to be that if he was mean and acted terrible he would feel remorse and apologize. Telling me he'd make up for it by buying me whatever I wanted. An act that has always baffled me to be sure. This was something else I never understood and never took him up on, feeling it would be too easy for him to feel the debt was paid. I only wanted an apology…one that was sincere and one that meant it was an end to the behavior. I never ever got that.

The very latest of these 'apologies' a loose term at best came on when he was physically abusive to me and broke my index finger by throwing me to the ground and kicking me. The next morning he went to work and then emailed me the following. Not exactly an apology but at least an admission that something had happened - that is rare with him these days. The following is a copy and paste of that email in answer to a message I'd given him. I will start with that message and then give his response.

To Greg:-

Every weekend, doesn't matter which day to you anymore, you cause some sort of disruption or get downright mean & nasty in the mornings & then take off. Then upon return, you waltz around either not talking to me, trying to reignite the fight or acting like nothing happened at all!   It's gotten so I open my eyes in the morning, note that it's Saturday or Sunday & my heart thuds to the bottom of my chest with unhappiness. Weekend after weekend, month after month, year after year. It's getting really stale. I'm withdrawing my membership to this sick game.

I thought after your cancer scare, the ensuing battle, then good news of a clean bill of health that you'd want to turn a page. Begin a new chapter, or better...a new book...a sequel, maybe adopt a new attitude. Or at the very least, make a concerted effort to be pleasanter & not save it all for work or passers by. But what I didn't think about was that it would mean taking responsibility for your actions & I guess you're still not willing to do that. Obviously you've gone past a point where you don't even think you have to anymore.  Your thinking is *I'll just act like nothing's happened & she'll have to accept that or damn well be ready for more of the same!*

I'm not sure just what kind of thrill you get out of all this - or what drives you to want to make those closest to you sad or unhappy. Or pissed off & hating you. Your mother blamed it on your back surgery - Bill blamed it on your grandfather allowing you to get away with it. I blame you because you're not a kid anymore & you should be taking full responsibility for right & wrong.

What...why do you want to do what you do? Why would anyone deliberately want that or do that? All I know is that for as far back as Bill being a 15 year old kid, when he'd come to our place in tears, crying over you doing this, it's gone on. Ruining vacation trips, ruining dinners out or just plain ruining the day for everyone around you every chance you got! And then of course not even sticking around to see your handiwork. It's like emotional vandalism. Cruel & incredibly mean spirited! Does it make you proud... Have you ever asked yourself why you do this?

You constantly complain about things taking a shit, but Greg, you set it all in motion! Today you brought in a new wrinkle which sounded so stupid to my ears I couldn't imagine you even believing it..."my imaginary internet friends"? Where in hell are you going with this now? Would you like me to invite Christine & John here? I could. How about Wendi & Carol or Les & Brenda? They don't live that far from here. Are you suggesting now that my friends are now all figments of my imagination? So, aside from the ones you *have* met, do you think I'm sending myself Xmas cards and birthday cards then??

This is stupid - you look & you sound incredibly dumb carrying on with it all. You holler about everything - you scare the cats & I don't even know how to respond to you. I feel like I'm living in an insane asylum or with this badly behaved little brat who needs a hard kick in the ass & locked in his room til he clues in on how to treat others.

I remember a time when I looked SO forward to evenings & weekends, but sadly that wasn't with you because you always found a way of making it a tense situation or an out & out nasty fight. I used to love my evenings...loved them so much that I'd stay awake all night because I wanted them to last as long as possible & not to end. Same with weekends...weekends were sort of 'to be continued next week'.  But you changed all that by bringing your version of "a relationship" to the arena.

This past 4 months I have been working on a new blog - a personal one which I'm laying out events of my/our life, & as I'm working on it, like so many people who start autobiographies, I am saddened & often disgusted at some of the stuff I'm remembering. My blog is private shared only with my friends but it's chronicled things as they've happened & I have uploaded pictures & audio recordings. 

You don't want to change, or feel you don't have to change... you can't bring yourself to apologize or don't even feel that one's necessary. Well, that's fine, but I'm not just going to smile & go all warm & fuzzy when you put on some goofy face & start chattering away about what's next on your agenda. In fact at the rate our "marriage" is degrading, I don't even know why you're doing all the finishing touches on the house?
None of it is going to concern me any longer because I came to the realization tonight that I absolutely can not take this anymore. As I said before...you've won. But if you think it's okay to save all your vitriol for home & me, then I will not hesitate in sharing the link with people or the friends who *think* they know you. You want to play this game, then fine, I will play by your rules...I've lost pretty much everything anyway, so if I'm going to have to start over then I will at least start over with some satisfaction.

Greg's response:-

I read yoir message and don't disagree with any of your comments. I am sad and angry at the whole world because I feel very lost and alone. Here's one for you; when I got cancer I thought it was the answer to my prayers. I thought maybe I would I die and it would finally be over! Pretty pathetic eh!

Everything you have said or thought about me over the years, I've come to realize, is in some ways true. I am mean and angry but not at you. I am angry at everthing and about everything. I have no patience for anything. I don't care about a whole lot and I pretty much have a negative outlook on everything. I see nothing to be happy about, I see nothing to look forward to and I've pretty much given up. I try to take my mind off the situation by doing things here and there but even that's getting harder to do.

I have said to you over and over that this is not about you. It's about me an my disjointed outlook on life. You have said many things to me and sent me many articles to read and to be quite honest I could be a poster child for many of those articles. I don't like the way I feel and I don't like the way I think. I'm not really in denile because I know I'm an asshole even though I try very hard not to be. But I've got to stop pretending it's all okay because it's not.

You don't deserve this. You have been my companion for a lot of years but because of what I have finally become, all that has gone and can never be recovered. I keep wishing I would die so all this pain and confusion would finally go away. I don't have the guts to end it, so here I am existing for the sake of existing!

What really makes me angry the most is how this has affected you over the years. I have been through two tough ordeals in my life; your stroke and my cancer and it still hasn't brought me back to reality. Do you want to hear something really sad; I didn't cry when my mother died. I felt little sadness but was happy that she would finally be back with dad. There really is something wrong with me when I lack any emotion from my mom's death. That really bugs the hell out of me.

So where do I go from here? Who the hell knows. But one thing I do know is I will not spend the rest of my life making people unhappy and being the mean nasty asshole I am.

I should have known better...the preamble - Feb 7, 2012

 *Since the site is set up to place most recent posts first, if you want to read these in sequence (I recommend)you will have to start with 'My Secret Life' Sunday, February 5, 2012 and work backwards by dates. Sorry for this inconvenience - it's the way Blogspot is set up.
~~
For sure I should have known better. Lord knows I'd seen enough of his nastiness on my own and been warned by both his brother as well as his mother in the years pre to us being together.

I have known my husband since he was 6 years old but got to really know him well only when he was 16 and we were in a band together. He came to our house evenings and we would go over songs but then things would always turn to him and he would sit and talk to me, sometimes all night long, telling me how bad his life was when he went to school, how his teachers were awful, and later his bosses were awful and his life at home was awful. Little did I know until I got to know his brother better that Greg made everyone's life a living hell in that house. He would start fights, instigate things by throwing salt in sore spots and pushing buttons til everyone was upset. And then he'd leave the house, usually to head over to my house and talk about how bad it was at his house.
I, of course, knew nothing about any of this. I would see bits of it when we were at his house to practice him treating his mother with such disrespect and disdain...his grandmother too. These women adored him and he used that completely to his advantage.

The full story of what went on there only came to light though, when I told his brother that we were going to get married and it was then he asked me if I was nuts? And if I had any idea what I was getting myself into? In hindsight, no -- I was completely taken by Greg's sad stories and wanting only to make things better for him. His life sounded so awful and of course it was - he made it that way!

Besides, I just knew that he would treat me a lot differently. Now...if you look in the dictionary, you can cross reference naive and stupid and come up with my picture.

So we lived together for a number of years before actually getting married, and after each and every fight, Greg would tearfully apologize, raving and weeping and pulling on the skin of his cheeks saying he was just like his grandfather, a mean abusive bastard and that he didn't want to be like that - that if I was patient he would be better, he would stop being an asshole and try to be a nicer person. Yes, all this if only I would stay with him and help him. Do you know how stupid I feel tonight as I type all this? That I could have been made to feel responsible for him improving himself? Well, I believed him. Most people do. As I said, he's very good at what he does...

I think the problem is I didn't understand abuse myself then. Verbal, emotional abuse was lost on me. The fact that Greg wouldn't give me any money to manage the house or buy my personal things just seemed like a silly thing to press. He would not allow me to drive our vehicle either so I was pretty cut off from going anywhere anyway. He handled all the money and he took me where I needed to go. Ironically he complained about this constantly and finally after being married for 10 years and me suggesting that he wouldn't have to take me places if I had my own car, he bought me one. I still had no money but I could at least drive somewhere. And I still have that car now 17 years later. Thank gawd!

These all seem so trivial to our intimacy issues tho'. Or I should say Greg's sex issues. He hated it! He said [and I quote] that he found it "icky". For the first 8 or so years of our marriage I had to swallow my dignity and self pride and beg him to be intimate with me, but after a while even that no longer worked. He just called me names. He just told me to settle down and not be so cheap. It was at this point in our marriage when I realized I could no longer live like this and told him I was going to leave. I had already made one attempt at that but with no money I didn't get far. And he told me not to expect to get anything from him if I did and that scared me into staying. We had a beautiful home, I have cats that are almost like children to me and if I left, I knew I'd have to leave them behind, that I wouldn't be able to take them and support them and myself. The thought of losing my home...leaving my home and leaving them was enough to break my heart. So I stayed. I was strong I told myself. I could do this. At least he wasn't physically abusive very often. Just the occasional shove or yanking my hair. Sticks and stones...yes, I could handle that.

And he was still at this point, saying that he was going to change. Leaving me long apologetic and sometimes pathetic notes in the morning saying he was sorry for hurting me, was sorry for being such a horrible person - an asshole! That he was trying soooo hard to change. That if I'd just give him a little more time and continue to be supportive, he knew he could do it.

He said I had to think about sex not being the only thing in a marriage - that we had a lot of other things we shared, things we liked to do and we had our home, and the cats...emotional blackmail began then. So I stayed. And for 27 years I stayed with this man without having any sexual contact at all and remained faithful. It wasn't that there weren't opportunities to be unfaithful but I didn't take them - it's not who I am. I like to be able to live with myself.

In the next installments here, I will talk about the stroke and the cancer and the antidepressants which have made him much, much worse. Just another few things to make leaving that much harder. I will also try and figure out how to upload the recordings I've done in the past. Recordings of his insane rants...one such recording is 17 minutes of him screaming 'aaaaasshole' in a loud singsong fashion while I was in the truck, my recorder in my pocket and my fingers in my ears. This was something he loved to do...still loves to do in fact, is get me in the car going somewhere and then rant. Talk about your captive audience!
I rarely go anywhere with him anymore unless I absolutely have to.

I have other recordings of him screaming til he's hoarse about hating his life and wishing he was dead...and going to kill me because he couldn't find a receipt that he'd misplaced. He eventually found it where he'd put it but no apology. He is past apology now. It doesn't matter if it's his fault, the traffics fault, the TV or computers fault...it's just Gingers fault. Easier to deal with...and as has been reported back to me, he can really wring sympathy out of his friends, coworkers, and acquaintances. One such time when he was threatening, I opened the knife drawer and held a butcher knife up in front of me, waving it back and forth to warn him off. He smugly told me afterwards that he'd told all his friends at work that I chased him around the house with a knife!

So his pattern hasn't changed that much over the years, just that instead of me being his confidante like the early years, the hate is turned toward me now. New people to beguile, much like he did with me all those years ago. Needless to say I'm embarrassed and ashamed to face any of his coworkers because I don't know what they've been told. I needn't worry about that too much though because he makes sure I don't go to any company parties or get togethers.

My Secret Life...

I don't know how many times I've contemplated this and for one reason or another simply given up, knowing I would likely be thought of as a liar or delusional or both. Reason being, I am married to a man who is admired and liked by almost everyone who knows him (family excluded) and just about everyone would find it incredibly hard to believe anything bad about him. But I think it's reached a time for me to come clean, even if it's only to talk to someone...
I will have to talk about the current situation and work backwards I think because that would be easier for me.

My husband is an abuser. In the last year or two that has escalated from verbal and emotional abuse to physical. He is shrewd, as most abusers are I'm told, always making sure there are no outward signs of abuse. A wrenched arm or a shove to the ground, anything that could to covered up by saying I fell on my own and hurt myself.

picture 1
Most of my injuries have come when I've tried to phone the police for help and he's grabbed a wrist or twisted my arm until I fall to the floor and dropped the phone. Picture number one here is an example of him twisting my arm so hard that my elbow swelled up to twice it's size and turned black and blue, then yellow and green. You can see by comparing to my other elbow in the photo how much it swelled. It took nearly two months before I was even able to lean on it.

So many people have asked me why I didn't just phone the police when he wasn't at home. Good question, but my reason for calling the police in the first place was just to get help so he would stop hurting me -- once he was stopped, I don't want to phone. And the reasons for that are many!

picture 2
Photo number two is what I thought were broken index and middle fingers but since I didn't visit a doctor and I'm able to use them again now, I don't know. The index finger was rigid for about three weeks but I eventually got it to bend again, though not with the range it had. My husband and I share the same doctor which makes it difficult for me to go to him with any sort of injury. Unlike my husband, I am not a good, or practiced liar. He has a silver tongue and like O.J. Simpson, comes off as just the greatest guy. I will expand on that more later.

pictures 3 and 4 - these are somewhat blurry because they were taken holding a SLR Nikon in one hand and shooting into a bathroom mirror late at night.

I will finish this when time allows...there is a lot to tell since I've been holding back for most of my marriage.









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