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I don't know if your H was ever verbally abusive. Mine was. It didn't start until the last few years of our marriage. Before the name calling started he was condescending a lot of the time. The verbal abuse escalated when he thought he was losing control of me.





He started saying rude and mean and condescending things to me about a year or two before the bomb. (Before that he could be rude, but not as much or as often, at least to me.) And because I didn't like it, I would call him on it, but not quietly and firmly, but by flying off the handle. In fact most of the 'cazymaking' from my side was in reaction to H's blinding rudeness and lack of respect, his condescension. He used to say nothing, never apologise, just turn his back, or leave the room or house.

He supposedly 'made the decision to leave me' after the last such occasion.

I wasn't exactly enabling his rudeness, but I sure didn't know a better way to handle it.

I used to say such things as "I won't stand for this kind of thing forever" which from my side meant things had to change for the better, but from his side, apparently meant that I would leave him one day. Methinks that is when he decided to confide in OW1 all about our 'miserable' marriage, and then 'fall in love' with her.

And she, silly goat, should have known better! She was my friend, for God's sake, and I had confided to her certain things about my marriage and H, and we even compared notes about our selfish husbands! At least I wasn't stupid enough to think that a husband swap was the answer! Puke.

It is hiliarious that in her response to H's round robin email, she said that many people had told her they found H pompous, but she had alway defended him, saying that they didn't know the 'real' H. How she flattered herself that SHE had a handle on the REAL H! And then her receiving that open email to all three of 'his women' showed H up to her like she never had seen him before. Ha!

I have no doubt that right now OW2 is basking in the glory of being the favoured one of the three in H's round robin. Boy, is she riding for a fall. Good luck to her.

It is no accident, I suppose, that all three of us women had majorly disfunctional aspects to our upbringing. Perhaps we expect no better from our SOs.

The things is, I DO expect better. But perhaps that element of 'changing a guy for the better', from being hurt to wholeness, is the stupid delusion I had, though unconscious.

That is one of the reasons I think I stuck it out in this marriage. Along with taking my marriage vows seriously, not wanting D to have a broken family, being by nature a faithful person, and one who sticks at things. And genuinely believing that I loved my husband. But I guess it is like loving a cat, you can love it all you want, but that doesn't mean it will love you back.

Livnlearn


"The unexamined life is not worth living" - Socrates