Monday, April 14, 2014

Chapter Three: Devastation, Part XI: January 2010

Please begin reading my divorce memoir from the beginning.

January 23, 2010

It’s been two miserable weeks since I found out about Jerry...

It’s pathetic and dismal around here. I don’t know how to act and neither does he.

Today we were having a simple conversation, but when I started to say something contrary to what he was saying—actually was trying to downplay what he was thinking—he flipped out on me. He started accusing me of always disagreeing with him. I felt so panicked and scared.

He stopped himself mid-scream and just kept saying, “I’m sorry. . .I’m sorry. . .” but it was so contrived. It was as if I was going to tell on him, like a little kid.

I know he’s mad and blaming me for being the bad person. He has this super inferiority complex. Like he thinks I think I’m better than he is, or smarter than he is. I’m not smarter than he is. We’re just smart in different ways.

Here’s what happened. We were talking about Jenny and I told him how she fell and broke her glasses and she went to the hospital because she started having some contractions.

He made the comment, “It’s Diane all over again.”

I was a little confused. Diane fell and got a spiral fracture in her leg and took two years to recuperate. I started to say, “Well, it’s not that bad—”

Then he flipped out! I didn’t even finish my thought or my sentence. I was going to tell him she’s okay now.

He screamed, “You always do this!” at the top of his lungs, clenching his fists.

My mouth shut and my eyes got big. I was just trying to enlighten him and tell him Jenny  is okay.

When he gets like that, I feel like he’s going to kill me or something. I think he’s plotting to poison me, or do something to my car so I’ll be in an accident. Or he has a knife or a gun. Scary. Paranoid. I fear for my life.

I realize I can’t say anything. If he tries to have a conversation, I have to stick to saying nothing. Heaven forbid I try to converse, and heaven forbid it’s not what he’s thinking or what he wants me to think or say.

Then he went for a walk. I wish he would just leave and go live somewhere else. I don’t feel safe being around him. He’s too irrational.

This is not going to work. Ha! That’s what he used to say to me to scare me when I wasn’t doing something he wanted me to do. When I had little kids, it did scare me. Divorce scared me. Now it’s welcome.

He came back from his walk and acted like nothing happened. I have a feeling he probably called his girlfriend and she consoled him and he knows he has her, blah, blah, blah.

Then the other day, Thursday, I had this horrible feeling he was going to go to a lawyer so he could hide assets or start divorce proceedings and that scared me.

I don’t know what scares me more—living with him, or divorcing him.

He told me not to go to a lawyer because it would be expensive. But I guess it’s okay for him to go to one—so he can have the upper hand.

I’ve been reading all the verbal abuse/controlling man books by Patricia Evans. It has made me see so clearly what he’s been doing.

According to Patricia Evans, he has this “dream woman,” who is really his inner self that he’s projecting onto me. When I (the real woman) don’t do what he thinks the dream woman should do, he flips out.

Oh, my gosh—that’s the story of my life!

How could I have lived like this?

I get to the point where I want to work on it. I’ve said I should work on it, for the sake of the kids—I don’t want them to be hurt.

Then I get to the point where I know this is not going to work. I can’t live like this.

Monday we’re seeing Dr. Williams again. I honestly don’t know what I’m going to say. I’ve got so much anger and resentment.

Please, Lord, help me get over this quickly.

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