LJ Idol Season 7: Week 9; Marching Orders
I used to think that love was hard. That it was a constant battle full of hurt feelings, arguments and hard work to stay together every single freaking day. That it involved tears and heartache that you just had to endure and get used to because that’s love and that’s how it’s supposed to be.
My former relationships were full of tears and screaming. I was the one crying, they were the ones screaming. My first boyfriend was so bad, that anything looked like a step up from there....and then I met my future ex-husband. The screaming was worse, the temper tantrums were plentiful. But to me, this was just another part of being in love. This is how men acted, and I just had to get used to it.
It's supposed to be a constant battle, right? Loving someone isn't supposed to be easy. No one is perfect, and I'd accept anyone who loved me, didn't cheat, and wasn't a drug addict (all qualities my ex-boyfriends from before lacked). Besides, there were good times. They were more frequent at the beginning and eventually they became less and less common, but I would hold onto these memories like a child holds onto their favorite blanket. I needed these memories to comfort me in much the same way.
Memories like walking home from an interview in the pouring rain. I took my high heels off, threw them in my purse and just went with it. We laughed, we kissed, we got drenched....but most of all, we had fun together. We were happy. I loved nothing more than feeling the warm summer rain rushing over me, feeling it on my feet as I splashed through the puddles. We had no umbrella, we were forced to endure the downpour...and we did so with laughter instead of tears.
I had hoped our relationship would be the same way. When the rain would come, I had hoped we would ride the storm together, hand in hand, laughing along our journey and not caring how wet our clothes got in the process. If we got cold or scared, the other would be there with a warm embrace and a kind word or two.
Unfortunately, it didn’t go that way. I found myself grasping at memories like just to keep myself together, to give myself a reason to stay. I would remind myself daily of the nice things that he had once done for me in the past.
“He got me a peanut butter cake for my birthday...”
“He remembered I liked the monkey soap dispenser and got it for me...”
But eventually, the bad got worse, while the good was hardly there at all. I spent more time crying than laughing, the only time I was happy was when he wasn’t around...
Years after that wonderful rainy day experience, we had another run in with being caught out in the rain. This one symbolized our relationship more than the last one.
********************
“You’re so fucking ridiculous!” He screamed at me over and over again, not listening to the words I said or the tears running down my cheeks.
His foot pushed harder on the gas pedal.
“James, you’re freaking me out!”
The roads were slick from the heavy rain and he was weaving on and off the road.
“NO, I won’t fucking stop! I’ll do whatever the Hell I want!”
“Just please stop! You’re scaring me!”
He pulled down the dirt road leading to our house, going faster than he should and spinning his tires as we turned the corner.
The pleading went on, his refusal to listen continued.
As he reached the top of the hill, he spun his truck around at full speed, spinning out and almost flipping us into the ditch.
“STOP! Please, just stop...please????” I pleaded between sobs as he continued driving in circles, almost flipping us several times and refusing to listen to me. I was absolutely terrified of him at that moment.
I did the only thing I could do. I unhooked my seat belt and opened the truck door, preparing to jump, both fearing the outcome and knowing I needed to get out of this vehicle....But he slammed on the brakes, throwing me into the dashboard instead.
“You’re going to jump out of a moving vehicle?!? Are you fucking crazy?”
This was my opportunity. I jumped out. Because of the height of the truck and how short I am, I ended up on my hands and knees. I picked myself up and walked towards home.
I couldn’t stop shaking...it was more than the cold rain that made me shiver. I was scared. I was absolutely terrified of the man who I thought would protect and cherish me. I really didn't know what his anger was capable of. I no longer trusted what he might do when angry and that scared me.
I realized, he had no right to treat me this way.
I walked, getting soaked in the downpour, while he drove alongside me. My tears were washed away by the rain, and my sobs covered up by the noise of his truck. My shivering could have easily been from the cold, but I was scared. Absolutely terrified.
********************
Later on, he would yell at me for acting so stupid. He would tell me that he was displaying “typical male behavior” and I needed to get used to it.
I wish I could say that this was as bad as it got with my husband and that he merely screamed at me. But several times toward the end of our marriage, I had to physically defend myself. The more I think back, the more it scares me to realize how close he came to physically hurting me. Things happened that I can't even write here and have only shared with a handful of people because it bothers me on such a deep level. Things that many might even call sexual assault, though those words are still ones I have trouble speaking to this day. I hate to think he was capable of such ugly things.
I tried to tell myself that all men were like this to comfort me into staying...
Until I met the one man who wasn't like that. That’s another story for another time, but to say that he didn’t have any impact on me ending the marriage sooner rather than later would be a lie. He showed me that men don’t always act out in anger and they won’t make you cry just to prove a point. We were only friends at the time, and 1800 miles apart, but he had given me hope that perhaps men weren’t all angry, hateful creatures.
What really made it happen was when my husband read my journal. He went against my wishes and read my private journal entries. I came home from visiting family one night to him sitting in the living room and crying - something I never saw him do in the many years we were together, not even at his grandpa’s funeral.
“What does all this mean?” He asked, pointing at the computer screen where I wrote about how unhappy I was, how horrible he treated me and how badly I wanted out but didn’t know how to end things.
Watching him sobbing like I had throughout our entire marriage did nothing to me. Though unlike him, I wouldn’t scold him for his hurt feelings, I wouldn’t scream and yell and tell him how “fucking ridiculous he was”. I knew he was hurt, I understood exactly how much I had hurt him with my words...and I found I didn’t care. I looked him in the eye, the same eyes I once thought I could stare into for hours at a time, and said it at last.
“It means I want a divorce.”
With those words, I never once looked back. I would never regret my choice, not even for a second. He continued to cry and plead for me to stay....and just like him, I didn’t comfort him when he cried, didn’t listen when he’d beg. I simply didn’t care anymore.
The end result? I’m happier than I have been in my entire life. I have a career that my husband seemed to think I was too stupid to for. I moved to California, a place he said we would never live. I will be officially divorced as of the 27th of this month (the process took longer than I ever would have thought). But best of all, I have met someone who has shown me love, respect, affection,...all of these things foreign to me in every other relationship I’ve had. Someone who makes it easy to love, who I don’t have to fight to remember the good times because they are so plentiful.
Love may not be easy, but it doesn’t have to be a constant battle to merely like one another. It’s simply about finding the person who makes it so easy to love that it would be harder to fight it....and then, why would you want to?
My former relationships were full of tears and screaming. I was the one crying, they were the ones screaming. My first boyfriend was so bad, that anything looked like a step up from there....and then I met my future ex-husband. The screaming was worse, the temper tantrums were plentiful. But to me, this was just another part of being in love. This is how men acted, and I just had to get used to it.
It's supposed to be a constant battle, right? Loving someone isn't supposed to be easy. No one is perfect, and I'd accept anyone who loved me, didn't cheat, and wasn't a drug addict (all qualities my ex-boyfriends from before lacked). Besides, there were good times. They were more frequent at the beginning and eventually they became less and less common, but I would hold onto these memories like a child holds onto their favorite blanket. I needed these memories to comfort me in much the same way.
Memories like walking home from an interview in the pouring rain. I took my high heels off, threw them in my purse and just went with it. We laughed, we kissed, we got drenched....but most of all, we had fun together. We were happy. I loved nothing more than feeling the warm summer rain rushing over me, feeling it on my feet as I splashed through the puddles. We had no umbrella, we were forced to endure the downpour...and we did so with laughter instead of tears.
I had hoped our relationship would be the same way. When the rain would come, I had hoped we would ride the storm together, hand in hand, laughing along our journey and not caring how wet our clothes got in the process. If we got cold or scared, the other would be there with a warm embrace and a kind word or two.
Unfortunately, it didn’t go that way. I found myself grasping at memories like just to keep myself together, to give myself a reason to stay. I would remind myself daily of the nice things that he had once done for me in the past.
“He got me a peanut butter cake for my birthday...”
“He remembered I liked the monkey soap dispenser and got it for me...”
But eventually, the bad got worse, while the good was hardly there at all. I spent more time crying than laughing, the only time I was happy was when he wasn’t around...
Years after that wonderful rainy day experience, we had another run in with being caught out in the rain. This one symbolized our relationship more than the last one.
“You’re so fucking ridiculous!” He screamed at me over and over again, not listening to the words I said or the tears running down my cheeks.
His foot pushed harder on the gas pedal.
“James, you’re freaking me out!”
The roads were slick from the heavy rain and he was weaving on and off the road.
“NO, I won’t fucking stop! I’ll do whatever the Hell I want!”
“Just please stop! You’re scaring me!”
He pulled down the dirt road leading to our house, going faster than he should and spinning his tires as we turned the corner.
The pleading went on, his refusal to listen continued.
As he reached the top of the hill, he spun his truck around at full speed, spinning out and almost flipping us into the ditch.
“STOP! Please, just stop...please????” I pleaded between sobs as he continued driving in circles, almost flipping us several times and refusing to listen to me. I was absolutely terrified of him at that moment.
I did the only thing I could do. I unhooked my seat belt and opened the truck door, preparing to jump, both fearing the outcome and knowing I needed to get out of this vehicle....But he slammed on the brakes, throwing me into the dashboard instead.
“You’re going to jump out of a moving vehicle?!? Are you fucking crazy?”
This was my opportunity. I jumped out. Because of the height of the truck and how short I am, I ended up on my hands and knees. I picked myself up and walked towards home.
I couldn’t stop shaking...it was more than the cold rain that made me shiver. I was scared. I was absolutely terrified of the man who I thought would protect and cherish me. I really didn't know what his anger was capable of. I no longer trusted what he might do when angry and that scared me.
I realized, he had no right to treat me this way.
I walked, getting soaked in the downpour, while he drove alongside me. My tears were washed away by the rain, and my sobs covered up by the noise of his truck. My shivering could have easily been from the cold, but I was scared. Absolutely terrified.
Later on, he would yell at me for acting so stupid. He would tell me that he was displaying “typical male behavior” and I needed to get used to it.
I wish I could say that this was as bad as it got with my husband and that he merely screamed at me. But several times toward the end of our marriage, I had to physically defend myself. The more I think back, the more it scares me to realize how close he came to physically hurting me. Things happened that I can't even write here and have only shared with a handful of people because it bothers me on such a deep level. Things that many might even call sexual assault, though those words are still ones I have trouble speaking to this day. I hate to think he was capable of such ugly things.
I tried to tell myself that all men were like this to comfort me into staying...
Until I met the one man who wasn't like that. That’s another story for another time, but to say that he didn’t have any impact on me ending the marriage sooner rather than later would be a lie. He showed me that men don’t always act out in anger and they won’t make you cry just to prove a point. We were only friends at the time, and 1800 miles apart, but he had given me hope that perhaps men weren’t all angry, hateful creatures.
What really made it happen was when my husband read my journal. He went against my wishes and read my private journal entries. I came home from visiting family one night to him sitting in the living room and crying - something I never saw him do in the many years we were together, not even at his grandpa’s funeral.
“What does all this mean?” He asked, pointing at the computer screen where I wrote about how unhappy I was, how horrible he treated me and how badly I wanted out but didn’t know how to end things.
Watching him sobbing like I had throughout our entire marriage did nothing to me. Though unlike him, I wouldn’t scold him for his hurt feelings, I wouldn’t scream and yell and tell him how “fucking ridiculous he was”. I knew he was hurt, I understood exactly how much I had hurt him with my words...and I found I didn’t care. I looked him in the eye, the same eyes I once thought I could stare into for hours at a time, and said it at last.
“It means I want a divorce.”
With those words, I never once looked back. I would never regret my choice, not even for a second. He continued to cry and plead for me to stay....and just like him, I didn’t comfort him when he cried, didn’t listen when he’d beg. I simply didn’t care anymore.
The end result? I’m happier than I have been in my entire life. I have a career that my husband seemed to think I was too stupid to for. I moved to California, a place he said we would never live. I will be officially divorced as of the 27th of this month (the process took longer than I ever would have thought). But best of all, I have met someone who has shown me love, respect, affection,...all of these things foreign to me in every other relationship I’ve had. Someone who makes it easy to love, who I don’t have to fight to remember the good times because they are so plentiful.
Love may not be easy, but it doesn’t have to be a constant battle to merely like one another. It’s simply about finding the person who makes it so easy to love that it would be harder to fight it....and then, why would you want to?