Mean

Four weeks after The Incident I wrote this:

I woke up this morning singing “Mean” by Taylor Swift.  Then I turned on the radio and hopped in the shower.  Guess what song came on the radio?  LOL  I thought that was too appropriate.  It feels good to sing that song but to pray so hard that he won’t always be mean.  I pray that the changes he is trying to make now are positive and permanent.  I pray that this won’t become my theme song because he just can’t change and the marriage needs to end.

I have a counseling appointment today.  I’m glad that I can tell Beth, my counselor, that I finally cried.  It was fast and furious, but it felt good.  It just happened to be when my friends were here.  I think I need to cry more.

Beth gave me a notebook to use as a journal so that I can write out what I’m going through now so I can use it as a gauge that I can use in a year to see if there has been progress made or if we’re still doing the same old, same old.  I think I’m just going to use the highlighting in the book.  I dont’ feel like writing in a journal.  I don’t know where to begin.

I read that now and can see the hope that I was still clinging to.  I was once again believing that this time would be the time he finally changed.  I really believed that Bubba would do the hard work he needed to do to keep his family together.  He was admitting to the abuse and saying all the right things.  However, what I was trying to push down and ignore was that he was putting off enrolling in an abuser intervention program.  The excuses were valid, however, he should’ve been fighting tooth and nail to overcome the obstacles.  I see that clearly now.  A truly repentant man would let nothing stand in his way of seeking treatment when his family is on the line.  Bubba was clearly displaying that he was still in abuser mode.  He was stalling, waiting for the storm to blow over so that we could enter another honeymoon phase and that I would stop expecting change.  Too bad for Bubba because I’d had enough, I was reading and researching about abuse, I was learning.

Beth and I had talked about how important it was for me to cry.  I hadn’t cried in years.  I had become an expert at compartmentalizing my feelings and stuffing them way down deep into hidden rooms where they couldn’t touch me.  Feelings were not safe to feel around Bubba.  If I revealed how I was feeling it was either turned around on me to be my own fault, I was told I was being too sensitive, or I was just generally ignored.  My feelings were never valid and were always a source of pain so I got to the point where I just simply didn’t feel my feelings any longer.

The first few times that tears threatened I had to make an effort to let them out.  It felt like I was forcing myself to cry and it felt wrong.  I had to relearn how to cry.  At first I could cry for only a minute.  It felt awkward and wrong yet I continued to try to cry.  I knew I had years worth of emotions bottled up.  It was just locked away so effectively it took months to be able to access my feelings without massive effort.

As far as my journal, I did end up starting a hand-written journal along with a private blog.  I’m a verbal processor so writing helped along with talking to my friends over and over about things.  I also started writing letters to an old high school friend.  They are letters that I would never mail but it helped me to be able to write what I wanted to say that I couldn’t.  I giggle now because I didn’t want to write in a journal and I basically ended up with three different ones – to three different audiences.  I didn’t know where to begin back then and I don’t know where to begin now.

However I feel about Bubba refusing to get help and remaining “Mean,” I know that they were HIS choices.  I’m not responsible for his lack of accepting responsibility.  I’m not responsible for his abuse.  The abuser is 100% responsible for his abuse of his victim.  If you have your own Bubba in your life, please understand that this is not your fault.  This is not something you caused.  You don’t deserve to be treated like you are being treated.  You are beautiful.  You are precious.  You deserve to live free from abuse.

• Posted in: At the Beginning - My Story ♦ Married to an Abuser
• Tagged: abuse, abusive marriage, cry, denying, excuses, fault, feelings, journal, justifying, learning, letters, lundy bancroft, marriage, mean, minimizing, realization, researching, verbal abuse