The man you'd love to hate!
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| Sat, 07-23-2005 - 10:55am |
My husband is just the meanest, most insenstive person alive. I have no illusions that he is going to change, but I am letting him think that he "could" so that I will be safe until I get the heck out of here (which is Thursday night!!!!!)
The last week has been a nightmare as always. It started last Sunday. My adult kids came to spend the weekend (as they don't feel comfortable leaving me alone with "the Crip" (their name for him). The kids rented the movie "Hostage" with Bruce Willis in it. Don't know if anyone has seen this, but it scared the crap out of me. In the first 10 minutes, it starts with a very angry man holding his wife and small son hostage. The man completely loses it and shoots them, then himself. I refused to watch the rest of the movie. The next day, my husband was sleeping and my oldest daughter and her fiance were roaming around in the kitchen. My other daughter said, "so you didn't like the movie" and I said (as I was walking into the kitchen) "No I didn't. I live with a psycho. I don't need to watch it on TV too" and as I said this, I rounded the corner and my husband was standing there. He stormed out of the house. He was gone the entire day. I was a mess the entire day - just terrified!!
On Monday and Tuesday, I worked days and he worked nights, so I managed to stay safe, however, I did have multiple conversations with him on the phone which were very very verbally abusive. On Wed and Thursday he kept telling me that he was sorry for his behaviour and that he wanted to change "so bad." He said, "I think I need to write down all of my values because they are mixed up" (ya think??). I am very short with him when he talks like that. I tell him, "if that is true, then do something about it." He says, "but what should I do?" and I respond "consistently acknowledge that you are abusive, act remorseful and stick with it. Stop making excuses for your behaviour." He said, "but I TRY that and you are so cold to me." So I said, "I am going to be cold to you to protect myself from believing your lies and broken promises. I might be this way for a long time. If you really want to change and see me warm up to you, it might take a lot longer then the 30 minutes/per day that you are willing to put into it." He shut up. Later in the day he said, "I love you and I'm going to prove it to you. I don't care how long it takes." I want to lash out when he says this, but I just roll my eyes and say, "uh huh". He said, "will you help me?" Well....NO!!!! If I "help him" then it does the following: 1) makes me feel that I am in therapy 24/7, because helping him is exhausting for me and this is what I do all day with OTHER people - I don't want to be HIS therapist! and 2) it implies that I am responsible for assisting him with his behavioural changes! No!! No!! No!! So I responded, "you are on your own with this. You did this to your family and it is insulting and a total disregard of my feelings to ask me help you with something that is clearly your issue." He said, "okay. Fine. I'll do it. you'll see."
Fast forward to Friday (last night). I drove 1.5 hours to meet my kids for supper at a restaurant. I love spending time with my kids - they are funny, intelligent and amazingly supportive. We are very close! My husband always tries to ruin every thing when I spend time with them. This time he TRIED to act supportive (he has to change after all!!). I left our house at 5:00, took the ferry (we live on an island) and drove to the city. At 8:00 we were finally sitting down to eat. By 10:30, I was ready to leave to come home. My husband called me at 10:45 and I told him where I was (which meant I was approx. 1 hour and 15 minutes from home. He said that he was going to bed soon. I said "fine" I pull into our driveway at 12:15 a.m. I go to the front door and it is locked!!! We live in the country and we never lock our doors. We do have a security system that we activate when we leave for the day, but we don't even need to lock the doors for this. I don't even have a key for the house and I don't think he does either! Since we never lock the doors it has never been a concern. I didn't immediately think that he had purposely locked me out. I went around the deck and tried the two sliding doors. All locked. Again, we never lock these either. Now I was mad!!! I started banging on the door, but I knew he couldn't possibly hear me because our bedroom is upstairs and we have an air conditioner on that makes it impossible to hear anything!!! Someone could come in and rob us blind and we wouldn't hear anything over the noise/hum of that thing. But I tried to knock anyway. No luck. So I stood under our window and yelled for 10 minutes. No luck. Now I'm seriously mad!! Mad enough to go to the garage and take the ladder out and climb onto the roof to get to our bedroom window!!! I had to be mad enough to do it because I am 6 months pregnant and terrified of heights!!! He knows how scared I am to climb a ladder because I won't climb into the attic!!! But I was mad as heck and I did it!!! (It just amazes me what anger can make someone accomplish). I started banging on the window and he came to the window and said, "what are you doing?" and I said, "why did you lock the door??" He said, "well, you were doing a disappearing act (he says this every time I go to the city) and I didn't know when you were coming home and I don't want people just walking into my house when I'm sleeping." I lost it!!! He went back to bed and this morning when I got up, he had set the security alarm, so when I went into the family room, it went off, nearly causing me to have a heart attack!!! I immediately called him at work and told him that I thought he was the biggest as*hole alive." I also said, "I'm not just 'getting sick' of your stupid games and controlling, abusive behaviour, I AM sick of it." He said, "I'm really sorry. I didn't know that you didn't have a key to the house." I said, "bull**it" and he kept saying "I thought I would hear you knock on the door - my cousin knocked on the door the other day and I heard it" - there is no possible way that he could hear anyone knock on the door with the air conditioner on it!!! He kept saying "I'm really sorry" and I kept saying, "I don't believe a word that you say, so just drop it."
On a good note, I was out to my new place yesterday (it is in the city where my children live) and it is sooooo close to being finished!!! I'm so excited!! They were painting it yesterday and it is beautiful. Every thing is brand new!!! I can't wait. Knowing that I will be there soon just keeps me going. I'm anxious about how the move will all pan out, but I'm strategizing. I've thought about calling his boss and telling him what is going on, in order to be sure that it all works out. I don't think anyone likes him at work (so my husband says). Do you think I should call his boss?
Thanks for reading my vent.
Tarrin

Hi toady booboo! ITA w/Wishful. Please do not say a word to his boss about this. Keep focusing on YOUR new place, you are so strong to get this far. Like I've said to Wishful, you are also a troop-trooper - once you finally get to the other side, especially w/your childred and I'm sure friends - you will know the peace of mind that you deserve. Please know that I am praying and rooting for you and yours. Take care and God Bless!
P.S. - Please keep us posted.