Thoughts about my failed marriage haunting me

[ValerieCupcake]

I was married for 11 years from the age of 22 to 33 and it was very unhappy. Met mid March, engaged mid April, married October. No kids. Thank God. All very whirlwind, did it because all my friends were getting engaged and married and thought I was in love but I really did it for FOMO. And there was what I have read about on Mumsnet as lovebombing that took me in. And his ex was getting married so wanted to beat her to it. And all previous relationships had come to nothing so had to hang onto this one. He told me exes were wanting him back so I panicked and this made me insecure and have tantrums about them. We were never suited and he turned out a controller and an abuser mainly verbally but I was beaten up and raped, not regularly but of course once is one time too many. Once he dragged me by my hair and police called but just talked to him. Raped because I didn’t want to have sex with him because I’d gone off him. Convinced myself I was lucky to have him though I did argue back I was told I was a thicko, idiot, guttersnipe and moron, eventually when I told him to go he did so because he had a girlfriend on the side. She left him eventually after they married. I had counselling while married and afterwards. Stayed because of many reasons, abusive home life so couldn’t go home, church said God hates divorce. Thought I couldn’t financially cope and he said that if I left him by the time he’d finished with me nobody would want to know me.

When we split I had spent 10 and a half years wanting him to go and when he did I fell apart and begged him to come back. Also the night I told him to go and he said he would after a lot of shouting I attacked him physically, calling him names and I grabbed his Tshirt by the neck and yanked it and it ripped. I feel ashamed of this but I guess it was all the years of him doing it to me, getting my own back.

Not seen him for 25 years and if I don’t again it will be too soon. But still feel ashamed of attacking him, and telling him I wanted him back when I didn’t not really. This will have made him think I loved him and I didn’t, eventually I was glad to be free. But attacking him like that makes me feel that I am at heart a terrible person.

My love, you need to see that one incident for what it was - one incident in an 11 year hellish marriage and, what's more, one incident when you had so much provocation. Most people would have flipped many years earlier.

Let me give you a parallel. If a friend of yours confessed that they'd nicked sweets from Woolworths as a teenager because they were not fed at home, would you label her a thief? If a colleague let slip they'd paraphrased someone else's report and passed if off as their own because they'd not slept thanks to a screaming baby, would you report them as a fraud?

Everyone has done something they regret. Unless you've made a habit of physically attacking people in the last 25 years then you need to let it go. I'm pretty sure he has.

Those are good analogies @Sarahlou63. I have to admit I did nick from Pick and Mix when I was a kid! But thank you. X

Didn't we all?!?

Your belief at heart that you are a terrible person will be from way further back than your relationship/break up with him. The feeling that there's something fundamentally wrong with us is what keeps us with them for so long. That's what you need to work on. Stop looking at the marriage, and start looking at you. You are the important thing, here.

So, have a look at how you were taught to deal wit emotions when you were a kid. Were you encouraged to express them, and express them in healthy ways? Did your parents have a healthy, respectful marriage, which gave you a solid example of how an adult relationship should look? Did they have a healthy, respectful relationship with you, so that you felt heard, prioritised, and respected?

I suspect that there'll be a 'no' in there somewhere, if not a few 'no's.

Is there a part of you that can totally justify attacking him, even if it's a part that you don't like to listen to? A part of you that says 'Yeah, well, the git had it coming to him, I should have wrecked more than his stupid T-shirt.'

@TheFoundations

Your belief at heart that you are a terrible person will be from way further back than your relationship/break up with him. The feeling that there's something fundamentally wrong with us is what keeps us with them for so long. That's what you need to work on. Stop looking at the marriage, and start looking at you. You are the important thing, here.

So, have a look at how you were taught to deal wit emotions when you were a kid. Were you encouraged to express them, and express them in healthy ways? Did your parents have a healthy, respectful marriage, which gave you a solid example of how an adult relationship should look? Did they have a healthy, respectful relationship with you, so that you felt heard, prioritised, and respected?

I suspect that there'll be a 'no' in there somewhere, if not a few 'no's.

Is there a part of you that can totally justify attacking him, even if it's a part that you don't like to listen to? A part of you that says 'Yeah, well, the git had it coming to him, I should have wrecked more than his stupid T-shirt.'

Thank you for your reply. No, emotions were not even discussed when I was growing up at home. I had an older brother 15 years older than me so I never knew him except as an adult. My father was verbally abusive to me and my mother and threatened violence. I hit him back when I was 17. We had nothing - no holidays, poverty, very little and my father ruled the roost. Except he was a lousy provider and wagged off work whenever he could leading to having to borrow money. I can see what you are getting at, that my thoughts that I was lucky to have him stem from there.

That's not all I'm getting at though. Essentially you've been trained throughout childhood to silence your emotions.

I just want to ask you again, is there a part of you inside that thinks that attacking your abusive partner was justified? An angry part of you, a tantrum-ing part of you? A part of you that's furious at him for never listening to you or caring how you felt? Even if that part is hard to admit to, and you might never tell anyone about it in real life, is it there?

@TheFoundations Yes I do think I got my own back in a small way.

Brilliant. I hoped you'd say that. OK. The 'small' bit of you that got its own back on that day was the real you. The core of you. The foundation of you. And, naturally, because nobody has listened to her, ever, she's absolutely fucking furious (excuse my french)

At the moment, when you think about her, you feel guilty about what she feels; but she's never going to go away. She can't. Not without you entirely losing your mind. And the only way you can settle yourself and settle her is by integrating the two of you. Then you can be one whole person who understands that you had a partner once who was so abusive that you got to the end of your rope and tried to rip him up, but only got as far as his T-shirt.

Start listening to her. She's not a source of guilt for you, she's a source of pride. Can you not see that she was trying to protect you by attacking him? That she was furious with him for treating you badly? She will always look after you.

Does it make sense?

That is really interesting. No I was not listened to. I was made fun of by my older brother and my aunt and uncle, treated as an amusing cute child rather than a person. Oh just listen to her! they would say. She's so precocious! Then when I got boyfriends I was joked about by my brother - Are you meeting Clyde? Clyde being a gorilla. They were making fun of any potential boyfriend. The XH used to say Rubbish! Bull! to things I said. When we bought a flat I tried to justify to him the reasons that I needed my own key. And the flat was in both names, I was on the mortgage.

And the reason you stood for it is because you also don't listen to you, so that 'you' inside that got so angry just expects not to be listened to.

You have to start to listen to her, or she will always feel angry or upset (like anybody who isn't listened to does) She will always be something you don't want to have, because everything she says will sound like a tantrum and be embarassing.

But she's your heart, valerie She'll show you where you need to be. She's the only person who will ever fully understand you, because she is you.

I think it's healthy that you ripped his shirt off. It was like a self defense act, even if he wasn't attacking you physically. It showed that your core self is alive and (almost literally) kicking. Don't say 'rubbish' and 'bull' to her. Think about how much it would take, now, to get quiet little you to physically attack someone. It's a lot, right? That's how much he did to you, and out came your inner 4 year old (which is probably the age you started developing your own identity, which never had a change to grow up or develop) screaming and punching, just like a 4 year old would.