I waited for a very long time before I went forward with posting this. I feel strongly now that I must post this to clear my name. He has told so many lies about me.
I feel deeply in love with a man (TS) who I thought deserved to have the red carpet rolled out when he came home. His charming ways and down to earth country life was irresistible to me. I found out very quickly that this man had a very dark side. I lived with his emotional, verbal, and physical abuse for 5 years. It came close to destroying me. Prior to my marriage to him, I was very successful in my career. I was also a very outgoing and carefree person. I am just now starting to get that back.
TS is so much fun to be around. He can be very gentle and make anybody laugh until their stomach hurts. He is the type of person that on a distant level you would think is an awesome person. I married TS and found the dark side of him.
TS constantly accused me of wanting another man. He was in constant fear that I may cheat on him. I could not go anywhere and be gone for more than 30 minutes without him insinuating that I was doing something wrong. I worked in automobile dealerships when I met him. He would drill me about any newly hired male where I worked. When he and I went out he would make statements to me that were very demeaning if I even as much as looked in the direction of another man. Disagreements between us became a huge fight. He would start calling me terrible names and make remarks that I got where I was in my job with my legs open.
By now you may be thinking that I must have done something to deserve this treatment. Not at all! I was so infatuated with him. There was no other man that even slightly interested me. I never gave him even an excuse for him to think that I would ever cheat on him. In the fourth year of our marriage, he cheated with two different women. One time, I even went back to him. He sat in his truck one night, crying, and told me that he wanted me, not her. He claimed his fame to being so wrong for what he had done.
The physical abuse started very soon after our relationship started. It did not matter if TS was drinking alcohol or not. He kept telling me all of the excuses of why he did it. I moved out three times and filed for divorce three times. I came back to him each time after hearing him plead that he would not do it anymore. No one will ever understand why I stayed with him. My only explanation is hanging on to the hope that his dark side would go away and I would be left with the charming, funny, and sexy man that I was so in love with. He also claims that his step mother abused him as a child. I held onto the idea that he had “learned” that abuse was a way of life and it would take time for him to “unlearn” this way of life. I was willing, at all costs, to help him get through this bad part of his life. I lost many friends because they had “rescued” me, only for me to go back to him. I lost the respect of my family and myself. One night, he hit me in the nose and blood went flying. We were in the truck coming home from a friend’s house. He drove the truck to the railroad tracks of a bad neighborhood. He told me that he was going to let me out there and the he hoped the “Dixonville” boys would find me and rape me. Another night, he picked me up by my ankles and swung me around the room like a ragdoll. He swung me up against a curio cabinet and the hit broke my arm. There were many more horrible instances. He always did it very privately. If someone walked up during the “act”, he would completely change his attitude and start acting like he was loving on me. He became very angered when he learned that I had told some of my coworkers and friends about his abuse. He said he felt it was something I should have kept in the family and claimed I was very wrong for telling others about it. He claimed that I “pushed his button” with a certain tone in my voice or look on my face.
Through the course of our marriage, I worked hard to get TS to understand that he needed to stop the abuse, fighting, calling me names, and accusations of me wanting another man. I was his sole supporter in letting him know that he was a good person underneath all of the bad. So many times he thanked me for staying with him. He told me so many times of how I was the best thing that ever happened to him. When things were “good” between us we got along so well. We hunted and fished together. We sat around and had some of the best conversations and best laughs. I was constantly telling him how adorable he was.
I had finally had enough. When TS starting calling me names, I started doing the same thing back to him. I hit him where it hurts with the cut downs I said about him. I became what he had been. The only difference is that I never got physical with him. Through our entire marriage, he would claim that he never wanted to see me again and then within a short time he was all over me againThe very last time we had gotten back together, I actually thought we had made 110 percent progress toward finally getting through all of the bad. Then one day, over something very minor, we started talking about a divorce.
We finally divorced. He filed but it was a mutual agreement ( at least at the time it was) We had a past history of “calling wolf” about a divorce but usually after things calmed down we were okay (actually, better than ever). I let him do the filing because I had processed the divorce myself all the other times. I told him that he would have to pay an attorney and get it done. He did. It was final within about 45 days. He suddenly took the attitude that he was divorcing me because he kept saying that I was mean. The final change of his attitude toward me came when he became the divorcer and I was the divorcee. He has made it his mission in life to blame me for the marriage failure by claiming that I nagged at him and says I am a mean person (and yes, I did nag about his abuse, his cheating, his neglect of not doing his share of the housework (which he did nothing), and his neglect of his kids. He would only see his kids every other weekend but spent the whole time running with his cousin in the deer woods or fishing and would leave the kids at home alone with nothing to do. He never took them to do anything fun.
After the divorce was final, we tried to be friends and sexual partners. One minute he was a sweetheart and the next he was a jerk. He would ask to me stop calling him. I continued to stay in touch. There were so many mixed times. One time he would be hateful and the next time he would be wonderful. The problem I had was pointing out all of the wrong things he did to me. It finally ended after he claimed that he hated me. This hate came after I wrote a letter to him revealing my feelings about his abuse and his cheating. It apparently struck a “truth” nerve so deep inside him. I kept trying to defend myself against his claim the he was divorcing me because I had been the bad person in the marriage. I tried to explain in this letter that it was not my fault that he abused me. I used an example of his step mother’s abuse of him. I asked him if he felt he deserved her abuse. I also pointed out to him that he has two daughters that he would hate to see a man abuse one of them. He also could not understand why my family didn’t like him. I told him, in this letter, that he would not like his daughter’s husband if she were abused or hit by her husband. The letter was nothing more to me than an attempt for him to stop blaming me for his problems and to express how much I loved him but how hurt I had been by his actions. I felt so betrayed because I stood by his side through so many times and that I forgave him for the things he had done
Now, TS is filled with so much hate towards me. It hurts very badly because I worked myself to death to help him change his ways. I felt that I had sacrificed so much for him. It is like getting an alcoholic or a drug addicted spouse through their problem and then been tossed in the trash after the person is cured. I gave my full support to him and he just gave up on us. I can understand that after awhile he finally felt like he would never be able to live his mistakes down with me. I started realizing that I needed to ease up on him. He never gave me the chance to show him that I could. Even though it may have been that I left him due to abuse, he found a way to make it look like it was my fault. Usually, TS calms down after anywhere from a few weeks to a few months and he will start talking to me again and get over his “hate”. This time he has been steady with his hate. One time we were separating for 4 months without any contact. Then out of the blue he called me and wanted me to come back to him. The last time we were apart for 7 months. He called me and begged me to talk to him. That night he cried and begged me to come back. I was so much on my way to a new and happy life. At the last minute, when I was about to walk away for good, I let him back into my life.
He is now seeing another woman. He went from, us having a very nice night together and actually feeling like we could get past all the bad times, to hating me; all within a week. He tells me that he is going to do different with this woman. (I forgot to mention that he was married to two other women that he also physically, verbally, and emotionally abused and cheated on. I found this out after I had fallen head over heels in love with him and my heart was doing the thinking rather than my head. I still feel this way sometimes because I think I would take him back in a heartbeat.) He kept promising me that he would change for our marriage. He has told me that she is a nice person and she thinks the world of him. I reminded him that I thought the world of him and that for years he thought I was nice too. He told me that he has changed and that he was going to treat her like a queen. My response to that was to ask him why he could not have done that for me after he promised so many times that he would. I didn’t ask to be treated like a queen; I just wanted to be treated with respect. He told me time and time again that I treated him better than any other woman he had been with. He would sit for hours and talk about our future life together. How does a person just flip a switch completely the opposite direction in such a short time?
I do not hate TS. I actually live in this dream world that one day he will “wake up” and realize that he was wrong. I live in a dream world that he will get rid of the dark side, thank me for helping him change his ways, and we would live happily ever after. I actually love this man more than any other man I have ever been with. I would do near anything to help him better himself and have all the good times we once had, with the bad times gone. Worse case would be if he could just sincerely thank me for helping him change (if he truly has) and apologize for giving up on us. If he has truly changed, I feel extremely cheated that I did not reap the reward of having him as my partner. Like I said, apart from his drinking, abusiveness, cheating, and laziness in household responsibilities, he was a good man. Remember, I said dream world. I am living in reality but not without hurt and the feeling of betrayal. I would like to see the day come when he can sit down and sincerely express his apologies for what he did to me, accept the responsibility for his own wrong doings, and make peace between us. I also hope that someone who knows him will read this and see that I am not the bad person that he keeps telling everyone I am.
Can you actually believe that I sometimes regret this divorce? Yeah, me neither! I have not dated anyone steady and have no desire to any time soon. I have had a few dates and I have had several men try to get me to go out with them. I just think I need to do my own thing for awhile. I am actually enjoying my single life but I do miss the married life too. It is kind of like the career I use to have. I made good many but started hating the long hours and stressful days. Every now and then I think I might get back into that field, but quickly realize how I would still hate the long days and the stress. I realize that it would not make me happy.
I trust in God. I feel that he has his way of taking me down a path so I will appreciate what is coming ahead. I also believe in my name, Karma. I know that what goes around will usually come back around. I do wish him the best. If my purpose in his life was to help him change for the better, then I hope I served my time well while I was with him.
Comments
Great avatar change!!! Is that still you? (wow!)
by JustAnotherDeadPoet on January 29th, 2007
Thanks! Yep! I dropped the glasses and went all sepia!
by Simply msFortunate on January 29th, 2007
Well... You look GREAT in that picture...! Have you figured out how to send that "yes" by mail? =)
by JustAnotherDeadPoet on January 30th, 2007
:-) Well, thank you. I have not yet figured out how to mail my "yes" but you'll be the first to know...maybe I can find an old PC microphone at work today.
by Simply msFortunate on January 30th, 2007
i agree, i'm not divorced yet, i won't hate her, however, she did ask me to keep my last name..i told her that would be good, shows she used to be worth something(yeah i know..words of pain) and yes great pic btw..lol
by dr. john on September 11th, 2009