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babylizzz · 3 months

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And the saga continues. This is very healing for me. Please excuse me as I take full advantage of this outlet. This is all so very fresh.

K and I met on a dating app. I was just looking for some casual fun, someone to get me out of the house on nights when the kids were with their dad. He was looking for his person. What stood out to me right away about K was that he's funny. Most guys are so bland on dating apps. I swiped right and it was an instant match. The conversation flowed so well. He's so interesting and intelligent, and we have so many shared interests. We moved to text that night and met that weekend. By the end of the first date, I was smitten. I wasn't even looking for anything serious, but in walked this whole man. By that I mean he had spent the last 6 years intentionally single and just growing as a person. He was a complete, whole person who knew exactly what he wanted and was ready for it. We were both so real and open and vulnerable with each other. It was refreshing. By the third date, I was sure our souls were old friends. By the fifth, I was without a doubt in love.

We spent the following months adventuring together. We learned from each other, grew together, pushed each other toward our goals, and made each other better humans. He quickly introduced me to his best friends, parents, and sister. I even grew to love all of them because they were all amazing, like-minded people.

The first time he told me he loved me, I told him I had loved him for a while already. He responded that he thought he knew he loved me from the very first date but waited to tell me because he wanted to be absolutely sure. This made me love him even more.

K and I would lie in bed and talk until we fell asleep. We would wake up in the morning and wrap ourselves up in a blanket on the back porch, stare out at the forest behind his house, and work through a book he owned called "101 Questions to Ask Before You Get Engaged" - not because we were gearing up for that step, but because the questions in that book were nothing compared to the depths our conversations had already taken us to. But we knew that's where we were headed. We talked about what our future would look like together - what it would be like living together, when we got married, when I gave him a child of his own. We referred to ourselves as LPIT, "Life Partners In Training." We were on this journey to becoming fully known. That's all either of us ever wanted our whole lives, and we were really close if not already there.

At this point, K and I were so sure of us that I decided and we agreed that it was time for him to meet my parents and my kids, respectively. My parents thought he was nice, and my kids made fast friends with K. My son would not stop talking about his new friend and asking when we would see him again. They met once more before I had to go out of town, and once again, they hit it off swimmingly. My world felt complete. I had brought the two halves of my heart together, and they fit so perfectly.

I went out of state for a week for an event, and it was hard to catch K with the time difference, but he texted me as much as he could and FaceTimed as well. I noticed after a few days that he stopped saying "I love you" back, but I figured it was just an oversight because he was always so busy and stressed at work. When I got back from my trip, communication was back to normal, and we were so excited to see each other at the end of the week. Friday came, and I jumped into his arms and kissed and hugged him for a good minute. I'd missed him so much. I walked into the kitchen to put some things in the freezer, and instead of leading me to his room like he always did, he asked me to sit with him at the dining table. I thought at first he was going to show me a new game or something, but the table was bare. He explained that he had something very difficult to tell me. He was roommates with his best friend whose girlfriend was moving in in a couple of weeks. K was asked to find his own place within 6 months. He said he'd been doing a lot of thinking because buying a house is a big change for him. But when he pictured his future in a new house, he couldn't picture me in it. He just didn't see a future for us anymore.

That was it. Nothing had happened. It wasn't anything to do with me. He didn't regret one bit of our relationship. He was grateful that I'd taught him so much and helped him grow and made him a better person. He just had a feeling. I couldn't argue; I knew him too well. He'd broken up with his first and only other serious girlfriend for a similar reason. She was a negative person and he just couldn't see a positive future with her anymore. Another girl he'd very briefly dated was fun to hang out with, but he didn't see it going any further. How could I fault him when I always admired that he knew exactly what he wanted and didn't waste time with anything that wouldn't lead him to that very thing? So I shed a tear and said, "Okay, I understand." He said he was so sorry, and I told him I knew he was, and I turned for the door. He pulled me in for a hug, which I just couldn't handle, so I pulled away and slipped out.

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babylizzz · 3 months

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Posting bits of my recent reality to my personal blog because I need to process and vent, and I'm too broke to afford a therapist. Read or dismiss as you wish. Share advice if you please, but not judgement. Namaste 🙏🏻

November 24, 2023

I left my husband a little more than a month ago. So far, most people have respected my privacy and not asked what happened. But as the holidays approach, it’s becoming harder to avoid disclosing our separation, and I know people will ask why I left Adam. The answer can be simple – I was unhappy. I was sick of feeling so awful in my situation, and I realized I deserve to be happy. But simply saying I was unhappy sounds like I just wasn’t putting in the effort to connect with my husband. It sounds like I gave up and didn’t care to try. We have children, for goodness’ sake! Couldn’t I have stuck it out and tried to make things work for them? Oh, but I did. I fought for years, telling my husband verbatim what I needed to feel loved, begging for him to be an active and supportive partner. Sometimes it got better for a few days. We wouldn’t fight. He’d be helpful and loving. There would be physical intimacy. But I was always quickly reminded that the peace was too good to be true.

What exactly did my husband do that was so horrible? Was he just lazy and unhelpful? Well, I could tell you the worst things he ever did to me. Like how I once noticed he was jumpy while on his phone and always angling his screen away or closing all his apps when I entered the room. It wasn’t difficult for me to find out that he was entertaining another woman on Snapchat. I confronted him in the middle of the night. He swears it was never flirty or sexual. He only talked to her about life. He enjoyed that someone cared to ask about his day and showed an interest in conversation with him. As if I didn’t try to engage him between doing all of the childrearing and housekeeping by myself… I’ll never know if he was telling the truth about that, though. After all, people use Snapchat when they don’t want there to be evidence, right?

There was also the time he lied about cancer to get out of an argument. I don’t even know what we were arguing about – probably housework. But he apologized and told me he’d just had a lot on his mind. When I pressed, wanting to know more so I could be there for him, he told me his doctor thought he might have testicular cancer, which I knew runs in his family. He said he was supposed to go in for scans to confirm, but that he didn’t want to talk about it because he was too upset. I respected that boundary and didn’t bring it up for a while, just trying to love him and be there for him in other ways as best I could. Probably 2-3 months later, it was eating at me that Adam hadn’t confided in me regarding the results, so I asked about it. He didn’t know what I was talking about. I reminded him of our previous conversation, and so casually, as if it were nothing, he said, “Oh yeah, I just made that up so you’d stop bitching at me. I don’t have cancer.” This man had me fearing for his life and our future, and it was just a sick lie. That was only about 18 months into our relationship. I should have gotten out then.

There was also a time very recently – I know because our children were toddlers. I got home from work, and Adam immediately put on a show for them and beckoned me into the bedroom. He ordered me to strip and fully expose myself on the bed. I thought it not an appropriate time for relations, but the kids were occupied and I was afraid to anger him, so I let it continue. After I spread myself, Adam opened his phone and held it up to me. I covered my face and tried to get up, telling him not to take pictures of me like that, but he ordered me down. He kept looking back and forth from his phone to my body. Finally, I asked what the heck he was doing, and he showed me a faceless nude he had stumbled upon on the internet. The woman’s body looked just like mine, the same skin tone, stretch marks, and curves. I would have believed it was me, but I’d never taken a photo quite like that. I was enraged. How dare he force me on the bed, order me to expose myself, and question my faithfulness and decency! What ever happened to just asking a question and trusting your spouse? I told him how fucked up that was of him, that I was molested as a child by an older boy who forced me to do those same things. Adam apologized that I’d been through that, but he justified his actions because he “just had to be sure” that I hadn’t been sharing my body online for strangers.

All of those things, though, were easy to forgive for a while. I mean, I did excuse them for years until now, as messed up as that may sound. But none of those things hurt as much as the things he did regularly, weekly, daily.

Over the entire length of our 9-year relationship, Adam was abnormally jealous. He would accuse me out of the blue of cheating on him. When I got pregnant with our son, after the initial excitement, he questioned who the father was. We had stopped trying to conceive, but I guess that last try stuck. But to Adam, he couldn’t make it make sense, as if he knew my cycle like the back of his hand and fully understood how conception happens. He was sure I must have had another partner after we had stopped trying to get pregnant. Even until now, Adam will randomly question who our son’s father is, sometimes jokingly, but sometimes very seriously.

When we adopted our daughter, he would lash out when her crying woke him up too many times at night or when she'd throw tantrums as a toddler. He would frequently say that he wish we'd never taken her, that he didn't want "this," that he felt like he was being punished for someone else's poor decision to conceive her. Once her adoption was final after 3 years, Adam would still share these sentiments, but he'd add the caveat, "I mean, I love her now but..." The way this broke my heart was irreparable. For a long time, I could forgive his transgressions toward me, but to reject our daughter was unforgivable.

A few years ago, I became work-friends with my only male coworker, a man who I explained reminded me so much of my brother because he is Asian, a chef, and so good to his woman just like my brother is to his wife. I would only ever talk about the cooking and foodie things I learned from this coworker, but the mere mention of his name was very triggering for Adam, and he would be mad at me for days. I had to stop talking about the things I learned about my favorite hobby just because they were taught to me by a man.

Adam was also very controlling. I think he only ever asked for proof of my whereabouts less than a handful of times, but I had begun to recognize the signs that he was going to accuse me of not being where I said I would be. Without prompting, I would be so nervous that I would take pictures of my surroundings and snap screenshots of the timestamp as proof of my timeline in the event I needed them when I got home. Even when I provided this evidence, Adam still would not believe that I was being completely truthful.

When I started gaining confidence in myself when I made friends who would hype me up, I also gained confidence in my sense of style. I wanted to try wearing crop tops with the slightest bit of midriff showing above the belly button. On at least two occasions, Adam made comments about my intentions and stated he didn’t want me going out of the house like that.

Adam also would not respect my “no” in the bedroom. Sometimes he just wouldn’t let it go. Other times he would try to guilt me into doing things I didn’t want to do. Sometimes I would oblige, and when I was less than enthusiastic, he would get upset and start a fight. Still other times, he would say, “I’ll just get it somewhere else.” He would ignore my emotional needs, stating that if I'd just meet his physical needs, maybe he's be a better husband and father. How could I get sexually close to him when I felt abandoned in every other area of our life together?

Adam was and is very quick to anger. He would pick random fights and blame them on me. He would ignore me for days and wouldn’t even tell me what I had done wrong. In most cases, I had done nothing wrong. He would say nothing was wrong, but his attitude and actions would say otherwise. He would shoot me hateful looks, scoff, and shake his head as if disgusted. Sometimes I would begin to consider whether I actually had done something wrong and would apologize. Other times I knew without a doubt that I had done nothing, and I would apologize anyway just so he would talk to me. Most times, I would just take the mistreatment and withholding of love until Adam grew tired of it. Most times, when it was convenient for him, usually when he wanted sex, the cold shoulder would be over, and he would start talking to me as if nothing happened. He never once apologized for these days-long cold shoulders.

It goes without saying that I was always walking on eggshells. Sometimes I would be ridiculously nervous to bring something up for fear of his emotional or verbal reaction.

Adam would use intimidation tactics during arguments. Any time he was mad, he would slam or even throw things. He would beat on the wall and block doors to prevent me from walking away from the argument, and once before we had children, to prevent me from leaving the house. Once during an argument that was not even our worst, Adam cornered me in my tiny closet-office. When it got heated, he punched a hole in the wall right next to my face to intimidate me. I think that if I’d cowered in that moment, the violence would have escalated that day and from that point on. But I didn’t cower. I was bold and angry and told him if he ever did anything like that again, I would take the kids and be gone before he could blink.

Sometimes during arguments, Adam would belittle me, saying, “Let me put it in a way that you can understand,” before proceeding to speak to me as if I were a child. He would gaslight me, discredit me, making me question my reality, whether the way I remembered things was actually how they had happened. He would say, “It’s not my fault you can’t take a joke,” and, “I’m sorry that’s how you perceive it.” He would insist that an event or conversation never happened. He would always tell me he remembers what I said or did better than I do, stating, “You’re clearly not remembering correctly.”

He would place blame on my past behaviors to excuse his current behaviors, stating that if I had acted differently, he wouldn’t be this way. He would withhold love when he was mad, even when he was at fault. This included not talking to me, hugging me, kissing me, and ignoring me when I told him I loved him. He would even refuse to sleep in the same bed, sometimes because he couldn’t stand to be around me and other times just to intentionally hurt my feelings. He would tell me that I was just being dramatic, sensitive, or hormonal, sometimes stating, “Maybe you really do need therapy.”

I’m sure there are other things I could rattle on about. There’s so much that I can’t keep track of it all. I would tell him when these things would hurt me. I would even use words like “controlling” and “manipulative.” It never meant anything to Adam. He rarely responded with remorse, love, or compassion. One night toward the end, I was fed up. I didn’t want to feel unwanted and unloved anymore. I told Adam I wanted a divorce. His response to that was the most sorry I’d ever seen him. After a few weeks, we started marriage counseling. I think things got a little better in the day-to-day, but when he got mad, he would go right back to his cruel habits.

A few months into counseling, on a Sunday, there was a women-only family thing I attended. The time had been moved to later, and no one had told me, so I was out while Adam was stuck at the house with the kids for longer than I had intended. Adam called me, telling me that this thing that was entirely out of my control was unacceptable. He demanded that I leave and come home immediately, but everyone had just gotten there, and I’d carpooled with my mom, and I wasn’t going to make her leave because of him. I became indignant and told him that he could handle a few hours doing the same thing that I do all day every day. He told me that becoming a stay-at-home mom after being laid off was what I had asked for and to stop whining about it. I told him that I really didn’t want to be yelled at and have this argument with him in front of my family, and I hung up. We didn’t speak of it when I got home.

The next morning, Adam called me into the bathroom while he was getting ready. I had cleaned off the bathroom counter that weekend and thrown away 3 or 4 empty deodorants. I guess one wasn’t empty as I had thought. That morning, Adam screamed at me about deodorant, calling me a liar, insisting that the two blue deodorants I was speaking of never existed, and repeatedly asked why I would lie about it. All I had done was try to help clean up his side of the sink. I even apologized for mistaking the good deodorant for an empty one and accidentally throwing it away. But he was so fixated on the blue deodorant, how he never buys blue deodorant, when I was sure the details of those two blue containers would be my saving grace and make him realize that I really was telling the truth. Why else would I remember those details? But it didn’t matter. He was always right, and I was always lying. I walked away from the argument when our 3-year-old son came in and said, “Guys, guys, it’s okay. Just calm down.”

I realized then that things would never change. No amount of marriage counseling could fix what was broken. His irrational, angry episodes that got out of hand were becoming more frequent and more severe, and I was unwilling to see how far they would go.

In 4 hours, I packed everything the kids and I would need for at least a month, and we left for my parents’ house.

Part of me doesn’t want to blame Adam. He didn’t understand the magnitude of the damage he was doing to my psyche. But the rest of me remembers how many times I told him he was hurting me, that I didn’t want to be with him the way he was, that I didn’t want that for our children. That should have been enough for him to want to change. I shouldn’t have had to threaten divorce, to leave, to give him the exact terminology for gaslighting and psychological abuse. You don’t do these things to the people you love, and you sure as hell listen to them when they are crying for help.

I know our friends and loved ones will see me moving forward quickly and think I must have been cheating on him. I must not have loved him. I must not have cared about our family and our marriage. But I did. I fought for our marriage for years while the man who was supposed to be my partner ignored me. And when I couldn’t fight for our marriage anymore, I fought for survival, to keep our home together so our kids could at least have both parents around, even if they didn’t have the healthiest relationship. But I deserve better than that, and so do our children.

I am not unaffected by this. It was the worst feeling in the world breaking heart of the man I considered my best friend for 9 years, watching him crumble in front of me. It was incredibly difficult to maintain my resolve in the weeks that followed as he begged me for another chance. And it’s freaking terrifying not knowing what our future will hold as a result of my decision.

I will continue to mourn the loss of my marriage – all of the hard work, love, blood, sweat, and tears that went into trying to make it work. I will mourn the loss of the strong family unit I thought my children would grow up with. I will mourn the loss of the plans we had made for the future, the life we wanted to build. But what I want my family to understand is that I have been unhappy for years. I struggled for years with the realization that I knew had to leave. It just took me a long time to finally be ready. So if it looks like I’m moving on too quickly or seem okay with this all, it’s because I began mourning the loss of life as I knew it years ago. I have been broken for too long. Now it’s time for me to heal and be happy.

#rant post #personal post #divorce #separation #psychological abuse #emotional abuse #narcissistic abuse #gaslighting #manipulation #toxic relationship

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