"Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without."
When I was married, I fell into the traditional homemaking role with my husband as the breadwinner, as we had been raised to do. Unfortunately, he was never able to hold down a job and we lived in poverty our entire 15 years together. My husband was paralyzed with depression, so I was on my own to manage his life in addition to our kids. I became accustomed to living on nothing, both materialistically as well as emotionally. When life became unbearable, I finally carved out one night a week for myself to go dancing.
“Don’t you ever want more?” my new friend asked me.
“Someday,” I said. “But it’s not my time right now.”
In my head, I recalled Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven...
Out loud, I continued: “I have little kids at home and my husband really needs my support right now. When he’s on his feet, then I will pursue my own dreams. But right now, I am happy to put that on hold and meet their needs.”
“Wow,” my friend said, raising his eyebrows. “I wish I could be content like you. I have too many ambitions to be tied down by a family.”
I smiled, feeling noble that I was putting my family first. But after we parted, my shoulders sank. His words “content” and “ambitions” hit me. What had happened to me? Before I was married, I was an overachiever with so many aspirations. Family hadn’t even been on my radar; it was just a given. Now, I realized I wasn’t actually happy putting myself last.
I pushed my thoughts aside and reminded myself that my turn would come eventually.
But that seed of discontent had been planted in my heart. I felt guilty for wanting more for myself. I reburied my desires and put my smile back on, took a deep breath, and walked back into the house of misery. The discontentment wouldn’t leave me alone though, and I found Karen Salmansohn’s book The 7 Lively Sins: How to Enjoy Your Life, Dammit. It dawned on me that discontent hadn’t been planted; it had been unearthed.
It was a couple years later that I divorced my husband and started teaching dance. My first paying client ended up being the next man I dated. After 15 years of living with a depressed man who couldn’t take care of himself, let alone me and our kids, I felt blessed by every little thing my boyfriend did.
“You know, you don’t have to thank me for everything!” he would say in the beginning. “Changing your spark plugs and fixing your leaky toilet are no big deal. I think your expectations on how to be treated are too low.”
Maybe so, but I’d never had anyone do anything for me before. Most of the time, it was just little things he did that put me over the moon: bringing me a candy bar, a note he left behind, a picked wildflower, tacos on a picnic blanket after my work shift. He didn’t have a lot of money, lived two hours away, and was busy running his own business, so I didn’t expect him to have much time for me. But when he braved the storm to fly his Cessna from his out-of-town job in order to make it in time for our date as promised, I felt like a girl in the movies. It seemed like hell and high water would not keep him from seeing me.
It was a year later that things starting to wane. Little by little, he just didn’t have time. He was a very private person who didn’t like to talk about himself, and I was just his girlfriend, not his wife. Having only ever been a wife, I wasn't sure that a girlfriend had any claim to his personal life.
“Maybe this is just what always happened in relationships,” I thought. "It kinda looks like my parents' relationship, so why am I unhappy? Maybe he just needs time to sort things out on his own like my step dad always did; I’ll give him time and space. I don’t want to be a badgering girlfriend.”
It didn’t get better. He became more reserved and withdrew in every way possible. The shutdown reminded me of my ex-husband so I just figured he was depressed because he wouldn’t tell me anything was wrong. I didn’t have the words to articulate how I felt. All I knew was that I felt lonely.
Whenever I’d bring up a concern, my boyfriend had what seemed to be a reasonable excuse. He would counter every unmet desire of mine with some sort of logic that made my need seem ridiculous.
It was the death of a thousand paper cuts: you barely notice them until you add them all up.
***
“I miss you when I don’t see you for a couple weeks,” I said. “I wonder how you are doing when I don’t hear from you in between your visits.”
“Don’t guilt trip me,” he replied. “I told you I don’t do texting. And I don’t have my phone on me when I’m working. You can’t expect me to talk to you all day every day when I have work to do.”
“I understand that you can’t take your phone on the job site,” I said. “But I don’t think a phone call at the end of the day is too much to ask. You don’t have to text; I like hearing your voice better anyway.”
“I’m too tired at the end of the day.”
(Excuse; Counter-Blame)
***
“Why don’t you wear lingerie anymore?” he asked me.
“Because I felt stupid trying to be sexy. You never notice the difference if I wear lace or sweatpants,” I said.
Silence.
“I know that I’m pretty, but I don’t know that you think so," I continued. "I feel invisible to you.”
“I say it in my head. I want to tell you,” he said. “I don’t know why I can’t say it out loud.”
(Withholding)
***
A year after breaking up with my boyfriend, I was just starting to move from friendship into romance with another man. It had taken me a long time to get over him, so the text I got out of the blue set me back and sabotaged my feelings for someone new.
The same thing happened at the falling-out of that next relationship. He had looked me up on facebook periodically and when my profile picture changed from me-with-a-boyfriend to just myself, he sent me a text:
“I had a dream about you. Knowing our out-of-this-world chemistry, I thought maybe you were thinking about me too.”
It turned out his latest love interest didn’t work out and he recalled how much he loved me.
It was incredibly hard to resist his rare outreach when I was at my most vulnerable. I hated that I was so weak.
(Phantom Ex Syndrome)
***
9 months after I broke up with him, he still held the title of co-manager at the event hall where we had worked, even though he hadn’t been there all those months. My ex-husband had just died and I needed someone to cover the wedding at the hall so I could attend his funeral with my kids.
“Hey, I’m sorry to bother you. You know that my ex-husband was sick. He died last night. Can you call me?”
He didn’t call me back. A week later, I called him again.
“Hey, I’m not sure if you got the message, but Rex died. Are you available this Saturday to cover for me at the hall so I can attend the funeral?”
Nothing.
It was typical to not hear back, but the father of the children who almost became his own step kids had just died. Wasn’t that enough reason to return a phone call?
A few days later, the phone rang: “I’m sorry, I was camping and didn’t have service. Yes, I can cover for you.”
After the funeral, he made his apologies about his past behavior and told me about the soul searching he’d done on his camping trip. He told me he was a different man, he loved me, wanted to marry me, and would do everything in his power to regain my trust.
I was skeptical but he was everything he was in the beginning and more. He was golden for 3 months. That was his usual time frame before he would start slipping away.
Was it my fault that I reached out to him? Did I invite him to hurt me all over again? I knew the danger. How could I be so foolish?
(Hoovering)
***
“Hey, I know you are stressed at work and I’m giving you space. I see on the calendar that you are home few days. Would you be ready for me to come over and talk about the issue?”
Even when he wasn't working out of town, it was hard to nail him down for a conversation when he lived two hours away. If he wanted to go radio silent, I could do nothing about it. He was so far out of range.
“I haven’t been keeping the calendar updated, sorry. I don’t actually have that many days off.”
“What days are you back in town? How about Thursday and Friday?”
“Thursday night might work. But I have to work in the morning.”
It wouldn’t have mattered if he had spoken the words, I wasn’t imagining the tone in the text. It had been a month of one liner text replies, no phone calls, and nothing initiated by him. After having been reassuring that I was holding the line but needed to hear from him soon, the last line felt trite and cold.
After having looked at apartments together and bought me a ring last month, I knew he was shelving me again.
(Slow Fade; Ghosting)
And in my mind, I hear his words so long ago: “you need to raise your expectations.”
Really?
At one of my lowest points, I came across a website that identified Covert Emotional Abuse. One of the key features was a term called “breadcrumbing” or “intermittent reinforcement.” It was a new concept for me, as were all the other terms. But when I learned what it was, I was dumbfounded to discover I had been blind to all the ways that I had justified the doling out of love until it was just a drip.
The magnitude of my trauma didn't hit me until it was reflected back to me how devastating it really was. Until then, it was the water I swam in, and I thought it was normal...except for that gnawing feeling I kept ignoring.
“Abuse” was the term that woke me up to the reality of my situation. I needed help.
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