My husband asked if we were separated. Yes. I have a thought forming in my head that I am going to check out. I am going to pull away. Maybe when I’m done, he will leave me and I won’t have to do anything. I want him to look back and think, “that’s when she changed. That moment is when I ruined everything.” I want to leave him.
Correction: I need to, because he’s clearly never going to change.
I would like to keep this dynamic until baby goes to school. Until we move to the beach. That’s about a year. Over that year, I want to work a moderate amount. I want to spend all my free time with my child. I want to focus on my own goals and future and making myself happy and no one else. I want to lose weight and get my meds right. I want to pay off some debt. I want to save some money. I want to get myself to a place where I can leave this comfortably and know he will have his own resources also. As soon as he graduates and finds a job, he’ll be fine with it all. I don’t want to go to court. I don’t want to make it ugly. I want us to live in the same town and swap our kid week for week and coparent well. I don’t care about child support. I know it’s all possible with him. He’s a mess, but he wants to be involved.
I kept telling myself for so long to give him another chance. Kept thinking every moment like this was a “one off.” But it’s not. It keeps happening.
The cycle: he starts treating me worse and worse. His fuse gets shorter. Everything I say he acts like he wishes I would shut up. Like he thinks I’m an idiot. Like he wishes I would never speak to him again. Sex becomes a chore. He calls me names - “bitch, stupid, lazy.” He tells me I’m crazy and I’m just like my mom. He doesn’t acknowledge anything I do well or where he’s fucking up. The only time he acknowledges me is when he needs or wants something. He gets demanding. He acts more and more entitled until one day he just starts really going at me. He talks to me like he hates me after months of acting subtly like he does. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you fucking stupid?” I lose it. I blow up. I can only take so much, and I start ranting. I air all grievances without mercy. I yell and scream and get it all out. I don’t back down when he tries to intimidate me. He gets physically aggressive. I still don’t back down and keep saying all the things he’s been creating within me. He doesn’t physically beat me or choke me since he got sober. He shoves me, puts his mouth against my ear and yells into it, tries to hurt me by stepping on my foot, grabbing fistfuls of my hair, twisting my wrist, pushing me into things… I don’t care. I can handle it and, I need to tell him how much of a piece of shit he really is in those moments. It doesn’t even hurt me anymore. I know his insecurities, and I throw them in his face in a way that makes me the victim. Because up to those points, I am. But in those moments, I’m done being the victim. I get viscous. He tells me “I get him to this point.” He blames me for his abusing me. I tell him he’s fucked in the head and it’s not my fault - I never do anything wrong. We part, and I completely shut him out. His probation goes on for a while where I can act like a cunt and make whatever demands I want. He does whatever I need or want. He grovels. I don’t even look him in the eye or respond to half the things he says. I treat him like he’s an idiot when he speaks to me. I drag it out. Eventually I will warm back up, and we have peace for quite a while before it happens again.
This happened once when I was pregnant, 3 times since we moved into this house…. He’s been abusive every moment of our relationship since the beginning aside from the year when we weren’t together and into the year we got married. Maybe an 18 month period out of almost 10 years. 8 of those months we didn’t live together. He only behaves right after he fucks up and thinks I’ll leave. No more now. I’m sure if he’s acted like this every 9 months since he got sober that it will just continue like this. I’d be stupid to think it won’t. So this time I feign forgiveness, but I’m really done… I just have nothing left for him. He broke it. He broke what I tried to give him.
So we will be a broken family until I can make my exit in the way it’ll be easiest for myself and my baby. I’m sure the strain of all the life shifts at some point will cause another moment like this. And that’ll be my excuse one to exit.
This is a lot of planning and psychology. I know what needs to be done. I’m not scared of him. He is weak and broken. He is scared of me. He is scared I will leave and he will have to face how big of a fuck up he really is. He’s scared I’ll take our baby and be gone. I’m not scared of any of this.
Maybe I’m wrong and there won’t be another lapse of abuse. I doubt it. I need to be more mindful of the warning signs. This time it was a solid month of shit. Next time I’m going to chop him off at the knees.
And if he doesn’t have another episode? I’ll plan for that then, but I can sure as hell tell you that this period of time has made me realize I need to protect my assets better. My money is my money and my things are my things. No more sacrifice.
