How an Unhealthy Relationship Can Inhibit Your Becoming
and leaving it can be your new beginning
When my husband’s mom died when he was eight, his dad came home and told the kids, “Your mother’s dead. There’s nothing to cry about. It won’t change anything.”
He never cried for his mother.
He was the youngest of five, and attended Catholic school. His dad was a state trooper who worked the 3 to midnight shift. The kids ate frozen dinners, or food left in the crockpot. His dad never helped with homework, attended after school sports games, or took him to the hospital when he broke his arm.
His father died when he was 20.
I have one brother. My parents were teachers. They were home every day by 4:00, and off every summer. We ate dinner together every night, and most nights my mom cooked, and my dad cleaned up. I attended Hebrew School, had a Bat Mitzvah, and never missed a curfew.
We met one summer during college at a restaurant where he was a cook, and I was a waitress. He was working full time to put himself through school, and I was an English major at an out-of-state university financed entirely by my parents.
He had worked at a gas station when he was in high school, and my dad still pumped my gas. He had student loans, and no health insurance. I had my parents’ credit card, and a modest, monthly allowance.
We seemed to be an embodiment of the notion that opposites attract.
He was unlike any of the college boys I had met. He wasn’t out drinking or skipping classes. He wasn’t leeching off his parents because he didn’t have any parents.
Sure, he was irritable and short-tempered, but who could blame him?
He generally poured out his anger out on drivers, store clerks, and phone representatives. He wasn’t beyond insisting that people “go back where they came from” or asking them, “Why don’t you learn how to do your job?”
I had compassion for him, and often apologized for his poor behavior. He called this playing “good cop/bad cop” . . . except it wasn’t really a game.
I was going to take care of him. I was going to give him all of the nurturing he lacked growing up.
I wanted to save him, and I think he wanted me to save him.
This dynamic worked mostly, until our lives got more complicated.
Eventually, we got married and had three kids in five years. The problem was that our vastly different upbringings and conflicting philosophies began to cause daily strife. We argued about everything from how to raise and discipline our kids to what was acceptable for me to wear to a christening party at the Polish American Hall.
“How would you know what to wear to a christening?” he would challenge me.
We divided up the responsibilities equally. He commuted and worked long days in finance. I ran the house, raised the kids, and paid the bills. I called insurance companies, refinanced mortgages, negotiated with contractors, and managed our schedules. I shuttled kids to preschool, playdates, and doctor’s appointments. I cooked dinner, gave baths, read stories, and of course handled any kids who crept into our bedroom in the middle of the night.
It was only fair. He worked, I didn’t.
That’s what he told me.
Also, since he often made yelled at people or made our kids cry, it become easier to do everything myself.
When he screamed at the kids or called them names like “lazy” or “nerd” or “jerk”. . . I would frantically insist “Daddy is wrong” or “That’s not true.”
And the endless excuse, “Daddy doesn’t have great parenting skills. Remember, his mom died when he was eight. . . .”
He would often say I was making the kids too soft by giving them choices. He would fume, “They’re kids! You don’t ask them what they want to do. You tell them what to do!”
Staying home with three kids was oftentimes lonely and frustrating as a professional with an advanced degree. I was dissatisfied cutting triangles for my kids’ classes, running stations at class parties and attending PTA meetings and yoga class. Folding laundry, baking brownies, and wiping the kitchen counter left me feeling depleted.
But still, I felt lucky.
If you would have asked me during this time if I was happy, I would have said yes. I had everything a woman could want. I had a husband and financial security. I was in charge of the finances and the kids and I didn’t have to work, even though I missed it.
The problem is you can’t become anything when the business of your life is your life.
I used to refer to myself as the Queen of Minutiae. No task was too small or insignificant for me to handle.
When I complained about this reality, my husband was quick to remind me, “It’s not like you work.”
I looked forward to the times when he worked late or went on business trips that took him away for days.
Didn’t all wives want a break from their husbands?
For me, it was a respite from putting out all of the fires from the conflicts he ignited. . . with others and with me.
He raged when I disagreed with him, “I always say yes to you! You never say yes to me!”
In this case, he was right. The problem was his requests included lending $5,000 to his brother, changing my shirt to wear one he preferred, or receiving blow jobs on demand.
He was not beneath beckoning me to private places, pressing down on the top of my head, and cueing me to get down on my knees.
His requests weren’t always easy to say yes to.
After fourteen years of staying home and raising our kids, I secured a full time job close to home. This what we had always planned for… a return to two salaries as the kids grew more independent and college tuition was looming.
This was the dream that actually came true.
Working full time and balancing three kids proved to be exhausting, exhilarating, and overwhelming. Yet, it also started to get confusing.
At work, women liked their husbands. They talked about them lovingly and with respect.
In my head, a little voice said, “My husband is an asshole.”
I didn’t let that whisper form itself into a fully realized thought.
At work, I was “smart” and they were “lucky to have me”. At home the comments that I had been hearing for years began to sound more jarring like, “Why don’t you use your head?” or “With all of the clothes you have, you’re wearing that?”
When I pointed out that I didn’t like the way he was speaking to me, he would grumble, “You’re too sensitive” or “You really need to lighten up.”
You can somehow make yourself okay with the words that are spoken behind closed doors that no one else can hear. You can convince yourself that it’s not that bad, and that everyone else likely has their own problems.
But when you step into the outside world and then back into your life, you can never unlearn what you begin to understand. It is then that the whisper inside your head starts to become a strong, confident voice that you can no longer ignore.
The entangled web of a relationship that has been spun over years and years is not easy to unravel. Even when you think you have escaped, you’ll notice that there are still pieces of the web adhered to your skin, and deep wounds beneath the surface. Mark Twain was right when he wrote,
“Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”
But when someone pours acid on you for decades, over time it erodes your self-worth. In order to heal, you need to mend the damaged pieces and merge them into a new and stronger version of yourself far beyond the one that had been crushed for so many years.
The only way to let go of the shame of accepting this kind of treatment is to finally tell the truth to yourself and to everyone who will listen.
Here’s why:
Your friends will wince when you tell them that your husband used to laugh in your face and shake his head and say condescendingly, “You’re so simple.”
Their wince will make you feel supported.
Your mom will be frightened when you tell her that one time he pulled up next to a car to scream at the other driver and threateningly jerk the car as if he was going to hit him.
Her terror will make you feel understood.
When you finally forgive yourself and understand that you deserve better, you will seek therapy in every form — a therapist, books, stories, podcasts, friends, family.
This knowledge and compassion will help you heal.
It will show you that his voice — the voice that was louder than the one in your head was in fact the voice that was wrong all along.
This affirmation will confirm that it was actually never fair.
It is only then that your life will crack open and you will begin your becoming. For me this began with accolades at work, producing writing that was worthy of publication, and discarding clothing that no longer suited me.
It looked liked a brightness to my eyes, it sounded like laughter, and it felt like a sigh of relief.
It is then you will be ready to meet a man who tells you that you are the biggest deal ever. You will be ready to embrace the fact that he wants you to have the space and time to be all that you can become.
And you will understand that you deserve it.
I hope you meet him. Because I did.
