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claire
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Posted: Sun Feb 28th, 2010 02:10 am |
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Last edited on Tue Mar 2nd, 2010 09:02 pm by claire
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truthseeker
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Posted: Sun Feb 28th, 2010 03:49 am |
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Hi Claire,
If your husband's anger is that fear-inducing, it is abuse. If he has you so intimidated that you would sit on the floor rather than on a level with him on the sofa or chairs, that is abuse. An authoritative stance would be standing over him while he is sitting, not sitting together at the dining room table having a civilized conversation like two mature adults. It sounds like he has belittled you so much and for so long that he has convinced you that he is normal and you are the one with problems. HE has LIED to and about you!
In a healthy marriage it is normal to seek change in one another, but your husband has not molded your will, he has crushed your spirit, and that is not how Christ treats the church. Being submissive to is not the same thing as being subjected by our husbands.
Are you really more fearful of being alone than of the example your husband is setting for daughters of how they should allow themselves to be treated by men, or for sons of how it is okay to abuse women?
Why doesn't he do devotions with the kids? Because he knows how much of a hypocrite he is. Avoiding confrontation so he might stay for now only continues an illusion of a christian home. If your husband does truly believe, his walk is so far out of sink with Scripture, from what you have said, that no fly on the wall would be able to gather enough evidence to convict him of real faith in a court of law.
I realize that after being married for so long that the prospect of being alone, not to mention whether or not you could carry the household financially while seeking support, is very, very scary. As I said in another reply, though, unless you are prepared to live with the status quo for the rest of your life, loving confrontation, with a witness or two at this point, seems to be the only other option. If he prefers to leave rather than face himself, you cannot control that.
Can you talk to your pastor and/or his/her spouse? Is there any kind of women's shelter/counseling center where you could get some support to reinforce your individual worth that he has destroyed?
I am sorry if this has seemed harsh, but I get righteously indignant when someone shatters a precious child of God's self worth to the point it sounds like your husband has. He is supposed to love and cherish you with Christ-like, sacrificial love, not turn you in to the sacrifice!
Praying...
TruthSeeker
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claire
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Posted: Sun Feb 28th, 2010 04:56 am |
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Last edited on Tue Mar 2nd, 2010 09:02 pm by claire
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truthseeker
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Posted: Sun Feb 28th, 2010 05:21 am |
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Hi Claire,
What do you suppose might happen if, instead of interrupting when he is lashing out at you verbally, you simply got up and left the room?
And praying some more...
TruthSeeker
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TM2
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Posted: Sun Feb 28th, 2010 12:36 pm |
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As usual, I completely agree with truthseeker.
Part of his abuse is causing you to doubt yourself. You remark that he accuses you of abuse. Really, now, do you think your situations are symmetric? You're the one cowering in fear. How are you abusing him? For him to make that accusation is itself abusive.
You also doubt your ability to communicate. Why? Because he twists your words? Your writing seems perfectly clear to me; I assume your speech is, too.
Whether or not he is interested in counseling together with you, nothing stops you from discussing your situation with whomever you wish - a pastor, friends, a counselor, someone at a women's help center. You can't change him, but you can get support for yourself, find your own confidence and strength and voice. You don't have to live like this.
Abusive people can change. I think I have changed and am changing. But unless he becomes willing to admit his problems and to change his life completely, I agree with truthseeker that your current situation is intolerable, both for you and for your children, and that for both your sakes, it's time to find safety now.
Tim M.
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claire
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Posted: Mon Mar 1st, 2010 05:02 am |
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Last edited on Tue Mar 2nd, 2010 09:03 pm by claire
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Devastated Wife
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Posted: Tue Mar 2nd, 2010 12:30 pm |
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Dear Claire,
Your husband is playing the same, twisted mind games that my husband did. He has confused or purposely reversed cause and effect. Please do not accept any portion of the blame for your husband's illness. NONE.
If you will not leave him for your health and mental health, please find the courage to leave him for the sake of your children. The lessons they are learning, sub or unconsciously, will take years of therapy to unlearn.
Looking back over the 23 years that I spent with an active porn addict, that is my deepest regret. I regret that I did not summon the strength to leave him when I got the urge to leave. I thought I was doing what was right for my kids by staying with him. I now realize I could not have been more wrong.
No one should have to live in fear. From your post, it sounds as if you are shutting down emotionally. That is a self-protection mechanism. No one should have to live like that. Please, please, please..........find the courage to leave or throw him out. Seems nothing else will shake him from his stupor.
Praying for you..........
My best, Devastated Wife
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My best, Devastated Wife
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claire
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Posted: Thu Mar 4th, 2010 05:49 am |
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May I ask in what way your children were affected by his illness/sin? How did his addictin
bleed over into their lives?
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Devastated Wife
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Posted: Thu Mar 4th, 2010 08:02 pm |
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Dear Claire,
I think they unconsciously or subconsciously got the message that they were not worthy of his attention. The only time he spent time with them was when I urged him to, and then it was perfunctory. He was a glorified babysitter, not a father, not the spiritual head of the home, not the man I thought he was....in any way, shape or form. He made any excuse to be absent physically. When physically present, he was mentally absent. Even the kids saw it. I'm sure that has had an impact on them.
My best, Devastated Wife
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My best, Devastated Wife
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TM2
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Posted: Thu Mar 4th, 2010 09:31 pm |
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The question was aimed at DW, but may I share my own experience, too?
Addictions bleed over in obvious ways when kids find fathers' stashes. Kids poke around; so many, many addicts I know got started this way.
But my addiction affected my kids in many other ways. Addicts are often angry and abusive, as I was. This has all kinds of psychological impacts on kids, the damage being more related to the unpredictability of the rage than to its frequency or intensity (so I hear from counselors).
My wife and kids have had to learn to fly under the radar, to be inconspicuous, to try to build their lives around not making Dad mad. That's really hard, because what makes Dad mad has to to with the inner cycle of my addiction, and not with anything they do. So nothing works to keep Dad from getting mad. In that environment, one learns to hide from others. One learns not to show one's own feelings so one won't get hurt. One learns to be inconspicuous. One also doubts oneself. I'm not good enough - see, Dad doesn't care about me and about what I'm doing (because he's lost in his addiction), and look, I got raged at. One becomes perfectionistic - maybe if I do everything perfect, then I'll be safe. One learns not to take risks. One doesn't learn trust. One's life becomes centered around desperately trying to control the uncontrollable and unpredictable - Dad's moods.
A lot of those things predispose one to addictive behavior of one's own, since addiction is about control and about hiding and about medicating inner pain. But those things are problems in their own right. Organizations like Alanon and ACOA exist for a reason - growing up with an addict in the family is really hard, and can produce lifelong issues of self-doubt and of control and so on.
I have 4 wonderful kids, and I won't violate their privacy by talking here in detail about where in them I see the imprint of my addiction, but I will say that they struggle with things I don't think they'd struggle with if they had had a more loving and attentive father, someone not twisted as I have been. Going back, I can also see how some pieces of my behavior have grown naturally from what I experienced from my father and from his family. That's not to say that I'm not responsible for my actions. Of course I am. It is to say that the particular form of my failings grew naturally from the failings of past generations of the M family. With work and with the help of God, perhaps the next generation will do better than I.
Tim M.Last edited on Thu Mar 4th, 2010 09:32 pm by TM2
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claire
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Posted: Fri Mar 12th, 2010 11:54 pm |
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Last edited on Mon Mar 15th, 2010 02:32 am by claire
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TM2
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Posted: Sun Mar 14th, 2010 01:24 am |
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And may I ask, if you might know, what is the fascination with anal sex? Where did that come from?
I don't know. It's a large and seemingly growing part of the porn corpus. People write about it as emblematic of the growing abusiveness and misogyny of porn. It's not something that has ever appealed to me personally, so I don't have any insight beyond anybody else about this phenomenon.
(In saying that this type of porn doesn't appeal to me, I'm making a simple statement of fact, not any sort of comparison between myself and others. Porn is porn, and addiction is addiction. I didn't choose to be attracted to some things and not to others. There's no moral sense in which I'm better than, for instance, someone who views illegal porn. My own tastes happen to be legal, but that's an accident; and I have behaved just as irresponsibly in pursuing my own fantasies as have my friends whose fantasies are different from mine.)
Tim M.
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TM2
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Posted: Sun Mar 14th, 2010 01:57 am |
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Claire,
May I ask a question of my own about his anger?
You describe behavior that sounds very frightening, very dangerous, very abusive. Your discussion about both his behavior and your reactions to it, though, have mostly talked about abuse of you and its effect on you.
Where do the kids come into this? They must be aware of what's going on. Probably some of it is directed toward them.
How does the need to protect them from both the physical and the deep psychological effects of having an angry and frightening father enter into your thinking? The kids are innocent victims in all this. Anyone reading your story would worry about them and about their futures. How do they fit into the picture?
Tim M.
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claire
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Posted: Sun Mar 14th, 2010 03:42 am |
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Last edited on Thu Mar 25th, 2010 03:21 am by claire
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