Vex was a poor choice from before the beginning, yet you made the choice and continued to overlook the failure of the relationship (for many many years) until infidelity and physical abuse. And BTW - I don't think infidelity has signifcantly decreased in the last ten years. Do you have any evidence?
You are absolutely right. He was a poor choice and I think I even knew it then. I don’t know why I married him and I consider it to be the single biggest bonehead move that I have ever committed. I didn’t actually overlook it so much as I refused to see it. To overlook it implies that I saw it in the first place and I didn’t. There did come a time when I did begin overlooking things, that much is true. But for years, I just believed him. Even when he would actually hurt me, I overlooked that. I have no excuse. I can look back and see what happened and where I made the mistakes and I absolutely don’t understand what I was doing or thinking at the time. The infidelity began within 2 years (as far as I knew, who knows what happened before I found out about it) and the physical abuse began within 5 years. But I believed him when he said he wasn’t aiming at me or he thought the other lump under the blanket was me and the one he hit was just a wrinkle in the bedspread. How stupid was that? I don’t know. I am not going to beat myself up over it too much but I absolutely take responsibility for staying far too long.
As far as infidelity being on the decrease, I don’t think that’s what I said. I think I said that younger men seem to have more respect for women than older men do. What is my evidence for that? Just what I have been encountering lately. I haven’t been married to a younger man so I can’t say anything regarding infidelity with them. Now, I haven’t gotten around to all of them, so even the things I am saying are anecdotal...that’s all. I haven’t been around enough of them to say that with any certainty at all.
This I must say, everything in this blog is my own personal experience...nothing more. It shouldn’t be taken for anything more than that, of course. I am learning more as I go along, mainly from thinking about things and observing people. If you and I were to have this conversation a year ago, I would have told you that I had a good husband, not perfect, but OK. I had built him up to be what I wanted him to be. The first time he cheated on me (that I am aware of), I had to admit to myself that I had put him on some pedestal that he didn’t belong on. That was tough for me. That’s about the last time I remember actually being honest with myself regarding Vex. Shortly after that, the physical abuse started and the infidelity never stopped.
I gained a lot of weight with my first baby and I went nuts trying to lose it. After I stopped nursing, I started dieting and I eventually became anorexic. I remember getting out of the shower and weighing myself. I weighed 94 pounds. I am 5’8” tall and yet, I looked in the mirror and saw fat. It was impossible for me to be fat with those measurements, but I saw it! It’s amazing what your mind will believe. I also remember thinking, after a particularly nasty fight with Vex, that he must really love me or he wouldn’t get so angry. How nuts is that???
But over the past year, I have been forced to see him for what he is. I couldn’t do that before. I don’t know why, but I allowed him to stay even after my children knew he was nuts. They tried to tell me but I didn’t listen. With him gone, I am remembering things that he did and lied about and I can see now that they were lies where I believed them at the time. The only difference is that I am alone with my common sense and he is no longer here to lie to me. I know he doesn’t love me, he isn’t here to say, “You know I love you. Nothing is wrong, if you don’t trust me, you should go seek help for your trust issues.” I was foolish enough to believe that even after he told me that, “You are doing it to yourself” when I told him that I was going crazy trying to find out what was going on. He admitted to that affair when I found a love letter from his mistress at the time. That’s the last time he ever admitted anything, I never had him on tape and he was a very good liar. Or maybe I was just an idiot, I don’t know which. But like I said, I take absolute responsibility for it, one way or another. And to the person who asked about “proof”, a wife only needs so much proof. He gave me so much evidence that I would have been a fool if I didn’t face the truth. You sound like him saying, “Where is the proof?” Infidelity isn’t usually captured on tape and I never called Cheaters so I don’t have enough proof to convict him in a court of law, although it is possible that a smart jury would see through his lies, they don’t have any reason to want to believe him. But I had enough proof to give up on a marriage of 16 years to a man that I had dated for over 6 years. Go figure.
Meg
You are absolutely right. He was a poor choice and I think I even knew it then. I don’t know why I married him and I consider it to be the single biggest bonehead move that I have ever committed. I didn’t actually overlook it so much as I refused to see it. To overlook it implies that I saw it in the first place and I didn’t. There did come a time when I did begin overlooking things, that much is true. But for years, I just believed him. Even when he would actually hurt me, I overlooked that. I have no excuse. I can look back and see what happened and where I made the mistakes and I absolutely don’t understand what I was doing or thinking at the time. The infidelity began within 2 years (as far as I knew, who knows what happened before I found out about it) and the physical abuse began within 5 years. But I believed him when he said he wasn’t aiming at me or he thought the other lump under the blanket was me and the one he hit was just a wrinkle in the bedspread. How stupid was that? I don’t know. I am not going to beat myself up over it too much but I absolutely take responsibility for staying far too long.
As far as infidelity being on the decrease, I don’t think that’s what I said. I think I said that younger men seem to have more respect for women than older men do. What is my evidence for that? Just what I have been encountering lately. I haven’t been married to a younger man so I can’t say anything regarding infidelity with them. Now, I haven’t gotten around to all of them, so even the things I am saying are anecdotal...that’s all. I haven’t been around enough of them to say that with any certainty at all.
This I must say, everything in this blog is my own personal experience...nothing more. It shouldn’t be taken for anything more than that, of course. I am learning more as I go along, mainly from thinking about things and observing people. If you and I were to have this conversation a year ago, I would have told you that I had a good husband, not perfect, but OK. I had built him up to be what I wanted him to be. The first time he cheated on me (that I am aware of), I had to admit to myself that I had put him on some pedestal that he didn’t belong on. That was tough for me. That’s about the last time I remember actually being honest with myself regarding Vex. Shortly after that, the physical abuse started and the infidelity never stopped.
I gained a lot of weight with my first baby and I went nuts trying to lose it. After I stopped nursing, I started dieting and I eventually became anorexic. I remember getting out of the shower and weighing myself. I weighed 94 pounds. I am 5’8” tall and yet, I looked in the mirror and saw fat. It was impossible for me to be fat with those measurements, but I saw it! It’s amazing what your mind will believe. I also remember thinking, after a particularly nasty fight with Vex, that he must really love me or he wouldn’t get so angry. How nuts is that???
But over the past year, I have been forced to see him for what he is. I couldn’t do that before. I don’t know why, but I allowed him to stay even after my children knew he was nuts. They tried to tell me but I didn’t listen. With him gone, I am remembering things that he did and lied about and I can see now that they were lies where I believed them at the time. The only difference is that I am alone with my common sense and he is no longer here to lie to me. I know he doesn’t love me, he isn’t here to say, “You know I love you. Nothing is wrong, if you don’t trust me, you should go seek help for your trust issues.” I was foolish enough to believe that even after he told me that, “You are doing it to yourself” when I told him that I was going crazy trying to find out what was going on. He admitted to that affair when I found a love letter from his mistress at the time. That’s the last time he ever admitted anything, I never had him on tape and he was a very good liar. Or maybe I was just an idiot, I don’t know which. But like I said, I take absolute responsibility for it, one way or another. And to the person who asked about “proof”, a wife only needs so much proof. He gave me so much evidence that I would have been a fool if I didn’t face the truth. You sound like him saying, “Where is the proof?” Infidelity isn’t usually captured on tape and I never called Cheaters so I don’t have enough proof to convict him in a court of law, although it is possible that a smart jury would see through his lies, they don’t have any reason to want to believe him. But I had enough proof to give up on a marriage of 16 years to a man that I had dated for over 6 years. Go figure.
Meg
posted by Meg Kelso | 2:54 PM
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