Acts of Madness
Well into our first year of marriage a very significant incident took place that was to portend a pattern that would have shed light on the hidden aspects of his behavior. One Friday evening, I arrived home from work to find him sitting in a chair brooding and sulking. At that time the reason behind it was unclear. We hadn't had a fight, he wasn't drunk, I wasn't late nor had I stopped for groceries without calling. He was simply in a dark mood and was not communicating. His demeanor was unnerving. He didn't even say hello when I walked through the door. The atmosphere was so heavy I almost chocked from the dense air. Later on, I would learn to see these brooding sessions as a "tell" of previous bad behavior. A bad omen, if you will.
I presume we had dinner and then I changed out of my work clothes into my robe. I sat on the couch to watch some TV and he was on top of me in second. He was forcing himself on me, he wanted sex. This was not usual, although he was not what you would call a good lover, this was an odd experience. He seemed driven and unconscious-like, almost in the controlled silence of rage. He was glazed over and crazed. I kept telling him to stop it and to get off of me and he kept holding me down as if he didn't hear me. Finally I grabbed his hair and pulled back on his head enough to get free while he yelled out in pain. I jumped up but he was behind me in full blown anger and threw me outside in the rain and locked the door. Later he threw the car keys outside at me and told me not to call my friends to rescue me. So I drove away in the middle of the night with no clothes on except for a robe.
I decided to drive to a gas station where there was a pay phone and call my neighbor who came and got me and I left my car at the gas station until the next day. When he left the next morning we drove to get my car and I went back home. I was still numb. I had no understanding of that episode. I couldn't make any sense of it. Every day was becoming more and more bizarre with odd behaviors that I couldn't rationalize. Always I was in unfamiliar territory with only self- discipline and loyalty to a fault to support me. I would find out later after putting several episodes together that he was most likely a rapist but this would not become apparent to me until years had gone by.
After dealing with impounded cars, having to pay fines for disorderly conduct, having people drive him home after he had been picked up and putting up with the belligerence of a drunken husband, I sought help from an Al Anon meeting. After several meetings I had the uncomfortable realization that this did not apply. This did not fit his symptoms and I didn't know why. Yes, he drank and got drunk but it just did not fit. My dad was alcoholic and this was not anything like the alcoholism I knew of. It was something else but I had no idea what that something else was.
I continued to work at a career I loved and started going to lunch with a new receptionist the Dr. had recently hired. We would chat during break times and at lunch about girl things. One day I brought up the subject of one of my husband's friends and her face grew pale. She said she didn't want to talk about it here but for me to come over to her house after work because she had something very important to tell me.
When we had finished clinic for the day I drove to see her. She told me to be very careful; that this guy and possibly my husband were very bad guys. That they had terrorized some women she knew and that I should never trust them. She said I was in danger. OMG I drove home in a fog. How could I not know this? I had been so alert. I thought I knew where he was. I thought I was going crazy, that's what I thought.
Later that year I was suffering from fatigue. I could hardly get up in the morning. I had fallen into exhaustion and the more worn out I became the more my husband criticized me. I never did enough, I was never good enough. He refused to buy me a washer and dryer and insisted that I go to the laundromat at night after work. The laundromat was miles away and in a very dark parking lot. Not very many people were there in the evening. I had to tell myself I wasn't scared.
Several of the other couples we knew had purchased dishwashers but he absolutely refused to even consider it for me. He decided that it was lazy wives that had dishwashers. He invited his dad to live with us and informed me that I would also take his dad to work before I went to work and pick him up at night. The derision, denigration and withholding had gotten to me. I made an appointment with the Internal Medicine Clinic next door to my work. The Dr. there did a full battery of tests and could find nothing wrong with me. As a last resort to find some reason for my fatigue He asked me if I made more money than my husband. I denied that assumption out of pride. I didn't want anyone to know that I was basically the sole support of the household and all of my money went for bills and his misdeeds and tavern bills. I didn't go back to the Dr. again. There was obviously nothing they could do for me. There was no way to treat a non-illness. I wasn't the one who was sick, he was.
I began to believe that I was weak and could not keep up with the demands placed on me out of some flaw of character on my part. I should be stronger and more capable. I would have to pull myself together in spite of my exhaustion. How could an educated woman like myself become so desperate. I didn't grasp that I was being starved emotionally, And that living this cold existence was draining me. What I didn't see then was that I was beginning to falter. My self-worth had been damaged considerably because all he told me was how I was a college educated idiot who didn't know how to cook and clean and that my talents were useless as far as he was concerned. He was my judge and jury every day and no one was there to tell me otherwise. I became my own worst critic and he was giving me all the ammunition I needed to convince myself that there was something wrong with me. I did everything I could to please him so he would see me in another light. I was an only child with no sister or brothers to run to, my mom and dad had their own issues and were not supportive of me in that way. As a matter of fact, my dad told me not to run home to mamma at the first sign of trouble. I certainly hadn't done that! My mom tried but it wasn't enough as we lived 180 miles away. All phone calls were long distance and we could not afford that. I did call her once and ask her what she would think if I left him and she said she didn't think I had given it a long enough chance. She had no idea about the horrors I was going through and I couldn't bring myself to tell her. She was dealing with her own pain from living with an alcoholic. Was this it? Were we both stuck by the vows that someone else had never taken seriously? Were we enslaved by some archaic law that made wives indentured servants with no possibility of freedom until death? There was no love and cherish here. It was some type of wedding ring bondage for the purpose of insuring the family unit, but at whose expense?
Anger can be a particularly powerful emotion characterized by feelings of hostility, agitation, frustration, and antagonism towards others. This seemed to be the only emotion he had. He was devoid of all others. This made life with him a cruel experience from which scars would form. He never had a kind word, a comforting gesture, an encouraging idea, or an appreciation for life, any life. He was mean and demanding and intimidating and he thought this would guarantee him the obedience and love he thought he deserved. He was the only one who counted.
He did not know that he could not control my thoughts. Or at least he failed to consider such a thing. Equally so, as he didn't know my thoughts only my reactions, I did not know his thoughts. I only knew the manifestations of his madness. We don't really ever know what another person is holding inside, hiding from view, unless they tell us. My only understanding was that actions speak louder than words. Unfortunately for me his actions spoke volumes about his mind.
He could wear me down alright, he could make me cry, he could physically hurt me, he could scare me, he could punish me, he could rattle me with tactics but he could not know what was in my head. He did not know what I was made of. That he didn't bargain for. Even my dad told me after I had filed for divorce that my ex just didn't think I would do it. Bet he didn't know that I had been planning it for years and that utter contempt for him had been brewing for a long, long time. With each insult, with each slap or kick or punch with each rape with each defilement, he lost more of me. It pushed me closer and closer to the exit. I didn't react; I regrouped and stayed true to my goal of getting out of there in one piece.
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