Covert Emotional Abuse

So... now to figure out where this ends and alcoholism begins. Maybe he is a victim of his own devices. Maybe he never intended to get hooked on the alcohol. Maybe it was another arrow aimed at me. Maybe that's the problem with blame. What did we say as children, "When you point at someone else there are three pointing back at you." I am seeing that it is not just alcoholism. That is only the tip of the iceberg. My Nabal is a control freak, he is a subtle, sly, cowardly thief of life force. I'm getting such a better picture of what exactly has been going on. The amnesia and fog is lifting. the more I think and try to reconcile what has been for 18 years the clearer my sight is. They say abusers are much nicer to other people than to their families. He will sit in a hospital with faceless strangers, yet when his own daughter has surgery he gets drunk, leaves and tells our boy to take care of her. When he figured out I was mad at him because of the drinking, womanizing the spewing hatred, His reply was you don't love me anymore because of how I look, because I don't speak English as good as you do... Well, don't let those chickens roost! He does something wrong and then blames my being hurt and annoyed on MY shallowness! W-T-F!!!

He told me he was going to leave, because he thought it would hurt me yet again. When I finally got over that and agreed... Now he's staying, because he thinks it is hurting me... I did think it was an easy out. He was done, he was leaving for another woman. Yeah, I should have had forethought to act hurt. But I don't lie about that sort of stuff. He was waiting to be begged back anyway. This is why I'm so mad about him deciding to stay after all. I saw his ass skipping merrily down the road thinking he was leaving me a pile of mush. Fine, I really didn't care what he thought as long as he was gone. Now I'm not backing down. I can't back down. If I back down I'll be dead to me. If I back down I'll be just as cowardly as he is and doom my kids to a lifetime of being jerked around by him. I am scared. I fear. I don't think he will let go so nicely. I think he will be a nasty piece of work. I think he will do some nasty things and use the alcohol as a cloak to excuse his rotten behavior just like he did when he went on his bender. That was all a crock of $h*t! If he has no control over his actions when he is drunk why is he now the most amiable drunk? He is always doing things, smiling, putting me in the position of not reacting to his advances. I have decided I am not acting childish, he is treating me as if I am being childish. Another game of his making. He is being the over friendly one and I'm still pouting. I am not pouting, I am full on mad. Angry that I have let this jerk steer our lives for so ling. 10 or so years ago I was ready to walk. He had threatened to leave for stupid stuff one to many times. I threw myself into my marriage because I let myself believe that is was my problems that wee standing in the way. This is a different day. When I stopped fighting for our marriage and started fighting for the health of our family things started to clear up. It began to come clear that we are all human and can contribute, but he was trying to be the puppeteer. He was setting us up, dictating emotions and lying. Hard to see how I let all this happen. I was fairly strong. Maybe it was in the trying to tone some of the strength down, live give and take that I went too far. I'll take my blame. I should have never married Nabal. No one made me. Ladies don't believe all that set in your ways crap. I thought I was single for so long that I had to compromise. Everyone does, I went too far. One thing I always noticed was that my mom and her sisters never seemed to compromise at all. I was trying to and just went way too far.

Now, my cowardly voice is trying to find a way to get him to leave, but I know that's near on impossible since I can't find my way to act like I've fallen back in line. The best way for me to make him go is to have him think he can hurt me again. Ain't that much pretend in the worls! I just know if he leaves there will be so much less drama. I could pretend to be sad, but would be scared he might see that as an invite to start all over again. Looks like I'll just have to put on my big girl panties and buck up.