A perfect mom and wife.

I decided to be a perfect mom and a perfect wife. I had been really good in school so I figured that I could do anything I set my mind to. I got pregnant right after getting married. I made nice meals for my husband (that he criticized and yelled at me for), made cookies and gingerbread houses. I became...The Perfect Mom. At first that meant keeping the house nice and tidy, making home-cooked meals, memorizing bible verses, praying lots, giving hubby good sex and being sweet to everyone around me. All these things were a failure. I tried to keep the house tidy, but hubby stomped in with his dirty shoes all the time. I asked him to "please honey, I just washed the floor, can you take off your shoes?" to which I received a screaming session that lasted long enough to have me in tears. "This is my house! I do what I want in my house! No one is going to tell me what to do in my house! I don't care if you just cleaned the floors! Shut up and leave me alone you annoying bitch!" I had never been yelled at in my life. I had never been called names in my life. And I had especially never seen anyone take a fit because they didn't want to remove their muddy shoes at the door. I didn't understand it. So I thought that my husband must be right. It was his house. He had paid for it. I was just taking care of the wash, the kids, the cleaning, doing groceries, making meals and giving him sex. I guess it was wrong of me to ask him to take off his shoes. Or pick up his dirty clothes all over the house. Or clear off his dishes. Or wipe up his grease mess from playing with the lawn mower in the house. Etc. Anyways, you get the picture. I tried to make home-cooked meals and make my new husband happy - herb baked salmon with a mustard glaze, complicated desserts, and big fancy breakfasts. But nothing ever made him happy. He would grunt, scarf the food down and go watch tv before I had even managed to take a bite. He didn't like anything I made. He finally started making his own food, fried steak, fried potatoes, fried ham, fried potatoes...Then I would have to clean up the greasy mess. He spent money on anything he pleased until I called my dad in desperation, asking him what to do. My dad was so caught up in the failure of his own marriage that he told me at the time to "eat a can of dogfood", I needed to "be submitted". So tidying up was a failure, making good meals was a failure but I could memorize bible verses and then at least god would be happy. Unfortunately I was so exhausted from having a baby that never slept and perpetual pregnancies that I could barely even read the bible let alone memorize verses. I prayed when I could, but gone were the "early morning devotions" that proved my dedication and love to god. One more failure. I tried to be sweet to everyone but for some reason it made everyone mad. Nobody wanted someone around who was sweet and tried to do the right thing all the time. I just didn't understand. And I was all alone, five thousand kilometres away from the only friends and family I had. What the hell was I doing wrong? I couldn't figure it out. But one thing I was good at in the my list of things that a perfect mom and wife does, was sex. My husband wanted a stripper for a wife. I could do that. So began twenty years of sexual exploitation. And a twisting of my perspective on what it meant to be in a relationship.

Bad choices last a long time...

I got married too young. Too fast. And believed too much in the permanency of marriage. Religion had convinced me that if I had sex outside of marriage that I was going to pay for that in all eternity. So I got married to the first person who asked me to. He was kind and seductive. He showered me with gifts. He adored me with all his heart. He got me an apartment to stay in. He touched me gently. His kisses burned me like fire. I figured I could make anything work with anyone so even after a few months when he started to get violent, I figured that it was just an aberration. How could such a nice man actually do mean things like that on purpose? My parents marriage had failed but mine wasn't going to, no matter what. I married a man nine years my senior. He was violent, punching walls, the car, throwing things, and screaming at me for anything I did that he didn't particularly like that I said or did. I thought that if I just became "better" and "nicer" that everything would be fine because I knew that all these things were my fault....he told me so. Six months after I met him we were married in spite of the violence that I experienced during that time. I knew I didn't want to marry him while we were engaged but in my mind, it was too late. The invitations were sent, the wedding was planned and the dress was bought. And besides I wanted to have sex so badly that I couldn't think of much else. "God" didn't want me to have sex outside of marriage. I had wanted to be a doctor or a mother and chose mother to an abuser's kids. When you are married to an abuser, they are not your kids, let me tell you that. All ten of them are his and not mine. Abusers have a twisted sense of reality. The kids, the house, the furniture, the belongings and the children are his. Not his and mine. His. So this will be my story. I need to tell it. I need to tell it where all the judging will be done by cyber criticizers and not people who can yell at me to my face. I am tired. After getting cancer, going to court so many times, raising all these kids, appeasing an abuser, I am tired. And I need to tell my side to anyone who cares. My years of silence are over.