Head’s up: I’m going to take a short summer break before starting our next story arc. I’ll be back on June 20th, and we’ll go back in time to 2006. I might be around to post weekend waffles though, so subscribe if you don’t want to miss my dumb ramblings about nothing.
Sometime back in April, a friend texted me kudos about one of the posts I had published that day and asked if this whole process had been cathartic. It really has been a cathartic experience, and in ways I didn’t expect.
I didn’t set out with the explicit intention to make my ex-husband look like a bad person; I was just tired of hearing through the grapevine about some of the stuff he still says about me six and seven years after everything happened. I was tired of keeping my mouth shut for so long. I felt like, because I was the one who dropped a nuclear bomb on our marriage, I had no right to tell my side of everything. I was the bad guy, no matter how anyone looked at it.
I have spent the better part of 2023 sifting through journal writings and social media posts, browsing through pictures and screenshots of text messages, listening to the music that ran through my speakers during those years, and sitting with memories that have become core memories. At times it’s been very emotionally heavy; at other times I’ve felt nothing but rage at the situation I allowed myself to stay in for so long. I’ve been angry at myself and angry at my ex-husband. I’ve wanted to reach back and hug that girl so many times, give her the kindness she so desperately needed. You could probably see the shifting emotions through my writing as well. In some posts you can hear the mixture of amusement and exasperation; in other posts, a deep sense of hopelessness. I even questioned why I was even putting myself through this. Next week marks six years since the ink dried on the divorce papers, eons ago in our short lives. We’re both married again, and he even has a kid. So why did I feel like 2023 was the time to dredge all of this back up?
In response, I ask: Why not now? There is never a “right” time, an optimal time. We just have to do it on our own timeline. This is my time.
I’ve told stories in drips and drabs to various people over the last six years. No one really knew everything except for me. I guess if enough people from my various circles got together they would be able to piece everything together, but no one person knew as much as I have posted here over the last few months.
One of the reasons I waited so long was because I was embarrassed. I’m a very smart, capable, independent woman. I should have known better, right? These kinds of dynamics are so insidious, and they can sneak up on anyone in a slow burn kind of way. It’s not uncommon in emotionally abusive relationships for the abuse to ramp up after a major event: marriage, the birth of a child, something that ties the two people together even closer. And that’s what happened here. There were isolated incidents here and there, but Jamie’s abusive actions ramped up significantly after we got married. I doubt it was a conscious decision on his part, though. I was legally stuck with him and, in his mind, I had to deal with him no matter what. His masked slipped and never went back up because it didn’t have to. And I didn’t piece it all together until I was too far in to get out easily.
But I also struggled to talk about all of this for so long because it took me this long to fully understand that this was a form of abuse. I didn’t think my story was worth telling because there wasn’t any physical violence. Comparative suffering says “well, I didn’t have it as bad as someone else, so I just have to deal with it” or “I wasn’t hit, so I’m not going through abuse either.” It took me reading Why Does He Do That1 in the years after our divorce for me to understand that what Jamie did to do for so many years as, in fact, emotional abuse, and that I didn’t have to endure that kind of behavior. When researching for this particular piece of writing, I found a list of verbally abusive behaviors, and lo and behold…Jamie did every single one at some point in our relationship. Every. Single. One. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, Jamie was abusive to me in our marriage. He chronically made me feel devalued or mistreated and didn’t stop when I asked him to. He didn’t stop until I wasn't there anymore.
Jamie and I had dinner together in April 2017, and I believe this was our last time together alone. We ate tacos and Jamie asked me what he could do to be better for this new person he was starting to see (spoiler alert: she became his wife).
“Just be a better person, a nicer person. Take interest in her and her interests, even if you think they’re trite and dumb. Don’t call her a bitch if you’re frustrated. Don’t tell her to shut up. And if she tells you to stop a behavior like that, please listen to her. I promise, listening to her will take less effort on your part than you think.”
That night at dinner, Jamie finally admitted that he maybe didn’t treat me as well as he could have. He told me I was right about a few longstanding arguments between us. He told me he had started going to places I had begged him to go to for years. He finally admitted he hadn’t had been a great husband to me.
Jamie and I were together for almost six years: April 2011 through February 2017 (although I would pinpoint the true end in November 2016, when I asked for a divorce the first time). We were officially married for two years, but only because getting through the court system took so long; we split well before that second anniversary. We were 22 when we first met, so young, so naive. We grew in two different directions over those five years and nine months together. And for the last four years or so, I was miserable. Our relationship should have ended in January 2014, but I wasn’t ready to let it go.
We’re both married again. Our respective relationships have lasted longer than the one we had together. I know I’ve grown tremendously from the hell I allowed myself to stay in for entirely too long, and I like to think he has too (or at least found someone willing to put up with his behaviors).
No one deserves to be spoken to the way I was for so many years. It doesn’t excuse what I ended up doing to finally escape the marriage, but I hope through all of these stories the situation becomes less one-sided than Jamie has made it seem. My actions didn’t come out of the blue. It will never fully absolve me in anyone’s eyes, but I needed to do what I did to escape a rapidly deteriorating situation and save myself. And if even one person reads through all of this and recognizes the situation in their own life and escapes, then this wasn’t all a waste of time. It’s so hard to see it when you’re in it, yet so easy to see once you step out of the forest.
Last month, I started gardening again. I’ve wanted to garden for so long, but I couldn’t bring myself to stick with it because I had flashbacks to that night in our kitchen. I couldn’t put myself through that again, even though I logically knew it wouldn’t happen again. But last month I said fuck it, bought some containers and seeds, and started gardening again.
Gardening is a sanctuary again.
PDF copy available here, just in case you know of someone who could use it.
I am so proud of you, my strong and courageous friend. ♥️