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.