It's Mostly his Stuff

On her excellent blog, "Rebellious Thought of a Woman", Laura recently wrote about the ways in which her husband took over the physical space of their home, crowding her into one small area without regard for her needs: When a House is not a Home

Coincidentally, I had just created a draft for an entry along similar lines. I had not heard of this "taking over" the house, as a feature of abusive relationships, but perhaps it is. Consideration for the other in common areas and allocation of common and private space, may mirror the dynamics of the relationship. I lobbied valiently for an equal say in the use of our house, but I finally dropped my appeals to the wisdom and benefits of joint decision making and focused on maintaining the minimum necessary toe hold for myself.

In some common areas of the house, I keep some "defensive clutter". I call it defensive clutter because it serves as a placeholder to block him from occupying 100% of the area. For example, most of the dining table is covered with his papers. I won't cede the entire table because I want to sit there to eat. I keep two piles of books on the table. When I want to eat, I move the books. When I finish, I replace them. If I were to put the books in a bookcase, he would overrun my little area.

In some areas of the house, I long ago relinquished any claim. My husband is a pack-rat and his stuff goes wherever he wants it to go. Often, he dumps it in the first room through the door - the living room. And it stays there. Even though I asked, coaxed, and bargained, the mess remained and proliferated. I could either clean it up myself or live with it. I chose the latter. I took out the few things I had in there out so they wouldn't be lost in the chaos and learned to avert my eyes from the disturbing mess upon entering the house.

From time to time, Bob inexplicably becomes suddenly upset by the presence of clutter that has been there for months. He gets frantic, as if clearing the clutter were now a matter of life and death. When he gets the impulse to deal with a longstanding problem, he expects me to be instantly available to jump in and help him, despite months of ignoring my repeated requests.

This time, it was the condition of the living room that he was suddenly obsessed with. He assumed, that it was our stuff clogging the room. Or more accurately, since there is no "our" in this so-called marriage, that it was a 50/50 combination of his stuff and my stuff.

In the old days, I would have helped him. I have helped him go through mountains of his stuff. This time I told him that I had other priorities, but if he found anything of mine in there, let me know and I would put it away.

A few hours later, he had things pretty well put away. Some of it was my stuff after all - a lipstick and an earring.

As with the living room clutter, Bob is fond of saying that that the problems in our relationship are 50/50, both overall and in any given incident. He says he will own his 50% of an argument, (like calling me a bitch), if I'll my 50% (not doing what he told me to do). So silly.

My point of view is that in a healthy relationships, each person owns 100% of their own stuff. In a particular incident, there are often joint contributions, but sometimes it really is one person's stuff. There have been incidents when it has been my stuff only, and I don't have a problem with acknowledging it. But that concept is totally foreign to Bob. He thinks the mess is always at least half mine.

It takes two to make a relationship work. It only takes one, to make it not work. One person cannot create a relationship of mutuality with a win/win orientation. If it is not a shared orientation, the person acting as if it were win-win, will lose.

Our marriage is like the living room. It's a mess. It's not half my stuff and half his stuff. It's mostly his stuff. And I can't clean it up for him.
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Putting my Life in Drive

I find I am getting bored with this verbal abuse stuff. I think that's a good sign. It is all so predictable and stupid. I've learned about it, tried everything I know to do, and it just keeps coming up the same. Now that it bores me, rather than intrigues me, I can quit spending so much time and energy trying to figure out WTF is going on with him and devote all that energy to me.

It has been good and necessary for me to go way into it though. At least it is no longer such a mystery, such a shock. I'll still be posting about verbal abuse and I expect there will be skirmishes ahead. But now I want to focus on the Getting Out part. I callled this blog "Getting Verbal Abuse out of my Life, not knowing whether it would be gone because he knocks it off, or because I remove myself from his presence. It looks like it will be the latter. Either way is fine with me. There is no place for such nonsense in my life.

Here are some excerpts from an inspiring post by Belle I read a while back:

At least I am making and taking steps and I am happy about that. Finally I have put my life into drive! Even if you are reving and racing the motor,you will never get anywhere in "park".

You can think about changing your life all you want...BUT....thinking ain't DOING! Looking at the "big picture", overwhelms me, so I have to break things down in manageable-doable steps. Some steps may not seem major to others. Don't worry about that. Do what YOU have to do. Have a goal and then have a plan. Then do something about it!

How exciting to live your life in "drive".

How very sad to pass those that CHOOSE to live their lives in "park", while they,wait, and wait and wait some more for the perfect opportunity or the perfect time to "go for it". Only to wake up and discover one day, that the chance and opportunity is GONE.

So, to all of you out there on the highway of life....BEEP...BEEP...!
Ready or not....here comes ^Belle^, putting her life in drive and taking it to the limit!

http://neveragain.blogstream.com/v1/pid/220967.html#TP

I've been revving and racing the motor for some time now. That's okay. I needed to do that. I'm kinda stuck in an icy patch, but I've managed to get out of some tough spots before. I figure I can do it again. Sometimes pulling out isn't quick and easy. You have to rock the car back and forth, put some gravel or salt under the tires.You may need a friend to give you a push. But if you keep at it, usually, you'll catch some dirt and start moving forward.

Context is More Damaging than Content

My post It's not abuse, it's just my interpretation? was discussed by corboy on the Rick Ross cults and destructive groups forum. Thank you corboy for your articulate expansion of my idea .

Corboy wrote:

The person who wrote this blog has reached the heart of the matter. The horror/shock quotient is not always the content of the message, but is often influenced by WHO DELIVERS THAT MESSAGE.

The term 'verbal abuse' may not be enough to provide a full description of what accounts for the impact. I would invite us to ponder the term 'relationship-specific abuse.' For, verbal content is not enough to account for the stunning power of certain utterances or even gestures.

Its when the words or gestures or battery take place in the context of a relationship based on mutual trust, and thus shatter that trust, that it becomes abusive and trust-shattering.

For we select spouses and friends based on trust that they will never do such things to us in the first place! ('To have and to hold, to honor and to cherish...')

[snip]

If the local insane drunkard on the corner calls me a filthy name, I can write it off. The person is, clearly nuts. I have not given this person the level of radical trust that I would give a lover or ultra close friend.

But if your spouse, your lover or your close friend were, suddenly, within the existing frame of that trust-bonded relationship call you that same bad name that the nut on the corner gave you--you'd be blown away.

The book I was discussing, "The Secret of Overcoming Verbal Abuse " says that the reason your partner's remarks cut so deep is that they "cut straight into the painful self-doubts and non-acceptance of yourself you have had since early childhood" That may be for some people, some of the time, but as corboy and I have noted, it ain't necessarily so.

I hope that targets of relational abuse will not automatically accept the pronouncement that their pain is solely, or primarily, due to their old insecurities . If old pain is part of it, it certainly makes sense to work towards healing those wounds and loving yourself despite your imperfections. One very helpful mantra I got from the book was "Just because I'm not perfect, doesn't mean I deserve to be abused."

We all have imperfections, and an abuser will use your humanness as an excuse for his abuse. If there is any truth in the deprecating remarks, and your partner knows, or should know, of your sensitivity, that makes his behavior all the more deplorable. Someone who loves you does not jab you in your sensitive areas.

I realized the relational context was what made the abuse most painful, so I stopped thinking of him as 'my husband'. It wasn't that hard to do because he does very little which is consistent with that role.

I used to think of him both in terms of who he is - Bob and his relationship to me, - husband., i.e. my husband, Bob. Now, I simply think of him as "Bob". Well, not only 'Bob' actually. I think of him as Bob the emotionally handicapped guy who lives in the other side of the house.

It's easier that way. I don't expect or want anything from him that way. He's just a guy with profound limitations. I don't need to label or dehumanize him by thinking of him as "the abuser". To the best of my ability I try to cultivate an attitude of indifference.

When I can pull it off, I feel better. When I remember he is my husband, and I long for that caring connection, it hurts. But that's okay too. Sometimes it's good to just hurt for a while.

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So-called "apology"

This morning there was a note from him on the kitchen counter apologizing for mimicking me Saturday night. He said he realized it was an expression of contempt which probably hurt me and he was sorry. He didn't attempt to justify or explain it. I thought that was progress.

I sat down at the table in the adjacent dining area to eat my breakfast. He came in the kitchen and I said "thank you for the apology". He said "Thank you for thanking me" then went outside. My heart fell. When he came back in the kitchen as I was getting up from the table I said "When you just walk away after I acknowledged your apology and don't come sit by me and show some warmth and caring, it doesn't feel like an apology."

"I'm sorry that didn't work for you" he said coldly, "but I don't have time to discuss it now".

It hurts because I thought for a moment that he actually cared and then got slapped with the reality of his coldness. I suspect his so-called apology was just a pro-forma because he thinks he may need my help with something. Now, even his so called apology was just another wound.

I don't know if he knows what he is doing or if he is just that tuned out. Doesn't matter I suppose. I told him how I felt and he coldly turned away again. Sometimes I'm amazed that anything he does can still hurt me, but this did. I've spent so much time hoping that one day I might hear from him the words that recognized my pain. Then for a moment I thought 'maybe' and then that hope was dashed. Again.


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I wonder if he knows . . .

I wonder if he knows that I don't like being around him.

I usually get up a few hours before he does. Does he know that when I hear the first sounds of him stirring that I get a knot in my stomach?

On those all too rare occasions that he goes somewhere, does he know that I freeze inside when I hear his car in the driveway when he returns?

Does he know that even if I am hungry I won't go in the kitchen if he is there?

And if he knew all that, would he feel sad or glad?

Would he feel like he had really established his authority?

Would he feel a sense of failure? Remorse?

I hate that I don't feel relaxed in my own home. It makes everything I do so much harder when I have to "psyche myself up" to exist in the same house but I'm getting better at it. He's really a very weak, scared man who feels powerless.



I am working on leaving. I am not trapped here, although it feels that way at times. It helps me to reframe my situation as a choice. Strictly speaking, I could leave here today and go to a hotel or a friend's house. I could just say the hell with it, I'm outa here. But I am choosing to take the step by step route right now because I think that is in my best interest for the long term. It's a trade off.

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The Little Things - There's Nothing Bigger

One might justifiably think that I sometimes blog about 'little things', like a conversation about mailing the tax returns and having to wait for him frequently. In one way, I agree, those are small issues. If the big issues, like name calling and throwing things, had never materialized, I probably would pay them no mind. But as my understanding of the dynamics of the abusive relationship has increased, I now see the 'little things' as symptomatic of a general mindset that guarantees there can be no mutually rewarding intimate relationship.

Mindreading, particularly negative mindreading is a feature of my husband's psyche which plays out with me and with other people. I know he does it with me, because I know what I am thinking, feeling and intending. I also strongly suspect he also does it with other people because I have been there and seen the same interactions he has seen and I come away thinking there was probably a misunderstanding and he comes away convinced that the person was deliberately being nasty to him. Often, a minimally unpleasant interaction with a service person, for example, is an injustice he will long remember.

We haven't done anything fun together in a long time. Last night, I was enjoying the evening breeze and the stars and recalling a brief getaway we had to a lovely rustic hotel last May. "Remember how great it was sitting on the porch of La Luna Inn last year honey?", I remarked. "Yeah, except that waiter at dinner thought I was an idiot about wine."

Last year, this was merely annoying. Now I realize that he doesn't just wonder whether possibly the waiter did not respect his taste in wine, but he knows that this waiter didn't think he was "okay." (It's not just an opinion on his taste in wine, it's a reflection on his value as a person.) And he knows that the waiter was deliberately nasty to him.

Well, I was there, and it seemed to me that the waiter did not understand a comment my husband made and was replying to what he thought he had said. The bill hadn't been paid yet and it seems unlikely to me that a waiter would deliberately insult a customer just before check presentation. And even if the waiter had thought his taste in wine was abysmal, so what? Does his self image rise and fall on the opinions of waiters? Sadly, I fear it does.

Since he doesn't have sufficient self-esteem on board, I guess he doesn't shrug it off the way I do. I told him I thought he might be happier if he'd just let that stuff go. After all, one will encounter an occasional unfriendly clerk or waiter. That's just life.

This is far from the first time I have seen that in a situation where 99% of what has happened is positive, he will focus on the 1% that is negative. And a lot of times the negative isn't even there. I have noticed that generally I think I am treated well out there in the world. He doesn't understand why he isn't. I suspect that he is, but when he reacts to ambiguous situations by assuming hostile intent, then some people do become hostile. I am tired of struggling to remain positive in the face of his negativity. It seems that it is more important to him to discuss endlessly the maltreatment of a waiter (real or imagined) than to drop it and get on with having a good time together.

At least I can leave him to his indignant ruminations, temporarily and eventually permanently. He, on the other hand, has to live inside the hostile world he creates in his mind. It must suck being him.



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Advice for Men: How to Create an Unhappy Marriage

Obviously, overt abuse will do it, as will infidelity, but there are also covert and unthinking ways, to suck the lifeblood and happiness out of any woman. Some of these techniques fall under the category of 'withholding'. So here's my short list for tonight:

1. Stop all fun and romance, and preferably sex as well.

Remember all those good times you had before you got married? The dinner and dancing dates, the parties, the long talks? Well, stop all that immediately.

Remember, she married you so now she's stuck and she's not going anywhere without a whole lot of trouble. Stop courting her and complimenting her. Do not ask her out on a date. She'll be happy watching ESPN with you. Do not buy her flowers or femmy gifts like jewelry and lingerie. Especially avoid going on vacation. Vacation removes the focus of your relationship from her being your maid/gardener/secretary/tax and investment advisor/ and all around girl Friday to having fun together.

2. Let her know how sexy you find other women.

Definitely watch porn. If she objects, be sure to tell her she needs to deal with her insecurity and stop being so controlling.

Ogle other women when you are together.

Comment on the sexiness of movie stars, random women on he street, and your teenage daughter's friends. Letting your wife know how hot you think her girlfriends are is particularly effective. This serves the dual purpose of hurting her sexual confidence while making her uncomfortable having her friends around you, thus isolating her from support systems.

3. Treat her like an employee.

Marriage is primarily getting cheap labor right? Be sure to try to get her to do more and more. Point out frequently how you provide most of the money and how she therefore owes you. This works very well if you have inherited wealth and you do next to nothing. Be sure to flaunt the newest gadget you got while she does without.

If you want to be especially demeaning, tell her to give you a bill for the work she does. This ensures that her loving contributions to the partnership are treated like mere services

4. Don't keep your commitments.

Keeping commitments builds trust and a sense of partnership. Breaking commitments will destroy trust. You don't have to treat a commitment to your wife like a commitment to someone else. It's okay to keep her waiting. It's okay to say you'll do something and then not do it ever. This way you train her to not believe a word you say.

5. Do not listen to her.

If she gets tired of all of the above and tries to talk to you, whatever you do - do not listen or attempt to understand her point of view and feelings.

Immediately ask her:

"Are you blaming me?" or "Are you saying it's my fault?"

This effectively moves the focus from her complaint and puts her on the defensive. She will now try to explain that she is not blaming you and her complaint is lost in the hub-bub.

6. Do not take the initiative to work things through - ever.

Have you heard of the 'time out' technique"? This is a common method couples use to go calm down so they can get back together and work things out. Since you don't want to work things out, you just want her to stop her bitching, you can ask for a time out, but never come back.

Be sure to act like nothing happened the next day. Most problems resolve themselves - NOT!

7. No matter what she says about how unhappy she is or that she may need to end the marriage - do not believe her.

Those are just words, just so much blah, blah, blah. She's probably got PMS or in the older woman, perhaps menopause.

And if you really want to make her crazy, when she finally leaves your neglectful sorry ass to make a life where she is appreciated, cherished and adored, act astonished when you come home to find she has moved out. Tell her you realize how much you love her and that you want to work on the relationship. Then of course, do none of these things.

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Hope is the enemy

The times when he is 'playing nice' are actually harder on me than total cold disengagement. I feel so much better when I don't interact with him.

On Sunday, we actually appeared to resolve something. And he has really been helpful with day to day household needs. But that is a far cry from dealing with the fundamental problems.

He still thinks it is perfectly fine to tell me what I am doing, what I think and what I feel. He ran a whole trip on me Sunday. He told me that I had 'berated' him the night before. That then I felt good because I had gone off on him and that was why I was now feeling happy. None of it - none of it - had an ounce of truth in it. In fact he had the whole thing completely wrong.

I did not 'berate' him, I expressed some of the pain I felt when he had done certain things. It did not feel good, I felt horrible. I was happy on Sunday, but that was because I had spent a lot of time work through my feelings and adjusting my thinking to disconnect from him once again.

I didn't tell him what was really going on with me because Patricia Evans advises not to explain in response to someone who is defining you. She says that this just gives them the impression that it is okay to define you, but in this instance they were wrong. I did tell him he was wrong, and tried to point out how illogical it is to think he could know what I was doing, thinking and feeling, but he does not agree. He says it is his 'intuition'. No amount of reality will convince him otherwise.

He said that he had read a little bit in a John Gottman book about power sharing in a marriage. That's good. But I told him that in order for me to begin to feel safe with him, I need to know that he is reading or doing something everyday. He nodded and was sweet and said he would.

Monday - nothing.

Tuesday - nothing.

Wednesday - nothing.

Same old avoidance. Same old saying one thing and doing another.

I have to admit that those old hopeful feelings come up again. That desire to feel safe, the desire to feel loved and cherished. Hope, has become my enemy.

At least hope for a happy life with him is the enemy. Hope for me, hope for a better life for myself is the hope I need to nurture.

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Verbal Abuse Bingo

I have been working on learning to detach, to see his behavior as the immature silliness that it is. When he is unable to upset me, he is deprived of the payoff of feeling powerful. Patricia Evans suggested his name calling is at the emotional level of a three year old calling someone a 'pooh pooh head'.

So I look for ways to see the absurdity and not let it get to me. I have created Verbal Abuse Bingo cards. I am thinking of putting a couple of them in the kitchen, and inviting him to play too. When I hear that type of abuse, I would go get my card and cheerfully mark out that spot with a flourish.

When I get 5 in a row - I'll gleefully yell out "Verbal Abuse Bingo!"

It might put some fun in dysfunctional and maybe keep him mindful.

He is so contrary he may stop the abuse just to block me from getting Bingo.

Let's Make a Deal

So last night he tells me he is sorry he called me a bitch. Unfortunately, further conversation revealed that he is still holding me responsible for how he behaves.

I told him that in order to feel safe with him again, I need to know that he accepts full responsibility for his behavior and that name calling will not happen in the future under any circumstances.

"What?", he said. "You want me to just unilaterally disarm?" "This isn't a war", I told him. "Weapons have no place in a marriage."

I pointed out that I had stopped yelling, because I knew it bothered him. I no longer slam doors. I don't try to continuing engaging with him when he wants to stop talking, even though he has not kept a 'time out' agreement in a year. (When he takes a 'time out' it doesn't mean he is going to go calm down so we can better discuss the issue. It is his way of disengaging for weeks.) "I did all that", I told him, "and your behavior has not changed."

He wouldn't agree to a ban on name calling regardless of circumstances. (double standard here). Basically, he says if I do something to make him mad (like tell him I am upset about something he did or didn't do) then he will reserve the right to 'fight back'.

This is what Lundy Bancroft says in "Why does he do that?"

He justifies his hurtful or frightening acts or says that you "made him do it."

The abuser uses your behavior as an excuse for his own. He therefore refuses to commit unconditionally to stop using a degrading or intimidating behavior. Instead, he insists on setting up a quid pro quo, where he says he'll stop some form of abuse if you agree to give up something that bothers him, which often will be something that you have every right to do.

So I'm not going to take that 'deal'. I could use 'I feel' statements and stroking and never raise my voice over a whisper and he would still find a way to justify abuse.

Just because I'm not perfect
doesn't mean I deserve to be abused.

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Is there hope for me?

Today I made an appointment for a phone consultation with Patricia Evans. I feel better just after my conversation with her to set up the appointment.

I knew that I was feeling beaten down, but maybe I didn't realize how far I have fallen. During my conversation with Patricia she said "You're smart" and "You're doing a good job" and "You can have a vibrant career with a lot of men to date who you could drop at the first hint of abuse."

I started to cry when she said those things. How long has it been since anyone told me those things? How did I lose so much faith in myself?

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No abuse, but no partnership either

Even when he isn't being ordering or cranky or calling me names and telling me what I am doing and what I am thinking as if he can read my mind, it still doesn't seem like he knows I am there.

From the beginning of our marriage, there was no sense of partnership, no sense of 'we'. I was struck by Patricia Evans saying that in a verbally abusive marriage, the couple doesn't really plan together. The man won't.

I don't even get a honeymoon period between abusive episodes. The best it gets, with rare exceptions, is nothingness. When I realized I now think of the absence of contact as an improvement, I feel very sad. How in the hell did I get stuck in this? Excellent question. We'll take that up later.

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I hate my husband.

I know I'm not alone. I don't know if any other women hate my husband, but I'm pretty sure there are other women who hate their husbands. We just don't say so do we. But we think it, and we feel it.

I hate him for treating me so disrespectfully. I hate him for calling me "bitch", "cunt". Those words cut deep and a woman can never feel the same way about a man after he calls her that.

I hate him for forgetting I am a woman and treating me like his servant.

I hate him for rarely sleeping in the same bed with me.

I hate him for rarely taking a vacation with me.

I hate him for rarely taking me out on a date.

I hate him for rarely bringing me flowers.

I hate his cluelessness.

I hate him for making sexual comments about other women.

I hate him for looking at porn.

I hate him for only making love to me once a month since we got married.

I hate him for being so cheap with me even though he has lots of money.

He is so fucking lazy. He is the laziest man I have ever seen. I had no idea. His schedule:

noon: wake up
-1:30 lay in bed
-3:00 get up and eat breakfast.
-4:30 get the mail and read catalogs and offers for miracle cures.
-6:30 go on internet
-8:00 make dinner and eat
-11:00 play the guitar
-3:00 back on the internet

except on rare occasions, schedule does not include housework, or even moving his own shit off the dining table or anywhere else.

Okay. I admit it, I sound like a bitch. But which came first? The way he treated me came first. I was not like this before.

Why doesn't she just leave you ask? I am. I am leaving. There's a world out there.There is life out there. I want to live again.
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