To CP: An Apology

CP wrote an multi-part essay on her terrible years long experience at the hands of an abuser.

I apologise to CP for both my action and the timing of my post.

I had already begun writing my post below (Truth Time) on the Friday I first read parts 1 through 3 of CPs story. I have to tell you that I both almost lost my nerve to post what I did and was steeled to continue posting.

To have not posted, even in my shame, would have dishonoured you. I say again:

i am filled with anguish as you tell your story

i can only stand with you as you tell it

there will be at least one person here to listen

----

i'm sorry

and i'm here

and i will be here tomorrow if that is when you post the next part

or whenever you choose to post it (or if you choose not to)

and i will be here the next day after that

and the day after that

i will read your words

i will think about you

i will remember your story

I am responsible for my own actions. I take responsibility for my own actions. I take ownership and try to address the inevitable moral shortcomings that I have.

Responsible... I try.

Truth Time

This is a very hard post to write. Well, not as hard to write, but to post.

Last Saturday I struck Mrs_C.

Open palm on the shoulder.

About as hard as one might whack a stuck window or gate to get it to open.

About as hard a whumping dough that has risen.

Not that hard, but I still did it.

I have been at the edge of nausea over the incident for most of the week.

I apologised. I apologised again, and a third time. I apologised again yesterday.

Mrs_C said yesterday that she didn't consider it hitting her, but rahter a shove. She said it din't hurt her or even shake her physically.

I said that was a distinction I was not comfortable with.

The bottom line is still that I struck her.

I am in anguish over this incident for a number of reasons:

- I struck my wife. Something I had committed to myself to never do. Ever. Under no circumstance but protecting a child.
- My mother (in her 70s) was beaten when she was a child. I told myself I would never be one of those people.
- My sister's husband hit her on a number of occasions. I would have cleaned his clock, but she said no. I told myself I would never be like him.
- I have worked with women's shelters, women's centres, and anti-violence against women groups for 25 years.
- I have read the books, spoken with survivors, helped shelter women fleeing abuse. I have organised anti violence against women events over the last couple of decades.
- As Students' Union President at university and as a student activist I spent years protecting the abovew organizations from all the neandrathals who tried to shut them down.
- As Students' Union President at university, and while on the Board of Governors I forced a review of campus lighting, parking lot security, and changes to campus policy with regard to harrassment.
- I was asked by local women's groups to speak on a couple of occasions at anti-violence against women rallies and events. One of very few men to be invited to do so in the last 15 years.
- I was part of the team that got a policy of mandatory charges in domestic violence situations instituted on a province wide basis where I live.

My action violates a very deeply held belief.

How did it happen?

Mrs_C had been riding me for some days last week. Read other posts below. I am about as wound up as a clock.

On Saturday she told me she was leaving the city and the children and myself to go work in another province. She said that even the kids were criticising her and her actions.

She was crying. She was saying she was a worthless human being who didn't deserve to be around us and such.

I tried my best to console her, talk her out of that move, and to work through what she was feeling.

She wasn't having any of it.

Anything I would say she responded either in angry despondency, or with a really vicious attack on me.

My daughter was in the house. She was up in her room with the door closed and we were in the kitchen.

No matter what I would say Mrs_C would turn it around six ways to Sunday.

She can tie me up in knots on most occasions.

I still don't have a handle on what it is she does in her argumentative technique that messes me up so badly. I am a skilled and trained debater. Medal and award winning. So good that I got voted the silver shovel award years in a row by my fellow debators.

Mrs_C can mess me up in seconds. Well, minutes. She somehow manages to drag me away from what we're actually discussing into some other plane of reality. If we actually debate an issue, I win - every time. If we get into one of these "discussions", I'm lost.

You see, I'm trying really hard to be "emotionally responsive" and think about all the emotion stuff that I don't do so well at...

Anyway, i had put forward a convincing argument that she should stay, and that her perception of a couple of things was a little exaggerated. I was really quite upset and unbalanced by this point. I had taken all the hits to that point. I had conceded all the ground she asked for. I had offered and committed to make the changes to my actions and had written down the things she wanted me to do differently. I said she needed to look at her own behaviour in one context she had raised - that she was responsible for how the kids were reacting to her, and that if she weren't such a bag to them, they might treat her with more respect when she gets unreasonable. And she said "I don't have to listen to this", and stormed by.

I don't leave when Mrs_C wants to talk. I take it. For hours. For days. On some occasions when I have suggested a cool down, she has ripped into me good. I have cancelled meetings, business, and other activities because Mrs_C wants to talk. No matter how unreasonable I think the demand is, or the time requested, I give it.

And she decides she's just going to storm out because I said something she didn't like and couldn't shoot down witha quick retort.

So as she passed me I snarled "You fucking bitch!", and when she stopped and turned toward me, I struck her shoulder.

The odd thing was, she didn't seem surprised.

** Understand, I have never laid a hand on this woman in anger before. Even when she was physically assaulting me - with closed fists - I just warded off her blows (on 3 occasions in our marriage she has hit me with closed fists). Once when she stood in front of our doorway to stop me from leaving (for a meeting to get a contract worth about $20,000 while I was running my business - I was desperate for the cash) I used my arm to push her out of the way - but not as an actual impact push/hit. **

She moved away from me into our dining room. I began to sob and said to her "No matter what I say or do I can't ever get it right. I can't ever meet your standards or what you want ever. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry I hit you. I'm so sorry! What is it that you want from me? What is it that I'm supposed to do that will ever make you happy with me."

She stepped toward me, put her arms around me and said "I'm sorry I said all those things that made you so angry that you did that."

I was still crying.

I was horrified that my wife would say words that I had read in so many case files of abuse. Where the woman apologises for making her abuser abuse her. I wanted to throw up.

After some time I calmed down. She was very calm throughout this episode.

A piece of my brain said she had deliberately provoked me into this action - that I had been manipulated.

Another piece of my brain said that was exactly what abusers think.

I was about to lose my mind.

We went out to her sister's place a little later on. Played cards. Went home - slept.

Things went downhill again until Thursday. I apologised a couple more times in that period.

I gave it 24 hours of peace and then yesterday I raised how I was feeling with Mrs_C. That I was sick with regret. I explained how this violated decades of thought and action - much of which she has been witness to.

First she said that I hadn't struck her. She argued that I had just pushed her. I said it was a distinction I would not be party to. That I would not rationalise it.

She said that while she disagreed, she would not argue what was a point of principle for me.

Mrs_C said that nothing could revoke what had happened, and that I just needed to make sure I never did it again.

She then said that she would not push my buttons like that again. She told me she had been deliberately poking hot spots and doing things that she knew would set me off and "make you mental". She said she was doing it to see just how much I really felt in our relationship, and how much emotion I had for our relationship. She said she thought I was just going through the motions in my efforts to rebuild our marriage and she wanted to test whether I would say OK when she said she was leaving.

And then she said she just got emotionally carried away with all the other stuff. That she allowed herself to get worked up.

And the result hadn't been exactly what she expected...

I politely suggested other experiments might be safer.

----

I'm calm now.

Today was a good day.

I took CP's advice and complimented Mrs_C on her appearance today - and she really did look good, so my comment wasn't phony.

I bought her chocolates. She was out with her sister for coffee while I went to work out, and on the way back I bought chocolates - partly thinking that her sister would come in after like she usually does and that it would give Mrs_C face in front of her sister to get chocolates (big box of a variety of truffles).

----

I apologise to the women who read this post. I apologise to all of you, because my action has a larger impact. It makes you just a little more insecure that even a "safe" man still has the potential to do something like this.

I'm sorry.

I don't do this sort of thing, and I'm unhappy to report it.

Why? Why did I post this and not just leave it unsaid?

One person posted a comment asking if I were giving the whole story about my relatioship. Could Mrs_C be that way, and could I be so saintly?

Well, I'm not. And this is one bit of evidence.

I said in response to the questioner that I was trying to be as accurate as I could - recognising my own bias.

I apologise again. For my action, and for what is now my hypocrisy in comments I have made about the violence that has been perpetrated against you.

And Suddenly The Storm Subsides

So, what's this about?

Yesterday, from work, I post how everything is going to shit.

This was after a night where mrs_c woke me up about 1:00 am to bawl me out after giving me the silent treatment during the evening, even when I had tried to gently pry the problem out of her (problem: I don't ask her out on dates enough).

I tried my half-awake best to be kind and sensitive. She stormed out. I went back to sleep. I had told myself - and her - that I wouldn't do the sleep deprivation thing again (see previous posts). If she wasn't going to listen to me, well, I had to work.

She then woke me up again a second time around 2:20 am to tell me that I was inexcuseably insensitive with my answer and by staying in bed - obviously I didn't give a shit. I tried even more feably to explain, but she rolled over in ahuff and I decided "screw you" and went back to sleep.

Mrs_C phones me once during the day with a logistical update regarding the kids and food in the house. Her call was quite brusque.

I later posted what I did from work (Caving In).

Then I get home, and mrs_c is nice as pie.

She tells me she handled things badly and she's sorry. She says she wants to try something different.

She apologises for waking me up and tells me she appreciates the fact that even though she woke me up, that I am still kind and sensitive enough to try to hear her out - even after my warning about not doing the sleep deprivation thing. She says that she got mad because I didn't give her the answer she was looking for.

I said that I tried to give the right answer. That I tried to address the emotional side of her question rather than responding to the specific substance of her complaint like I usually do. That approach didn't work.

I pointed out that I have tried every approach I can think of, and it never made a difference. My answers were never right.

I asked and she said didn't know if I could give a correct answer when she is mad.
(I didn't tell her what a bullshit attitude I think that is)

Now, she wants to, every week or so, tell each other one or two things we would like the other to correct or change or do differently.

So I asked her to try to put a time limit on her complaints. If she has a problem, she should limit her description of it to under 10 minutes, and discussion should be limited to less than 20 more minutes.

I said that I didn't think it was productive to go on for hours and days...

She said she was aware that was a problematic behaviour (my words) for her, and she would try to be more concise. She says the problem is that she is thinking out loud and thinking things through while she's talking.

I asked her to think first. I asked her to try to write it down in point form first.

I told her I thought she should think through more of what she says before letting fly, and that then maybe I wouldn't feel like she's ripping into me all the time.

If she would just think about it first, she might hear what and how she's saying it.

And so might I.

I told her I couldn't even remember the substance of the four days of grinding rant she just finished subjecting me to, and that it felt like abuse for the sake of abuse.

She wasn't happy about those descriptors, but took it.

She asked me to give her more hugs. More hugs and kisses.

Said it would be affirming and she wouldn't feel as "dangling".

I said it was hard to give hugs and kisses after being torn to shreds for a few days and that it usually took me 24 hours to stop being jumpy like a beaten dog.

She didn't like that comment either, but took it.

Then we had tea, watched a show we watch together, went to bed, and had sex.

I was still not completely into it (sex), but, well... whatever.

I wait for today's events after home time.

We'll see how the weekend works.

----

Right

On the don't ask out on dates thing.

I said that I would try to ask her out more.

I said that just like hugs and kisses, there needed to be a little emotional violence free time before I would get the big urge to spent time alone without witnesses (I may have been unneccesarily sarcastic).

She didn't like that comment either but took it too.
(usually i am much more polite and deferential, but i am seriously reaching the end of my tether)

I said that I would try to ask her out more.

Caving in

Yes. I caved in. Mrs_C pushed and pushed and pushed for days, almost without relent (a few hours here and there).

Right after the last post (March 10) I caved.

I said I would stay.

Since I said I would stay she has pretty much reverted. She told me that she doesn't think that she was as bad as I said, or did all the things I said she did. She says I'm making them up.

Privately I asked my son about a couple of the instances in my memory and he concurred with my memory. I then asked daughter. She concurred.

I asked my Dad, whom I had spoken to about the instances. He concurred.

I think I remember correctly.

Mrs_C says I am wrongly interpreting all the things that she did. She says she would tell me not to buy things while grocery shopping in a loving manner, not as a criticism. That she was just trying to provide input, and save a little money. FYI: my grocery shopping is frugal. I usually have to go buy the items she says not to buy within a couple of days after her "veto". I do most of the cooking and lunch preparation, so I know my stocks.

She says that all the things I said were criticisms were just poorly worded expressions of love from her, and that if she didn't care about me she wouldn't care enough to comment... She just wants the best for me.

Now it seem I can't escape one rant for another. I have been able to do almost nothing correct in the last couple of weeks since I said I would stay.

I was at the point where I was thinking things might work.

They are now as bad as the have been since the summer.

Can't win for losing.

Breathe.

Survive.

Situation Update: March 10, 2006

A lot of shit has gone down since my last description of things. I will attempt to describe them coherently.

Mrs_C tried to get me to say I'd stay, again.

I said that if I were given ONLY the choices of saying:

I love you forever, and I'll stay forever.

or

I'm leaving

I would leave.

That didn't go over well at all.

What I tried to say, and did say, is:

I am committed to our marriage. I love Mrs_C, even if I am really mad at her and don't neccessarily want to stay living under the same roof... I want the marriage to work, and am waiting for things to work out and to lose the anger and regain the passion.

Apparently that's not good enough.

I have to say I'll stay. Apparently it can be open ended, and doesn't neccessarily mean that we will stay together forever, just that we have to give it our best shot...

I don't see the difference except one is her wording and one is mine, and she gets to have some small victory in her head over me - but that may be an uncharitable view.

After many days of hour after hour after hour of emotional pummelling I conceded and said "Yes, I will stay, and we will just take it as it goes. That there are no guarantees in life, but that it is our intention to saty together."

That was fine for just over 24 hours.

Then she reverted back to her old ways of telling me all the things I would have to do to repair myself and our relationship, and how I should revise my exercise and diet routine.

I told her that she was reverting and was trying to exercise control in areas she shouldn't. She backed off. Sort of...

Then she started in on me about the need for me to forgive her.

I said that I don't believe in forgiveness. Which I don't. I find the notion of forgiveness to be an arrogant concept.

I figure God gets to forgive.

Me, I'm not nearly high and mighty enough that I even get the option of forgiving. I just move on. I have enough sins of my own that I don't even want to attempt to even achieve the staus of forgiver.

I just want to let it go, and move on.

I finally told her I wasn't moving on this subject and she couldn't bully me into it like the committment to stay.

Again, this did not go over well.

Please remember that during all of this I am getting only a few hours of sleep each night. Over a period of weeks. She's literally waking me up in the middle of the night because she can't cope. And she began calling me at work (which I put a quick end to). Also remember that she would go on and on about things and all the history and all my transgressiona dn argue and argue and argue and harop and harp and harp in circles for hours every day.

I was at my mental and emotional breaking point.

So I was occasionally a little curt.

Usually after I had softpedalled some statement for hours before. Then my curt reply would be the fodder for the next endless mind numbing delerium inducing unstable talk/rant/lecture/jeremiad

Yesterday she said:

"Women and men are different. Men can leave things. Women need to keep working at things until they feel comfortable. The way we work at things is to talk them out until we feel comfortable. I don't feel confortable yet, so I'm still talking."

Me

I figure that its all just going to take time and we said everything that needed to be said already, so let it lie.

A fallow field is more fertile the next growing season.

But Mrs_C won't stop.

She won't stop until I capitulate fully. And even then she won't stop because she'll know it won't be real, it will just be surrender.

She just won't shut up.

If she would stop picking at the scab it might be able to heal.

I am fine, and I get calm, and then she just works me up again until I wantto leave just to get away from her talking and talking and talking

FUCK

FUCK

FUCK

And so goes each day.

----

Just for the record, I actually like her more than a little while ago.

Maybe its just stockholm syndrome, but I don't care.

If i think i like mrs_c and can live with her, then it must be so...

but if she keeps on doing what she's doing, it wil surely drive me away

and it just goes on, and on

Does Your Spouse/S.O. Know About Your Blog?

The above question was asked at another blog. Below is my answer:

my blog revolves around expressed my otherwise repressed feelings about my wife.

we are on the edge of divorce.

it would be a REALLY bad idea for her to read it.

she knows it exists, but has not asked for a URL (i think because she knows i wouldn't give it to her, and she probably doesn't want to know some of the things i've written). she knows that it is anonymous and that i use it for expressing things i don't want to say to her. she views it as an extension of my sessions with my counsellor.

she recognises that i keep a lot of emotion locked up and that i need to find an outlet.

she is not completely comfortable with the blog, or my blogging life.

she says "you have this existance that is outside of anyplace i can see, and i'm not comfortable with that hidden life."

she has not asked me to stop blogging, even when i asked her if she thought i should stop.

On Illness And Dignity

I wrote this as part of a reply reply to a post by bg's Little Sis on her board The Sanok Frenzy

I thought it was relevant to post here because Mrs_C has been bringing up my illness (fibromyalgia) and her "support" of me during it as a bashing point recently.

She has been pointing to my illness as both as an example of me abandoning my share of work in our marriage, and of her love for me, and how she was prepared to shoulder any load for me...

---

when i was in the worst part of my fibromyalgia my muscle spasms were so bad i could barely move

i was depressed and physically unable to perform many tasks

my children were thankfully never mean to me about doing things like picking things up, or tossing something into the oven or other lifting and toting [and fetching]

i spent a fair bit of time apologising to them for my infirmity. they were gracious - i am forever grateful

mrs_c was less so...

i tried to do as much as i could - and would persist even when i moved terribly slowly [I have tremendous willpower about some things]

or when i had to lie down for awhile before gathering the strength to do the task

mrs_c would get frustrated very quickly (she's a real do it, and do it now kind of person) with how long it would take me to do things. she would usually do them first, or cut in while i was doing them, because the slow pace would irritate her. she says she was just trying to help and be supportive. i think i just pissed her off. she didn't realise that by doing this she was slowly stripping me of my dignity.

---

a few notes on the above:

my doctor and specialists said they had never seen such bad spasms. they couldn't control them with some pretty extreme drugs. they were worried that the spasms would damage my spine.

i was on ultra drugs as well as in excrutiating pain for an extended period

my children, and my family, and her family all said i was pretty evenly humoured and still functional through this period

----

mrs_c has a bad habit of cutting in when someone - like me or the kids - are doing something and she doesn't think they are doing it right.

i had to have a talk with her once (recruited her sister, who is a teacher, for support on this issue) about letting the kids do their own thing and make a few mistakes

she would say things like "but with help it could be so much better"

i tried to impress on her the idea that the dignity and reward of having completed a task on your own was more important in most cases (especially with a kid's project)

Wordcloud: Cadbury covers it...

This is the wordcloud for this blog. I thought it was interesting.

One of the things that struck me was the number of times the names of other bloggers/readers showed up in both of the wordclouds. The other can be found on my other blog.

Where the wordcloud was generated

Sex

originally started on Feb 1 - updated/appended on Feb 23

Since Christmas, Mrs_C has tried to be more sexually active with me.

I feel a level of guilt about having sex, because I worry that it is insincere (well, I know it's insincere...) to be considering leaving and then sleeping with her.

At the same time... uh, I like sex. A lot. Mrs_C is still an attractive lady, and I'm also honestly trying to see if things can work (sort of, I guess). Sexual issues are part of the mix.

Sometimes things are OK. Those are the points where we have ended up having sex - I dunno, I think 5 times since just before Christmas. More than the whole year previous to that point, I think...

Here's where it all gets messy in my head.

I feel like I'm being insincere. I also have the suspicion that part of Mrs_C's newfound interest in sex is (for lack of a better word) entrapment (or entanglement). Now, in one sense, I'm OK with being entangled and entrapped, it's just I don't feel like she really wants to do it - if I believed she was really interested in me and really wanted me, things would change and this marriage could work.

But she seems to be missing the point.

Some background:

Shortly before Christmas I got mad about her never wanting to have sex. I try really hard to be an understanding guy, because I really do understand that she's tired - and I'm willing to wait (months in fact!). I tried to make a gentle approach by caressing her. She obviously knew where I was going (my erection pressing against her as we spooned might have been a give-away...). She got mad at me and chewed me out. I desisted.

The next day I was a little pissed (not just about sex - read further) and was sullenly silent and perfunctory in my conversation when I arrived home. I was still pissed off the day after, too. That night she confronted me about it saying she believed I was mad at her for not wanting to have sex. She said I was insensitive to the fact that she was tired.

I tried to explain that it wasn't actually the issue of sex, but the fact that she could stay up late watching re-runs of Columbo, home renovation shows, and stock market shows, but then got choked about me cutting into her sleep time by wanting to have sex. I said that I was OK with her being tired and not wanting to, and that I was more than happy to let her sleep, it's just that she wouldn't be so tired if she went to sleep sooner instead of watching the above cited shows... And I'm extra glad that Columbo re-runs are higher on her priority list than sex with me.

Anyway, Mrs_C became convinced that sex was the issue, not the question of whether she was attracted to me enough to want to have sex, or the question of Columbo rating higher than me.

At one point I said that I had considered whether she was having an affair or not, and whether her lack of interest in sex with me was an indicator of such. I came quickly to the conclusion that this was not a likely causality relationship. I did tell Mrs_C that I wished she was having an affair, because then at least I would know she was interested in sex, and just didn't like me (yeah, I know, kind of a cheap shot). Because I could live with her not liking me, or not being attracted to me, but that it would really sad if she just never wanted to have sex...

She got drunk the other night and wanted to do it. Just like old times. Mrs_C gets drunk, chews me out, and then wants to have sex.

Anyway, we're back to no sex or even reference to physicality again, and I guess I can live with that for now.

---

Feb 23 addendum:

It's now several weeks later.

Much water has passed under the bridge.

Mrs_C wants to have sex regularly. I'm still suspicious of motive.

She says that she wants to change her ways with regard to sex. She says that she realises that she had abandoned that part of herself and our relationship and that she wants to fix that part of things.

She even says it's OK to just have sex for the sake of sex without the romance or "deep longing love" elements of making love.

On Standing Tall And Slumping Shoulders

Mrs_C decided that she was going to try to pin me down into staying on the weekend of Feb 4th.

I refused to give a positive response. As always, my response has been that I am trying to work through all of the issues we have for the sake of our children, and because she asked me to.

She said I had to give a response right then about whther I was staying or not - what would my answer be right then and there.

I said no. I would leave, if that were my only option.

Well, she burrowed into me for four days straight. She kept me up until the wee hours of the morning (5 am), and was at me all day and all night.

I haven't been worked over like that for years.

Finally on the tuesday i said "OK. I'll stay."

I had no fight left.

I almost threw up for the whole next day.

I had been standing tall. Feeling strong and feeling sexy.

After I said it, my shoulders slumped. And they're still not up high again.

A day after that she told me that she didn't hold me to it.

I have the feeling that someplace in there was an agenda to see see just how far she could push me before I'd break. Just so she'd know the new Cadbury was still weak enough to be bullied by her.

I haven't been able to get that high back again. As I discussed in previous postings, I felt strong and tall and sexy - it was better than any drug I've ever done.

Now I'm defeated. Busted. Feeling like a failure. Feeling like I've failed myself.

I'm trying to think of a method to get back in the saddle.

Books

On lara's blog Literally Speaking, she had a posting about books: Book-Tagged

Lara talked about the thousands of books she owns and has in her house.

One poster said:

"Let's hear it for libraries. Every time I'm tempted to buy a book, I ask myself if it wouldn't be better to try the library. Naturally, we all have favorites we want to own. But realisically, how often do we read the vast majority of the books we own? Perhaps the space and resources devoted to all these books could better be invested elsewhere. If nothing else, what are our kids going to do with all this crap when we're gone? Is there a place online to trade/share books?"

This poster thinks like Mrs_C. She pressured me to throw out or get rid of most of my books.

I did. I capitulated. I even ended up throwing out some books. I recgonise they were the kind of novels that a person buys for an airplane ride or when you are going home sick and know you'll be laid up in bed for a few days, but they're still books.

For me books are sort of like comfort food for my mind and soul.

All books are a piece of our existence, and destroying a book is destroying a piece of infinity - a piece of creation.

Burning books and destroying books before they have fallen apart physically is a sin and a crime of such proportions as to be indescribable. People who destroy books (even vile books) are only a few steps from those who commit hate crimes.

Books are only below children in the hierarchy of creation that we as humans have the ability to perform.

Books have a soul.

Being surrounded by books is like being surrounded by the souls of the books and a piece of the author.

I have gotten rid of some books because I didn't like the spirit of the book, and didn't want that spirit to be in my presence, but I have otherwise tried to keep most of my books since childhood - well that is beyond actual children's books - well, actually I had (have) some of them left.

All the dr seuss books, go dog go, and many others that gave me comfort and place in the world.

I took some of my childhood books to my parent's house before Mrs_C ditched thm in some cleaning frenzy. It was sort of like a refugee camp for my books. They were stored in boxes over there except for when my Mom pulls them out to give to kids (including mine) that may over there. It's funny that Mom never puts them back in the boxes - she always puts them onto her bookshelves.

My books are a part of my being and removing them from me is tearing out a piece of my soul.

I really have never forgiven having those books taken away from me.

Update

Yes, I know I should "shit or get off the pot"

as my mother would say. And each day I ask myself why I haven't walked out the door.

So why haven't I?

The reasons will become apparent (I think) through this update on how and where things are.

I stayed until after my daughter's birthday. As i mentioned in a previous post, i had/have no desire to cause a bad memory to crop up every year around someone's birthday - even Mrs_C's birthday.

I am dreading Valentine's Day. I don't have any intention of splitting around then either. I'm not sure how I'm going to handle the day yet.

Last summer I spent too much on my credit cards trying to buy my children's affection (which i already had/have, but that was before i even had the conversation with mrs_c, and i was wound up really bad - so i tried to engender good thoughts about me by buying stuff for the kids, and doing fun things together). I am bringing the cards under control/paying them off.

I have done a pile of billing for my business (which i still run on the side) to make sure that I get that cash in order to pay down the cards and generate a cushion for any departure.

I want to be financially prepared for when i go out the door.

I have also lined up a bunch of furniture and such from friends in the event that i need it. I don't have a problem with mismatching or second-hand furniture (for awhile anyway - as long as it's clean). I can always sew some covers (yes, i can sew). Anyway, even if i can't get it right, my Mom will help me... she has piles of sewing equipment.

I have been going to counselling and that has given me some perspective. As Kristin put it: "Counselling will help mature the decision". Mrs_C still refuses to go to counselling. At one time this fall after I told her i had started counselling she said she would go with me. I said that i didn't want to go jointly. I wanted her to go by herself to her own counsellor and understand what she feels. She has refused. The last time we went to counselling together she used it as a platform to describe how terrible i was and how terribly i treated her. Mrs_C stopped going and refused to go again after the counsellor told her she needed to change too. Specifically that she needed to get off my back (my paraphrase, not the counsellor's exact words). For the record, the counsellor made a list of things that mrs_c wanted. i achieved each and every one of those things on the list. and while mrs_c didn't like it when i asked, she agreed that each change had been attained at the time they were achieved.

I am continuing with the diet and exercise. I am stuck at between 37 - 40 lbs lost, but i am more toned than 4-6 weeks ago.

I look good. A lot of people tell me I look good. Men (hetero) and women. Friends and co-workers in my building. Mrs_C. My mother-in-law. etc.

I wonder how much of it is that i look that much better, and how much of it is the "fuck you" attitude i have adopted about many things.

I'm still the polite person i was, and i try really hard to be nice, but i have taken a very serious and abrupt anti-bullying stance. Whereas before i was always the peacemaker and the concilliator i am trying to adopt a more aggressive attitude when people are being unreasonable. You see, i always tried to find a way to make things work so that no-one else was made uncomfortable or disturbed when things didn't go quite as planned, or when a crisis would hit.

I'm still an extra helpful guy, but now i make them ask me instead of just taking it upon myself to run my ass off to fix someone else's problem.

I certainly don't look as tired. My allergies are down (diet and stress relief, i think). Because i look good, i dress to accentuate the physical changes. I cut my hair (shave/buzz head) every week, so that always looks cleaner, stronger, and more aggressive.

The snow will be gone soon.

It will be approaching 6 months since the conversation at the end of february. Probably a good time to do a serious review.

The One Thing She Did Wrong

Kristin wrote a comment on my last post that caused me to think for awhile, and I want to thank Kristin for making me think and develop an answer to the impression she gained.

I want to share some of the exchange with you because it provides a different frame of reference to analyse Mrs_C's thinking. Kristin had not read some of the other posts first, so the history was not readily apparent. (I don't want anyone, especially Kristin, to be under the impression that I am posting this in a retributive manner - I am grateful for having been caused to review my thinking from another perspective).

Hi Cadbury ... first time here; but I know you won't mind :)

I read the highlighted comment as the extension of an apology.

that quote:

"I thought you loved me so much you would never leave me, so I didn't ever consider what I might be doing to you with what I said and did."

Kristin posted a short while later with a different impression of Mrs_C's position.

My response and thoughts:

Kristin, when i received your post, i assumed that you might not have read through the entire blog.

but i wasn't sure

so i went back and read my last post "Mrs_C quote of the decade" and re-read Mrs_C's statement from the lens/filter your statement provided

to be honest, i think that mrs_c's comment was meant as an apology of sorts... or at least an explanation of her behaviour.

mrs_c has only admitted to making 3 mistakes in her life (outside of "professional" mistakes in some specific task or job she was doing [oh, i picked the wrong colour for the kitchen. oh, i should have started supper earlier. oops, wrong turn]).

i think her statement is as far as she can go toward an apology

i finally pinned mrs_c down on a response to the question: name one thing you believe you have done wrong during our marriage, or one problem that is your fault or that you are responsible for

her answer:

I shouldn't have been so hard on you or been so mean to you about the things you did. It was wrong of me to be that mean.

Once again, Mrs_C's only failing is to have been less magnanimous about my abject failures than she should have been.

Mrs_C quote of the decade:

Mrs_C said it a couple more times, slightly differently each time, but the core words are here:

"I thought you loved me so much you would never leave me, so I didn't ever consider what I might be doing to you with what I said and did."

did you miss that everyone?

let me repeat it in bold

"I thought you loved me so much you would never leave me, so I didn't ever consider what I might be doing to you with what I said and did."

Christmas Travel

We're going to visit my parents over Christmas.

I look forward to the travel. To going places with my children. I'm pretty knotted up inside about travelling with Mrs_C.

We have been civil but somewhat distant.

The trip is over some distance (air travel), and I am not sure how Mrs_C will make it through the "stress" of airports and plane switching and so forth.

I travel and have travelled, she hasn't done much of that.

Mrs_C gets stressed about anything out of routine. She gets stressed about special occassions. She gets stressed about any situation where someone might "judge her".

God knows how this will work out.

One of our really big fights this summer before we had the first "conversation" was her trying to tell me how to pack and travel.

I finally had to say: "You know, I've been around the world a few times without you telling me what to do, and I made it through all by myself. I think I'm competant enough to decide what to pack."

(yes, I really have been around [whole way] the world a few times)

My kids are pretty excited and Mrs_C and I have agreed to make the trip the best we can for them, and for my parents.

This trip is one of the elements that kept things from flying apart totally in our marriage. We didn't want to take it away from our children. I could have gone with them without Mrs_C, but it would have put quite a damper on things. At one point earlier this month she was saying she would stay behind and prepare the house for sale while I went with the kids (see post: Monday, November 28, 2005, So, I got played - again). Not ruining the trip and Christmas for the kids was what made me buckle then.

I'm about to puke my stomach is so knotted up. Not from the trip, but from whatever fucking bizarre off the wall shit Mrs_C will spew.

Or maybe she won't. Maybe she'll be contained and constrained in her reaction.

Either way, I'll be warm for a few weeks and that's a good thing.

I'll get to show off my newly more svelte self to my family.

I'll get to go on a plane trip with my kids.

They're excited and so am I.

OK, Cadbury, so what are you doing about it all?

Lara wrote (about me and her husband):

"The only person you can change is yourself."

"I can't force him to change, or to treat me like I think I deserve. But I can call him on his unfair comments. I can refuse to accept the undeserved slams. It is hard for me, as I tend to just take whatever he says & does... but I think the only way to fix things is to change myself to make the way he has treated me not work any more. For too long, he has gotten away with it."

One of my other friends said to me (when i decided to stay after the first go 'round):

"If she doesn't like who you are, maybe she'll like who you want to be."

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As I whine on in this blog (yes, i know i shouldn't typify it as whining), I want to let you know about some of the things I have been doing. Since late September I have been:

1) losing weight - about 35 lbs so far
2) taken up daily exercise
3) undertaken a martial art

I am also:

1) going to a counsellor (being a guy who has always tried to deny emotion for logic, I think that some reflection of how I REALLY feel instead of how I SHOULD feel is in order)
2) writing down the things I think and feel (outside this blog)
3) making an EVEN STRONGER effort to do things with my kids (I have always been there for them, but I want to be there extra during this time)
4) i have begun learning piano (my kids are teaching me)
5) i have begun learning more than the pidgin french i currently speak (my kids are teaching me)
6) i have begun planning some of the travel i want to do and how to do it

---

I am focused and dedicated to becoming the person I want to be.

Not because it might attract Mrs_C - i'm pretty much done with that.

I want to live a life of exuberance, joy and travel, not a life of endless home renovations, chores, and hedge trimming (I like building things, just not endlessly, and to the exclusion of living life).

I want to greet each day with the freshness, enthusiasm, energy, and possibility of first light on a spring morning.

Oh, and one more thing, I'm going to be one of the muscular toned hard body guys the ladies at the VW CBB always pant over.

My daughter says she undertands it's not her fault

The other day my son [14] and daughter [10] and I were talking about things. In response to their questions, I had told them that it was still up in the air whether things would work out between their Mom and I.

My daughter said "Well, either way, I'm OK because I know that it's not my fault, and you guys need to just work out your own problems and make your own decision."

That is a siginificant change.

She used to believe she could impact our relationship and do something that would keep us together.

I was always worried she would feel guilty if we split - that she hadn't done something.

She's a real card-making, craft making, colour between the lines, teacher's dream child.

She has guilt issues and pleasing authority figures issues in my opinion...

She is my precious gem, but I can't relate to the please authority figures thing. Maybe scurry to please loved ones, I guess, but teachers? But she loves her teachers and her school and I'm pleased for her - she has had some just amazingly nice teachers (not my son, let me tell you. sorry if I'm dissing teachers buddha_girl - I suspect you would a teacher I would like. Did I mention I teach? [adult computer education])

Anyway,

she said she would be OK even if we did get a divorce, and that she knew it wouldn't be her fault or responsibility.

That's a big step, and a huge hurdle out of the way for me.

The impact on her was my largest anxiety subset.

Pending...

We had another "conversation the other night.

It always seems that Mrs_C has to find her courage in a bottle.

When we were dating and first married she drank a lot, and would often rip into me, but that tapered off when we had kids.

It was weird how she would drink a bunch, chew my ass off and then want to have sex. When we first got married it was bit of a pattern - she used to complain that I didn't want to have sex with her. I tried to explain at the time that I didn't want to have drunken sex with her after she had ripped me a new asshole. Psuedo-submissive play sex is one thing (or possibility), but actually being a doormat doesn't turn me on

SO anyway, the other night (around 10 pm), she had a few drinks and decided to broach the subject of why I was mad at her and why I would be thinking of leaving her. She then cut me off every time I tried to say anything - that's a standard tactic of Mrs_C - don't let the other person actually say anything. Mrs_C also knows that once I get going, there is almost no possibility of derailing my logic (underlying assumptions, maybe, but not the logic).

I got to listen to roughly three hours of lecturing about how I'm a lazy shitbag, and have been through most of our marriage. I had it explained to me that I have done only three nice things for her since we met, and that she has spent our whole marriage doing nice things for me, and I should be grateful - but instead of being grateful I'm just angry - and isn't that just a fine how-do-you-do... She also reminded me that I was unemployed and living a somewhat marginal existence when we met (no job yet after university - high unemployment in the area I lived in at the time) - her words were "Think about where you were when I found you...".

After I was actually allowed to speak - after she made several trips to the wine bottle and a couple of smoke breaks outside with appropriate slamming of doors (waking up my son [14]) - I explained that if I had been unable to do anything right in the last 17 years, maybe it was futile and I had better just be good about cutting her losses by getting out of her life as anything other than co-parent.

I proceeded to list all (well... lots) of the things that I have done to be apologetic for - and invited her to add any that i missed. I apologised yet again for my transgressions. I then asked her the same question I asked previously and cited when we had our first conversation:

Link to previous post: Wednesday, August 24, 2005: So, Mrs_C and I had "the conversation"

I once asked Mrs_C to name one thing she believed she had done wrong during our marriage, or one problem that was her fault or that she was responsible for.

once again the answer was the same:

She was unable to name a single one. I guess she's perfect.

I said that it was impossible that I had only done 3 nice things for her in our whole relationship. I then went on to cite a couple of dozen examples of me doing something nice (this barb/attack of me "never having done anything nice" has been thrown at me before, so i actually have a list that i have compiled and memorized for this situation)

I then asked her if she found it a reasonable proposition that any married person would have made no mistakes in 17 years in

their relationship. I asked her to just look inside herslef. She didn't have to name one, she just had to be honest with herself.

She couldn't rebut.

I described how I cared for her but felt an absence of passion. Physical desire, yes, attraction yes - but passion for the marriage or relationship - no.

She told me that I was the love of her life and that she would never love someone as much as me. She again said that if she

had known that what she was doing would drive me away, she would have never done it. Other special excerpts:

- "i thought you loved me so much that you would never leave, no matter what i said"
- "I don't want to grow old alone"
- "that's real nice of you, i'm a 46 year old woman, my youth is gone, and you're going to leave me now after 17 years, after you've spent me"

Things went in circles for awhile and I went to bed at around 3am because I had to work the next day. Mrs_C called in sick.

When I got home she told me that she had been thinking all day and that I had done plenty of nice things for her - she cited a bunch of additional ones I hadn't even thought of.

She said that she would wait for me to either find passion in our marriage or make my decision.

And there it sits this week.

Less hostility, more amiability.

Pending...

"WHY does she maneuver you to say you'll stay??"

Lara asked:

"I just don't get it. WHY does she maneuver you to say you'll stay?? Why does she want you there? She certainly doesn't TREAT you like she wants you there, so why not just let you move on? Does she just get off on being manipulative?"

---

I want to make sure that you are all aware of the following basic premises and starting conditions to my relationship with Mrs_C:

1) I dated a LOT. I was fully sexually active during my dating years.
2) I had no intention of marrying anyone when we met.
3) I had no real desire to have children (they are now the light of my existence).
4) On our second date I was sitting across from her sipping some wine and suddenly the thought raced across my brain "This is the mother of my children"
5) As I sat there pondering the improbability of the thought I had just had, this overwhelming yawning chasm of anguish at having to spend even a moment apart from this woman hit me. I waited over two years of dating to see if the feeling would go away - it didn't until just before Christmas 2004. It just vanished. I woke up one morning, and for the first time in some 17 years, the first thought on my mind wasn't wanting to make love to and hold Mrs_C.

Here's where I get really brutally honest:

I am not sure Mrs_C really loved me from the start. I have never been sure why she said she married me in the first place.

On good days I like to think she loved me.

On bad days I like to think that I am a pretty darn reasonable (more than reasonable) person and generally likeable guy, and that no-one else would put up with her shit, so I seemed a good choice...

I know that she cares for me - but is it really love in the passionate crying out sense? I don't think so.

I have had the following suspicions since we got married:

1) I was the only guy she had ever dated that would put up with her shit
2) I was so completely pleasant, benign, courteous, and friendly that she couldn't assign me to the same shithole all other men belong to (in her mind)...
3) She convinced herself that she loved me because I didn't frighten or upset her that way that all other men (except her father), frighten and piss her off.
4) Mrs_C was just looking for an appropriate party to have children with.

The above may sound weird, so it requires some other background:

- Mrs_C suffered abuse as a child
- She is attracted to men, but has a permanent hostility and distrust for men in general (with good reason, I have to add - she's been treated pretty shitty by a lot of men - not just in relationships, but professionally as well).

---

More as I think about the answer to Lara's questions.

Republished note to Briar Rose

This is part of an email sent to my friend Briar Rose. I think it is relevant to this discussion.

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i apologise for involving you, even at this distance, in my pain

but it is what is happening

the thoughts and feelings of my friends let me know that i'm not alone

when it is over it will not be so bad

being stuck in the interim is the worst part - no moving ahead, the past withered

the thing that provides me with the most fortitude is this:

i say that i would die for my children. will i live for them as well?

they understand - they can see - that there is an undercurrent, but they are shielded from most of it. i can live through this time and see to it that their birthdays (clustered around these three months) and their christmas [we are all going on a trip togther] are not a time they remember with pain - i don't need them thinking of a break-up every year on their birthday. i don't even need mrs_c thinking about it every year on her birthday (same 3 month period) - that would be unkind.

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again, i am sorry to expose you to my pain