MY STORY:
Hey fellow Marriage Builders! For those of you who are new, my name is FaithfulWife, but my friends call me CJ. I’m an old alumni here at MB—as in, I’m in my 40’s AND I’ve been here forever! Heehee. See my member number?? Steve Harley and I practically INVENTED the discussion forum—haha—along with a few of my best old time buddies like JayHawk, C00ker, Wiffty (who was WIFTT back then), Cinderella, Java, Butterfly, Ragamuffin, Bumperii, MikeJ, SoTired2000, GSD, ChrisCA, NinaToo, Anna2000, C++ and so many, many more. It’s funny, because now I know most of these people by their real name and not just their screen name, so it’s hard to remember their screen names!
So for those who don’t know, here’s a very brief recap of my story. On February 3, 1999, my ex-H decided to up and move out. No warning, no nothing—just moved out. Of course, we were growing distant…I felt lonely all the time and unimportant to him and he was at work all the time, but I figured that what EVERYONE does when they’re married, and they stay together, work it out, and make time for each other. We had a business together; we had two kids (a teenage older son and a tweenage younger daughter); we had two homes and a life together. It never even DAWNED on me to break up!!!
Well those first few days were the most horrible thing I’ve ever lived through. It turns out he left us and moved out of state with his OW (who, BTW, was a year or two younger than us but had 4 kids all under the age of 11—one an infant!!). The kids and I were left with no job, no money, a mortgage that was behind, and BILLS but no way to provide for ourselves (we owned the business together, but it was his and I didn’t know how to run it). Anyway, at first I cried for about a week straight, couldn’t sleep or eat, you know the drill…but then I decided I had to get myself together and I got a job and started taking care of myself and my kids!
Just when I was getting it together and feeling better, he decided to dump his OW and try to be married to me again. Yep—it took six months and suddenly OW-with-4-kids wasn’t so romantic! Anyway, I took him back because I believe in my marriage vows and wanted it to work out if at all possible. While he was gone, I had stumbled upon the MB web page, gotten all the books, and really worked on figuring out how to have a loving, equal relationship. Unfortunately, he came home with the attitude that I was LUCKY to have him back and I needed to prove to him that I had changed!!!! Can you believe it?? I couldn’t! He was home through the summer, but during the holidays of the year 2000, he took off to be with his OW again and was with her on that special New Years Eve. Not too long after that, through counseling, I started to learn about verbal and emotional abuse and realized that even though I had never been hit, the raging and blaming and screaming were abuse too.
In my own counseling, I started to work on handling my own anger better, on establishing my own more healthy boundaries, and on building my self-esteem and standing up for myself. It seemed like the more techniques and methods I tried to work things out with my ex-H, the worse things got. He literally raged at me for hours at a time—screaming, throwing things, burning my journals, etc. He also would GO to marriage counseling but not DO anything that was suggested by the therapist or any of the “homework” we were supposed to practice. Finally one day it dawned on me that I was being emotionally attacked every three days, and my life was a constant whirlwind of just trying to survive those attacks. The cycle was predictable: ATTACK—pout and silent treatment—tension mounting—ATTACK—blame and silent treatment—tension mounting—every three days! Looking back on it, his reactions to my attempts to reconcile were also quite predictable: agree to anything, ignore it or “forget”, blame me; it was classic passive-aggressive behavior. Furthermore, during this time my ex-H was basically a serial cheater. He kept going on the internet on porn sites and singles matchmaking places and telling people he was single and looking for a sexual connection. Then, he would exchange sexually explicit emails with his latest OW until they arranged a meeting OR until I caught him and moved out with the kids.
This continued on for a couple of years frankly, and looking back now I feel somewhat bad that I didn’t stand up for myself better and I allowed myself to be treated like that. It’s sad—but it’s also the past and I can’t change that. Good for me, I did keep going to counseling and keep working on myself and keep learning and practicing new ways of thinking and behaving for me. It turns out that my ex-H was diagnosed with bipolar-rapid cycling, borderline with a narcissistic focus, and general anxiety disorder, and believe it or not that was quite a relief to me because then I knew that I was not “imagining” all this whirlwind and I was not “crazy” for feeling like his behavior was out-of-control and not normal. Naturally, he still REFUSES to acknowledge the diagnoses and still insists that I am the one who is crazy and inappropriate. Oh well! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />
The final straw for us as a couple came right after my ex-H’s 40th birthday. He wanted a big, expensive party with all of our family and friends, so I did my best to plan a big soirée. To surprise him, I also planned to put his name up on the billboard at our local football stadium during a Monday Nite Football game! Not too shabby, hey? Anyway, during his birthday and party, he was distant and standoffish, and I couldn’t understand why. Well a few days after Thanksgiving I found out why: yet ANOTHER email affair!! That time, something within me just couldn’t be treated like that anymore. I loved my husband and did NOT want a divorce, but I also knew that I would not be able to look my own Self in the eye if I kept letting myself live like this. Does that make any sense? I wanted with all of my heart for my husband to learn how to be gentle rather than abusing, to be faithful rather than cheating, to be honest rather than deceitful—and he just would not do it! And I knew within my heart that I was being untrue to my Self to keep taking it. I couldn’t believe my own promises!! So we argued, and I think in an attempt to punish me, he threatened to move out and I let him go.
From the time he moved out, he did not visit the kids or send any child support—much less, giving me any money to help pay for bills –so once again the kids and I were pretty much abandoned and left to fend for ourselves. This time, though, I wasn’t nearly as devastated or afraid, because I knew I was ABLE to do it. He didn’t scare me. I think he knew that he didn’t scare me too, because he started doing stuff like coming to the house while we were at the movies and messing with my computer…or I’d wake up and he’d be sitting in my bedroom and say, “See, I can get into this house any time I want.” Now, THAT scared me and I changed the locks!! He was FURIOUS!! One night he came to the house under the guise of visiting with the kids, and he yelled at me all night long (loud volume and everything), and I said 17 times, “I’m not going to fight with you. I’m not going to fight with you. I will not fight with you…” When that didn’t seem to be working or deterring him in any way, I said that he either had to stop the loud volume, stop trying to provoke a fight, and go home OR I would call the police and ask for assistance. He never missed a beat. I repeated—he continued—and I called the police, and got a restraining order the next day. Once again, he was FURIOUS and blamed me for putting a domestic violence on his record. Well, he could have stopped and gone home! He doesn’t see that, even to this day. A few days later, the rage continued and I just filed for divorce.
Normally, divorces with abusive people become 3-ring circuses of pain and torture, but luckily for me we were able to work out most of the details. He refused to contribute in any way to his children until a judge forced him to, and I thought that was pretty sh*tty, but otherwise I chose custody and child support as the hills I wanted to die on and let most of the rest of it go. I can provide for myself. It’s not the Taj Mahal, but I live a full, good life <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> I didn’t want the conflict of fighting over “Gramma’s china” or whatever—the peace was more valuable to me—so I let him have any “stuff” that he wanted and figured I’d replace it with “stuff” that I wanted anyway. Thankfully, our judge was wise and saw clearly that I was the parent who raised the kids, who was stable and consistent, and who KNEW them, so I got full custody. Well, technically it’s 50-50 decision-making and almost 100% physical placement with me. He was also ordered a good amount of child support with back pay!! YAY!! And that pretty much brings us up to the present.
CJ
