Was there any happy times?

The last thing he asked me was “Was there any happy times in our relationship?” before I cut contact with him completely.

We were together for 12 years all together, with us being married for most of it. I was such a naïve girl, and so very afraid of the world. I thought if we were married then it would be less likely he’d walk out and leave me right? Made logical sense at the time, now I just see it was my fears leading me and not logic.

I wasn’t a great wife, I was so very broken and mentally unprepared for the real world. Not that I am anymore prepared now, but I digress. I have PTSD which causes some really bad depression. I’ve suffered with these symptoms my entire life, and I know that adds a lot of extra stress on the relationships around me. He tried being there at first, but he didn’t know how to handle me, and I didn’t have the words to tell him what I needed. I had a hard time holding a job down for more than a year, I always hovered that line between being fired for attendance and being a great employee. That added a lot more stress to our relationship. I knew basic things from raising my sisters, but got overwhelmed easily. Our home was never clean, and I was horrible at making sure we were eating properly. In my mind, those have always been my jobs ever since I was really little. As an adult though, something in me just couldn’t do the things that I needed to. I gave him control of the finances, which in hindsight was really dumb. I put a lot of the “adult” responsibilities on him, and it was too much pressure over time.

Towards the end of our relationship, I was so done, that I sought validation online. I had never done anything like that before, but part of me was so broken that I didn’t know what else to do. I wouldn’t have looked outward, but he laughed at me when I asked for some sexual attention. That sounds like an excuse written out, but it’s the event that led up to the end of our marriage. It started out innocently enough, with me just talking to people and sharing my story. I finally had validation that what was going on wasn’t okay, but I was also sexually repressed after years of neglect, and wanted someone to acknowledge me as a woman. Pictures were shared, I told my ex because I felt guilty. I told him I would stop, but the temptation to feel good about myself was too much. We tried working on our relationship, but things got weird and he got weirdly obsessive. The last time we had sex it was just rouse for him to go through my phone and corner me in the shower. I finally had the courage to tell him I was done. We both verbally agreed, but he continued to badger me for the rest of the night. He finally went to his father’s after hours of fighting and him being creepy.

After he left, I went online and ended up talking with people. At some point, I decided I was really, really done with him and wanted to fuck someone else. It was stupid and reckless, but part of me knew this would make him never want me again. Kinda fucked up, right? Well, that’s where my mind was. Most people will probably think I am a cheater, as we weren’t legally separated and the words hadn’t even settled fully. I won’t take back what I did, but I do wish I had handled myself differently. As all I did was give him more fuel for the fire, so to speak.

He was also not a good husband, or really a man. There were a lot of red flags at the beginning of our relationship that I chose to ignore. Part of me justified it, because he never hit me. Which meant it was okay, right? Oh boy, was I wrong. It was never okay.

I was 16/17 when we met, he rescued my cousin from a bad situation she had gotten herself in. He was older, and knew a friend who would buy us alcohol. Since she was spending the weekend with me, as my family was out of town, he brought her to my house. I found out after we had been together for awhile that he took a picture of me that day when we had grabbed some food. Not the weirdest thing, but it made me raise an eyebrow. Anyway, after we got back to my house, my cousin told me her boyfriend was coming over. We kicked him out in favor of her partner and my ex boyfriend who I was madly in love with at the time. Oh to be 16 again, but not really, that shit was a nightmare. A bit later, I ended up with my cousins on a beach trip, where we got a little drunk and I said that I had liked his arms and that he looked cuddly. Well, she got super upset with me, but it didn’t stop us from building a relationship.

At first it was great, he was there and tentative. Though, he’d have these moments where he’d be creepy. He was the golden child of his family, and when they moved his mom gave him the master with an attached bathroom. I used to have to hold my foot against the door to keep him out of the bathroom while I was in there. When he’d eventually make it through the door, he would proceed to stand there while I finished, and wouldn’t leave for me to wipe. He would also force me to shower and take baths with him. I didn’t mind the shower part, since he’d allow me control while I washed his hair and what not. However, I didn’t like taking baths with him. I would protest and he’d argue and guilt me until I’d cave. When we were together he was 6foot and over 250lbs-300lbs, I’m 5’6 and my heaviest with him was close to 275. We weren’t small people. Standard bathtubs aren’t even big enough for one person, let alone two grown adults.

If we only sat there and talked it would be one thing, but he’d like to pick at my acne on my back. He was forceful too, which caused a lot of scars on my back and shoulders. He would also nit pick at whatever transgression I had committed throughout the day, or my favorite, bring up past issues and argue with over matters that had been resolved.

There was a point where I went 4 years without having sex with my ex. He made me hate myself so much. When we met I was thin, even though I thought I was fat, stupid media. He’d make comments where he’d tell me I was beautiful and in the next breath insult me. I couldn’t look in the mirror without disgust. The stress caused me to start balding on top of my head. My hair was one of the few things I’ve always liked about myself, and I couldn’t wear it down without feeling like everyone could tell. I’ve also been dying my hair since I was 15, I know some of that can contribute to the hair loss, but most of it was stress and hormonal issues, as a lot of it has grown back. My natural hair color looks like dirty dishwater, it is technically called ash blonde. At one point in our marriage, he asked me to grow it out. I argued for a bit about it but realized it was futile, since he was the one who would buy my dye. Well, it had grown out to about my chin when he finally decided I wasn’t lying about the color, and allowed me to redye it. Once I dyed it “fun colors” he told me not to get blue or purple. A friend did my hair where I was blonde up top with streaks of blue and purple. He told me it looked like my hair had been dipped in a urinal. I was devastated.

Well, there got to a point where he decided he wanted to start having sex again, because he wanted to try for children. I am so happy I never had kids with him, but it didn’t mean that I didn’t deal with the heartache each month when the test would be negative. I also have PCOS which causes me to be irregular and there were times I would think I was pregnant, but it was all in my head. We got into a huge blow out, when in 2015 I decided to get an IUD, since normal birth control makes me nutso. I also had a 3 month period that I decided I never wanted to go through again. He decided to start a fight with me at the mall, for not consulting him on this decision. Even though I told him I wasn’t bleeding for 3 months again if I could help it. He kept picking at me trying to cause me to make a scene. If I remember correctly I may have finally snapped at him.

Around this same time, I had my first mental breakdown. We had found out the cause of my back pain, and that I needed to have surgery to fix it. I was on so many pain pills, and one night I found myself standing with a row of my medications. I was staring at them, thinking if I take all of these I won’t have to wake up. I didn’t want to die, I just couldn’t handle everything anymore. I ended up in a behavioral health unit for a week. His mom visited me every day, and I saw him a couple of times. When I got home, our first fight he told me he was mad that I went to the hospital and left him alone. Like dude, I wasn’t on bloody vacation, I was trying to not kill myself. When I lost my job because of my attendance record, he was so upset (it’s understandable why) but he told me I couldn’t have my surgery. He fought and fought with me, even though it made sense for me to have it. I was having issues standing and walking for long periods and I was just constantly in pain. Luckily, my surgeon's office was amazing and got me in before my insurance expired. I had hit my deductible that year, and it was going to be covered at 100% it would have been so dumb for me not to have it.

Night time tended to be the worst when it would come to his shenanigans. Heaven forbid, if I had pissed him off during the day. One of his favorite tactics was to let me fall asleep, to then wake me up to yell or fight about whatever. He’d do this over and over, until I’d finally explode at him. Most of the time it would end with me in tears. He’d always calm me down, and then tell me he did it to help me express my emotions. It was always how’d he apologize for fighting with me.

We’d also used to go for drives a lot at night since neither of us slept well. Sometimes, we’d take back roads with few to no street lamps and just drive. For the most part this was also nice, until he’d used to “joke” about how he could kill me and get away with it. I used to laugh along because I thought that was love. He used to tell me how he’d dump my body, and no one would know/care I was gone. It didn’t hit me until a couple years after leaving him, how truly messed up those night time rides really were.

He did the classic abuser tactic of separating me from friends and family. There’s a lot of issues in my family, and whenever we’d go to visit I’d have a hard time adjusting back to my normal after all the stress. Which made it easier for him to break me away from them, but he’d always make it “my decision” to cancel or what not. Really, it was never my choice, he’d just break me down until I was defeated and I’d give in. He would spend days before fighting with me before every holiday and family vacation, unless it was something with his family. Though he’d still fight with me a lot before those activities too. After so many years, I stopped trying. It wasn’t worth the stress and fights, I ended up turning more inward. He ruined many of my relationships with family and friends. I’m still struggling to pick up a lot of those pieces and salvage what I can.

He used to control me with animals too. We found out when I was 19 that it would be difficult for me to get pregnant without fertility treatments. I was devastated because I wanted nothing more than to be a mom. Well, our solution to my sadness was animals. We’d get a cat, and then decide it would need friends which after a while he’d get “overwhelmed” and would demand that I rehome them. I would fight and fight to keep them, but in the end I would always lose. The worst thing he ever did was when he got me a bunny. She was so sweet, but had a birth defect which caused a bunch of tumors to grow. She was in a lot of pain, the vet recommended that we put her to sleep. We took her home to spend a little more time with her and make our decision. She didn’t have a peaceful end. He killed her and then proceeded to torture me with the details for a long time. I try to not regret things, because I believe it is bad for the soul. This is my one regret, I wish I had never allowed him around any animals. I wish I had been stronger to protect them, I failed them all. That will never leave me.

His abuse was never overt, and no one really knew the full extent. In all fairness, I didn’t fully realize how truly messed up things were until someone pointed it out. This post all started with him asking me if there were happy moments in our relationship. The answer is of course, but it doesn’t make up for any of the BS that was our marriage.

My ex will probably never see this, and if he does I am sure he’ll find a way to twist it all around on me. He’s a master of that, but he can no longer stop me from speaking my truth.

There’s much more to my story and more to his and mine, but this is all I have the emotional energy for today. Thank you for reading.