Self Betrayal

It will get out. I am scared of what will happen when it does. All secrets come out… eventually.

Why is the fear of betraying or hurting other people’s feelings greater than betraying one’s self? Do you have that same fear, or is it only me? Conflict is horrific for me. My entire body begins to shake, and I mean my entire body, like my legs will give out if I am standing. My heart pounds inside my chest and I lose track of where I am, because the beat of my heart is so loud, I begin to wonder if I am having a heart attack or if I am going to pass out. I can never hear what the other person is saying when this is happening. All I can think of in the moment, is how to get this to end and go away.

Twenty-four years of betrayal, backstabbing, lying, and crying because I didn’t want my family to be disappointed in me. Because, I didn’t want to break the man I married. Because, I trusted my mom’s feelings over my own. Because, I wanted to have sex freely and without judgement. Twenty-four years, and with one 3-week meditative practice coupled with intermittent fasting, the vision of my life was exposed and shown to me from a distance. I was studying all of the warnings in an attempt to get closer, but not close enough to get hurt. Too late. I felt trapped without any options or any way out, my body rejecting my life. My body knew I needed out, and decided to fight my thoughts for me. When saying “no” to my husband ended in a scary fight, saying “ok” was easier. I could detach my myself and go somewhere else.

Escapism is my best friend, especially when there are secrets to keep. I make up a world where I have connection, love, and acceptance. It’s blissful. Joseph Campbell says, “follow your bliss.” I spend a lot of time in my imaginary world.

My mom asks me how I am doing and I drop hints like, “I’m not happy. He’s angry all the time. He has no patience for our boys.” My mom brushes it off with a, “Your dad was always great with you kids, but you know what he did this week?” Truth, is relative, right? The truth to that statement or what I should’ve said was, my husband had gotten so angry with me the night before because I said I didn’t want to have sex with him. He didn’t care. He wanted sex no matter what. And when he didn’t get it, there were consequences. This time the consequence came in the form of him overly yelling at our 3-year-old son who had spilled an entire box of Cheerios. My son and our dog were methodically cleaning it up, and my husband didn’t like that. He began screaming at both the dog and our son and then he beat the dog, then yanked my son off of the floor by one hand to remove him from the kitchen and hit his behind. I was instantly mad and I began to scream back at him and block my son and our dog. Then, it became a fight between us about how I never support his decisions in front of our kids, and how he hates the dog and dogs in general. The only reason we have a dog is because I wanted one and he did that to make me happy.

Something happens inside me when grown men are angry. It feels like an instinctive primal fear that rises up to my brain and in those moments, all I want to do, is get them to calm down. Whatever needs to be done, is exactly what I need to do to quell the anger. My dad was an angry man, and he taught my brother to be angry on a level that still holds the highest fear for me. My brother hated me. He is a big man and his wrath was always taken out on me. When he was a teenager and then in college, he had no problem throwing me up against walls and door-jams to scream in my face, or punch me as hard as could in my arms or back. My dad watched him do this to me once, and said nothing. He didn’t even try to stop him. He just watched. I was mouthy, and I did ask him in the moment, “Did you see that? Aren’t you going to do anything about it?” My dad said, without looking at me, “What did you do first?” That was always the response I got.

All the signs were there, are there. I can see them, and yet I am afraid.

When my now husband took me on our second date to a club and gave me an ultimatum about being his girlfriend, the fear response kicked right in. Only I didn’t recognize it as fear, I saw it as I was making someone else happy and also butterflies in my stomach. I could make others happy and deal with the consequences of those actions by knowing I was upset and hiding it from everyone. It didn’t matter if I wasn’t happy, as long as everyone else was. That night at the club, I was scared. I had only just met him and he drove me there. I had a feeling that if I had said no, he would leave me there. I didn’t want to say yes. In fact, I told him prior to that date, that I only wanted to go out and have fun, I didn’t want a “boyfriend”. He gave me an ultimatum, “Be my girlfriend, or I’m done with you.” Second date. Fourth time ever speaking to him. First time betraying myself. First time feeling stuck with him.

People in my family repeated throughout my life, how strong I was, both physically, and mentally. I believed it, but not in the way I think they meant it. I was strong enough to have a completely different reality inside my own head opposed to the one I was living. Outside, I did all the things a “good girl” would do. I went to church every Sunday. I taught Sunday School. I helped the Ladies Auxiliary bake and even came and helped with the landscaping on the church grounds. I prayed a lot about my life and begged for God to give me a sign/signs about the direction I was going. He did. I ignored them. I thought maybe I wasn’t praying hard enough, or the right way, or maybe I wasn’t good enough. I needed to be better. That was the problem. I needed to be better.

We were only dating for six months when he asked me to marry him. I couldn’t say no, he had already bought the ring, which he told me was non-refundable. He also mentioned during his proposal if I said no, we were breaking up. Again, here was a way out for me. One word. A complete sentence in and of itself. No. I asked if he had asked my dad for permission and he said, “No, but I talked to your mom.” No, was all I had to say and my life would have turned out completely different. If my mom knew, my dad surely knew, and in my head, I couldn’t say No, because then I would have to explain myself afterwards. I would once again be upsetting my parents. It should’ve been a warning sign instead of a proposal. He came to my house, my dad was in the basement, my mom was out, and he was rushed. There was nothing romantic, personal, or loving about it. It was a transaction. I was being asked to be his prized possession, and since I didn’t know a life where I was allowed to be myself, I agreed thinking this was my way out. The constant tiptoeing around my brother, my dad and on occasion my mom was about to end. I had found my way out of the cage and I was going to be free, or so I thought. I didn’t realize at the time that I was really just trading it in for another one. I said, “Yes” and I agreed. I was stuck.

At first, it was exciting. I was getting married. I was going to be someone’s wife. I had always wanted to be a mom and now I could have kids. I loved kids and dogs. I could have as many kids and dogs as I liked, or as we could afford. We both had to attend premarital counselling where we talked about what we wanted for our futures. You know, he also wanted kids and dogs. He said I could bring my dog with us. I thought to myself, maybe this is the sign I was looking for. This is going to be a fantastic union. I just have to stuff down the doubt and jump into this relationship with an open heart. Our wedding day finally came, and as I was riding in the car to the church, I was thinking how it was a bad idea to marry him, but it was too late. All the time, preparation, money, and guests from across the country. It was too late to back out now. I was stuck.

The secret, that began as a whisper of doubt was being stuffed down. I can’t say it. I can’t think it. It’s too late for all of that.

Life got real hard, real fast. We lost jobs, got new jobs, car breakdowns and repairs, had no money. We ended up having our single-wide trailer foreclosed upon because we couldn’t afford the rent at the park we lived at. So, we had to move in with his mom and stepdad in their second home, which happened to be directly next door to his mom. We lived there rent-free, but it wasn’t free. We had to go to dinner with them at their house at least once a week and get lectured to the point to getting belittled and sometimes yelled at about how we were spending our money. My husband never got upset with them. He didn’t defend us. He just listened and occasionally blamed me for everything wrong with our finances. Then we would walk back to our house and my husband would say how sorry he was and how he felt badly that we were living next door for free, and this was all just temporary.

This situation grew old quickly. I packed up my dog and left. I went back home to my parents. I was explaining what had happened to my dad, and how I had felt, dropping hints about how unhappy I had been and how I felt stuck. He turned and looked at me and said, “You married him. You’re stuck. You have to go back.”

I went back. My husband got a new job and we were able to move out shortly after that we had a cute little house, and we were expecting a baby. I was actually happy. I was going to be a mom. I couldn’t wait to tell everyone, and I did. Until one morning, I saw some blood. I knew what was happening, and the heavy emotions of guilt, blame, and sadness that I felt were consuming my world. I couldn’t stop crying. My little baby that I already had loved so intensely was dying inside my body and there was nothing I could do.

My husband was fine. He left me at home to go and drive his dad and stepmom to the airport for their vacation. He was gone the majority of the day. He said to me, “What’s the bid deal? You’re just laying around.” I lost the baby while he was gone. I was alone. I actually felt like I deserved that pain and I deserved to be alone experiencing it, because I had caused it to happen. The agony and betrayal of that loss took a piece of me with it. I couldn’t trust my body to do what it was designed to do and therefore I couldn’t trust my heart or my gut either. My feelings didn’t matter. What mattered was that he had told his dad he would take them to the airport so that is what he was doing. And I wasn’t even mad about it. I couldn’t risk the fact that his dad being upset with me for just wanting my husband to be with me the whole day.

I, again, had this secret that was once again creeping back into my life. I made excuses for him both outwardly and to myself. I did my best to cover up his raw edges.

Eventually, we were able to get pregnant and I could tell you that when our son was born, immediately after giving birth, my husband ran to the waiting room. My father and mother in-law held my baby before I did. My husband felt badly that they were waiting so long. It didn’t matter that it was my baby. It mattered that they decided on their own to come and wait and that was what was more important at the time. Again, “What’s the bid deal? We get to see this kid everyday and can hold him whenever we want.”

Over the next few years there was just more of this same treatment and with each seemingly harmless infraction, a small piece of me was taken. But that isn’t the end.

We were married exactly 20 years and my own Dad passed away unexpectedly and that death, that hole, that void left me reeling. The denial of his actual passing in the beginning, left me pondering all the things that I had been in denial about. My “great” marriage being one of those things. I immediately thought about how there was something wrong with me and I needed help. I began group grief counseling and was actively working on myself. After the first year, I realized that I needed to divorce him. Our marriage was long over before my dad had passed, it had just taken me that long to realize it. I worked up the courage. I invited him into our bathroom, out of earshot of our boys, and I laid it all out for him. I was blunt. I would even say harsh, but I didn’t know how to nicely say “I’m not happy. I want a divorce.” I said it. His reaction was far worse than I could ever had anticipated. He angrily grabbed me and held me to his face while he cried and then forced his tongue down my throat until I shoved him away. He then immediately went and started punching the drywall in our bathroom. He punched a few holes through the drywall and I was scared. He refused the idea. He said, “No” he shouted it. I, again, was terrified. He suggested marriage counseling, and I agreed and choked back my request. We attended and it turned into his own private session and I was witnessing it. So, I stopped going and he continued alone.

About a year after the first request for divorce, I asked again, and again, he refused.

Now, I am feeling like a caged animal. I want out, and he won’t let me go. I am at a point where I am praying for him to have an affair, or die, or just wake up one day a realize he can do better. All this, so I can be free. Our kids are teenagers. They are going to be out of the house soon and it’s just going to be me and this captor alone.

I have asked so often he doesn’t even hear the words. I was mad and I was yelling this time. And again, he did not hear what I said. He said, “I think you’re just stressed. Everything will be fine. We’ll get through this.”

My secret… I do not want to be married to him anymore. I cannot stay married to him.

No one knows, and I have no one to tell, and nowhere to go. Do you think this still counts as a secret then?