Not so perfect after all....

There was another reason for my precipitous marriage. I was running away from my parent's divorce. I decided that I wanted to learn french so I moved to the other side of the country and met a man at the church that I went to. He was almost ten years older than me. An ex-alcoholic (does that exist? or are they all just dry alcoholics?). Still living with mama. I should have known better. But he had a job. He wanted a wife that stayed at home with the children. And he told me he wanted kids. And he sounded like a commited christian. So why not? My dad had told me that I could do anything I wanted to in life, so I could make a great marriage with anyone. Or so I thought. But I was just engaged to him and he had already screamed at me so loud that my ears hurt. The owner of my appartment building was called another time because he was pounding the bed and screaming at me so loud. Another time he told me to "mange la merde" (eat shit) for a silly little argument. I told him that it was rude and you should never treat a person you love like that and he laughed. He laughed about that for twenty years. This was all before I was married. But then why did I marry him? Well, because my parents were divorced and I did not want to end up a statistic, I was not going to give up. Even if it meant marrying someone evil. I didn't realize how evil he was then. And like I said before, my need for sex could not be met elsewhere than in marriage according to my christian beliefs. I still hoped that things would change. As the years went by, I went from a confident, outgoing woman to someone who couldn't even take the bus without trembling. 

We met in the fall and married in the spring. What a mistake. He was already pouting and screaming in my "honeymoon". It was miserable. I found out that the minute he felt uncomfortable, he would stop and get himself comfortable again, whatever it took. Even if it took destroying anyone around him. So started his systematic destruction of my personality. At first I fought it. I tried to have an opinion. I tried to think. But it always ended in a fight. 

We had four babies in four and a half years. I wanted children and they were my joy. I loved them so much. He never ever ever took care of them. Once in a while he would read a picture book to the oldest boy. But other than that they were basically dead to him. I was so very tired. I wanted to die I was so tired. But he would not take care of the kids even for a half of an hour so that I could sleep. He told me that I could "aller chier, et manger la merde" (French equivalent of f""k off and die) I was hurting so badly all the time. I was constantly crying, trying to keep up with the demands of a young growing family and a husband who had to have sex every couple of days. And because I was a christian woman, I would never refuse his advances. I would make sure that my make-up was perfect, that I stayed skinny, that I performed well (no missionary position for him). But he never appreciated anything I did and still would not let me sleep. My food was no good, I was useless in the house (why was I asking him for help?) and I was demanding because I wanted to spend money sometimes for items in the house and he was the only one allowed to. After five years and when my fourth was in my womb I started cutting myself after he would scream at me and insult me. I just wanted the pain on the inside to show on the outside. He wouldn't accept or believe that he was hurting me so badly. And with the cutting came a sort of relief from the internal pain. Eventually though, it wasn't enough. He would throw me against the wall or backwards onto the sofa when he caught me cutting myself, but would never hold me and wonder why I was doing that, what was going wrong. Eventually I ended up going to stay at a friend's house with my three month old baby to try to rest. They (my friends, the church, my family) all thought that something was terribly wrong with me. Nobody questioned whether or not maybe something horrible was going on at home because he was so nice to everyone else. He was serving suppers for the homeless. He was involved with a couple of shelters, sponsoring youth groups, and doing other similar service in churches in our area. He was a model man. But nobody knew my secret. And I never told because he had been so good at convincing me that I was the one in the wrong. I was constantly manipulating him, I was controlling, I was depressed, I didn't know how to handle life, I couldn't keep the house clean, I couldn't make good meals, I couldn't stay organized.

Finally this culminated in me going to a strippers bar as an erotic dancer. This would not make sense unless you understood that for me, I was without value except for sex. Sex was the only place where my husband would seem to be a bit satisfied. If I gave it to him enough, if I stripped like an erotic dancer for him, if I dressed up in trashy clothes and pranced half naked in front of him....etc. By going to dance at a strippers club I was trying to say that I was worth something other than getting screamed at. These men would pay me for what I was doing for my ex for free. It was horrible. I threw up a couple of times even though I wasn't drinking or consuming anything. While I was sleeping after having gone to the strippers bar for the second time, he came to my friend's house and stole my credit cards, my money, my keys and my little three month old baby who my friend was babysitting for me. I woke up to hell. I was devastated. He had never lifted a little finger to help me with the children and now suddenly he had stolen anything that made my life worth living. I tried to overdose on anti-depressants. But I didn't really want to die. I knew my kids needed me, my husband was not even capable of caring for them. He ran away with them, going from house to house making sure that he was always one step ahead of me. He wouldn't let me see them or talk to them. It was just horrible. Because I had crossed him. He was allowed to scream and yell and hit me and the walls, but I was not allowed to do anything that would touch him. Was it right to go dancing? Of course not. But was his reaction right? Of course not. To get my children back I grovelled. I was convinced I was the bad person and that he was just grumpy because I was so bad. So I grovelled and begged and gave him sex and he let me come back home. Home to hell with him. From that moment on, he knew that he was in control. That is what he wanted. He never wanted a partnership, he wanted to be in control. He knew he just had to take the kids and he would get me back "in my place".

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.