Thoughts on Marriage

I have lots of thoughts on marriage. Surprisingly some of them are pretty good. My marriage sucked! Wow, was that to blunt? It wasn't all bad, just most of it. I got four wonderful children. They are my pride and joy and I have come to believe that if I were to do it over I would have just used a sperm donor.  Ouch! That says a lot about the person I chose to be the father of my children. But that is a whole other subject.
My first thoughts on marriage right now as I sit here are;  "Don't do it!" It means nothing anymore. Its a piece of paper. We have very few examples of good marriages. My parents have been married for 43 years. My ex-in-laws for 44 years. They have happy marriages. They have learned to compromise and compliment each other. They have differences of oppinions and thats ok. I give them kudo's. I would have followed their example if I had chosen a partner that was more like them and less like Satan.
The example for people like my parents were people like their parents. When you married 50 years ago you were married until death. There was no such thing as divorce. If someone did divorce is was for some horrible reason such as abuse or the spouse commited some horrible crime.  Those that divorced were almost untouchable. It was just un-heard of.  Then divorce became more acceptable to the point we have Hollywood stars that count their wedded bliss in days...not years. Please that last longer than 15 years are celebrated as a rarity.  Divorce is not a stigma, but almost a right.
So if you want to avoid divorce then avoid marriage.
Woman no longer need to get married like in the days of old. Way back when....about 50 years ago, if a woman didn't get married she was supported by her father or brother or a sisters husband. She was an old-maid and something was seriously wrong with her...like maybe she was ugly.
Now, with plastic surgery and weight-loss no woman has to be ugly....just kidding. Woman, do not need a man to define them. They can have careers and lives free of men and the crap they bring into a womans life.

Now don't get me wrong. I am in no way a man hater. (And if anyone has a right to be a man hater I do) I love men. I love a good man. I love that they are tall and hansome and sweet and kind.Some are short and round with deep voices. Athletic or Geeky they can all be wonderful.  I love that they bring flowers and romance and make your heart pitter-patter. I love what a good man can do in the bedrooom...well we will stop there. But men seem to think as soon as they have a ring on your finger all the niceties are over. Then the farting starts and the dirty socks and stinky underware and the demands of laundry and dinner and countless other things that comes with having a man in your life. Very few stay sweet and sensitive. Very few remember to bring flowers home and will fix dinner if you are late. Very few remember to put the seat down after their done.

Now to those that remember that divorce is very prevelent in our society and that we women can do a whole lot on our own, I commend you for working to keep your woman and to keep her happy. Because a man that focus' on his woman, will have a woman that will focus on him. 
For those that think that once they have a ring on their finger and a bun in the oven they don't have to do anything to keep them...well let me remind you all that most women can get more off of welfare, and child-support with out having to fall into the toilet in the middle of the night because you left the seat up. They can have a job, raise kids, and still do a good job, despite what you might think.

Now all this being said. I do believe in the sanctity of marriage. I do believe in the fairy-tale. The Cinderella/Sleeping Beauty/Snow White dream. I believe that every man can be a prince charming and every woman can be the princess that she deserves to be. But both roles take work.
If a woman wants to have a prince charming in her life, well she needs to 1) act like a princess and 2) not settle for anything less than Prince Charming. I believe that if women would just stop settling, more men would rise up to the challenge.

My final thought on marriage.  Don't!  Unless you plan on making it forever.  Forever isn't until he pisses you off or when she gets old and fat. Forever is in sickness and in health.
If you don't plan on forsaking all others...which means sleeping with another woman or man than don't get married. Don't make the committment a huge joke. Because there are some of us that truly believe in forever. We believe in giving our whole hearts. All of our soul and if you don't believe in that...then might I suggest that you just live together.....

Lashing out

I am a survivor.  There I said it. I still don't feel it, I still don't accept it, but I have said it. When I think of survivors I think of people that have gone through horrific things and came out of his battered and bruised and effected. Crippled - but running marathons, scarred - but becoming a lawyer, sexually abused - but standing strong in the face of her abuser.  Those are survivors. To call myself a survivor is to accept what was done to me. To accept that I was raped by the pastor that led the congregation I was a part of. Accept that the man that, I married, I trusted, had babies with, believed in, beat me and finally pushed me down a flight of stairs that broke my neck. That lied to the paramedics when they got to the house. That after neck surgery, breast reconstruction surgery, two years of physical therapy, I was stupid enough to stay with him. Even after all those things...I still don't consider myself a survivor or a victim. I don't feel strong I feel weak. I feel like I failed my children and every woman out there that was strong enough to walk away before it got really bad.
I can not answer why I didn't walk away sooner? I never want to answer that question, I always want to  answer that question with a question....why did he beat me? I know whathe told me.  He always said that I was the only one that could push his buttons.  I knew exactly what to say to really hit at his very soul. I had so much power over him that I provoked his abuse. So if I was that powerful, than why wasn't I powerful enough to stop him? Why am I the one that suffered through the bruises and twisted wrists? The surgeries and physical therapy? I still didn't say enough. I still believed that he would change. I lived in shame of the other women. The women that he met online. The women he spent nights and weeks with. Amazing the kind of abuse another human being will put another through. The physical usually heals, but the emotional leaves wounds so deep that they fester. You don't want to fester. You want to heal and go on, but its always in the back of your mind that you are broken. You always find yourself asking the question - what is wrong with me? Why did he abuse me? What is wrong with me that he had to find satisfaction in someone elses bed? If only I had been a better wife, better mother, better lover. If only I could be a better listener, better cook. He wouldn't need to cheat or become so angry.
I am a survivor. I survived his anger when he shoved me so that I fell down the stairs, breaking my neck. I survived his threats and his beatings. I survived his humilation when he told me that he had slept with my ex-sister-in-law, my best-friend, the neighbor, the sunday school teacher of the church he pastored. I still feel the humilation as I sat in the front row and listened as he confessed his sins in front of the whole congregation, giving up his commission. Asking for their forgiveness and forgiveness for the women he seduced.  But never once did he ask for my forgivness. Maybe that is why I couldn't forgive him. All I ever wanted to hear from him was that he was sorry.  But he was never sorry.  He was sorry for being caught. He was sorry that he lost his temper, but if I hadn't pushed him I wouldn't have gotten hurt. He was sorry, but not for what he had done to me. Only for what he had gotten caught at. He was a narrsasistic, selfish bastard, who never thought about what his action would do to his wife.
How he humilated his children. I see what their father's hippocrital behavior has done. He see's none of that. That is why I lash out. That is why I lash out now. Anger.

Why do I care?

Why do I care if my ex-husband has a girl-friend. I think the answer to that question is different for so many of us women that didn't want a divorce in the first place. What is wrong with me is always the first question that comes to mind when a marriage falls apart.

I thought that very question for almost two years. My dead beat, wife-battering, cheating husband had been floating in and out of my life for about two years and I asked myself over and over again why? What was so wrong with me that he would need to go out and find another woman to be with. I mean I washed his clothes, cooked his dinner, bore his children, pretty much raised them on my own, and even believed his lies when his rage took over and I took the beatings that it would never happen again and that he was SO sorry. I did what I was suppose to do...right?

A thousand things go through your mind when your husband steps out of your bed and into another women's bed. What is wrong with me? Am I too fat? To thin? Is the other women prettier. Does she do something I can't or won't do. Is she married? Does she have children? Why her and not me? You end up beating yourself up. I made the mistake of asking...why? No answer, which leads to a whole other thinking process. What is he not saying?

I beat myself up and cried and blamed myself for not being what he wanted. This line of thinking fueled my reasoning of his abuse. I mean if I was a better wife, mother, lover, friend he wouldn't be so angry and he wouldn't need to lash out. I deserved these things because I couldn't be what he needed.

Let me inform those that might be reading this and thinking the very same thing that I tortured myself with. YOU DO NOT DESERVE TO BE HIT!!! No woman deserves to be abused. No one deserves to be abused. If you are being abused YOU are the only one that can get you out of this situation. There are those that will help and you can be safe again. But they can't help you if you won't reach out. YOU have to make that first step.

That being said I walked away during a very quiet and settled time. He hadn't done anything out of the ordinary. He hadn't beaten me in months. He was still cheating, but that was of no mind to me since I had not been intimate with him for about two years. He was working his job and I was working mine and I was washing his clothes and cleaning his house and living my life. But maybe that is what made me finally stop and think. I was living my life? I was living A life, but I wasn't living MY life. If this was MY life is this the way I wanted to live it?

No, was my answer. No, I didn't want this life of physical and emotional abuse. I didn't want to be with a man that thought of me as his personal doormate.

It was one of those moments when I woke up one morning and said...I don't want to do this anymore...and I don't have to.

Now I didn't just walk up to the man and say I was leaving, I made a plan. I asked friends to help me move out and I found a safe place to move to that would make him think about harrassing me. Then I moved. I took the leap and left. I took everything that mattered to me. Which wasn't much. Told my children that I was leaving their father (they were all adults living pretty much on their own)They supported me. As much as you think that you are protecting them - they still know.

My why's didn't stop - but I was able to get a clear head. I was able to ask the question and look at myself realistically and get a right answer.

I was able to look myself in the eye and say - you are broken and hurt but you can be fixed. You are not worthless and you can have a good life.

So I go back to the question of; why do I care if he has a girlfriend? Because no woman should ever be made to feel she deserves his abuse. I want to warn her. What would I say to her? Run, walk away, get out, because he is never going to change. Would she listen to me? Probably not, but at least I know that I tried.

chapter 2

How do you continue to tell a story that might have had so much promise but has since exploded?
Its been almost two years since I wrote the last installment of this blog. I look back to that day and seem to remember that I thought life had ended. My whole existence was upside down and backwards and would never be right again. I couldn't go any lower right?
Since that day I have divorced the lieing cheating bastard that I was married to for the last 23 years. My youngest son got in with a bad crowd, witnessed a murder, went through a trial and is now an inmate at the Montana Prison in Deerlodge.
I have lost friends, made friends and moved 600 miles away to start a new life.
Met a wonderful man that believes in forever and doesn't believe in beating the hell out of me on a regular bases.
Maybe that is where my life should start? Where the abuse started. Or maybe that is where my life stalled out - when the abuse started.
Maybe my life started when I got the courage to walk away and divorce the bastard. Maybe it has been running all along and I just missed that part. I don't know, but looking back is harder then I thought. I don't like looking back and who or what I was. I don't like myself or what I had become in those days when my life was ran by fear. They say the hardest thing to do is to leave your abuser, but for me it is admitting that I was abused. That I allowed my husband to abuse me mentally and physically and to never fight back. Today's post is just a small walk down memory lane. I hate to go back since it hinders my walk forward. But I am so afraid of going forward and repeating history that I need to go back and remind myself of where I came from.