Covert Abuse

Posted on by stilllearning2b
covert abuse

I’ve never thought of my ex as abusive.

Then readers tell me they recognize their (very much abusive) spouses in my descriptions of my ex.

And I wonder.

I read a story in the paper about a domestic murder in the county where my ex and I lived and I always half expect to see his name.

And I wonder.

Then I discover that security procedures were altered at my old school during my divorce.

And I wonder.

Was he abusive?

He certainly was never overtly abusive. There were no strikes or shoves and never any threat of physical harm. He never belittled or yelled or uttered lines designed to wound. I was not discouraged from seeing friends or enjoying excursions without him. He didn’t exhibit excess jealousy and always demonstrated respect. He was the same man in public with me as he was behind closed doors – attentive, affectionate, loving. I never feared him while we were together.

So then why was I afraid for my life when he left?

I inquired about a restraining order, but since there was no history of abuse and no threats of physical harm, I was denied. However, the police were concerned enough that they performed drive-bys at the house where I was living as well as the house where he was staying. The chief of police told me I was lucky; he related that many cases of marital fraud he encountered resulted in a murder/suicide.

I couldn’t imagine the man that had always touched me so lovingly intending to harm me. But then again, I couldn’t have imagined the rest of it either.

I didn’t know the man I was married to.

Was he abusive?

Domestic abuse, also known as spousal abuse, occurs when one person in an intimate relationship or marriage tries to dominate and control the other person. From HelpGuide

When I read descriptions like that, it seems clear. He certainly was controlling me through his deceptions.

But then I see this:

Domestic violence and abuse are used for one purpose and one purpose only: to gain and maintain total control over you. An abuser doesn’t “play fair.” Abusers use fear, guilt, shame, and intimidation to wear you down and keep you under his or her thumb. Your abuser may also threaten you, hurt you, or hurt those around you. From HelpGuide

Control? Check.

Doesn’t “play fair”? Check.

Fear, guilt, shame and intimidation? No.

At least not until he left.

And that’s when I realized I was terrified of him.

I’m slowly coming to terms with the fact that he was abusive. Not overtly, but undercover. His was a clandestine abuse, hidden even to me until the covers were ripped back when he left, revealing the buried machinations.

His abuse was financial, embezzling from the marital funds while covering his tracks with ever-shifting balances, hidden credit cards and fabricated stories.

His abuse took the form of gaslighting, altering my reality to match his goals. He took it a step further by assassinating my character through lies told behind my back to those around us.

His abuse didn’t use whips; it used a gentle leader of manipulation. Velvet trimmed lies whispered into trusting ears. No need to threaten when I easily followed along.

His abuse gained in cruelty when he abruptly abandoned me with no money and no explanation, refusing all contact. Protector turned persecutor.

During the divorce, he upped the ante, painting me as the controlling one. Falling right in line with the favored “You made me do it” excuse of the textbook abuser.

He never hit. He never yelled. He never isolated.

But behind the scenes, he was pulling the strings I didn’t even know existed.

You and Me Against the World

Posted on by stilllearning2b

My ex and I had a sense that it was the two of us against the world.

There were several factors that contributed to that mindset: We were teenagers when we started dating and teenagers think everyone is against them. We grew up on opposite sides of town and so from the beginning, our social circles never had too much overlap. We both experienced the death of several friends and mentors towards the end of high school and shortly after, leaving us to lean heavily upon the other. And then, perhaps sealing the deal, we moved halfway across the country to follow his job opportunities, leaving friends and family behind.

After settling in Atlanta, we found new friends. There were singles and couples that we would regularly socialize with. We found families that would “adopt” us for holidays.

But we never found community.

We never had an interconnected group of people to which we both belonged in equal measure.

And to be honest, I didn’t really notice at the time. As an introvert, I tend to prefer to socialize one-on-one or in smaller groups. I frequently would go to Friday “meetings” after work with the other teachers and my husband would often join for at least part of the time. His boss’ family took us in for celebrations and holidays and we blended in with their adult children and grandchildren. Or so I thought before painfully learning otherwise after the abandonment.

But even with this connection, we still ultimately only relied on each other. Opened up to each other.

It was still us vs. the world.

And then he left.

And I realized that I didn’t have to prepare for battle with the world.

I could let it in.

And now in my new marriage, it’s my husband and me in our world.

What Happens To the Ones Who Leave?

Posted on by stilllearning2b
leave divorce

What happens to the ones who leave?

The ones who lie and deceive and then walk out the door into their next chapter without so much as a glance behind.

Do they feel pain? Guilt? Remorse?

Are they happy with their decisions and in their new lives?

Or do they regret the choices that ended their marriages?

For many of us, we will never know. Even if you still have contact with your ex (or keep tabs on his or her whereabouts), the life they put on display for the world may well be a front. And even if they do come back, crying about how upset they are, do you believe the tears? Or are they of the crocodile variety?

It’s common to wonder how your ex is doing. After all, they were once your partner in life, and how they felt directly impacted you. And now that they’re gone, your mind still seeks that information. Perhaps your mind even seeks retribution, wanting to see them face the consequences of their choices.

For a long time (longer than I like to admit), I needed my ex to be in pain. It was almost as though I saw it as some sort of tug-of-war with only a limited amount of happiness to share between us. And so I had to pull his away to ensure that there was enough for me.

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But that’s not really how it works, is it? It’s not as though his okay and my okay were mutually exclusive. I could be okay on my own regardless of how he was feeling.

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So why do we have such a strong drive to see those that hurt us be hurt in kind? Does it mean that we’re somehow malevolent if we harbor feelings of vengeance and pray for karma to hurry up and do her job?

I don’t believe so. In fact, I see these feelings of revenge as coming from a basic human need.

The need to be understood.

Intimate betrayal and deception is one of the most acute pains that one can be subjected to. It’s a deliberate act, carried out by the one you trust the most, that leaves residual tenderness for a lifetime.

And we desperately want someone, anyone, but especially the one responsible, to understand the depths and quality of that pain. We want them to feel it so that we can be understood and, in turn that they can know what devastation their actions have caused.

In even the most mundane of circumstances, it is beyond frustrating and isolating to not be understood. In fact, I’m feeling this way now after a day of attempting to teach math and interact with my colleagues with absolutely no voice. All day, I wrote commands on the board and tried to pantomime how to find the slope of a line only to be greeted with puzzled expressions. I would spot behavior across the room and be unable to do anything about it until I finished with the current student and navigated through the maze of desks. All I wanted was to be able to get my points across.

To be understood.

But not being able to talk for a day or two in a middle school is nothing compared to not being understood by the spouse that caused those feelings in the first place.

That goes way beyond frustrating and isolating.

In fact, for me it went into rage.

I was angry for a long time. And that anger feeds upon itself. I not only felt an immense need to be understood, I also wanted him to face punishment for his actions (it seemed only fair) and I wanted find some pleasure in knowing that I was doing better than him. Petty? Yeah. None of this was pretty.

I didn’t care where he was or what he was doing. I just wanted him to hurt. To feel guilty. Maybe even a little remorseful.

And it was my now-husband who made it clear to me that I had to learn to let the anger go. That it wasn’t hurting my ex, it was hurting me and, in turn, my new relationship. Releasing that anger was a process. I had to enlist some mental choreography to shape conclusions that let me find peace. It was a process. A slow process.

I have an advantage in this over many of you; I don’t have children. And I can’t even imagine what it feels like to see your ex hurting your child. It’s one thing to let go when you were the one who was hurt. It’s quite another when it’s your child. In fact, I see this with my mother, who can still be brought to tears when talking about my past even when I’m smiling because of my present. For you parents, all I can say is do everything you can to teach your kids to be resilient while taking care of yourself. Practice modeling for them what you want for them. And be willing to learn from them; kids often have wisdom that we overlook.

For the most part, I’m past the anger now. In fact, at this point, I want him to be okay. Partly for him, because regardless of everything else, this was a man I loved deeply for many years. Partly for me, because I feel better knowing that I’m not putting any more bad energy out into the world. But mainly for the others that will cross his path. I want him to be okay so that others will be okay. When I saw him and (I think) the other wife hand-in-hand at a festival a couple years ago, I really did hope they were happy. Goodness knows, I was happy I wasn’t the one holding his hand.

But want I want has nothing to do with reality. If he is a narcissist or sociopath, he is incapable of feeling guilt or remorse and most likely will never change. If he has compartmentalized his actions and his past to the point where he no longer remembers the truth, he will not feel pain but may continue to inflict it upon others. If he has spent so long living in a house of lies that he can no longer find the door, he will remain forever trapped.

Even though I no longer harbor a secret desire to fill his car with fire ants, I don’t really worry about how he’s doing. Because I trust that if he has been able to feel the pain from his choices, he will change how he responds in the world. And if he has not felt the anguish, then the negativity he spreads will come right back to him.

And as for me? I no longer have a need to feel understood by him. I think if he was able to understand how it felt, he wouldn’t have done it in the first place. I no longer care to see him punished; I put my faith in karma. And I no longer need to feel superior that I’m doing better than him because my okay is now completely and totally independent of him.

Besides, I’m just happy to be happy.

And I’ll be even happier when I have my voice back:)

Just Because It Happened To You, Does Not Mean It Happened Because of You

Posted on by stilllearning2b
rejection

Rejection always hurts.

From the lack of an invite to a classmate’s party to the failure of a job offer, we feel the pain of being dismissed.

And when that rejection slip comes from our partner?

Let’s just say the pain is searing. Unescapable.

fMRI results have shown that the agony of rejection follows the same neural pathways as physical pain.  It is real. And it can be devastating.

We all have an innate drive to want to be accepted. To be recognized and wanted. As social creatures, we have evolved to need the group and to fear being ostracized.

The worst feeling in the world is not to be seen and hated. It is to be invisible and discarded.

When rejection from relative strangers occurs, we often rationalize the reasons:

“I wasn’t invited to the party because she is a stuck-up snob.”

“They didn’t accept my proposal because they’re short-sighted morons.”

“He didn’t call me back because he lost my number.”

“I was passed over for the job because I am over-qualified.”

It’s easy to perform this ego-preserving mental choreography when we do not intimately know the rejector and the rejector does not fully know us. We can depersonalize the experience, shifting the reasons for the refusal to the other person while protecting our own sense of self and worth.

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But when the rejection comes from the one that knows you best?

The one that promised he or she would always be there?

The one with whom you felt safe exposing your deepest fears and greatest vulnerabilities?

It’s personal.

I felt like I was discarded like so much garbage. No longer able to provide utility or beauty. Lacking in key features as I was replaced with a newer model. I trusted this man, had valued his opinions for years. So when he indicated I wasn’t enough, it was easy to believe him.

I think my desperate quest to label him was not only coming from a need to understand why, but also from a need to prove that his judgement was somehow faulty. That I was rejected because of something in him rather than something in me.

It’s so difficult not to internalize intimate rejection.

We all too easily assume that because it happened to us, it must have happened because of us. Sometimes we’re just collateral damage.

We take rejection by our partners personally.

He or she turns down a proposal of sex? It must because of the five extra pounds you’re carrying.

He or she is withdrawn? You must have said or done something to make him or her angry.

He or she requests time alone? It must be because you’re not wanted.

Yet much of the time, what we perceive as a personal attack has more to do with our partners than ourselves.

Perhaps sex was refused because of pressures at work.

Maybe the withdrawing was due to a sense of being overwhelmed.

And the alone time may just be a need to breathe.

Don’t let one person determine your value.

One of the biggest problems of internalizing rejection within a relationship is that it lays the groundwork for the marriage-destroying pursuer-distancer dance. The more the rejected partner feels abandoned, the more he or she desperately pursues attention and affection. The more the distancer feels hounded, the more he or she retreats and withdraws.

It’s a common pattern. And often a deadly one, slowly starving the marriage of trust and intimacy. If you feel rejected, it’s easy to respond with a frantic attempt to be wanted. 

And when the rejection comes at the end of a marriage?

It’s all too easy to respond the same way. Looking for worth and validation from anyone that will provide it. And holding on too tightly will suffocate any relationship.

Your worth can only come from within. And no rejection can ever take that away.

Rejection is about opinion, not fact.

When someone we love suddenly makes claims that we are substandard, we often believe them. Take their assertions as facts. Truth.

When they are actually opinion.

Opinion that may easily be influenced by other factors.

When I first read the suicide note that my ex sent to his other wife and my mother, I felt worthless. He spent full paragraphs discussing how impossible I was followed  by more paragraphs singing the other wife’s praises.

Of course he did. By demonizing me, he justified his actions. By discounting me, he secured his own value. And by praising her, he stood a chance of winning her back.

I was rejected because he could not continue to hide the truth.

I was rejected because he needed an escape.

I was rejected because he convinced himself that I had already rejected him.

I was rejected because of his opinions. And I no longer care what he thinks.

It’s a delicate ego dance learning to sift through the facts of the rejection to see if there is some truth to be learned.

Cheaters and deceivers often try to place the burden of the blame for their actions at the feet of their spouse. They act out of selfishness and greed and then claim that “you made me do it.” Yet nobody ever makes anyone else do something. Their choices are theirs alone.

Still, sometimes there is a bigger picture. Nothing you did or didn’t do make your partner act a certain way. But that doesn’t mean you have nothing to learn.

There is a difference between taking the blame for someone else’s actions and accepting responsibility for your own.

One man’s trash is another person’s treasure.

Just because one person took you out to the curb, doesn’t mean you have to stay there.

Reject their opinion of you and form your own.

Someone will see you for the treasure you are.

In Perpetuity

Posted on by stilllearning2b

“Mom, what does ‘in perpetuity’ mean?” I asked from the backseat as we drove by an intown San Antonio theater advertising Rocky Horror Picture Show Friday 10 pm  with the unfamiliar words posted beneath.

“It means it keeps repeating, going on without end.”

“So they show that same movie every Friday? That’s dumb,” I concluded with the assurance of a know-it-all 8-year-old. “Who would want to see that?”

Me, it turns out, since once I was a senior in high school, I visited that theater more than once to watch the movie and enjoy the theatrics in the spirited audience.

I guess I didn’t know everything when I was 8.

Or even when I was a senior in high school.

Because when I was a senior in high school, I thought someone could overcome their past just by wanting it badly enough.

I saw my parents’ divorce and vowed that it would never happen to me. I felt left behind by my dad and was confident that my boyfriend (later husband) would never leave my side. I witnessed the power that worry held over my mom and swore that I would be more carefree.

My boyfriend felt the same. He looked at his father with disgust and proclaimed he would never follow in his footsteps. He was fully aware of the alcoholism in his genes and promised that he was stronger than its pull. I saw the intensity in his eyes when he renounced his childhood and swore he would chart his own path. And I believed him.

 

I didn’t yet understand that it takes more than intention to escape the replays of the childhood patterns. I didn’t realize that old wounds, long since buried, would spring up again with new players filling in for old roles. I wasn’t aware how many of my actions and behaviors came from past experience rather than responding to some present stimulus.

I didn’t yet comprehend that our childhoods have a tendency to play in perpetuity unless we find a way to stop the feedback loop.

And it takes more than desire to stop the pattern.

 

My biggest childhood wound was a fear of abandonment. I was fully aware of this fear, yet I didn’t exactly address it in the best ways. When my dad moved across the country, I convinced myself that I didn’t need a dad. I could take care of everything myself. When I had several friends die, I decided to push the others away before they could leave. In school and work, I set myself apart by always being willing to take on the extra tasks and responsibilities; I made sure I was too needed to be rejected.

But none of those really mitigated my fear of being abandoned; they just made me think they did.

In fact, the only way I got over my fear was to finally face it.

And, as it turns out, the fear of abandonment was worse than the abandonment itself.

 

One of the strongest memories I have of the end of my marriage is from one night shortly before he left. From what I knew, he was in Brazil on a work trip. He had been experiencing uncontrollable hypertension for months and, on a rare call from Brazil, stated that he had also come down with some gastrointestinal bug. He sounded miserable, alone and scared. Two days later, I anxiously awaited his call from the Atlanta airport, where he was supposed to arrive that morning. I tracked the flight online, noted its landing time and waited.

Hours went by.

Calls to his phone went straight to voicemail. Repeated checks of the website verified the flight time and safe landing. I paced the hallway, gripping my phone in my hand. The dogs paced with me, their nails clicking on the laminate floor. I sat down at my desk and tried to find a number to call in Brazil. I paced again when the anxiety-fueled tremors grew too strong. I had images of him alone in a hotel room, too sick to get help in a foreign country. I felt impotent. Helpless. I paced again. I finally located his out-of-state office’s number and called his boss. He sounded surprised to hear from me.

Minutes later, the phone rang. It was my husband.

“I’m so sorry you were worried, baby. My flight’s tomorrow.”

“Are you okay?” It was all I could think to ask, my legs giving out beneath me.

“I’m fine,” he chuckled,”But I need to let you go now. It’s too expensive. I can’t wait to see you tomorrow.”

I wonder where his soon-to-be other wife was when he made that call?

 

That afternoon was my dress rehearsal for abandonment.

I experienced the real thing two short weeks later.

With my dad by my side.

My parents working together.

And my mom putting aside her own concerns for the care of her daughter.

 

I realized four things in those early moments after being jettisoned from my marriage:

I was never really abandoned in my childhood.

After really being abandoned in adulthood, I was strong enough to survive.

Accepting help doesn’t make you weak; it makes you real.

And the way to protect against abandonment is by letting people in rather than by keeping them out.

 

After facing spousal abandonment and thriving, I’ve even been able to find some of the hidden gifts.

 

It’s strange how life continues to present us with lessons until we are ready to learn.

A tutorial in perpetuity until we are ready to listen.