Thanks Chrome, HP and OG_Lou for your messages. I will reply soon. Just need to mull things over.
Wake up call.
Last night H and I had another fight. Or rather I kept my cool and H fought. This morning he apologised, said he was out of order and said that I had been being nice to him all evening and didn’t deserve it.
On the way to work I had a sudden light-bulb moment. This is the exact same dynamic as wife-beaters. They get drunk, they beat their wives then the next day they apologise sincerely. The wife puts up with it believing he will reform.
My childhood was spent in an emotionally abusive environment. My Dad also hit us, mostly my brother and sister but me too. I can remember flinching in my seat if he were to rustle his newspaper or get up to go pee etc, essentially having no idea where the next belligerent attack would come from.
So I have been desensitized to emotional abuse.
I had a sudden revelation this morning, on occasion H has been emotionally abusive to the children. He will suddenly fly into a rage and yell at them for no particular reason. He tends to be extremely tolerant of them, taking on his usual martyred look if they are testing his patience and then will suddenly snap. They have come to me in tears of bewilderment when he does this. The revelation was this: I do not intervene. I do not intervene because I know it will cause him to flare up even more. Because I know I will be on the receiving end of his abuse. This is absolutely no different to the wife that does not intervene when her H is beating the kids because she knows if she does she will get a beating.
Fran
if we can be sufficient to ourselves, we need fear no entangling webs Erica Jong
