One thing that keeps popping into my head is what my husband’s version of events would be. Would he be telling people the polar opposite of my story? Possibly.
I think he truly believes (most of the time) that he has done no wrong. He thinks that I have ignored him and made him feel bad for everything he has done. Every single thing. I have been cold towards him and shown no affection. In recent years he’s right. He has ground me down to the point where I feel no love for him. I feel nothing for him. I am numb towards him. Asexual. Like a plant.
He will probably be telling people what a bitch I am. How I left him out of the blue with no warning. How I left when he was at work and phoned him to give him the news. How I gave him no explanation and still haven’t (even though I have told him several times that I left because I was desperately unhappy and because of the way he yelled abuse at me the night before I left).
He’ll be telling them how sad he is, how confused he is. How he just can’t understand what I’ve done.
If I ever say I was scared of him, all the time, he would say he was more scared of me. If I ever say to him that I left because of his abuse he’d laugh his scariest laugh and say he’d never abused me – I had abused him. I’ve made him feel bad for everything he ever does. Maybe I even made him feel inadequate. To a point he’d be right. I did want him to feel bad for the bad things he did. And I did feel as far as being a good husband goes he was inadequate.
Am I to blame? Could I have made things better if only I’d shown him some affection and listened to him and talked to him. Believe me I tried. I am exhausted from trying.
My children have been telling me – ‘he just wants to talk to you mum’. Believe me I’ve tried. I’m exhausted from trying.
I need to be free.

Writing this blog is making me feel better. It’s good to get my thoughts written down and I feel that I need to tell my side of the story. Then if my husband does ever kill me people will know what went on behind closed doors. Abuse usually does occur mainly behind closed doors. It’s only since things got really bad that the signs started to become evident in public. And even then to the onlooker it would only be a couple bickering, or me giving him the silent treatment and being standoffish. Yes, I did stop talking. I was silent sometimes. Because I honestly didn’t know what to say or how to react. I didn’t know what would make things worse. It was easier to be silent.
I’m sure that my husband has Othello Syndrome – also known as Pathological Jealousy or Morbid Jealousy.
Othello killed his wife because he believed she was having an affair. Apparently my husband is seeking professional help. He’s been promising to get help for years, so I won’t hold my breath. There have been times when he has had some insight into his problems with low self esteem and insecurity. At times he has appeared totally paranoid about what others think of him and I could help him sometimes to see how irrational his thinking was. But I couldn’t fix him. In fact I was the last person who could fix him. I am his main obsession. He wants to possess me and I don’t want to be possessed. It’s a power struggle that can never end well.
I feel so much happier away from him. I can breathe again.

So, basically for the 22 years of my sad excuse for a marriage I felt more anxious every time I was in the company of my husband and he felt less anxious whenever he could see me and he knew I wasn’t shagging someone else, except on the occasions that I disagreed with him about something – that would increase his anxiety. And on the times I came home late from work he wouldn’t be happy until he had sufficiently interrogated me as to why I was late. The horrible realisation that I have had over the past few days is that at the time I actually thought this was normal behaviour, that this is what men do. After speaking with many of my female friends over the past few days I am assured that this is not what all men do. It is the behaviour of emotionally immature insecure men.
Something which keeps happening at the moment is that I get a sudden urge to forgive him and I feel sorry for him. Then I have to remind myself of why I left and how worthless he made me feel. I have to remind myself that he said I wasn’t a normal human. And not even just that, but not a normal fucking human. In saying that he dehumanised me. He belittled me by about as much as it is possible to belittle someone. And I also have to remember that he always followed up his insults with an excuse that he ‘had never really meant it’, ‘it was just in the heat of the moment’ or because I had made him ‘frustrated’.
He has never taken ownership of things he has said. Apologies were shouted, or more recently never happened at all. I would be told that he had done nothing wrong. I make him angry and frustrated therefore if there is any blame to be had it lies with me.
In fact all the blame lies with me and my behaviour. He said so in the Divorce Prayer document. I’d stopped talking to him, I enjoyed myself with other people but not him. He actually put this in the paperwork – as if it was a crime to enjoy talking to other people. Also, apparently I avoided eye contact with him in public. Perhaps he should wonder why I was so unhappy that I couldn’t look him in the eye.