Getting it...

In my "Detox of the Mind" post a few days ago I mentioned a post I had written months ago but not had the guts to put up. Well, I've since read most of a couple of books ordered from Amazon and I'm shocked by how closely what I said in the post tallied with the examples given in the books. I could have written half the damn things myself!!

So, I'm going to post it and be damned.

Also, thanks for your lovely comments. It's great to know that people care. Really great.


I was listening to a phone-in on radio Five Live as I drove to work a fair while ago. It was asking what makes a person abuse their partner (male or female). Over the course of the show several people gave accounts of being violently abused. Their accounts overlapped, often with the same phrases and explanations cropping up over and over again. How the (mainly) women were made to feel that it was their fault, that they were selfish and greedy, that, if they had behaved properly, the abuse would not have "had to" happen. How the victim came to recognise when it was going to happen. How it happened often when the perpetrator had had a drink and how, when not in the abusive mode, the perpetrator was sweet, gentle and charming and "really loved me".

When asked why they stayed or let it happen, they generally replied: because I started to believe that it was my fault, because it was difficult to leave your whole life behind and because "I loved him". The phrase "Jekyll & Hyde" was mentioned more than once.

It occurred to me that, with one important exception, I could have uttered nearly all of those sentences about my marriage. Apart from the fact that I have never been hit, the rest of it applied to me. Maybe not always in an acute way but I did come to fear the drunken row and the words of abuse that would be heaped on me. The accusations of being selfish, lazy, greedy, a failure, a coward, fat...

Over the years, I have been berated at various times for: being fat, biting my nails, reading romances, wanting to spend time at home on the sofa, going to the gym/for a walk/run/mountain biking rather than spending time with him (in the pub), not exercising and getting fat, letting myself go, failing at every diet I ever did, going to the football, playing golf, spending time on the computer blogging, being obsessed with food (because I was watching food programmes on TV or because I spent too long perusing the stands at the food fair), criticising or contradicting him in public, not having enough or the right sort of food in the house, leaving the house dirty or untidy, booking tickets for a concert or play (in fact several) when I should know he wouldn't want to go, spending time with my family while on holiday in Canada, complaining when asked to pick him up from the pub at 11pm or later (which happened almost every night), asking to go out, say to the cinema or for a meal, rather than going to the pub every night, coming out to the pub late, putting nutmeg in a rice pudding, cooking a lasagna when I should know he doesn't like it, cooking supper late (ie. after 7pm), slightly burning food "because you just don't give a shit", pressing the gate opening button too late so that we had to wait a couple of extra seconds on the road, not indicating early enough when turning into the house, arranging to have friends over when I should know he wouldn't want to; being friends with people he didn't like; organising a birthday party, wanting to organise a Christmas lunch, letting food go beyond its sell-by date in the fridge, mentioning him in my blog, wanting to go on television (on a programme which addressed why I struggled with my weight), talking about myself, talking too loudly, being drunk in the pub or at a party, and many many more.

And I probably did all those things. But even if they are true they are not reasons to viciously attack someone and then use them as examples of why that person is lazy, greedy, worthless, a failure or a coward etc.

Everyone does things that are not great or doesn't do things they should do. There are ways to address these niggles in life without battering someone down and turning them into a doormat who is fearful of what is coming next.

But it's insidious. In between the battering down and criticism and rows are the good times when that person is sweet and loving, when you enjoy your life despite what's going on or when you just want to make the most of life and/or pretend it's all alright.

Even now I've left I'm told that I'm the most unpopular woman in the Valley, in fact that I'm widely hated, that I have no friends, that everyone has always disliked me, that I'll never be invited to anything, that I'm lazy, greedy, selfish, untrustworthy, have no honour, never tried to save our marriage, that I've "put on the beef" (not true!!), that I'll not be able to hold down my job, and that I'll end up in a Council flat, fat and lonely and beaten with no-one and that he is only one of many who will be pleased to see it.

The difference is that now I can see the whole picture, the good and the bad and I know who I am and what I've done and what that makes me. I own up to my mistakes and flaws (as far as anyone can) but I also own up to my good points and my attributes. Maybe one day I'll post a blog about what I think is good about myself because even typing up the accusations has made me feel a bit rubbish. Don't know why this all came out today but I probably needed the catharsis. I hope it doesn't come over as being bitter and twisted. I just want to recognise where life has taken me and correct that course. Not blaming or hating, just seeing clearly for the first time in a while.

Now the task ahead of me is to work out what I did or didn't do to collude in the pattern. How never to do such a thing again (not that I think it will arise, happily).