The Wrong Person?

Think about that.

How does it feel to recognize that you married someone that wasn’t a good match for you?   Depending on how long you have been married, it can feel disappointing. Lonely. But for others, it might feel good.

When I came to the realization that I had married someone who was nothing close to what a good match should have been, I felt a sigh of relief. To actually be able to accept that a choice I had made was made in bad faith and that I had indeed married a bad match.

I got an idea early on that I married wrong – it was a red flag. The way he spoke to people. And the way he cussed out people who crossed the street in a manner that was slower than what he wanted. Or the way he yelled and berated people who didn’t give him the correct order at the fast food establishment. Or how he blamed every one of his problems on someone else.

Or, the fact that he constantly lied about where he was, or what he was doing, or who he had gone to eat lunch with. I ignored it, and tried to make it work because I was married.

I remained in denial as the red flags continued to pile up. Until there was so many of them I looked like a freakin flag-porcupine. I raked my brain for more and more excuses when people used to question my marriage.

Then finally, one day, the abscess that was our marriage popped. It could have popped quietly. But it popped with fireworks, and displays of domestic violence. Holes in the walls of our home, an axe that destroyed weeks worth of garden beds that I had constructed in the backyard.

Why didn’t I call the police?

Calling the police would have removed the kids from our care altogether and placed in them in foster care. They would have been separated, more than likely, and my chance of getting them back would have been even more difficult. When physical violence is involved, it is often times not regarded as such unless there is a loss of life or it leads to severe injuries at the Emergency Room. And even then, the violence is in question.

It ended with the loss of gas, water, and electricity. The fireworks display didn’t stop there… it continued with a malicious attempt to sabotage the family vehicle so as to prevent the kids and I from leaving the home. It ended with the children jumping out the window of their bedroom and running for help to the park down he street, another child running several doors down to a neighbors house for refuge.  My children kept their screens displaced off of their front windows just because they feared him coming after them at night and preventing their exit.

The fireworks didn’t stop that day. They continued for 18 months, while we remained in the home, because my family lawyer said that if I left, I would lose custody of the kids. So I remained, sharing a home with someone who was vengeful and spiteful.  Knowing we homeschooled and I worked from home, he cut the internet to the home so as to prevent me from making money and the kids from learning. My only solace was getting in the truck and driving to the park, or down to the state trust land that neighbored our area and sitting there for hours.

He went after the kids with the belt, beating them on their back and bottom when they didn’t do what he said. He locked rooms on the house to prevent us from being able to live properly.  He continued to feed his porn addiction while stopping all payments on the house, utilities, and automatic payments. He even went so far as to wrap carpet around the axle of my truck to damage the suspension, while disabling every other family vehicle so that I would never have a second option if my truck broke down.

The day the divorce decree was issued, we were given 7 days to move and sell the home. I moved several hours later. It was then that I realized how far I walked away from who I am, for the sake of trying to make it work with someone I had absolutely no feeling for.

The first night in the rental home with my children, I took the longest shower of my life, I looked int he mirror and finally saw myself – as I was before I made this big mistake.

Some people spend their lives stuck in marriages for the sake of the children. When you stay with someone just because of the children that’s an indication that there is no love between you. The reason you should be staying with someone is because you truly love them and want to be with them. When you stay with them just for the children you are showing them the opposite of what they should be seeing.

The relationship is more of a chore than a feeling of enjoyment. The behaviors affect your children in how they view relationships. The way couples act towards each other will cause the children to see the behavior as normal behavior – which is what fuels a continued trap into toxic dating or relationships.