Emotional Abuse
My Story
I met him in 1989. It was love at first sight. He was friendly, charming, intelligent, witty and handsome. He also fell for me immediately. We were engaged two days after we met and I moved in with him and his family a few months later. That should have been my warning sign, but like so many other people in love, they are blind to the clues. I didn't really pay much attention to my family and friends who thought he was a bit odd to outright creepy. I thought I could make him happy and change his flaws that others thought was pretty bad.
His family was a textbook case of abuse. The house was rundown and I couldn't just call it messy - it was unsanitary. The kids ran around all day without much adult supervision. There was one day when the two boys were chasing each other around the front yard with REAL machetes. One girl was just very shy and the other would fight anyone who would even breath on her the wrong way. The mother worked 12-15 hour days while the father was usually unemployed and locked himself up in the attic where he slept most of the day only to wake up at night when everyone else was tired to start projects insisting that people help him with instead of going to sleep.
I remember one Christmas when one of the kids complained about not getting something and the father had a tantrum and started to throw the presents around, knock down the tree, scream and utter profanities. I got hit in the carnage and was bruised. He stomped off to the attic to sleep and I cleaned the mess. While I was living there, I was pretty much treated like the slave.
I got pregnant. When I found out I was so happy. Yes, I knew we weren't married at that point, but we were engaged. I knew he did not want children and I was making plans in advance to raise it on my own if he didn't want anything to do with it. When I told him, he was upset. He went into a rage mode when I told him I did not want an abortion. I didn't believe in abortions. He kept berating me with a pro-choice campaign on why I should have an abortion. [Funny though, pro-"choice" implies choice on the part of the woman and not the man. I don't know why he didn't see the irony in his logic.]
Between threats, pleas, and intimidation, I gave in. I was afraid. His family's atmosphere had already begun to break me down to do what the man says or face harassment. I went to the clinic with him and did an interview with the counselor who asked me if I really wanted to have an abortion. I told her no. He went crazy as I told him they refused to perform an abortion on me. He found another clinic and stood over me to make sure I agreed. They performed it. When I was allowed to leave, I was so upset and crying down the street as we headed towards the train station. He did not comfort me at all and told me to get over it as I was making a scene.
I got pregnant again a few months later. [Yes, we did use birth control.] Again, I did not want to have an abortion, so I didn't tell him about it until I started to show. He took me to another clinic which was way out of town as I was already in my second trimester. He stood very close by as they interviewed me. If I didn't agree, he would leave me there. I agreed and they did it. Great guy, isn't he?
I was not used to being treated or talked to in the way he and his father were treating me. My soon-to-be husband would never stand up for me or tell his father to stop picking on me. My father in law got a bit too frisky with me and made me feel uncomfortable. I told my soon-to-be about it and the whole family teamed up against me as if I were overreacting, so I dropped it. I got mad enough one day and walked out to move in to a friend's place who offered me a room as he knew the abuse I was going through. My soon-to-be husband followed me over and moved in with me.
The rent was pretty cheap and we had to help out every now and then. We had jobs. Things were okay until we were phased out of a job. We still managed to get by. I did more work for my friend and he got another job and I found a part time job. It was cool. We even made plans to set a date for the wedding. He was reluctant and kept telling me he didn't want to do it as it was only a meaningless piece of paper. I told him I was not going to stick around with him unless he wanted a real commitment and if he couldn't do it, then it was time to move on. He agreed to do it. I don't know why as he was so against the idea, but he claimed to love me so much and not want to lose me, so he was willing to do anything for me.
I set the date, and he showed up. Nothing fancy. Just an appointment with the judge at the courthouse with our immediate families and a few friends, but minus his father who really didn't like me. His father left town the day before we got married.
My husband was working full time. I was working part time. We were still living in our friend's room and considered to make plans to move out. However, within two weeks of tying the knot, he had a few setbacks which made him become unglued.
Someone without insurance ran into his car. It was a minor bump, but it still got him into a temper tantrum mode.
The boss was making demands on his work and being critical. This was making him angry as he usually believed he could do things better his way rather than the way other people ask him to do things. When you do that for someone who is paying you to do it in an exact way, they do tend to complain. This is something he still has to comprehend.
Then the straw that broke the camel's back - he found tickets to a concert he really wanted to see and discovered he missed it. He blamed me for not reminding him about the concert, although I never knew what date it was supposed to be. He had a fit and started screaming and throwing things. Then he took to the bottle.
For the next week, he would get plastered and be belligerent. One day, he showed up to work fall down drunk. I tried to stop him from leaving the house, but he pushed me out of the way hard enough to leave a bruise. He went to the train station and left for work. I got a call later asking me to come pick him up as he was passed out on the bathroom floor after threatening his co-workers and boss and threatening suicide and ranting about conspiracies against him. He was fired the next day. He blamed me for "letting" him go to work. Then he plotted to get even with his former employers.
He spent the next six months in a nasty funk. Fortunately, he stopped drinking. He would withhold affection from me and had sex with me when HE felt like, regardless if I was in the mood or not. He was consumed with revenge. At the mere suggestion that he find a job, any job, he would blow up at me and complain there were no jobs to be had. Sure, there were jobs, but he refused to apply for any job that was not in graphic arts. He would not fill out an application for a fast food restaurant, a gas station, or any other "menial" jobs as he felt he was above that line of work. It was okay for me to work those kinds of jobs, but not him. After all, he did finish one year of art school, nine months of experience in a temp job, and had one year of experience from a job that fired him for showing up drunk. Surely that qualifies him for a job in his field in a tough economic market!
We had to go on food stamps to get by. I was tired of being shut out and ignored. I met up with a weird bunch of people through the computer on a BBS site. One couple I met took advantage of me financially and sexually. I got pregnant and miscarried.
After being fed up with the shame of living on food stamps and his humiliation that I was used by another man, he got whatever job he could find, which happened to be in a lumber store. He was starting to become more of the charming man I loved and I thought everything was going to be okay.
His father, who moved to Nashville the day before we got married, had inherited his mother's home, business, car and money. He invited my husband out there to find a better job and he left to get set up and would send for me later. He found a minimum wage job and told me how great everything was, so I came on down. The catch, we had to live with his father until we got our own place. He promised me we would get our own place, but he never was serious in his search for our own place as his constant excuse was we can't afford it. So, yet again, I became the family slave once his brothers moved down. I had to run my father-in-law's business, keep house, cook, watch kids, and I had a full time job and I paid half of the bills without my husband's contributions. I was also being emotionally and verbally abused, but he would never stick up for me.
I got pregnant again, but refused to have an abortion. He claims as we didn't have the money to have our own place, we surely can't afford the baby. He tried to pressure me into having an abortion and I refused. He pulled out a gun and threatened to kill himself in front of me if I refused. I wrestled the gun out of his hand and got it. He calmly tells me it wasn't loaded and acts as if it were no big deal. I miscarried a few days later and he did not comfort me at all.
Later, he got into a fight with his father and ran around claiming he was going to kill him. That was my last straw and I turned to a couple who helped me escape and go back to Chicago. I was in hiding, but he got a hold of my address book and kept calling my friends to try and find me. Word got back to me how despondent he was and they thought I should at least talk to him. I did and he sucked me back in. He promised he would change and do anything to make me happy, including finding our own place. I took him for his word and went back. However, it was the same old thing. He showed no interest in finding a place of our own.
Granted, at that point reason and logic was warning me not to go back. I was free at that point. I could have divorced him back then. Actually, there were a few times when I should have divorced him, but I CHOSE to go back to him out of a false sense that I loved him and owed it to him to give him another chance. After all, if I screwed up, I would want him to give me another chance without berating me about it.
I was accepting a life where I felt in necessary to lie to him because he didn't want to hear the truth. I accepted the role of catering to his every need even if it got in the way of my needs or rights or well being. I accepted the role of doing more than was expected to try to make him happy, although I knew everything I did was fine at first, but he would get used to it then start to find fault with it. I was getting used to his tantrums over even minor things and him screaming at me or blaming me for everything, even things that were his own fault. I got used to the idea that he would never apologize to me when he hurt me. I was a mere satellite around his world. I ceased being a real person, but an object to be used and then thrown out if he couldn't use me anymore.
Instead of putting my foot down, staying with my sister, finding a job and a place of my own, filing for divorce, I took him on his word that he would do whatever it takes to make me happy if I would come back to him. Against the advice of my sister, I caved in. [Please, note. Just because you love someone, you do not OWE them a chance to make your life a living hell. You do not have to accept a life of walking on eggshells. If you truly love someone, you will back off when they are being a total jerk or else they will never get better.]
I was pregnant again. I refused to have an abortion. He was cold and distant to me. I took on a second full time job to show him we would be able to afford this baby. During this pregnancy, I went into premature labor, three months early. My water broke while I was alone at work. I called him and asked him to take me to the hospital as my water broke and I was feeling contractions. His major concern was he was going to be late for work over what was probably false labor. He begrudgingly agreed to take me to the hospital after arguing with me for five minutes about the urgency. He dropped me off in the closest part of the hospital he could drive to, which was the entirely wrong wing. He wouldn't even bother stay with me to make sure I got situated in the right place. He just dropped me off and expected me to walk to the right place. I asked a janitor to help me and they took care of me as he ran off to work. He called me later, grumbling how he was late. Then he bothered to ask how I was doing.
Tell me, was I being an unreasonable nag to insist he take me to the hospital when my water broke and had contractions in my sixth month? Anyone who has ever been pregnant can tell you, it would be hard to walk a few block when you are going into labor. Anyone who has ever been pregnant or has a lick of common sense would know it is not a good thing to have your water break in the sixth month and that alone should warrant a trip to the E/R!!
Surprisingly, my daughter came out just fine. She was under 3 pounds, but pretty healthy, although she had to stay in the hospital another 5 weeks. I literally went back to work the same day I was released from the hospital as a favor to my father in law. I worked an overnight hospital shift and then went straight to my daughter in the morning. Then I went back to my full time job. Two weeks later I was back in the hospital due to dehydration and a breast infection. When I was released, it was back to work to prove I could afford the baby. My daughter was eventually released and I asked him about getting our own place. He still said we can't afford it and wouldn't even bother trying to look. I had to face that I was going to be stuck in that house under that stress and abuse with a new baby. I was not happy. So much for his promises.
My father-in-law pushed the envelope with me when he showed up at my job to harass me about not clearing the table from the night before. He yelled and belittled me in front of the people I was training. I came home only to face more of the same harassment as I held my daughter in my arms trying to feed her. I almost snapped to the point that I was going to stab him to death, but my daughter wiggling in my arms reminded me I have more important things to worry about, so I walked out the door and went across the street to a neighbor and told her everything. She let me call my parents who picked me up and let me stay with them.
I want to pause here to note that this is the reason there needs to be laws on the books to protect those going through emotional and verbal abuse. There are no laws in place to fine or punish the abuser. Granted, I was not married to my father-in-law, I could escape him, legally. I was pushed so far, that I really was going to literally KILL HIM. I was near the butcher knife and reached out for it and was going to stab him to death with my daughter in my arms. If she didn't move around to distract me, he would be dead!!
If you are married to someone who does this to you, the law tends to look the other way. Your spouse can legally torture you this way and you can't do a thing about it until you divorce them. There are no restraining orders or anything on the books to make your spouse go away when they torture you in this manner until you have a finalized divorce. They can legally emotionally and verbally abuse you and get away with it. They are not required to leave your home and cannot be forced out unless they make a specific threat or lay their hands on you. Women's shelters are mostly set up to protect women who are physically abused and only take in other abuse cases if they have room.
My husband called me and begged me to come back. He promised he would get a place for us to live. That was the condition of me coming back to him. He did get an apartment, but he was very secretive about it and when his dad found out he was ballistic and stalked us for a few days.
Eventually, he stopped and I was getting used to being a stay at home mom. There were times when I was so tired that I needed extra sleep as my daughter was colicky. He would promise to watch her to let me sleep. He would then do things like go out some place, go meet with his sports buddies, go shopping or something like that, but instead of taking our daughter with him, he would leave her on the floor on a blanket to wander about the apartment. I would only be clued in when I heard her screaming and I had to find her. He couldn't understand why I was so upset with him and would yell at me for making him get stuck with her when he had other plans [which of course, he didn't mention when he agreed to watch her].
He could have at least woke me up to tell me he was leaving so someone could watch our premie daughter. What if she put something in her mouth and choked? What if she touched a dangerous object and got hurt? She was so small, she could crawl under small spaces and was hard to find. Imagine my panic when I couldn't find her, but could hear her cry!
Things were moving pretty smoothly for the next few years. There would be occasional outbursts when he didn't get his way. He would go into a rage when he couldn't find things. But he was generally okay. It stayed that way for awhile and I thought we would make it. Then things would take a turn for the worst.
While in Nashville, he worked as a manager of a shoe store. He was approached by the general manager with an offer to relocate. He took the job as a manager for a shoe store in Memphis on the promise that he would make more money and they would pay up the remainder of our lease and make good on the hospital payment for our daughter. That move cost us a lot of money. He made less money than before. The company never made the payments we were promised. We had a black mark on our credit record because they did not pay as promised. Often, my husband was the only employee to run the entire store open to close during mall hours for what amounts to less than minimum wage.
This started a pattern of abuse from which we would never recover.
I had to rob Peter to pay Paul due to our lack of income. He had to take on an overnight job just so we could try and make ends meet, but it was never enough. I worked a disgusting phone sex job for a lot longer than I wanted just because we needed the money and he wouldn't let me quit.
We also had another baby and I refused to have an abortion. He was cold and cruel to me and called me fat. To shut him up, I agreed to have my tubes tied, then he started to warm up to the idea.
Meanwhile, the bills were mounting and some went into collection. Checks were bouncing and credit card trouble insued. I told him from the beginning that I was lousy at keeping records, yet he insisted I do it anyway. He would not help me as his excuse was he was too busy working and I was home and should have enough sense to handle it. He totally discounted the fact that I also had a full plate with two children and a full time job of phone sex as well as trying to keep up with housework. Sometimes I wouldn't sleep for days with a newborn and a toddler being quite active, even in the middle of the night.
If I presented him with a budget, a plan, or a very urgent bill, he would not look at it and simply tell me to handle it as he is too busy. I needed his input as I didn't know what to do, but he refused to take any responsibility in the nature of our bills, budget or debt until they tried to garnish his wages and then he would yell and scream at me for letting it get that far.
I then tried to make him look at the bills and he would grumble about the amount, then do nothing about them and tell me to handle it. I would constantly remind him they needed to be paid and he did nothing but complain I was nagging him. When something got shut off or went into collection, he yelled at me for not telling him about the bill. When he got a copy of his credit report to see all these late payments, he would yell at me again claiming I never told him about them or tell him at the last minute. In the cases where I presented him with something at the last minute was only when he told me to handle it and I tried like hell to raise the money but couldn't do it, so I asked for help and got yelled at. After awhile, I hated telling him anything about our money situation because no matter what, I would get yelled at.
I tried to budget to the bare minimum when it came to groceries, but he would grumble and complain that there were no snacks to eat or pop to drink and demand I buy them. He could not comprehend that when you are living on close to minimum wage, you cannot afford such luxuries, but he thought he was better than that and deserved better, even if we couldn't afford it.
So I was in a dilemma. If I tried to live within our means, he would yell at me for depriving him of things he was accustomed to. If I lived beyond our means, he would yell at me if he saw the bills and would yell at me even more if I "hid" the bills from him and it would be put on his credit record. I was in a no-win situation. Then I decided I had better start a business based on what would make me happy and make me more money so I could eventually quit my job and we could make more money.
By the time we moved back to Nashville, we rented a house. Our kids were unaware of what was going on. My husband was getting more and more critical of things. The house was always messy. The kids were always getting into things. I was always too tired for sex. His things were always missing. My job was always an inconvience for his needs. It didn't matter, something was bound to set him off in a tirade. He even had the nerve to start a file on our children and ordered me to maintain this file of expenses they occured due to whatever they damaged as small children. I was disgusted at this task he put upon me and refused. He started the file and put it in my file cabnet and insisted I take care of it. Anytime they did some damage, he put the bill in the file for them to pay when they were 18.
He loved to put projects upon me. At any given point, if there was something he wanted done or researched or put into the queue of things to do, he just laid it out for me to handle whether I wanted to or not. My argument was I had more than enough to do and had a hard time keeping up with things as they were. His argument was he was working two jobs and was never home, so he shouldn't be expected to do it. Therefore, in his logic, it was my job and responsibility whether or not I agreed to it.
We did not have great credit. At that point, we were barely caught up with past payments. He insisted it was time we got a house, no matter how impractical it was for us at the time. I went along with it as I knew he didn't want to hear anything else but total support for his plan. The more I thought about the idea, the more excited I got at the prospect.
I was just starting my Internet business, but everytime I got into a serious project mode, I would always have to stop whatever I was doing to appease him. This set me back a few years behind my master plan because he would never let me finish what I was starting. Or if I was on the computer doing my work, he would grumble and complain because I was hogging the computer [which I bought] and he couldn't get on to check his email and look at sites that interested him.
Eventually, we got a house. It wasn't bad for a starter home, but the payments were about $350 more than we were paying in rent. We moved in and I was more determined to make my business a success so we could afford that house. I also had plans to homeschool my children, which he wasn't fond of because it would take away my time from the things he thought I should be doing, but his official excuse was they wouldn't be socialized.
I did homeschool our daughter from kindergarten to first grade, then we put her in public school. So it was just me and my son at home while I was working phone sex and trying to make my business work. The house was still a mess. I was still having trouble keeping track of bills and expenses. I would leave the bills out in the open for him to look at [in other words, hide the bills], but he refused to look at them assuming that since I was home I should have all the time in the world to take care of it. I didn't!!!
If the phone rang, I would have to pick it up within two rings when I was on call with the phone sex job. I had to be undisturbed while doing a call. I had a room away from the kids whom I would put in a safe area while I did a call. That didn't stop my husband from making my job more difficult even though we needed the money. If he wanted me for something or tried to get my attention, he would either shout out to me using my real name, bang on the door, or write me notes using profane language when I tried to ignore him. I have had a drop in call request due to his interference. He acted like it was no big deal that I lost a client. Then in the same breath complain about not making enough money.
The web site could not create itself nor could it promote itself. My children needed me and other things would have to wait. And in between all of this chaos, if he called me, I would have to drop what I was doing to tend to what he wanted me to do. That meant putting everything on hold until I did his bidding. I could never get caught up and hardly anything I set out to do would ever be completed. And he wondered why I had trouble with keeping up with the bills?? But of course, this was ALL MY FAULT. He refused to ever take any responsibility or interest in the bills until it came back to bite him. He worked two jobs and was hardly ever home, how could he know what was going on? He had time to read his car magazines. He had time to watch tv. He had time to go out from time to time. But he never had time to pick up the stack of bills I kept on the table in the living room for him to see. If I asked him if he looked at it, he kept complaining I was nagging him. So I backed off and told him that was where I would keep the bills whenever he was ready to look at it. He never did.
I was getting so tired of him ordering me around like some servant when I had my own agenda. He was interfering with my life and my plans to make money for the family so I could quit a disgusting job and do something I wanted to do. I thought if I would involve him in my business he would not only lay off me, but maybe he could find his niche and pursue it. I offered him a position to write articles about his favorite topic - cars. The only problem is he refused to learn how I wanted it layed out and left that extra work for me to do. Instead of following the format, he just created more work for me. He was upset that I wasn't putting up his articles as fast as other articles. He really didn't visit my site to begin with and had no real idea about what my site was about, but was salivating on the promises of wealth.
Yes, I started to make more money than I did on the phones and got to the point where I could quit. Instead of encouraging me to do more, he did everything in his power to give me more to do apart from my web site which set me back further. So instead of making more money, I was barely getting by. He claims that was not the case, but whether he meant to do it deliberately or not, that was the result of him ordering me around so much.
He still continued on with his tantrums and tirades when he couldn't find things [which in 90% of the cases the object in question was placed, by him, in some other place than where he remembered.] He would never apologize when he was at fault nor would he ever clean up the mess he left behind causing other things to get lost or out of order. He just created more work for me on my already overloaded schedule.
He is big time in getting revenge against people who do him wrong. He got fired from the sales floor at a car dealership and came home crying to me. I had to reassure him that everything would be okay. Then they called him to work in the parts department and everything seemed like it would be okay until he discovered a personality conflict with his boss.
His boss, HB, was a former Marine. He ran a tight ship at work and expected rules to be followed to the T. HB wanted things done exactly his way without room for error. My husband has this habit of thinking his way of doing things is better and will frequently discount any instructions given to him on how to specifically do a task.
HB wasn't about to accept this kind of behavior and would frequently repremand him for not doing things the right way. My husband saw how uneven this treatment he was getting seemed to be as HB's friend would get away with things and HB would look the other way.
One day, my husband attempted to use his credit card to pay for some car repair at work, but the order was declined and he called the credit card company to check the balance. He went ballistic to find out he owed $5000 then called me from work to scream at me. I mean he literally SCREAMED at me for a long time. I know his boss heard it. I rested the phone on the bed and backed off and could hear him loud and clear. I panicked at that point because he was getting so hostile as he ordered me to get to the bottom of this situation.
I comforted myself in the fact that bought me some time to see what I could do. I kept telling him when I had to use the card to pay utilities or other needed expenses. He hardly ever paid attention to me when I had something important to say. He ALWAYS tuned me out when it came to finances and merely brushed me off with a "you handle it." We always paid the minimum on the card because to pay the full balance was way out of our ball park if we wanted to pay the mortgage. Like I said, I frequently had to rob Peter to pay Paul. When he transferred to the parts department, he was making far less money and we were in over our heads in expenses. He refused to sit down with me when I begged him to create a household budget as he was too busy. That was how we got into big trouble and I KNEW he didn't want to hear the truth because if I told him I made all those charges, he would distance himself from any responsibility in it as he was too busy working and always had me handle that job which he knew I was lousy at doing.
He was seething and hostile for a few days as I lied and told him it was an error on the part of the credit card company. I figured I would make payment arrangements and handle it myself. I told him they deactivated his card and to not use it.
The day after he made a scene at work, he was fired. He claims he was fired because HB said he wasn't doing his work properly. I know he was fired because of not only that, but the screaming incident pushed his fate. He vowed revenge on HB and insisted I help in his campaign of terror against HB.
After putting up with his rampage about the credit card and his job and his vow for revenge, I tried to bring up the serious facts of reality - him getting a job. He ordered me to create a resume for him and find him a job.
Does this seem strange to you? A grown man who was fired from his job doesn't even bother to create his own resume or look for a job for himself - he has to have someone else do it for him as if it were beneath him. To me, this was nothing new coming from a man who expected me to pick out his clothes every morning and get everything lined up before he had to go to work. This is the same man who constantly belittled my fashion sense who expected me to lay out his clothes for him in every morning. If I didn't have things laid out on time and put everything where he could find it - it was ALWAYS my fault when he was late for work, but NEVER his own fault due to the fact that he would get out of bed a half hour before having to be at work when the drive in itself took 20 minutes.
This is a man who couldn't be bothered with fixing his own plate for dinner when I was swamped with other things to do. He wanted me to serve him, often in his room. He couldn't even be bothered with getting up to pour himself a drink and would complain loudly until I brought him something to drink.
He was always losing things. Why? He was always accusing everyone in the house of moving his stuff around so he couldn't find things. Granted, that was the case some of the time. The majority of the time he couldn't find things because he is the least organized member of this family and has short term memory problems. Often he will swear he put something in one place which is not true because when I trace back the trail, he is often the one who put it somewhere else to begin with. Or, in his quest to find something else, he will tear through rooms and turn everything upside down to look for one object while misplacing many different things in the process - leaving a total mess for me to clean up whenever I get the time to get to it which was hard to do as I was already filled with so many other things to do and I did not need another mess he created to clean up.
Then he blamed me for all our problems because I am so disorganized. He is part of the problem as to why I don't have any order, but won't own up to his role in the problem. Every time I tried to create order and set a place for everything, he disrespects those boundaries and things get out of order really quickly. When I called him on it, he claims I never told him where things belonged, but that is not true because whenever I try to tell him ANYTHING pertaining to life around the house, he tuned me out. Every time I tried to create a budget and a plan to get out of debt, he would not take the time to sit down with me to go over the details, but would scream at me because I would "hide" the bills from him - I left the bills on the table in the hallway for him to look at and they would often remain unopened and during the course of a month or two, the bills would either drop on the floor during his rages, or the kids would use them to draw on, or they would get thrown out - THAT WAS HOW I HID THE BILLS - I hid them in plain sight. I was over-worked myself and had a hard time keeping track of them myself.
I gained a lot of weight during our marriage. I was mostly always at home by choice. I was ashamed of my weight and didn't want people to see me. I have an eating disorder and developed a drinking habit to numb the pain of life, but I never let that interfere with my work or taking care of the kids. I got to the point where I always had to have a tv or radio on to block out how stressed I was getting.
Eventually, I gave up trying getting his help with the bills. I knew he would never look at them or hear me out over them. His solution to problems was to intimidate and berate until you told him what he wanted to hear. He not only did that with me, but he did that with everyone who wouldn't cave into giving him his way. Some of the bills we truly never received as it was some fluke in the mail service or our neighbors would get our bills as we sometimes got theirs. If I couldn't pay a bill and had no clue as to when a bill could get paid, I started to throw them away. I couldn't get help from him nor a straight answer in how to pay it and I couldn't afford to pay them off myself. I did what I could with the money I made and started to make payment arrangements with debt collectors and did the best I could. The fact was our mortgage was just too much to handle and I wanted to refinance.
I have heard so many commercials claiming that when you refinance your home you can qualify for lower payments and use the equity to pay off bills. Because I had to rob Peter to pay Paul as he didn't want to hear the details of our financial problems, we were frequently late or completely missed a payment. At one point, we were two months behind and they started foreclosure, but I talked to their lawyers to work out an equitable agreement. I did not fill my husband in on the details as he was already going through enough stress at work and I didn't need him putting any more pressure on me as this situation needed to be dealt with in a rational manner. If he got stressed out over a situation like that, he would only make matters worse by stressing me out to handle it and badgering me until it was solved. He always did that whenever there was a problem. Quite frankly, I did not need his extra stress.
I went through a refinancing process and scraped up a few thousand dollars for the downpayment and all he had to do was sign his name. This lowered our payments a little and stopped the foreclosure. He was none the wiser about it. There was a major problem with the refinancing - we barely qualified for it. Had we made $500 less, we would not qualify for the loan at all and they would have foreclosed.
I was hoping this fresh start would make it easier, but it didn't. I signed up for online payments through our bank. A certain ISP charged fees to our account for some extra services we did not order two months in a row which caused our account to be insufficent in paying the mortgage. On top of that, we were still barely squeaking by and I was still robbing Peter to pay Paul. We were in trouble with the mortgage company again.
I know for a fact that we barely qualified for refinancing. I know for a fact that based on our income tax statement from the last year it would show that we made far less money than would be required to refinance. I know for a fact that without about $12,000 up front cash which included late fees, interest, their lawyer fees, as well as the mortgage payments they refused to take after they closed the online account - there wasn't much I could do on my own. I needed help. I couldn't tell him as his first response to everything is to become unglued and go into a hysterical rage.
I contacted lawyers and so-called foreclosure experts and paid about $1500 total in trying to get help. The bottom line, without $12,000 or proving we had an income to qualify for the loan, we would lose the house. It was a lost cause. I knew it and I was too afraid of him to tell him the bad news. I knew it was only a matter of a couple of months before we would get a foreclosure date.
During this time, he was planning a trip to England. He wanted to go so badly. I know everytime he wants something so badly and things don't go his way, he can get pretty hostile. I wanted him to go on this trip. I figured as the mortgage company was no longer accepting our payments, that would cover his trip. I would take the rest of the money to start looking for a new place to live.
He came back so happy and talked of his grand plans of wanting to move to England. He was so kind and loving, but I felt so guilty and sick from having to hide this secret. I didn't know how to tell him and didn't want to take him down off his happy period. I kept searching and searching for some help or a way to keep our home, but really, there was nothing available as we simply could not afford the house. Eventually, I had to tell him. I told him three days after the foreclosure sale took place.
He went totally nuts. I explained to him what happened and he didn't really want to hear it. All he took from the conversation is that it was my fault, the fault of the ISP and the fault of the mortgage company that HE lost HIS home and all of us OWE HIM a house. Forget the fact that I already did what I could legally to try and remedy the situation. Forget the fact that we didn't make enough money to qualify for refinancing. From now on, we were going to do things in his tyranical way, no matter how unreasonable his request.
He found a lawyer service for free through his work and ORDERED me to talk to him and press him into filing a law suit. I thought it was a pretty reasonable request, after all, what could it hurt to talk to him? The problem with free services like this, the lawyers are not really interested in doing any extra work unless they know they will be paid big money for their time. This lawyer was no different. The lawyers I sought in the past wanted money up front to talk to me and help out.
I told the lawyer the situation and he asked me to fax him the documents, which I did. I had left several messages asking him to call me back, but he never returned my calls. My husband was starting to come unglued and wanted a definative answer RIGHT NOW!! If the lawyer couldn't or wouldn't tell him what he wanted to hear, he was going to find another one.
He demanded that we file a suit against the mortgage company and the ISP for millions of dollars for the lost house and his pain and suffering. He said one way or another, he was going to get a house because, "someone OWES him a house."
When I could finally get a hold of his lawyer, he was sort of vague about what he could realistically do for us. His secretary said she had papers she was going to mail to us, but we never received them. The lawyer basically said there was nothing we could do against the mortgage company as they followed the letter of the law and to pursue a law suit against them would not only be expensive, but pointless and it would never give us possession of that house. As far as the ISP lawsuit, realistically, all we could collect is probably the bounced check fees [from the account with only my name on it] and the two months of missed payments due to their fault, and if there were equity in the home we could get that. As there was no equity, we couldn't expect that.
My husband didn't want to hear that the first two times I told him and kept harassing me into pressuring the lawyer into giving him a better answer. We live in a state that does not really grant lawsuits with pain and suffering attached as the lawyer and other lawyers I spoke to mentioned. There was no way we would ever get millions out of a lawsuit against the ISP. He said we could try it, but it wasn't realistic and there are no precedents for this kind of case. I think by this point, the lawyer was ditching my calls. So I told my husband what he wanted to hear just to shut him up. I didn't feel like doing this dance anymore or calling up several hundred lawyers who will tell me the same exact thing, especially when I had other things to do, like tend to the business he counted on for me to buy him the house I owed him.
By this point, I gave up. I knew in my heart at that point our marriage was over. He was cold and hostile to me. He would not look at me or touch me or even tell me he loved me. He would never really talk to me unless he wanted something or to yell at me or belittle me or rant about conspiracies against him or to berate me and tell me I owe him a house and I have one year to produce one for him and I had better figure it out. He would fake a civil, friendly tone with me in front of people, then go back to being a complete bastard to me in private.
He held on to the belief that the new project I was about to take on for someone was going to pay off big time. It had the potential to make an extra $10,000-100,000 a year. He said that my project had better pay off as promised because I owe him a house!
I was fed up. He keeps saying people have their breaking point and his excuse for treating me so badly was he reached his breaking point. Two can play that game. I wasn't going to take it anymore. I was tired of his threats to burn down the house just because we couldn't have it anymore [this was almost his daily mantra]. I was tired of his rants of conspiracies against him by peoples unknown [forget the fact that most of the problems in his life were either caused by his neglect or lack of interest or just one of those setbacks that just happen to people].
I was tired of the extremely abusive way I was being treated over the past month. Then I simply grew tired of the whole marriage which was pretty much abusive. When faced with him basically saying I have one year to find him a house and him holding over me the potential of a business venture, I was beginning to feel like a hostage instead of a marriage partner. He was keeping me around for the sole purpose of getting him a house, not out of love or obligation.
Out of the many times he let me down, abused me, broke his promises to me, or screwed up, I forgave him with an open heart. I did not berate him over his mistakes. Yet, here he was badgering me constantly over my mistake of not telling him in advanced our home was being foreclosed. It's not as if I didn't try to save the house - I did. I just don't see how him knowing this in advance would have made the situation any different. We did not qualify to refinance - plain and simple. We could not afford the house by any banking standards. No matter what, nothing was going to change the bottom line, after the ISP shorted my account twice and they refused further payment calling our loan in full, the only way to save it was to get $12,000 [and we couldn't even qualify for that kind of loan] or to refinance [which we still couldn't qualify for.] All he would have done if he found out would be to constantly berate and pressure me into solving the problem and have him scream at people who wouldn't give him his way.
I hoped he would be living with his parents as he complained he did not want to live in a crackerbox apartment as it was beneath him. I thought I was free of him, but lo and behold, he moved in with me anyway and there was nothing I could do about it. My cousin who was going to look out for me couldn't be there for me in person, but at least he was aware of the situation. My name is on the lease, and my husband is a co-signer with the right to live there. If he didn't co-sign, I wold have had either my cousin or parents co-sign. When I asked him to co-sign, I still held out hope we could save our marriage.
Ever since he moved in, all he did was complain about the apartment and then start in on me. It was time to consider a divorce. He has parents who live in town in a big home. If he wants to live in a home so badly, I told him he should move in with them and get out. He won't leave on his own, so unless I want to be treated like this for the next year, I needed to do something to get him out of my life for good.
I stopped trying to talk sense into him. I stopped trying to verbally defend myself and everything I have done to save our home. He wasn't going to hear reality because it conflicted with what he wanted to hear. He will not accept any responsibility for this matter escalating as it did. So I did the only thing I could, filed for divorce.
Even that was a failure because when I announced to him my intention immediately after a verbal berating from him over the phone, he rushed home to beg for forgiveness and to give him another chance. He promised he would get help. I did not go through with it, but ended up regretting that.
The cycle of abuse is: the honeymoon phase when things are great, the tension phase, the explosive phase. At the end of the cycle, it goes back to the beginning. True to the cycle, things were great for awhile, but I could see him fighting his true nature. Then he went into a fit of rage. Sometimes each part of this cycle could last days, weeks or months.
It was getting to the point where if I even said the word, "divorce" he would mock me because he did not believe I would ever do it.
He is a bully, plain and simple. A bully needs a victim to fuel his source of self-vindication. I refuse to do it. He will continue to harass and pressure me, but I am taking notes and recording everything. I did something he wasn't planning on when we got married, I grew a backbone and self esteem - that is the ultimate death of a relationship based on total control.
It was a sickness. He was the abuser and I was the willing victim. I allowed it to happen and accept full responsibility in my role to let him get this much out of control even if he takes no responsibility in his role in our downfall.
Why did I stay with him? Out of a false sense of what love was supposed to mean. Out of fear of him. Out of fear he would do something to hurt himself. Out of fear that I would never make it on my own.
The fact that when times were good, it was thrilling, exciting, full of love and passion. The way he put me on a pedastal and treated me like a goddess who was perfect was flattering, even if he did knock me off of it constantly. Because I thought he really needed me and would fall apart if I left. When the kids were good, he was the perfect father, even if he did lose his temper with them and act inappropriately [as in the file against them and him screaming at a four year old for ten minutes for erasing his Play Station game card.] All very lousy reasons to stay married when you know deep down inside you were going to lose your sense of identity if you stayed.
Eventually, he was getting so out of control that when he left a message on my voice mail. It was only after being verbally berated over the phone and me bringing up that I wanted a divorce only to have him mock me again that I did what I never thought I could do, turn him in to the cops and leave with the kids to a domestic violence shelter.
I forgive him for his behavior and treatment, even if he is not asking for it, I must do it so I can move on with my life. It is his choice if he wishes to spend the rest of his life stewing about revenge, hatred, conspiracies, and negativitiy in general. I want no part of it. I choose to put my foot down and stand up for myself and live my dreams.
The court ordered him into a domestic violence program. He has gotten better, but still has his moments. He cannot bear the thought of losing his family and is working hard to make sure it does not happen. I am giving him a chance, but in no uncertain terms he knows I will not spend the rest of my life with someone who is perpetually angry. He doesn't understand why he needs to be in a DV class and was mad at the judge for not letting him take the shorter anger management program, even though the DV class addresses that issue, he does not see his behavior as being really abusive and until he does he will never really be helped.
Updates (6/3/2010): The criminal charge against him was dropped. He is back in our lives living with us and the order of protection is dropped. We are working on our marriage to try and salvage it. He is still taking DV classes, but has started to rationalize and justify his behavior and put it on me and the kids as to why he behaves the way he does. He is still in denial that he has a problem and as such will never get better because he is only going through the motions of getting help. When I try to bring up his behavior, he gets really defensive and says he knows he has a problem and he is trying his best to change, give him a break. I am no longer afraid of speaking my mind to him as he knows that I will not put up with the way things were and if he acts up the charges will be reinstated. I still live in fear he will soon revert, but am determined if he does it again he will not get another chance. There were a few incidents of his temper starting to show like when he berated my daughter over a piece of paper he accused her of losing. She was so distraught and stressed out that I had to comfort her and when he realized she was upset he tried to be extra nice to her without apologizing or acknowledging his behavior.
One of his weekly DV assignments had him try to bring up an incident which makes him angry and why. He