Hold My Halo and Pass the Wine

To sit here and tell you that I have always viewed myself as a quiet, calm, agreeable person would be to start this whole conversation off with nothing more than, well… a lie.

I have always been a pretty outspoken person. A people-pleasing outspoken person, but outspoken none the less. I wasn’t a fighter, but I would defend myself. Not with fists of course. The idea of getting punched, hit, kicked – not really for me. No, I fought my battles with words, and if the conflict got too great, I could walk away… eventually. But the reason for sharing this part about myself is simply to show that I was not a passive person, I was not a push-over, I was not a puppet. I had my own thoughts, my own views, my own opinions – I was an independent thinker. So to share this next part of my story is going be not only difficult for me to recall, but possibly a little difficult to stomach – that is, if I can do the journey justice.

In my teens and into my early 20s, I knew who I was. I mean, about as much as any teenager / young adult can know about herself. I knew I wanted to be my own person. I knew I wanted a career. I knew I wanted to keep learning. I knew I wanted a family some day. I knew I wanted children. I knew where I wanted to live. I knew my values. I knew my interests, my hobbies, my strengths, and was learning every day the things I needed to work on. I was driven. I worked multiple jobs through college. I worked 7-days a week during the summer and more than 50 hours during those weeks.

So when I met the person I would later marry, I knew what I wanted in a partner. I wanted a person who was driven, had goals, was financially secure [or getting there – we were only in our 20s], a family person, with a good circle of friends, morals. I thought I had it nailed down; and I did for awhile.

Fast forward, well, I am not actually sure when everything in me started to change. I mean, I can think of a fight we had in maybe 2002 or 2003. The details are not so much important as the way I remember I responded. And what I am about to share, well it’s not my finest moment, but unfortunately would not be the last. I remember feeling hurt because he refused to come to one of my softball games. This was just a recreational thing and the summary of it was I wanted some quality time of him participating in things that I enjoyed, because well, all we ever did was do things that he enjoyed. He refused, saying he had to do some repair work on a friend’s truck. So I left for my game hurt and upset, feeling like my interests were not important, but later I could share this with him, how I felt.

When I returned a couple of hours later, the truck was in no better shape than when I had left, and he was in fact sitting around drinking a beer with a friend who had stopped by. I put on my “people-pleasing” smile and attitude, approached, engaged, and then excused myself to go get a shower. For the next few hours, they sat outside, talking, laughing, drinking, and the friend’s truck sat untouched. And yes, I was getting more and more upset. Honestly, I was angry, and hurt, but no good girlfriend starts drama when guests are over. And so I didn’t. Eventually, well into the late night, the friend left. I went outside, started with the small talk, and then barreled right into the work on the truck. I asked why he did not want to come to my game, why the truck was not completed. His entire reasoning for staying home and not coming with me was due to the fact that we had decided to host a large party at his house for the Fourth of July. The truck was taking up almost the entire driveway, and needed to be moved so we had room for our guests. It was reasonable – up until the part where hours later, there was no progress. I shared with him how hurt my feelings were that he had not joined me, and that’s how the fight started.

It went from me telling him how much my feelings were hurt to the next words out of his mouth were, “How do you think I feel that I have a girlfriend who comes over and just sits in the house and pouts while my friend is over?!” I stopped in my tracks. I remember my brain recalling everything I had done when I got back, what I did and how long I did it when I was in the house, and if I came back out and when, and nothing matched to what he was saying. So I defended myself, “I did not pout. I got back and said hello, and talked, and then I went and got a shower before…” He cut me off, “You walked over here with the biggest bitch-face I have ever seen. It was embarrassing! Then you stomped off and slammed the door. He was like, ‘What’s wrong with her?’ I had to make up excuses as to why you were being such a bitch to him and to me!”

Things of course escalated from there because none of that was true! I had made sure to be polite, and welcoming, to be that girlfriend he always told me he wanted. To not be like the girlfriends and wives of his friends that were rude and commanding; I had not done that. I just wanted to feel that he cared about the things I liked to do, but that was wrong. I think?

The whole thing ended with me completely losing my mind, crying, yelling, listening to him continue to retell the events that just did not happen. Saying I said things I knew I did not say, and I just kept saying ‘no’, but then the topic would switch to how hard he worked, and the truck work was making him extra money so that he could take me out to a nice dinner later that weekend, which obviously I did not care about. And then I was apologizing. Apologizing for things he said I did, that apparently I did do, but was my memory that bad. I was crying, telling him how sorry I was, that I did not realize my behavior was so bad. He kicked me out. He broke up with me, stating he did not want to be in a relationship with such a bitchy person.

And it was over. I left feeling like a failure. What had just happened? How was my relationship just over? How did that go so bad so fast? Could I fix it? I went home that night and decided that I was going to do just that – fix it. He was still having the party. All of our friends were going to be there, and I wasn’t. I was now feeling so embarrassed. What was everyone going to think? Would I lose friends over this? What was I going to do? I hardly slept that night, and I was up early. My brain was only focused on fixing this. I had done this, so it was mine to fix. So, I called him.

In summary, I fixed it. I apologized. I promised to do better. I did better. I played the role he wanted me to play. We were married a couple of years later, and started our family that first year with the birth of our first daughter. Three years later, we welcomed our second daughter. However, everything was a smoke screen, and it was my priority, my sole-responsibility to keep it that way.

Over the next 17 years, the dynamics of that first altercation played out on a regular basis during our relationship. I would express how I feel, he would turn it into how do I think he feels. I would then again attempt to tell him how I felt, to only be told that I was not listening to him. I only cared about myself. Before I knew what happened, we were arguing about something completely off topic, I was “getting put in my place”, told how lazy I was, how little I did, how selfish I was. And then I would cry. How had I become this horrible person? How was I doing all of these things and still completely missing the mark on being a good wife and mother? I was empathetic towards him, that he had to live with such a terrible person who couldn’t get her shit together. Next came the silent treatment. It would last the rest of the day, but only for that day, because by the next morning it would be as if nothing had happened. No apology. No remorse. He would wakeup in a wonderful mood and start his day. The previous day’s events were never to be discussed. If I acted in anyway upset or hurt, he would ask me what was wrong with me? If I brought up yesterday, he would roll his eyes, mutter “you need to get over it”, and then storm outside, slamming the door behind him.

I found myself slipping further and further into a sense of confusion. I did not feel like I knew myself anymore. Why were my feelings not valid? Was I really that selfish of a person? What was I doing so wrong? Almost all of my friends were gone. I had slowly withdrew from each and every one because I needed to spend more time at home. The only people we really socialized with were his social group, which consisted mostly of parties where everyone drank. If I attempted to make friends at work, he always had an excuse as to why we could not go to dinner with them, or attend one of their parties. I went to work, took care of our two girls, and came home. I went where he told me, and I stayed where he wanted me. I still convinced myself that this was okay. I was going to be the perfect spouse for him – not a complainer, always available to him, always in a good mood. I could play that part. I had to play that part. I was not a failure.

Around 2010, and after another eruption of an argument, I remember having completely lost myself. I was crying, curled up on the floor, screaming at him to leave me alone, while he stood over me and practically spit insults at me. How horrible I treated him, the house was always a mess, I was lazy, and how dare I let our two children live in such a mess. And I remember I snapped. I uncurled myself and glared up at him, still sitting on the floor I screamed, “Then why don’t you clean the damn house?! If you see it needs to be done and I’m not home, you do it!!!” He then responded with his usual list of “things” he had to do: he took care of everything outside – mowing the yard, fixing the vehicles, keeping the pole barn clean. If I didn’t like it, fine! He would clean and cook, he enjoyed doing these things. Then I can mow the 5-acre lot, I could fix the cars, work on the truck, do the oil changes. I had it so easy and still complained.

What happened next is one of those moments I have on my list of “My Not So Awesome-self”. When someone says they think they had an out of body experience, I now have an idea of what they might be experiencing. I raged, but I couldn’t damage my house or our things. They cost money to replace and that was not appropriate. So I turned on myself. I started slamming my fists onto my thighs. I was screaming and punching my legs over and over and over. I couldn’t stop. It was an unleashing of emotion I had ever experienced. I was screaming how hard I try and he’s never happy with me; I just want to do good; you never help me; I hate my life; what do you want from me?!!! The whole time punching my legs with my fists and rocking back and forth feeling completely out of control. And just as quickly as he had started screaming at me, he was calm. Not more than a whisper, I barely heard him say over my sobbing, “What is wrong with you?”

This was the start of the cycle of abuse that a decade later I would know as psychological abuse. Additional phrases he would say to me in times such this were, but not limited to:

“Why are you screaming at me? I am not raising my voice to you,” after yelling at me for several minutes.

“Why are you cursing at me? I’m not cursing at you,” when “fuck” was literally every other word of his sentence.

“You don’t do anything around here. I have to do everything!”

But the phrase he said one particular night is the phrase that I would say was my turning point. It was the spark that would ignite a fire within me, even though I had no idea yet.

“You’re losing your mind. You need to see a doctor. I’m really concerned about you. I think you need to be medicated, because you are crazy.”

I remember staying up that night until almost 4am. I was on the computer Googling every mental health quiz, questionnaire, symptoms list I could find because he asked the same question I had: “What is wrong with me?”

In this moment is when my journey truly began.