Missed Milestones

Missed Milestones

It may be a sign that I’m making progress, but I missed remembering some important milestones this year:

It’s been 210 weeks since I spoke my last words to him (that’s 4 full years and 2 weeks if you don’t want to count).

It’s been 314 weeks (6 years, 2 weeks) since I lived under the same roof as him.

I’ll be 36 this week.  And while my body is feeling its age (and more) at times, my mind feels younger than it ever did when I was in my 20s.

The worst is when he did it to my parents. I felt so bad for them and ashamed of him. I don't ever need to worry about that again, and that eases some stress during the holidays.

I hope you all find some peace tonight and throughout the year to come. You deserve it.

Joyless Giving

The holidays have some truly terrible memories for me, but every year was miserable with a person like him.

Giving him gifts filled me with such dread.  He was so particular. If he didn’t like a gift, he’d tell you and he’d also berate you for being stupid. This wasn’t exclusive to me, but it was heightened to dangerous levels for me.

I would call him a spoiled brat if his hissy fits weren’t so terrifyingly violent.

Sometimes he was easy and said “This is what I want.” It may put me in debt, but at least I wasn’t going to be spit-screamed at.

Other years it was “buy me a new wardrobe” and refusing to answer follow up questions. I was panic-stricken; making the wrong decisions was Bad™, and with such vague instructions I was destined to mess something up.

I used to like giving gifts, but now I approach it with apprehension. He took the joy out of it. 

He took the joy out of everything.

Here’s a fun tiktok about this very thing, if you haven’t seen it yet.  Slaps a bit too.  Click here!

He was the King of absolving himself of responsibilities by intentionally doing them badly.

He wanted me to serve all his food, even his seconds, so he would make an enormous mess serving himself. A mess I would have to clean. So I of course chose the route that was less work in the long run.

In early cohabitation days he went at something I had made so hard that food ended up on the ceiling. I have no idea how he did that trying to put food on a plate; I think he even impressed himself.

I can laugh now. He was a millwright with machining background and welding experience.  He was so precise with the work he did, both with his tools and hands.  Yet, he couldn’t figure out a spoon?

What a joke.

Hindsight.

Weaponized incompetence my ass just weaponize it back. Once my dad tries to pull the “but I don’t know how to clean the counters as well as you” on my mom and she said “ok honey I’ll show you” and she made him stand in the kitchen and watch her clean the counters. Then she pulled out a bottle of chocolate syrup and proceeded to spray the entire kitchen in chocolate, hand him the sponge and said “okay now it’s your turn”

I cannot tell you how much kind, supportive and gentle friends matter in the struggle to free yourself. I have said it before and I will say it again, true friendship is the world's most underrated relationship.

I know that having a friend who's in an abusive relationship puts you in a terrible position, and you probably feel powerless as you watch them suffer. But believe it or not, you're not as powerless as you think. My friends played a pivotal role in my escape.

Support means everything.

I survived an abusive relationship. At this point I have talked to and worked with hundreds of people in abusive relationships.

Guess what? telling us to leave never works.

ever.

I could write a post about ways to help people leave.

I’ll probably do that one day.

but don’t be that person in the mean time.

Being sick is an excuse: Episode 5.

Once I had a bronchial infection and I was coughing terribly. I couldn't sleep, my head was always pounding, and I wasn't eating much.

He insisted we have sex. I was literally having coughing fits as it happened. When he finished he said "Well that wasn't much fun" and then sent me to sleep on the couch so I wouldn't infect him.

Can you imagine?