by Band Back Together | Nov 19, 2010 | Abuse, Emotional Abuse |
That is the question that is burning in my mind. Has been for several months. Should I stay and try yet again to “work it out” or should I cut my losses and figure out how to do it on my own? Should I go to school full-time, raise three kids, and find a job that will pay the bills?
I am tired of the bullshit excuses. Blame for everything that goes wrong. Being ignored when I try to speak up and be heard.
I wrote you a letter yesterday. I poured my heart out typing it up. I cried the whole time I did it. You read it and simply asked me what I planned to do. You made no apologies for what you have done. Didn’t beg me to stay and work it out. I got nothing from you.
Today, you are going about your day like nothing has happened.
I’ve been waiting for you to come downstairs and ask me what I’m making you for lunch. You’re incapable of feeding yourself. I am tired of raising you like a child. Telling you what to do and when to do it. Otherwise, you do nothing.
I have done nothing but sacrifice myself for you and I have nothing to show for it. No gifts of appreciation. Nothing. I am ready to move on with my life. I am ready to be happy instead of feeling like crap all the time. My depression is gone now that I added new medication but I am still not happy. Who would be in my situation?
You told your brother that you were going to go back to acting like you did when we first got together. That is only going to push me away. I don’t want an even more irresponsible person to take care of. I wanted an equal. I have been fighting for that for over a year.
Funny thing is, I still want to protect you like you are my child.
I know that have been enabling this relationship for too long. Now? I feel like I have one foot out the door already.
by Band Back Together | Nov 17, 2010 | Addiction, Addiction Recovery, Adult Children of Addicts, Emotional Abuse, Family, Psychological Manipulation |
I find it hilarious when someone has a perception of me varies wildly from who I actually am. Sometimes, it makes me want to correct the misconception, yet other times it tickles me sparkly to let them think what they want.
Life is absolutely filled with more humor that way.
When I got pregnant with my first son, I had a role in my family: The Fuck-Up. Disregarding all of the surrounding circumstances (my mother’s relapse slash hatred of me), the blame for all of my actions fell squarely on my shoulders, at least as far as my family was concerned. Although many of my actions were not *ahem* the most mature, my family gave me far less credit than I deserved, especially considering that I was 20.
When my pregnancy was announced, my parents were shockingly supportive of me. Well, at least until I found out much later, of course, that they had asked my brother – who is 10 years my senior – and his future wife if they would adopt my child in the event that I “freaked out.” They had such a low opinion of me that they honestly believed that I wouldn’t assume responsibility for my child.
(note: I am amazed that the keyboard has not ignited with the fury of a thousand suns as I type this).
The rest of my family (save for me, of course. I get a special CHARGE when I get to confront people who have pissed me off.) is so non-confrontational that one might assume that each member is far meeker than they really are, I rarely heard about what a Fuck-Up I was considered to be. Aside from snide comments here and there about “responsibility,” everyone was pretty mum.
It was only when I met, and subsequently married The Daver, that I realized just how poor my family’s opinion of me truly was. You would have thought, by their reactions, that Dave had rescued me from the streets, where I was selling crack and dancing (badly) for spare change.
Somehow he had turned my life around for me. You would never have guessed that I was already at the top of my nursing school class, TA’ing for Organic/BioChem AND tutoring for A & P, while working as a waitress and bartender 20 hours a week BEFORE Dave walked into my life.
My brother, who I have a long and sorted history with, decided that if Dave (whom he adored/s) liked me, then I couldn’t be all THAT bad. My parents finally accepted that I had become a more mature and responsible person, although their time line was off by a factor of about a year and a half. In their minds, I only began to turn my life around once I had met Dave.
I do, of course, appreciate that my family loves him as one of their own. I know that I’ll be left out in the cold the moment Daver and I split up, as both of our families prefer him, but I just wish that they could see that as wonderful as Dave is, he did nothing to change who I am and what I will do with my life.
It dawned on me, as I prepared my home for hosting Thanksgiving this year, that if asked, my family would probably mention that they were “having dinner at Becky’s house” and something to the effect of “she’s really turned her life around, hasn’t she?”
Like I was some sort of street urchin in a Lifetime Original Movie who had some sappy predictable plot line: unmarried, younger girl gives birth to a child out of wedlock, heads down the “wrong path” until she meets “the man of her dreams,” and she miraculously changes her path, learns to cook and clean, and becomes a responsible upstanding citizen with an immaculate home.
Who can -and does- now crochet motherfucking platitudes to hang on the wall.
Yeah, motherfucking right.
I can’t do anything about this, of course. It’d probably be easier to train my cats to unload the dishwasher or teach the coffeemaker to speak Ebonics than it would be to get my family to change their opinion of me.
It just sucks that they have to be so off-base with their perceptions, I mean, why can’t I be mistaken for a Fighter Pilot rather than a Fuck-Up
Or, I suppose, more accurately: The Becky Formerly Known As Fuck-Up?
by Band Back Together | Nov 10, 2010 | Abuse, Addiction, Alcohol Addiction, Domestic Abuse, Emotional Abuse |
For my 25th birthday my parents threw me a party at a restaurant. I had an awesome group of friends and family that came, and it was a fantastic celebration. As I blew out the candles on my cake, I wished for a boyfriend. Lame, right? Well, be careful what you wish for.
I met Aaron two weeks later at a friend’s birthday party. He was charismatic, out-going, and handsome. And a paraplegic. He’d been injured in an accident at the age of 20 when he flipped his car on an isolated road. Still, his attitude was excellent, his outlook on life optimistic. He could talk to anyone about anything, something I really admired. We started dating, and it was fun, light and exciting.
I don’t remember where to pinpoint when it started to go wrong. When we’d been together about 9 months, we decided to take a road trip up the California coast. I went shopping for some new jeans, and I had to get a bigger size. Love and my career (I traveled for work about 60% of the time, so I wasn’t eating healthy homemade food) had made me fat and happy and I’d put on a few pounds. That was the first time he made a comment. He said he wasn’t attracted to fat girls. He didn’t say I was fat, but that he wasn’t attracted to girls who were fat. Either way, not exactly encouraging or supportive words from someone who’s supposed to love you.
In July of that year, when we’d been dating just over a year, we talked about moving in together. When I told my parents about it, they weren’t happy and tried to discourage me. That should have been a big warning sign. If only I’d listened.
I moved in at the end of September and things changed big time. Before we lived together, I spent 5-6 nights a week at his place. I knew his habits. I did his laundry, helped with the cleaning he couldn’t do easily, and did his grocery shopping. I knew more or less what it was like to live with him. But it all changed. Now, instead of just doing laundry, I was expected to keep everything in our home clean. He’d criticize if I didn’t do things perfectly. I became full-time girlfriend, full-time maid. I did it out of love, but there wasn’t any appreciation on his end for carrying the burden of keeping our home. Any attempts I made at cooking were met with criticism. Meals were thrown out.
And then the drinking started. He decided he liked scotch. He’d always been a social drinker, but it didn’t bother me; there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. And believe me, I watched out for it. I’d dated an alcoholic in college, and I was very sensitive to guys’ drinking habits. But suddenly Aaron was drinking more. He went from a double on the rocks, to a triple; then from a triple to two triples, and then to three. By December, he was drinking a Costco sized handle bottle of scotch every 10 days. I went to bed alone a lot, while he stayed up filling and refilling his glass before coming to bed with hot boozy breath. We fought about it. A lot. It was supposed to be none of my business. I still can’t stand the sound of ice clinking in a tumbler. It makes me want to throw up.
In November, I went to Florida to spend Thanksgiving with his family. We were happy that week. His brother-in-law was a CEO and lived in a $10 Million home down the street from Tiger Woods. It was a week of extravagance – expensive dinners out and fancy cars and private jets. We had fun and enjoyed the holiday. I loved his family, and his twin nieces adored me. One night, we stayed up late after everyone else had gone to bed drinking and laughing in the hot tub. We were both past tipsy. Something spurned an argument. He pulled out his camera and started video-taping me. Mocking me and my tears and my slurred speech. I still don’t like to be photographed or taped.
Christmas and New Year’s that year were strained. We agreed to work through some things. I wanted to go to counseling because I knew I wasn’t myself. I wasn’t ready to admit yet that it was because of him. He again made comments about not being attracted to fat girls. Only this time, his comments were coupled with a complete lack of affection. Now it was personal. And now when I cried, accusations of me being bipolar came along with the tears. In actuality, I was trying to keep up my front of happiness and was repeatedly failing. In my heart, I knew things were broken.
I was building strength to put my foot down on things changing when I lost my job the same day I had my first counseling appointment. Instead of being supportive and encouraging, he was furious, and questioned what would have happened if we had kids to support. I was out of work for three weeks when I started my new job on a Monday. He was coming back from a ski trip that day and made me leave my first day of my new job to pick him up at the airport. He never would have done that for me.
We broke up on Friday, four days later. That Sunday was Super Bowl Sunday. We went to his friend and coworker’s house to watch the game. He drank a 12-pack in 4 hours. In front of the friend’s kids. And then wanted to drive home. I was mortified and knew I had to get out.
Things weren’t easy leaving. We kinda sorta tried to make things work for another week before one final fight left me begging him to just let me go. How pathetic is that? That even though I knew it had to end, I didn’t have the strength to end it myself? I hate that about myself. I did leave, though, and found my own place. It was 9 days before I could move into it, so I stayed with him, living with my now-ex-boyfriend who took every opportunity to get in every last jab. We fought, I cried, and he made more accusations about my mental stability. He made comments about my choosing a second floor apartment and how that was a slap in the face to him. February 23rd, 2008 was the day I moved into my new home, my new beginning.
I met Dan in late May and we slowly started dating. Aaron called drunk one night. It was two weeks before Dan’s birthday, at the beginning of October. He was trying to make amends, wanted to be friends. I said we could be civil. A week later, I thought better of it and emailed him and said he wasn’t welcome to contact me anymore, that I didn’t want to hear from him again. His retaliation was a vicious string of venom and hatred in written form. Accusations of me being bipolar. Threats that my boyfriend (Dan, my future husband) had better have a lot of Kleenex. Other horrible things about me that I quickly deleted and have tried to erase from my mind. I didn’t give him the satisfaction of a response.
It’s been over two years since that horrible final email. I’m not bipolar (I never thought I was). I am mainly healed. I have a husband who is an absolute angel, who promised me he’d never be drunk in front of me, and who holds me tight when something in the present day draws a sudden memory or flashback that knocks the wind out of me. My husband never makes me cry anything but tears of joy. I was never physically abused or harmed by Aaron, but I have wounds. From emotional abuse. It’s hard to say. Emotional abuse. Abuse. There’s no other word for it – for the things he said and did to the woman who loved him – as much as I try to dance around it. I’m working to forgive.
I have so many things I’d love to say to Aaron if given the chance, to scream at him in anger. I like to think I’d be stronger now, and that I’d really fucking give it to him, tell him how all the hurtful things he said have followed me and threatened the happiness I deserve. But I’m scared to hope for a chance to say them, because I’ve learned you have to be careful what you wish for.
by Band Back Together | Nov 9, 2010 | Anger, Blended Families, Breakups, Coping With Divorce, Divorce, Emotional Abuse, Infidelity, Marriage and Partnership, Marriage Problems, Psychological Manipulation, Suicide |
Fourteen years ago, I was a carefree college student. I was content with life, was climbing the proverbial ladder as if there were no obstacles in my way, but I longed to be in a relationship. I spent much of my time kissing frogs and drinking far more than my share of tequila. Six months later, I found you.
I should have seen the warning signs early on in the relationship, but I forged ahead. Six months turned into a year. One year turned into five. And by our seventh year together, we had a child, a mortgage and a blended family of sorts. A yours & ours. I was happy, the kids were happy. You were not, and you had an affair.
Again, I should have seen the signs. We argued, I fought for the relationship, you blamed me for the affair. We worked through “our” issues, I thought.
We added a child, lost family members, added a house and then the ugly monster reared it’s head. You were not happy again. And again it was my fault. There was no affair – just a threat of suicide. I talked you out of it. I thought we worked through “our” issues and we forged ahead.
Eight months later, you were unhappy again, you were suicidal again.
And again you felt it was my fault.
You came home because you had no where else to go, but you tricked me into thinking that you wanted to be here. You insisted you wanted a “normal family”. But when push came to shove, you finally admitted that you really never wanted to come home, never wanted to be with me, you just had no where else to go, no job, and no family.
So you have decided that you are done with me, you don’t want to have the “stress” of owning a house (or two). You say you want nothing, but refuse to leave until your “name is off the house”. You say you need no one, and that you can do it all on your own. Yet we all know you are wrong. You know you are wrong.
Your anger and your blame has nothing to do with me. It has to do with whatever it is that you are hiding from. You need to find help, we need you to find help.
Help doesn’t mean you have to stay with me and your family. Help means fixing you, and whatever it is that is making you unhappy. Because fixing you is fixing our children. Because when you are broken, it breaks them.
You deciding that we are not going to be “us” anymore is probably the best decision you have made for all of us. Because I can no longer take the blame for your shortcomings and insecurities. I have my own, and I need to be the best example I can be for our children. I know I am not strong enough to leave you on my own and I still want to “fix” you/us.
So while you waver in the wind and deny you need help, I’m going to get help for myself, my children and my own well being. I will seek out legal advise and I will seek out counseling for me and for our children. I will find my way from here.
But, I hope someday you will realize how much you are loved, how much you have hurt us and how badly you need to be fixed. I hope that you make the choice of life and that you realize your kids need you, not a “replacement daddy”, as you like to say. I hope you that you make the choice to fix you, so that they too can be fixed.
by Band Back Together | Nov 9, 2010 | Anger, Blended Families, Breakups, Coping With Divorce, Divorce, Emotional Abuse, Infidelity, Psychological Manipulation, Suicide |
Fourteen years ago, I was a carefree college student. I was content with life, was climbing the proverbial ladder as if there were no obstacles in my way, but I longed to be in a relationship. I spent much of my time kissing frogs and drinking far more than my share of tequila. Six months later, I found you.
I should have seen the warning signs early on in the relationship, but I forged ahead. Six months turned into a year. One year turned into five. And by our seventh year together, we had a child, a mortgage and a blended family of sorts. A yours & ours. I was happy, the kids were happy. You were not, and you had an affair.
Again, I should have seen the signs. We argued, I fought for the relationship, you blamed me for the affair. We worked through “our” issues, I thought.
We added a child, lost family members, added a house and then the ugly monster reared it’s head. You were not happy again. And again it was my fault. There was no affair – just a threat of suicide. I talked you out of it. I thought we worked through “our” issues and we forged ahead.
Eight months later, you were unhappy again, you were suicidal again. And again you felt it was my fault.
You came home because you had no where else to go, but you tricked me into thinking that you wanted to be here. You insisted you wanted a “normal family”. But when push came to shove, you finally admitted that you really never wanted to come home, never wanted to be with me, you just had no where else to go, no job and no family.
So you have decided that you are done with me, you don’t want to have the “stress” of owning a house (or two). You say you want nothing, but refuse to leave until your “name is off the house”. You say you need no one, and that you can do it all on your own. Yet we all know you are wrong. You know you are wrong.
Your anger and your blame has nothing to do with me. It has to do with whatever it is that you are hiding from. You need to find help, we need you to find help.
Help doesn’t mean you have to stay with me and your family. Help means fixing you, and whatever it is that is making you unhappy. Because fixing you is fixing our children. Because when you are broken, it breaks them.
You deciding that we are not going to be “us” anymore is probably the best decision you have made for all of us. Because I can no longer take the blame for your shortcomings and insecurities. I have my own, and I need to be the best example I can be for our children. I know I am not strong enough to leave you on my own and I still want to “fix” you/us.
So while you waver in the wind and deny you need help, I’m going to get help for myself, my children and my own well being. I will seek out legal advise and I will seek out counseling for me and for our children. I will find my way from here.
But, I hope someday you will realize how much you are loved, how much you have hurt us and how badly you need to be fixed. I hope that you make the choice of life and that you realize your kids need you, not a “replacement daddy”, as you like to say. I hope you that you make the choice to fix you, so that they too can be fixed.
by Band Back Together | Oct 21, 2010 | Abuse, Child Abuse, Emotional Abuse |
In my previous post, I talked about the emotional abuse my children are going through.
I constantly fear that they will carry these scars with them. But I don’t think I have ever been more proud of my daughter than I was yesterday.
I got out of work two hours early, so I called my daughter to tell her that after her homework, we could go to the playground. She was so excited. I told her to get her school books ready and she said “Mom, I am playing right now and I REAAALLY want to finish this.”
I asked her what she was playing. She told me she was pretending to be a counselor. She’d gone to summer camp and the older kids volunteer as camp counselors. I figured that was what she meant.
So I asked, “What kind of counselor? Are you starting a camp?”
She said, “no Mommy, I am being a counselor who talks to people. That’s what I want to do when I grow up. I want to talk to kids like me so I can help them.”
It brought tears to my eyes. It made me sad that she acknowledges the scars she is going to carry but it also made me so proud that, instead of feeling sorry for herself, she wants to use her experiences to help others. At six years old, she is already thinking about how to help others instead of dwelling on her own problems.
Most kids her age play house, doctor, and teacher. She is thinking about how she can use the small amount of experiences she has had in her short life to help other people.
I am so proud of her. At age six, she is such a smart, kind, and compassionate person and I truly believe she WILL help many people in her lifetime. I am so thankful that she is learning how to help people rather that assume that abuse is okay.
I have always loved the song In My Daughter’s Eyes, but yesterday I could hear the lyrics over and over again in my head: “I see who I want to be in my daughter’s eyes.”
I only wish I could be as strong, caring and compassionate as she is.
