I am angry.
I feel cheated.
I did all the things I was told were the “right things” in my life. I went to church. I did my best in school. I was careful with modesty & my physical affection with boys & men. I went to college. I helped my mom when I lived at home. I lived with my grandma for a while so she didn’t feel so lonely. I met someone. I got married in the temple. I tried so hard to be supportive, not demanding of my husband.
According to the template I’d been given by my parents and my church, he should have been a right choice. He went to church. He appeared to be spiritual & respectful & hardworking. His bishop and friends spoke highly of him. He was a little melancholy they said, but they excused it by saying it was because he was lonely & I was going to be “so good for him”. He was older than me, and I was naive enough to think that it meant that he had emotional maturity, We talked about what we wanted our life together to look like: he would work, I would work for a little while, but once we got pregnant I’d stay home and be the mom & housewife, like my mom had been. We would move closer to my family because he didn’t have a close relationship with his.
But he was more than melancholy. He was bitter. He was envious. He saw friends his age who had been more responsible in their younger years & continued to work hard & sacrifice have things he wanted but hadn’t saved for & was unwilling to work extra hard for. His refrain was always “must be nice” rather than seeing that it was the fruits of their sacrifices. He bemoaned his job, but didn’t want to change to something else. So, instead of being able to start toward the goal of becoming a stay at home mom like I wanted, I kept feeling pushed to take on more responsibility to be the financial support to the family so the bills could stay paid. I put off having children because we didn’t have a savings because he would spend as soon as it was saved. I looked for better jobs, but he didn’t. He was offered a dog, so we obviously had to get a house--rather than saying “no” to a dog we weren’t in a position to have.
When the house was purchased, I got a better job, because the mortgage had to be paid somehow. I went back to school. I still somehow thought we’d be move in 5-6 years, so I didn’t deeply connect with peers at work or church, because this was temporary. But, he stayed where he was in his job & complained that we had junky cars but bought himself a new gun every year at tax time instead of saving for the things he was always so envious of: home improvements, more reliable car, family vacation. He’d claim to be a victim of “reverse discrimination” at work, rather than seeing that the chip on his shoulder impacted his ability to move up in his job. But despite that attitude, when he was offered a position that would have lead him down a path of management with the salary to go with it, he turned it down. Heaven forbid he have to work a weekend and possibly miss out on a fall hunting season. At the same time, I had been working 2 jobs which included nights til 10 or 11 pm, and nearly every weekend, but that didn’t impact his time.
The harder I worked to try to set an example of what our marriage could be, and what I knew he could do, the less he seemed to want to do better. I was doing all the trying, why should he? My success was emasculating. But at the same time: when were we going to have kids? When was HE going to get to be a dad? Never was it: here is the plan for him taking over so I could be a mom.
The first five years of marriage, I guess the sex was good. I really wouldn’t know, because I had waited, like a “good girl”... but some of the things he said to me in the bedroom made me emotionally uncomfortable. Some of the things he wanted me to do to him made me physically uncomfortable. I asked him to not, but once things had started he finished however he liked. It wasn’t fun anymore, and I got to wondering what the point was if we were never going to be able to have kids. It wasn’t that good, it didn’t make me feel connected to him, it made me feel dirty.
The inheritance from my grandma’s death was unexpected. I took it as a sign. It was a sign that we’d have some financial stability & could afford to have a baby. We started trying & sex seemed to get better, that it actually made me feel closer to him. Some of the time. He still wanted the things that made me uncomfortable the most. He was absolutely obsessed with getting me to do those things, no matter how much I tried to express how it made me feel physically and emotionally.
When the inheritance money came, he talked me out of paying off the house. No, pay off the car first, and buy cabinets for the kitchen. We had a baby girl. I still thought he’d step up. I kept telling myself it’d be just a few more years, maybe by the time she was in kindergarten. The money got spent, but not in a way that created long-term stability.
But when I’d ask for help because I couldn’t do the duties of a stay at home mom when I was a working mom, he’d turn it into an attack. I was attacking his masculinity, I was attacking his ability to be a provider, I was attacking his spirituality. But then he’d help, for a little while. He’d make dinner a few times, and do a couple of loads of laundry, but nothing long-lasting. Getting up in the night with our baby was my job. I needed to keep her quiet if she was fussing because he needed his sleep, or couldn’t hear the TV.
As soon as I was medically cleared for sex he wanted to know why I wasn’t as up for it as I had been before. He started insisting that I was rejecting him & making him feel unloved when I was exhausted from working an 8-9 hour day, finishing my Master’s degree, trying to keep up with the household chores that he didn’t care to do but definitely got angry if they weren’t done.
He wanted to show off his “happy family” by dragging us along to all his hunting group activities & claiming to be “so proud” of my Master’s degree in School Counseling, while at the same time refusing couples counseling because it was too expensive and a bunch of hooey. We should just have more sex & do more praying & religious studies and we’d be fine. But we weren’t fine. If I expressed a need for help, his response was anger. If I expressed that his anger was frightening to me & I felt it was an issue, he excused it based on his troubled childhood & again insisted that counseling wouldn’t help & said I was too sensitive.
I started thinking about leaving him when our daughter was about 5. I’d wish he would just have an accident and die, because that way I’d be free & our daughter wouldn’t have to live with the memories & trauma of an angry father. But I had internalized that his anger was my fault. I hadn’t been patient enough, loving enough, understanding enough. Even though I was doing so much, I needed to do MORE.
If I just did MORE then he’d be what I needed. He’d be kinder. He’d be more motivated. He’d do things around the house without my asking him to.
But the more I did, the less he did & the more bitter he got.
And now, I’m broken and alone with 2 kids & him still spewing his anger in my direction. It’s still my fault. I went crazy. I was too demanding. I was illogical, overemotional & overly sensitive. I’m not the victim, I’m the vindictive wife who was frigid & controlling & never satisfied with what he could give me. He’s the victim.
I still wish he would die.
I still go to church, despite feeling betrayed by it.
I am angry, and I hope it’s justified. I hope it fades.
I don’t want to be broken forever. I want to heal & be happy again.
I don’t remember the last time I was happy without still being filled with fear and anxiety.
I’d like to be just happy again someday.
