Standing in the entryway of our house screaming at him at the top of my lungs to get out, as my son lay on the floor curled up in a ball, my daughter looking on from down the hall...you can't imagine the feeling of that anger. Seeing him violently shove my son against the wall snapped me. That astounding amount of anger aimed at him and having him look at me and say, "You're overreacting again.", and, "He shoved me first." The powerlessness of knowing that it will happen again and that I am letting it happen by staying.
Another thing that scares me is PTSD and battered women syndrome because the more I read the more I realize I have some of these symptoms. I have exaggerated jumpiness, which is another symptom of PTSD. Any loud noise or the sudden appearance of someone when I don't hear them coming makes me jump out of my skin, and it's embarrassing. I made a joke about it just last night when my partner's ex came around the corner in the dark house and scared the crap out of me, to cover up my feelings.
I also space out a lot, usually when I'm at work, reliving those awful and humiliating moments of my life, like when ex compared my ass to Mount Rushmore at a crowded party for everyone to hear. Or when I had to get the kids out of bed to pick him up at a golf course bar because he'd gotten so drunk after playing golf that he knocked his front tooth out when he tripped on a chair, stopping on the way to emergency because he had to get out of the car and wander into a field to vomit, where he dropped and lost his keys in the tall grass, swearing and yelling the whole time, scaring the shit out of all of us. Meanwhile my young son is asking me questions about why daddy is acting that way. Or the time I was having a gallbladder attack, curled up in a ball of agony, an iron band of pain around my belly, and he was demanding to know if I was exaggerating. Or the time he was so drunk he humiliated me in front of his coworkers at his yearly work award ceremony and I walked out of the event. He staggered down the dark street after me and ended up ranting and raving, and shattering his cellphone on the ground so violently that a nearby cop came over to see what was going on. Or the time he spent an entire road trip out of town for our anniversary talking me into a three way with a friend of ours, when I really didn't want to do it. Or the time he got into a screaming match with his mother in front of our house, in front of the kids, at Christmas and I had to talk him into apologizing so his parents would stay. Or the time he humiliated me, and our son, in front of my family on my birthday by screaming and threatening our son while I was opening my presents. Or the time our son brushed his bicycle against the side of my car trying to get it out so he could play, and ex grabbed the bike to get it out himself, putting a scratch down the side of my car, then having a screaming hissy fit about it, blaming our son. Incidentally, my car was a Christmas present for not divorcing him the first time I tried. He talked me out of it then drained our savings account to buy me that car with cash, ignoring my pleas to know why he'd taken all that money out without talking to me about it, because it was a 'present' for me. He made me wait until Christmas morning to tell me about the money, and only after waiting to see my reaction to opening my present of a car key.
I could go on and I might in another post. The sheer number of things that are popping into my head that I had blocked is awful. 'Forgetting' things that happened is another PTSD symptom.
He asked me to explain, before he moved out, one of the reasons I told him I wanted a divorce: I told him he was controlling, and as an example said that he decorated our house without letting me choose anything. He denied it, reminding me that he always chose 2-3 things at a time that he liked and presented them to me to make a choice. He would shop for something then take me there to choose between the ones he wanted. The few things I had contributed came with me when we moved in together and I resisted him getting rid of them, sometimes flat out hiding them from him so he couldn't.
I also told him that everything in our entire house had a negative story for me when I looked at it. The driftwood with shells on it in the shape of the number 40 he and the kids made me for my 40th birthday party was the gift I was opening when he screamed at our son in front of my family. The school pictures of the kids that we had taken every year was an anxiety laden event where our children had to look absolutely perfect and wearing everything he approved of for the picture because it was going into a big frame with each school year spot waiting to be filled over the years. I hate that picture frame. It holds the pictures of my beautiful children but each picture has a story. Me wrestling our tactile dysfunctional son into a button down Hawaiian shirt ex had chosen for the occasion. My daughter's perfectly coiffed hair that I stayed up until midnight the night before, soothing her while she cried, blowing it out straight so she'd look how ex wanted her to look. Defending each cowlick and adorable, goofy smile as being how our kids really looked, and not needing to spend the money on having it retaken.
I've said enough. I'm sick of it and am going to bed so I can stop thinking about all this. Dredging it up is cathartic and exhausting and I'm fucking tired of feeling like a victim. I'm tired of crying and I'm tired of waiting for the overburdened court system to send me my god damned divorce papers so I can finally be free of him.
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