Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Monday, Monday

Read Hell Weekend parts 1 through 5 first

[Addendum added - look for marked section]

My son calls after school. Goes to computer gaming centre with friend.

On my way home I call Mrs_C to see if he's home, otherwise I will go pick them up. I do so with Mrs_C's concurrence.

We get home. Mrs_C's sister and one of the nieces are there visiting. I begin supper - it is already heading toward 6pm. I have things well underway by the time sister and niece leave. Mrs_C comes into the kitchen and makes some comment about this holding me up from going to exercise and that she should have kicked her sister out earlier and done more supper prep work because she knows how important my exercise is to me.

Yep.

Can you smell it coming?

I can.

Well, I ignore it - maybe I can get through things and keep it from erupting until after I'm back and deal with it then.

The kids' meal is ready and my stuff is still grilling on the barbeque. Mrs_C comes out and offers to let me go eat while she finishes the last of the stuff I was doing - enough of my food was ready that I could eat (along with stuff in fridge). She said she wanted to give me the gift of the time to eat and go exercise. So I went to eat. She was acting weird, but whatever...

I went out when I was done and happened to offer a technique thought to her (having done more vegetable grilling with this particular grilling rack than her). She countered with her idea and then said "No, no, you're right. Why would I argue with anything you say - you're right. You know these things."

I say that its not what i meant and leave to change into my exercise clothes.

I am leaving and the last of the grilling is just done. She rips into me that if I really cared about her I would have called her to come eat, and would have said I would finish it.

I pointed out that contradicted her claim that she was doing the finishing as a loving act toward me. We get into a bit of a dispute over this. I say "Whatever, I'm leaving"

She comes back with some comment or other and it escalates further back and forth.
[editted section]
She was trashing me about not being considerate of her ever. I said it wasn't true. She said "Yeah, well, it was like last night when I wanted to make love in a gentle giving and loving way and you just used me. All you did was bend me over the bed.
I snapped "No, were done. We're finished. It's over."

She said "Fine!"

I turned and walked away. I went to exercise.

She phoned on my cell phone. She asked if I really meant it.

I said "You ambushed me! You ambushed me completely with all your stuff about doing things for me and making it easy to go exercise - and then you attack me. How can I live like this? I can't live like that"

I said I was going to come home. She told me to stay and finish my exercise and think about it, whether I really meant it or not.

She phoned after about an hour and asked me if I had made a decision, because if I meant it she needed to go talk to her sister and would need the support of her family. I said that yes, I meant it. I said that I had wanted to say it to her face and not over the phone.

We talked for a few minutes and I said I would be home in a few minutes.

When I got home she had already talked to daughter and said that daughter was in her room very upset.

We talked.

Talk, talk, talk, talk.

She was more honest this time. She said she had no idea of why she did some of the shit she does, and that she actually meant to be nice but that something just came over her and she couldn't believe that she had pulled the stunt she had. She said that the whole thing on the weekend was all game playing as well, and that at various times in our marriage she had been consciously game playing as well (she cited a few instances of egregious behaviour). She pointed to her recent behaviour as being similar to the stupid stunts she played before we were married to get me to say i loved her - the breaking up stuff and all that.

We discussed some of the logistics of splitting. She tried really hard to get me to forgive her and say it's all ok. That I should let it go and she would try to be better. She said that it was because she wasn't reassured that I really loved her. She said that's why she had been playing all the games. That if I only showed her that I loved her she wouldn't feel the need to do what she did.

I said that I had already done that a lot. I also said that if in 18 years I hadn't been able to get it right (making her feel special - showing that I love her), the likelihood of me doing it at this point was low. So she would just be mad at me again, and we'd be back to the same place.

We went for a walk around the neighbourhood - it was a beautiful night. We talked. We talked about some of the things we were going to do and accomplish together that we didn't do. The traveling that never happened. We cried about the loss we were experiencing. We mourned.

We went back to the house and sat in the backyard. I cried when I saw all the stuff I had built for her and the kids in the yard. I cried when I saw the neatly tended rows of her garden. The playhouse and tree fort - the shed we had built together.

We cried.

There was a lot of holding each other, soft kissing, and crying.

She kept working me to get me to say I'd stay.

I didn't.

We went inside and finished cleaning up the kitchen. She asked how we would do this. Would we sleep in the same bed? Would we still hold each other?

It was awful. Even she said "I always thought there'd be a lot more anger". It was so very sad.

It was even sadder that it was the lucid Mrs_C that I had to arrange the initial elements of our break-up with. The lucid Mrs_C - the one I loved. It was her I was leaving late last night. Not the bizarre crazy one.

Why?

I loved the woman I am leaving.

6 comments:

Mouthy Girl said...

Cadbury, loving someone is never enough to sustain a marriage, especially when one partner admittedly plays games and is more than a tad abusive.

You loved what she was. You loved what you knew.

You are leaving before things get worse. Read it again...BEFORE things get worse - because they have the potential for exponential growth and disaster.

ohc said...

Cadbury,
What a hard road you have been walking, still need to trudge a little further before you see dawn.



You have a wonderful support system. Embrace your children....

Mouthy Girl said...

I'm going to me Miss Reality Check here. I told both Hippi and Lil Sis yesterday that I was surprised she hadn't lit into you about the whole sex thing. I also told them I was relieved you hadn't gone through with her 'bait' because I was certain she would go into Crazed Woman State and somehow do something even more reprehensible than she's already done.

CP said...

Cad,
I want you to go back to the archives of MY blog. I want you to go to MY four part story and read it. Read it twice. Read it until you understand that the abuse that your wife is perpetrating upon you is NO DIFFERENT than the beatings, the bloody beatings that were inflicted upon me. I nearly vomited reading part three of your story, because it was the same vicious cycle of violence that I have experienced with my ex, Tony. The love, the beautiful, perfect love...and then, SLAM. The unparalleled violent reactions. It's NO DIFFERENT and I believe with all my heart that the emotional turmoil is far worse than the physical one. She lured you into a feeling of safety by asking you to make love to her. She pressed your final button and stepped all over your vulnerability.

I want you to think back to how happy you and your children were for those two hours, those two meager hours that she was gone for. The kids were laughing, you were laughing...they were relaxed, able to eat without being sick, enjoying their father.

STOP CARING SO MUCH ABOUT WHAT SHE IS GOING TO DO WITH HERSELF. YOU do not leave. Let HER leave. She is the problem. She is the one with the sickness. SHE is going to poison your children. Your daughter is going to become an abusive angry woman and your son? He is going to believe that it is alright that a woman uses and abuses him.

You recognize all of this, Cad. The next time she walks out the door, CHANGE THE LOCKS. Stop letting her play this game!!! She is toying with you and the children. She knows you are going to fall for her cons every single time. She KNOWS you. SHe is reading you like a damn book. You, however, are turning a blind eye. THINK OF THOSE KIDS.

Do not leave those kids, Cadbury. They need you. Those kids need a stable, solid parent and she is NOT it. She is an insecure, emotionally devoid child who needs to be babied and coddled whenever she decides to become a spoiled brat and things don't go her way.

Using your lovemaking against you is simply the LOWEST thing that any wife can do to her husband.

you USED her?

Please. Tell her to look in a damn mirror and then, look up the word "used".

I want YOU to go to counseling. Take the kids with you. Make it something the three of you do together. SHE is the problem and the three of you need to learn how to deal with it.

Do you want your kids to end up resenting YOU for allowing this lunatic to stay in their world?

She's insane, Cad. She needs to be medicated. She was fucked in the head LONG before you entered her life. I know it...because I WAS her. And I got help. And I saved my marriage and my children.

Sorry for being so harsh. I'm not mad at you. I'm mad at the situation you are in.

CP.

Big Pissy said...

Cadbury: Please, please, please.

Take cp's advice.

She has been abused just as you have.

She knows what she's talking about.

Please listen to her.

Mouthy Girl said...

CP speaks the truth. Well said. As always.