I didn’t expect to write this post at all, it has randomly come out of the blue for me. It will be good therapy, it may help someone else out there. I hope so.
Let me just clarify first, the post I wrote yesterday was just how I felt about the situation I was in. I am in no way saying the man I was seeing was abusive. I don’t know him well enough to say that. I just know myself well enough to know what I can take personally when it comes to my feelings and my self security.
My friend Rebecca sent me this link today @ You are not crazy. It brought back memories for me from about 14 years ago. I was in a very verbally relationship for two years with a man, that unbelievably enough had been a friend of mine for about 12 years before that.
It is true that you never know someone until you live with them.
Our relationship was the rebound from my marriage, which was also unhealthy in a controlling way.
It started out innocently enough, I actually thought he was just joking around in the beginning. I had already been pretty beaten down from my marriage and at first he seemed supportive and loving.
It didn’t last long. Men like that, who are bullies…pick the women who already have low self esteem, obviously an easy target will always be the choice.
It started out with name calling with a smile, and worked it’s way up to him throwing things at me. He was never physically abusive to me, probably because I left before it got to that point.
I was verbally abused daily, the breaking point for me, was when he started to do it to my children. I had no idea how to get out of the situation. We had just built a house together, I had put all he appliances for the house on my credit card, I was cleaning houses for money, I had no real job and I had two children under five years old.
One day, I was outside in our yard with a machete clearing blackberry bushes…it was a beautiful day and I was glad to have some time to myself while my baby was sleeping and my youngest and the abuser watched tv.
Around lunch time, he came to the door…now, me being optimistic thought maybe he was going to offer me lunch or at least a cold drink…
What came out of his mouth was this… “what are you going to make us for lunch, we’re hungry.”
I looked up, covered in sweat, tired as hell, with a fucking machete in my hand…
And thought what the FUCK am I doing here?
Defining moment…yes.
I told him to make his own fucking lunch.
The look on his face was stunned. I think he swore at me and then turned around and went into the house.
In the next hour, with a big ass blade in my hand and some very dead blackberries I made the decision to leave. As soon as I could get out.
Somewhere in the next bit of time…I think it took me a couple of weeks to actually get it together enough to get out, my best friend told me to go to the store and buy a book. One that changed my life.
I read it in a day. I devoured it. I finally felt like I wasn’t alone, or going crazy. I finally understood it wasn’t me, it was him.
I sat him down at the kitchen table and told him I was leaving, I told him why I was leaving and I told him when I was leaving.
He cried. Like a baby.
I didn’t care.
I was gone within days of that conversation. My life changed forever. It took me years to financially recover from the credit card debt. He never paid me back for most of it. I have faith that one day Karma will take care of that…maybe it already has.
I have never looked back since then, I have never put myself in a situation that I thought would end anywhere near that. I just can’t imagine feeling that invaluable or degraded ever again, and if I even get a hint that it may turn into the case I will turn around and walk away. I felt that briefly in the last three weeks.
So the Universe is just reminding me that I am worthy of good stuff. That I am not alone on my path, and that there are other people out there who have had the same experiences, who have learned the same lessons. We have made it through and we can’t forget all we have learned.
Sometimes a little shake up is good for the soul…
Happy Friday my friends xoxo