On Communication

2020 has been a wild year and I haven't written much about it, thanks to burnout and depression. There are a lot of things I have wanted to talk about. Things like my experience with Covid, and then the vaccine. Things I have been learning in therapy. Later when I summon the energy I can talk about those. But right now, I want to share how I am dating a guy and I think he might be the One, and all because I told him I was mad at my insurance company.

My company switched health insurances. After a bunch of "don't worry you can keep your doctor" talk, it turns out like 80% of the providers in this town won't work with this insurance so I suddenly need to find all new providers. And because this is "network-free" insurance they don't have a list of providers for me to pick from...I have to basically find someone who is taking new patients and then go through a bunch of hoops to find out if they take this weird insurance. It's frustrating as hell. 

Anyways, I was making phone calls and getting trapped in robo-phone-trees while doing my laundry when my boyfriend called me. He could tell by my tone of voice that I was upset, so he asked "is something wrong?"

In the past, I would have stuffed it. In the past, I would have said "It's nothing; I just don't want to talk about it." Even now, my knee-jerk reaction was to push away and isolate. It wasn't his business, and it wasn't anything he could do anything about.

But I decided to try this new thing called talking to people. So instead I said, "Actually I'm really frustrated because I'm dealing with stupid insurance stuff and the insurance is stupid and the doctors are stupid and the pharmacies are stupid and everyone in this town is stupid and it's pissing me off, so now I'm in a real shitty mood."

In the past, I would have been told how I was overreacting, how it wasn't that bad, how I just needed to "suck it up and deal with it." I would have been told this by parents, supposed friends, and romantic partners. At some point, I just stopped opening up. Opening up always lead to invalidation, so why bother?

This time was different though. Because, as I regularly seem to need to remind myself, my boyfriend is not those other people.

This time, I was met with, "That sucks. I don't know if I can help, but let me know if I can."

Maybe that seems like such a small thing, but when you spend decades of your life being told your experiences are invalid and you're overreacting, that small gesture of acceptance and tolerance becomes a really big thing.

I am relearning how to open up and be vulnerable, because I was met with so much antagonism in the past. Slowly, bit by bit, conversation by conversation, I have been getting there.

Don't invalidate your loved ones. Because when you do, you make them shut down, and opening back up becomes a long and hard process, even if it doesn't seem that way from the surface.

I wrote a sad venting poem

Sometimes I think I've moved on and everything is behind me, and sometimes I write poems in the shower. Usually I forget them shortly, but this one really wanted to come out, and I promised myself I would write more, so who am to deny it?

So here's a sad venting poem I wrote in the shower tonight.

Poison

It was perfect blue skies on the island,
Making out in the meadow, up to something good,
And the fighter jets on their training runs
Took a low pass overhead for a closer look.
But even then it was falling apart,
And we couldn't hide it from our counselor.
Every night all the shouting would break out.
Even then you were talking to her.
We were toxic, colorless, tasteless poison,
And we drank it with our wine every night,
And we looked no worse for wear on the surface,
But we were slowly dying away inside
We were toxic, colorless, tasteless poison.
The deadliest poison;
We weren't alright.

On the surface, everything seemed sweet.
We were made for each other that's what everyone said.
We did everything together all the time,
But when we got home that's when I would dread.
Because words don't leave visible scars.
Because throwing dishes is only breaking things.
Because being locked in a room doesn't leave marks.
Because punching the wall by my head only emotionally stings.
We were toxic, colorless, tasteless poison,
And we drank it with our wine every night,
And we looked no worse for wear on the surface,
But we were slowly dying away inside
We were toxic, colorless, tasteless poison.
The deadliest poison;
We weren't alright.

Now you're gone; I'm older, and I'm wiser,
And I know what my own worth is,
And I thank you for the lessons,
Because I'll never forget the days when
We were toxic, colorless, tasteless poison,
And we drank it with our wine every night,
And we looked no worse for wear on the surface,
But we were slowly dying away inside.
We were toxic, colorless, tasteless poison.

My abusive narcissistic ex-husband -- Part 3: Climbing back up and moving on

When my ex left me in August 2015, that triggered a set of the lowest set of lows of my life. Every time I hit rock-bottom, it was as if the floor would fall out from under me and there would be another rock-bottom right below it.

I was already at maximum stress level.

Between us, we had three vehicles. Over the summer, the transmissions in two of them died and required rebuilding. I had been trying to save up money for winter and spring quarters when I knew I would have to do full-time unpaid clinical internships, which was going to mean I would be taking extended time off from my day job for three months (each internship was about seven weeks), which meant affording bills and life was going to be challenging. The money I had been saving up in preparation for those internships was wiped out in one summer on car repairs, so I was stressing about how I was going to rebuild those savings in time for January.

Then, he dumped me. I felt like I was up to my neck in stress already, and all of a sudden I found myself underwater.

He played a bunch of mind games when he left me.

The reasons he gave for leaving were vague and unfulfilling, and they shifted with each day. Between me demanding he move out or fix things and him actually moving out was about a month, and it was a month that was stressful as hell. I don't understand those couples that go through divorce but live together for months and sometimes years as they go through the process, because that one month was awful for me.

He gave me several reasons. He just didn't love me anymore and he didn't know why. He vaguely stated "Perhaps I'm making the biggest mistake of my life, but I have to do it."

He also tried to spin it around on me. I didn't like his smoking, so I didn't love him anymore. I pointed out that while I didn't like his smoking (he was a nonsmoker when we met, but he was up to smoking half a pack a day by the end of the marriage), I wasn't the one leaving.

As I mentioned in another blog post, he interrogated my friends to try and scrounge up any dirt he could on me to justify his leaving. He looked for anything he could to make it my fault, somehow. The best he could do was complain I was too busy for him. This was somewhat valid, as I had a very full schedule with two jobs and school, even though I had warned him before going back to school that we weren't going to have as much "couple time" as before. He had been on board back then.

At one point, as he was struggling to find an apartment he could afford to move into, he said "Well, I'm at the point where maybe we can fix things, maybe not. I'm not sure; I want to stay until I can decide." I told him that wasn't good enough and my initial ultimatum stood: either we go to another marriage counselor and fix things or he moved out. He hemmed and hawed and said maybe we could fix things. I told him I would look into finding a new counselor, as the one we'd seen before admittedly hadn't been a great fit. The next day a property manager called him back to let him know his apartment application had been approved, and he was back to being all about moving out, surprise, surprise.

Since we had no kids and no major assets, we had an online company prepare the divorce papers. They came to me first. I told my ex I would take them to a notary and get them signed on my next day off, however I was bombarded with almost daily texts asking when they would be ready and when he could pick them up. When I told him there was no rush (because I know he didn't have the money for filing fees anyway), he blew up my phone with messages along the lines of "You're a hateful bitch who's incapable of knowing love and never will be," and "No one is ever going to love you stupid bitch." I didn't respond to those texts because I knew they were bait to drag me into an argument. I had that much figured out at that point, at least.

My emotions were all over the place.

We've all heard about the five stages of grief: denial, bargaining, anger, depression and acceptance. We hear about them as if it's a nice linear path to travel through, with the end prize being we get over it.

It's not that simple.

The reality is more like if you took a five-sided dice with each side representing a stage of grief, and each hour you rolled the dice. That's more like what it's really like. I was all over the board. One minute I would be laughing, the next I would be crying. I think on one of my drives home I actually counted 40 distinct different emotions I cycled through.

One of the interesting mixed feelings I felt was that I missed him, but I didn't miss him. I missed the companionship, the financial security, the cuddles, the good times, but at the same time I had zero desire to get back with him, my ex, specifically. I wanted the marriage back but I didn't want him back, if you can try and grasp that. It was a weird feeling to have, and even weirder to attempt to express.

It took time and multiple resources to heal.

One of the first things I did was find a counselor who would take my insurance. I was fortunate to have a plan that covered 90% for mental health visits, so it was affordable for me. It was very awkward to set up the appointment. I was like "Hi, um, I'm going through divorce, and it's hard, and I don't know what I really want, but I just want to talk to someone."

What I got was perspective and education on setting boundaries to help in the future. She actually had me read the book Boundaries, which I actually found surprisingly helpful.

I didn't have to see a counselor for long. I only saw her for about six months. I was not done with the grieving process, but I felt I was able to carry myself the rest of the way from there.

I also went through DivorceCare support group. It was cheap ($15 for the workbook) and it was another place to vent and learn strategies to heal. Surviving Divorce Podcast was also helpful, free, and the host is a former DivorceCare group leader.

There were also friends. The thing about friends is that after a while, they stop wanting to hear about it. A lot of people feel you should just "get over it" already, with no respect for the time it takes. I did have some friends I was able to vent to, who I can still vent to, but my advice is don't rely too long on them.

All in all, it took about nine months before I felt comfortable to start dating again. Even then, I was in a situation where I was starting to look for job opportunities outside of my area (there were no local jobs in my field), so that may have sped-up my feeling dating-ready: any relationship I started had a built-in deadline, so there was no risk getting too serious.

(Whatever you do, don't start dating too soon after divorce. I was careful not to, but everyone who has tried it has assured me it's not a good plan.)

Friends will say things that are true, but you don't want to hear them.

One thing I heard again and again and again was "Don't worry, things will get better with time."

It's true, but when you're struggling to get through the hour, let alone the day, it's not something you want to hear. Especially because things are probably getting worse before they get better. Your ex is sending you taunting texts, or you discover he already has a dating profile up on Craigslist of all places, or you just got your tuition bill and have no damn clue how to pay it. It's like the floor keeps falling out from under you.

Things to get better with time, believe me, but in the moment, anyone who says that you just want to punch right in the face.

Another thing that did not help was hearing "You'll find someone better than him." Even though that was also true, in the moment my brain hated these words. In the moment, my brain thought if he's that much trash and I can't even hold on to that, how am I going to ever make it work with someone better?!  This is flawed thinking, but it's how you think when the wounds are that fresh.

I think the best thing anyone could have done was just to distract me. If someone had pulled up outside my apartment and shouted "Bitch, get in the car, we're going shopping!" that probably would have been the most helpful thing. (My therapist actually prescribed audiobooks and podcasts to help distract me.) Just getting out and not dwelling on shit was the best for me in those times, I think.

Turned out he was cheating on me for a good portion of our marriage.

Our divorce was finalized at the end of February 2016. I had a miniature "divorce party" with some friends. One of them let it slip my ex had asked her for nudes...years ago. When she saw my surprise, she exclaimed "Oh crap, I thought Friend X had already told you!"

I confronted Friend X, who told me my other friend "wasn't supposed to tell" about it. Turns out that during the last three years of our marriage, my ex had requested nudes from multiple friends (Friend X had received multiple requests over the years) and had also professed his love about certain other women, including a coworker he apparently was now seeing (the same coworker I mentioned in Part 2. He even proposed to her a month before our one year divorceversary). Friend X hid all this from me until after the divorce was final. That's one (but not the only) factor Friend X is an ex-friend now.

I actually remember my ex telling me a few years prior to the end of our marriage "Hey, just so you know, there's this rumor that me and [coworker] are having an affair. I don't think it will reach you, but just know it's just a rumor some people are spreading." At the time, I thought it was touching that he was warning me. Now I realize it was more than just a rumor....

It was actually a bit of a relief to find out. Suddenly, all his lame excuses for leaving suddenly made sense and I realized it really was his fault, not mine.

When I started dating again, I found guys who were willing to date me.

Remember back in Part 1 where I talked about how guys never showed interest in me and I had zero self-confidence? Yeah, when my ex left me, I was terrified of being alone.

Turns out, that wasn't a problem.

I got on dating sites and in no time I was messaging a lot of guys, went on first dates with a lot of guys, went on multiple dates with a few guys...and most of these guys seemed pretty darn decent. There were a few out there who threw up some "weirdo" red flags, but for the most part, it was a pleasant (and surprising) experience. It was actually a huge boost to my confidence.

I actually remember messaging five guys simultaneously while on my break at work. I told my coworkers "Just call me a Five Guys Burgers & Fries." By messaging five guys, I mean I was messaging about a dozen overall at the time; just those five were online while I was on my break.

The world of online dating can be wonderful and magical, is what I'm getting at.

I still worry I might be the crazy one.

I've been seeing my current boyfriend for eight-going-on-nine months now. When things started getting serious, I warned him that I had a habit of blowing up when I get irate.

So far, I haven't blown up. I keep waiting for it. So far, he hasn't done anything terribly insulting. Sometimes he gets annoying, and I feel those emotions start to build up. I tell him to back off and that I need space, and I wait for the explosion...but it never happens. He apologizes and stops doing whatever it is that's pissing me off. The argument barely happens, and doesn't get even close to atomic. It's bizarre to me, to be completely honest, because I keep bracing for impact and it never even comes close.

It's also strange to have a more egalitarian relationship. Whenever we go out I keep reaching for my wallet, and he keeps making me put it away. Sometimes he'll suggest going somewhere and I'll respond with "I don't think I can afford that this week," and he will be all "no, I'm paying for it." With my ex, I payed probably 95% of the time for every outing we went on.

It's also strange when my boyfriend wants to do something and I say I'm too tired that he's okay with it. With my ex, it always meant I didn't love him enough or appreciate him enough or whatever when I was too tired to do something. My current boyfriend is just "That's cool, I'll go by myself/we can do something else." I'm not complaining, but it's also a very new way for me to be treated, so it's bizarre.

The best advice is to live well.

Part of what really hurt was that my ex was going off and getting his "happily ever after" while I was left picking up the pieces. I was facing unpaid internships and had to find extra financing. I suddenly had to figure out how to take care of just myself while working an internship plus two jobs while simultaneously studying for my licensure exam. I felt like I was left with all the mess while he got off freely.

Things do get better with time, miraculously. It's less than a year later. I made it through my internships and graduation, and now I have a new job that makes more than my previous two incomes and my ex's income combined. I live in a house instead of an apartment. I have a new car. I have a new boyfriend. Life is treating me rather well right now.

A couple months ago I went back to my old hometown for my friend's "dirty thirty" birthday, and I accidentally ran into my ex. When we were together, he was an armed security guard. When I saw him, he was working security at the mall. That's exactly the same job two of my friends in high school did on the weekends to earn extra cash. It's very entry-level. I don't know what happened to his armed job, but mall cop is a definite downgrade.

I saw the ring he proposed to his coworker with. He didn't appear to have actually bought her a ring; she just moved her pewter claddagh ring to the other hand. I presume he couldn't afford it; back in November I received a phone call from his credit card company looking for him after some missed payments.

It seems like the "happily ever after" I thought he was getting instead of me wasn't so happy after all.

Karma has a funny way of working things out.

Some resources for domestic abuse

If you think you're a victim, here is a link to some of the warning signs of domestic abuse in general.

The phone number for the National Domestic Violence is 1−800−799−7233.

My abusive narcissistic ex-husband -- Part 2: In the Pit

My ex never hit me. He came close, but it was mostly emotional games he played with me.

It started off with small, innocuous comments. He would make some comment regarding how I looked or a comment about my family. It would be something offensive, like "Are you sure you want to wear that?" It would be small, but it would sting.

When I tried to tell him I was offended, I would be met with a line I would hear many, many, many times, over and over again throughout the years:

"It was just a joke; don't be so sensitive."

That right there. That was how it started, with complete disregard for my emotions and well-being. A blunt dismissal of whatever mattered to me. His words were never wrong because they were just a joke, after all.

It's hard to remember specific examples, but I remember one "joke" he made about my priest. As a Catholic who also enjoys watching shows like Family Guy and South Park, I've seen all the jokes about Catholic priests and little boys. I can take those. But one day, he "joked" about the priest at my church specifically. I got upset, because that's going from satire about a broad issue and focusing it down into a libelous comment about an individual I respected. I got defensive and upset.

Him: "Gosh, I was just joking."
Me: "I don't find it funny. I think you crossed the line."
Him: "Quit being so sensitive."
Me: "Don't you see how that's offensive? Why can't you just apologize?"
Him: "It's a joke. It's not even about you. Get over it. You get offended too easily."

This would continue in a loop. Eventually, he started figuring out how to really get me going. His M.O. was as follows: (1) Make an offensive comment. (2) Dismiss my protests as "just joking". (3) Keep making offensive comments to rile me up. (4) Wait until I rage-explode. (5) Wait for me to apologize.

Sometimes he wouldn't even have to say anything. One thing he commonly did was "hover" behind me on the computer, whether I was studying or scrolling through Facebook or paying bills. It was highly annoying. He would never back off. "What, do you have something to hide?" he would always ask in an accusatory tone. He would press further and further into my personal space until my polite requests for him to back off snapped into angry demands.

He got off on the apologies and made me think it was my fault.

He knew how to push my buttons and would make me angrier and angrier until I just blew up on him. I would start calling him names, telling him he was hateful, all sorts of stuff. Then when I cooled off, I would feel bad about the things I had said, so I would go apologize. He would tell me he forgave me, then there would be cuddles and all that feel-good make-up stuff.

He never apologized for riling me up in the first place, though. It was always my fault for blowing up, my fault for losing control, my fault for everything. It was never his fault. He was always just "joking," after all.

I remember one argument we were having about current events in the Middle East. He always had very black-and-white thinking, and was arguing for essentially carpet-bombing the entire region, innocent civilians be damned. "It's their fault for living there," he argued. I remember getting more and more frustrated at him and his close-minded argument, and at some point I looked over at him and he was grinning.

Me: "What are you laughing about?"
Him: "I love it when you get all pissed off like that."

Yes, he knew exactly how to push my buttons, and he did it very intentionally. I didn't realize it at the time, but "crazy-making" is a type of emotional abuse.

He never hit me, but things still got physical.

I was feeling bad about the blow-ups, so I started looking for ways I could avoid blowing up. Attempting to calmly explain my feelings wasn't working, because it just turned into the argument cycle where I blew up, so I decided that when I started feeling that angry rage building up inside me, I would instead remove myself from the situation and go somewhere I could calm down and think rationally. This seemed like a very mature, adult thing to do after all.

It actually worked. I stopped blowing up. I still never got apologies from my ex, but I wasn't rage exploding anymore.

At least, not for a while.

I'm very sure my ex was addicted to me apologizing to him because my new strategy didn't last very long. He figured it out, so when I tried to leave by heading to another room, he would follow me. Our bedroom door didn't lock, so he would just barge in and get in my face.

Him: "No! We need to settle this right now!"
Me: "Look, I can't talk. Give me some space."
Him: "I'm talking to you now!"
Me: "Please, just leave me alone! Just go away!"

I could feel the anger rising, and sure enough, eventually I would rage explode.

I tried locking myself in the bathroom. It was the only room in our one-bedroom apartment with a lock. He would pick the lock and burst in on me.

Eventually, I tried leaving the apartment. Just to go sit in my car and cool off. He would start barring the door or even physically grabbing me to prevent me from leaving.

I remember one time I got the front door open, but he grabbed me and pulled me back in. I saw my neighbors watching us as he slammed the door shut. I thought about screaming to them for help as he dragged me back inside, but I was afraid of what would happen if the police got involved.

After all, he wasn't actually hitting me, so it wasn't really abusive...was it? (Yes, yes it was. Yes it definitely was.)

There was a bookshelf in our bedroom, and while he never hit me, there were a few times he cornered me up against it and started punching the bookshelf right next to my head. He would later follow it up with "No, I would never hit you. Stop worrying about it." He would punch furniture and throw things and be very physically intimidating, and then tell me I was crazy for worrying about him hitting me.

The cherry on top is that after I tried to leave and he forced me to stay and escalated the argument until I exploded, he would then get in his car and leave. Sometimes he would make vague insinuations about killing himself before he left, which would then make me furiously try and call and text him to figure out where he went. He would not respond for several hours at times. Eventually he would deem my grovelling sufficient enough to respond and he would eventually come home. That was his game.

He made me think I was the selfish one.

I spent most of that relationship and the whole of the marriage working two jobs. I had a full-time job and a part-time paper route in order to make ends meet. I was working 55 hours a week at a minimum.

He spent the better part of a year of our marriage on unemployment. When he worked, it was only one job. His favorite way to spend free time was to sit on the couch in front of the TV and watch reruns of cartoons until he fell asleep.

When I decided I couldn't handle "just getting by" and went back to school, it was in an online program so I could continue working both jobs. I had very, very little free time. I told him "Look, we can't live like this forever, especially if we want kids someday. I want to go back to school, but it's gonna be hard. It's going to cost money and it means I'm going to be super-busy. Is this okay?

He told me he was on-board.

A sample day for me looked like this: get up at 3 or 3:30AM, deliver papers until 5:30, back in bed by 6, get up at 11AM to eat lunch and study, start getting ready for work at 1:15, head out the door by 2PM, work 3 until 11PM, get back home at midnight to go to bed, lather rinse repeat the next day.

That barely over two-hour window from 11AM-1:15PM was literally the only free time in my day to study, and because it was an online program I had video lectures and such to watch. so it would be highly distracting when my ex would be sitting on the couch watching his cartoons. I would ask him to either put on headphones (the little headphones for my PC were too short to be efficient and I could still hear the TV; he had big noise-cancelling headphones with a specific jack that worked with our TV set-up) or to go into the bedroom.

He would stomp his feet and whine that I was kicking him out and not letting him enjoy his free time. I was the mean selfish one, even though I never actually told him he couldn't watch TV. He had an excuse for why he couldn't just wait until I left for work, too.

Him: "I was going to take a nap this afternoon."

That was it. That was his excuse for days he had off when I had to work for why he had to watch his cartoons, without headphones, in the living room when I was trying to study during my small two-hour window. I mean, how dare I interfere with his afternoon naptime.

I bought it all, too. The tone of voice he said it all in, he made me feel guilty for taking time to go back to school.

There were other things, too. He blamed me for not doing my "share" of the chores, even though I literally did not have the time to do them. I pitched in where I could, especially during school breaks, but it was never enough. He was always the martyr, doing it all, while I was just his lazy wife doing nothing. Nevermind that I was working my ass off and paying all the bills. He made me feel guilty for not doing enough.

Toward the end of our relationship, he would ask "Do you really love me?" I would say yes, of course, and he would demand "Prove it." He could never tell me how to prove it because "if you really loved me, you would know how." So I would stay up late doing extra dishes, or buying him whatever gizmo he'd been hinting at lately, or whatever. It was never enough, because the next month I would have to "prove" I loved him all over again, and again, and again...

My friends pointed out the red flags, and I ignored them.

On Facebook and social media, I of course posted a sanitized version of us, full of cute couple shots and smiling faces. Only a small handful of my friends knew some of the reality behind the curtain, and at the time none of them had all the puzzle pieces. Some of them tried to point out how my ex was really kind of a dick. Due to a mixture of denial and Catholic dogma making me feel stuck, I tried to shrug it all off.

I remember one year for our anniversary, I got him a card and some chocolates. He had forgotten, so he re-wrapped the chocolates and re-gifted them to me. I shared it as a "hah hah look how funny he is" post.

The replies I got instead were "You know, that's really kind of a dick move."

I was like "No, that's just how he is, it's a joke, get it?"

My inbox was flooded with messages of concern that no, it was a real dick move. Deep down, I knew it, too. I saw the same things. I saw the things they didn't see.

But dammit, I had married this person, I was stuck with him, I had to find a way to make it work. So I shrugged off and tried to ignore all those many little demeaning things he did.

He tried to rape me and then made me feel like it was my fault.

About two years before he left me was the real turning point for me when things really started to break down in our marriage. (I later discovered he had been cheating on me for the final three years of our marriage, but I didn't know it at the time.)

Spousal rape is a thing that can happen, despite what some people say. I know because it almost happened to me. Here is what happened:

It was a sunny afternoon. I had the day off, and I was actually a little horny at the time. My ex was at his computer and I came up behind him, wrapped my arms around him, and started flirting. He responded with something that pissed me off. I honestly can't remember what he said, but I know it made me really upset, so upset that I told him "Well, nevermind then," and I stormed off to the bedroom to go cool off.

That day he followed me into the bedroom. He didn't say anything, just pushed me back on the bed and started trying to take my pants off.

"No, I'm not in the mood anymore," I said as I pushed him away. "Go away and leave me alone."

He did not go away. He grabbed my hands and pinned them onto the bed. With his free hand, he kept going at my pants.

"Stop it! I said no!"

I tried to kick him away, but he just pinned me more firmly.

I started to panic and feel trapped. I began to kick and squirm furiously, and he pinned my legs to the edge of the bed with his knees. He worked to undo his belt buckle, then went back to trying to pull my pants off while I kept asking him to stop, each time more pleading than the next.

This went on for what felt like an eternity. Really it was probably only a couple minutes, but it was far too long. Eventually, I managed to get one of my hands free and I hit him across the face.

"I said STOP!" I said.

That stunned him. I didn't hit him super hard, but it was hard enough for him to finally get the message. "Fucking bitch," he muttered as he stood up and rezipped his jeans. He stormed out of the room.

I laid on the bed crying as I tried to process if what had just happened had really just happened. I was hurt, confused, and didn't know what to do. After half an hour, I finally worked up the nerve to go out and confront him about what happened. Pulling myself together, I headed out to the living room to see him playing on his computer again.

"Look, about what just happened...that was really not okay."

"Fuck you," he replied. "You don't know how to show love. I was just trying to appreciate your body."

"You...you just tried to force yourself on me..."

"Oh, whatever," he scoffed. "It was just a game, and you rejected me."

That's right. He was mad and felt he was the victim because I rejected him when he was trying to fucking rape me. He thought that it was "just a game" we were playing. It was inconceivable to him that I might now want to have sex with him right after he had insulted me and pissed me off.

He also loved that term, "appreciate my body", as his term for sex. When we went to marriage counselling he used it every session. "She won't let me appreciate her body," he would tell the counselor. It was a fucking weird term.

As a footnote regarding my ex thinking it was "just a game", I would like to mention that after he left me, after the divorce, after I was healing and rejoining the dating world, I was actually briefly in a bit of a BDSM dom/sub relationship. The guy was the dom; I was the sub. It was kinky and freaky and hella fun and awesome. During my time with him, my dom would push my boundaries, but he always, always made sure I was okay with whatever we were about to do. If something was too much and I said so, he always backed off. Now that is how "just a game, just for fun" is supposed to work. You have consent and understanding and respect for boundaries with the other person.

Forcing yourself on someone and then after the fact saying "I thought we were just playing a game" is not consent, is not understanding, is not respectful, and IS rape. Just making that extra clear to people out there.

I never went to the police about it. I mean, we were married and had consensual sex before, so what could they really do about it anyway? I was afraid of what my ex would do if I had reported it. Plus, I wasn't working two jobs for fun; we were fucking broke and on the off-hand chance they would send him to jail, I would have been in a world of hurt without his paycheck.

Plus, Catholics don't believe in divorce.

So even after that, I stayed. It was never the same after that. Let me tell you, it's really hard to be intimate with someone after they try and force themselves on you like that. Everything after that day, there was a definite rift between us. It had always been there, but that's when I was able to really see it.

I'm not sure he ever even thought he did anything wrong.

To this day, I don't think he fully realizes the extent of the harm he did. I think he really was upset he though I rejected him and that he didn't think about how forcing himself on me like that was wrong. I think he was so selfish and narcissistic that he doesn't realize how abusive he really was.

He thought he was too perfect to ever hurt me. That's why, in his mind, it was always me that was overreacting, it was always me not finding his "jokes" funny, it was me who rejected him, etcetera. In his mind, he can do no wrong. We're always the heroes in our own mind, never the villain. In his mind, I'm sure he sees himself as the martyr for putting up with my "crazy" rage blow-ups. In his mind, he's blind to the fact that he always pushed me to my breaking point.

I didn't leave; he did.

Two years later after the rape attempt, we got into a fight about parts of the blender missing, and that morning he told me he wanted a divorce. Our sex life was dead by that point, and communication had broken down. I was at the point where I was just holding my tongue whenever he tried to engage me in an argument and basically stonewalling him, which pissed him off immensely as he wasn't getting the rise out of me like he used to. We had gone through marriage counseling to no avail. The blender fight was the straw the broke the camel's back. He wanted to still be "roommates," however, because of the aforementioned financial issues.

I was stupid and agreed initially. That same night, he went to a party and came back complaining there were not enough single women. I got mad. He said "Well you're naive to think I wouldn't be looking." That's a direct quote. Two days later he spent the night with his female coworker "just as friends." He spent eight hours with her and didn't get home until after two in the morning. I was in tears and told him either we were going to fix the marriage, or he was moving out.

He moved out, and a few months later made it "Facebook official" he was dating said coworker. Just friends, my ass.

Ultimately it was a blessing he left, but at the time, it didn't feel like it. After six and a half years of marriage, and nearly a decade for the overall relationship, I had a whole mental, emotional, and financial mess left to untangle...

Some resources for domestic abuse

This is the darkest post I've ever had to write, but I wanted to get it out there and get it off my chest.

If you think you're a victim, here is a link to some of the warning signs of domestic abuse in general.

The phone number for the National Domestic Violence is 1−800−799−7233.

At the very least, find a confidant. I had a small handful of friends I vented to. My ex made me think it was my fault and that I was the crazy one. Those friends helped me put things in perspective that no, it wasn't just me. Even though I never left him, having that perspective helped me cling to some semblance of sanity, and I am forever in their debt. They were just there, an open-minded, nonjudgmental shoulder to lean on, and I think that helped more than they even realize.

My abusive narcissistic ex-husband -- Part 1: Falling in the hole

A few of my friends who have suffered and survived abusive relationships have been opening up lately, so I feel that I should share my story. I feel there's a stigma associated with women who end up in abusive relationships and who stay in relationships; that they're dumb, helpless, weak. I don't particularly associate those qualities with myself, so I am sharing my story to show what it was like for me. This is going to be a three-parter: how I ended up in the situation in the first place, the sort of emotional abuse I went through, and how I recovered after.

Maybe someone will read this and recognize all the red flags I chose to ignore, and they'll heed the warning. That would be nice, though I think if I went back in time and made Past-Me read this, it wouldn't change a thing. If Present-Me went back in time to warn Past-Me, I'm sure Past-Me would be all "Fuck you, we're different, we're going to make this work!" That's an ignorant fucking mindset, however Past-Me, Present-Me, and Future-Me are three stubborn-as-hell bitches, let me tell you.

Having had time to look back, I see the hallmarks of a narcissistic abuser. He never hit me, though things got physical in other manners which I'll detail in Part 2. But most of the damage was in the form of his mind games. It was primarily mental and emotional abuse, with a dash of sexual abuse for good measure. More on that to come.

So I'm going to start off detailing exactly what my mindset and background were that got me into what became a toxic, mentally and emotionally abusive relationship, and why I stayed in it for so long.

He was only my second boyfriend (and I thought that was as good as it would get).

As I have mentioned before, my ex-husband was only the second guy I ever dated. Throughout high school, I was bombarded with everyone being in a relationship and dating everyone else. I already had body-confidence issues and related myself to a fat, shapeless lump. No guys ever took interest in me. I briefly dated one of my male friends for three months, but that was the entire prior extent of my dating experience.

When I met my ex, I wasn't sure at first why he was suddenly showering me with attention, but it felt good. He lived a state away (we met through a mutual friend), but he sent me gifts, and when I visited he took me around town. He told me he loved me. At the beginning, things were nice. I had never had someone treat me with that attention. In fact, he eventually moved just to be with me. That meant love, right?

Now I realize how stupid it was to agree to marry only the second guy I ever dated, and how naive it was for me to think that just because guys in high school didn't pay attention to me that meant they would never pay attention to me, but at the time, it felt like I had found something rare and needed to hang on to it lest I never find it again. I was afraid there would be no one else out there for me, and that fear was crippling.

Catholic dogma played a big role as well.

I was a good little Catholic girl. Catholics believe in waiting until marriage for sex, and they certainly do not believe in divorce. Both of these factors played a role in why I never left him.

I wasn't a great Catholic girl, mind you. I waited until engagement, the first time. That's right, he proposed to me, we had sex, he dumped me, and I felt devastated because, according to everything I was raised to believe, I was now a tainted, used-up piece of garbage no one else would want. I should have let him run then, but instead I pursued him and basically begged him to work things out. I had given him my virginity after all, he had to be the one or else I was damned. We ultimately got back together, he proposed again, we went through all the pre-marriage counselling the Catholic church requires, and we got married from there. 

When things started noticeably heading south a few years into the marriage, I stuck it out due to the second factor, which is Catholics don't get divorced. If I got divorced, I felt I would never be able to get married in the Catholic church again. I'm honestly still kind of pissed off about it, really. I had heard about annulment (where the church basically says your marriage was never valid in the first place), but the criteria for it were brushed over because it was just something that happened to other people. I felt trapped in a permanent marriage. I was like "Whelp, I'm stuck with this, just have to stick it out I guess." I figured that I was stuck with my choices and I had to live with them, and I resigned myself to that.

For other Catholic women out there, I would like to share a statement from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, entitled "When I Call For Help: A Pastoral Response to Domestic Violence Against Women" which states in part:

"Finally, we emphasize that no person is expected to stay in an abusive marriage. Some abused women believe that church teaching on the permanence of marriage requires them to stay in an abusive relationship. They may hesitate to seek a separation or divorce. They may fear that they cannot re-marry in the Church. Violence and abuse, not divorce, break up a marriage. We encourage abused persons who have divorced to investigate the possibility of seeking an annulment. An annulment, which determines that the marriage bond is not valid, can frequently open the door to healing."

(Note: While the bishops were focusing on violence against women, I am sure they intend the same to apply to men as well. It seems less common, but I've known multiple men who escaped from abusive women, so it goes both ways.)

I wish I had read that before. I might have gotten out sooner, instead of sticking it out as long as I did until the point where he ultimately dumped me. I really wish the church talked more about domestic violence and different types of abuse, and made more resources available to people going through it. When marriage counselling failed and my ex had moved out and it felt like my world was falling apart, I turned to the church and found zero resources to help me, just more talk about the permanence of marriage and hopelessness for my future. It was actually another church that helped me, but more on that in Part 3. To this day I still feel a bit betrayed by the church for all of that.

It was these two factors -- my low self-esteem and religious dogma -- that helped me fall into the hole. The angsty, teenage low self-esteem made me latch onto the first guy to really pay attention to me, and the Catholic dogma kept me there.

The first few years things were okay. We went on dates and adventures and worked on making a home together and it was all very hunky-dory. But after a few years, the honeymoon period wore off, and by the time I realized where I really was, I was already settled in...