*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.
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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.
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