Power and Control

I have been rearranging a lot of furniture in my brain over the past several years. I do and I don’t really understand how I was living this life for so long and didn’t know. Did everyone see it except me? Did they tell me and I ignored them or did they not say anything? I was groomed from day one to protect him. Is that why grandpa fired us from marriage therapy? Is this why I was sent back to dad?

On the last anniversary with my husband we spent the day together that planned. I always had to make the plans. I felt like a prisoner and he was my guard. We went kayaking, to the gun range and to dinner. I joined a women’s shooting league with my cousin to help get over past trauma. I thought learning about guns and safety and with women would be good for me.

When we were sitting at dinner my husband kept staring at me like I was his property, a trophy. We had a young bubbly waitress, when she walked away my ex said, “I can’t tell if she is really fake or really friendly” ok Sir Projects A Lot. He was being so nice to me all day but it felt so fake. On the car ride home I cried all the way, when we got home I broke and said “I am sorry. I love you but I don’t want to be married anymore” As I was sobbing uncontrollably he got my gun out of the range bag and cocked it. I remember that sound. I shot up in bed, looked at him in a panic and asked him what he was doing? He calmly said he was putting the gun away in the lock box. Now? Now was the time to do this? Like this was no big deal. No, he was trying to scare me. He denied that of course.

The stonewalling, the contempt, they criticizing over how I loaded the crockpot wrong today, the defensiveness. Did you know you can load a crockpot wrong? The 4 horsemen, I talked to grandpa about those before we got fired. I think I still have a book around here about that. Lundys book was helpful.