For the last ten years I tried everything I could to make him happy. He wanted me zen and unemotional, I learned zen and unemotional. He wanted space in his cave and I encouraged him to take space in his cave without complaining. He wanted to play video games, great, here are new games, and in fact I'll buy every new system you want too. Want the newest gadget? YOu've earned it. No, we don't need to go on any vacations alone together. That's fine, I don't need anything. You want to move three thousand miles away from everything I care about, whether I want to or not? OK. We'll go. Oh, and by the way, you are tops at everything. I'll squeeze every interesting thing about my life into the hours when you're at the office. I don't need any help with the house, you just sit back and enjoy your life, I'll take care of everything.
Sure, go ahead, book that redeye. No, no, don't mind me, you can take that Tylenol PM as soon as we get on the plane without saying a word to me -- I'll wrestle with our unruly toddler in first class all by myself while you sleep the hours away. Hey, our daughter broke her arm -- do you mind watching the boys? I'll take her to the ER. Oh, our son broke his arm. No, you don't need to help with the first aid or anything -- Go ahead, do the limbo with the rest of the party, I've got it.
Please, do you mind spending a little time with me? Without a screen. Oh, that's too much to ask -- but you want to have sex. I'd like to watch this show -- oh, OK, I'll go watch it by myself while you play on the computer (porn??) -- SURE, I'll have sex with you when my show is over!!
There is not ONE THING he was willing to do to be a family together except dinner and a movie when I'd twisted his arm hard enough. All those years, I puffed him up and never even was told that I was pretty or interesting or desirable. But he sure would complain if he didn't get enough sex.
No, I'm sorry Zues. He did not conduct himself like he was interested in being married to me for years. YEARS. Not even interested, no matter how I tried to accommodate, thank, or praise him. Exhibiting interest in him was not allowed -- but he had to hear about my day in six-minute increments. He would get REALLY peeved if I tried to push him to share how he'd spent his day, who with, what he was up to. REALLY peeved if I asked him in any kind of detail about movies he saw without me (no small number), books he was reading, music he found interesting.
I let myself be treated like nothing. For years. There are plenty of things I did wrong, starting with permitting myself to be treated like an employee and luggage for years. I do not believe I am rewriting history. It's true that we were intermittently happy, mostly at the beginning. But it's also very true that he treated me really badly and I internalized that treatment and let it inform what I thought of myself and now I am really angry that it took me so long to figure that out, and also that I feel grief at how my marriage turned out.
I do not like the way he's trying to manipulate me now into ending the marriage legally the way he wants to and that he's being very disrespectful to me. That he keeps threatening to take his respect away -- as if I've had it in years, given the way he cheated and how little he cares how that feels to me. I don't need his respect. I've taken these hits on the chin like a CHAMP and I have grown from them and through them in ways that make me proud of MYSELF.
If STBX is complaining to anyone that he felt hurt, then that is wrong. If he can articulate what he didn't like, he SHOULD have brought it to me -- he had a moral obligation to do so. I brought my concerns to him: I DID say at one point that I was frustrated that some distance had grown between us and I wanted to change that, and he turned away and mumbled "we're fine" in the way that made it clear the subject was closed and then he withdrew even further from me.
I am not complaining about his current behavior. I realize I can't change it. The possibility of reconciliation (even assuming he wanted it, which he doesn't) is utterly ruled out for me because I am so angry and disgusted at the way I let myself shrink in response to all his testiness and gaslighting. But I am totally sickened and saddened by what I let happen to ME in that marriage. I am really unhappy that I did everything I knew to do and then some trying to figure out how to make us a happy couple. But what it comes down to is, he wanted to sleep around with strange women in glamorous cities, never include me in any of his travels or really any part of his life that didn't involve family members, and get whatever shallow thrill occurred to him no matter how destructive it was to our family, and there was not anything I could do about that.
And I just went begging for more.
Me42, H40 D12, S8, S7 A revealed: 7/13 Sep 4/14; Agreed to D 1/15
