Today I was going through some recent files, and I saw this journal entry in the file list.  I think I might have even started it as something to post here a couple of weeks ago, to the "stages of grief" thread, but probably did not because (surprise!) it got long.  But I think it gets at something important, and something I've touched on before:  that one of our biggest losses as straight spouses is our internal sense of "what love is." Including, "Are loving relationships even warm at all?"  So, here it is in all its length! * * *


Definitely waves of pain and grief here!  There are just so many things I am grieving.  There has been so much reality-distorting from my husband, too, and I had become so used to living a life without affection.  I have felt so much grief for the loss of my husband.  More and more, I feel such grief at the loss of myself.  I have felt this all along, but it is huge, and comes in different ways. 

This afternoon, I took my kids to see the new ToyStory4 movie. There at the end of the movie, I was sobbing as Woody and BoPeep were together again.  I know, I know: cartoon characters!  No one else was sobbing!

I had all of these feelings of grief, and they came much faster than you can read them, boom boom boom, and it is the practically subconscious nature of some of these that is upsetting: 

--I have never had that in my marriage.
--I may never have that again.
--OH WAIT! I never had that to begin with.
--My husband took away 30 years of my life, so I may not be able to experience this.  And if I do, I will not experience this as a young person.
--I was so warm and loving throughout, and I always wanted that to be reciprocated, but my warmth was never reciprocated.
--I sensed that my husband did not really love me.  I felt that for years, and it was more and more over time.  He so often avoided me.  Would not sit by me in a movie with the family like on a day like today.  I knew he did not feel this way for me, but I had no idea why.”

And then I had THIS feeling, that I think is especially damaging, because it was so automatic, and I think things like this have become my habitual internal coping responses to my feelings of sadness about my relationship with my husband over the years:

--Oh, that is just Hollywood.  People do not really love each other that way.

And then catching myself, realizing that my husband has conditioned me, over years, by making fun of any kind of sweetness between man and woman as fake--he has from the beginning of the marriage--I remember some experiences early on--been grooming me to change what I think is acceptable.  He has conditioned me to accept that kindness and warmth and longing are not real. (I mean, of course Hollywood, and animated toys.  But it would not even get written into the script if there was not some kind of common human emotion there.)

And then to realize that my husband has not only taken away 30 years of my life experiences—and this very “taking” attitude of his is the exact opposite of the foundational caring that any loving relationship should foster—but even more so, he also took away my sense that love and loving ways were even real or possible. 

This internal damage is hard to fully express.  It is so subtle and pervasive.

And then to realize again that my husband is still not being honest.

And to realize that he will likely distort things to our children.  And that he has conditioned our children to perceive me a certain way over the years, as lacking, and as not deserving his respect and warmth.  Again, in subtle ways.

And he has conditioned our children also to accept that warmth is not normal.  This grieves me.

Last night, I took one of my sons to perform with his band in a larger city not too far from home.  Before the concert, a local ballroom dance instructor taught anyone who wanted how to do the cha cha.  So many couples joined him to learn.  And then during the music, there were dozens of people out dancing.  The cha cha, the swing, any kind of steps.  Men and women of all ages, shapes, and sizes.  Different ethnicities.  All kinds of clothing, all kinds of energy, all kinds of body movements.  From quirky to fashionable.  From graceful to awkward.  But all: Just happy to be out dancing, and happy to be together.  Warmth and hugs and loving looks toward each other.  Trying new steps.  Missing the beat.  Apologizing for the missteps.  Laughing.  It was so incredibly lovely.  The summer evening, not too hot. 

Again: more grief--that my husband had made it seem like I had to be perfect, and in a cutting kind of way. 

A pregnant woman, probably 8 months pregnant, doing the swing with her bearded husband, and he was so happy being with her, and she was wearing a wrist brace, and it triggered all my memories of how cruel my husband would be to me any time I was physically hurt because it got in the way of what he wanted. Her wrap dress unfurled and exposed her body in her underwear, and they both laughed and laughed as she pulled the wrap back and they danced again.

I am haunted by remembering so many crazy-making things my husband has said even since I discovered things, haunted how he continually told me if I were just better, than maybe he would be kinder. 

I find myself everywhere, having a sense of not being good enough, or flashbacks to criticisms.  Everywhere: sitting in church and something about singing a hymn reminds me of how critical my husband was of my efforts to choose interesting hymns when I was in charge of congregational singing.  I remember how he has criticized me "I thought you would be the kind of mother who would bring culture into our children's lives."  When I was actually practicing piano and playing duets with our children, teaching music classes at the schools, helping our children edit their papers, developing writing programs for the schools.  It is like he has wormed his way into everything about my life, so my sense of loss and not being good enough is everywhere.  And why? Why did he distort me so much?  How did I allow this?  How could I not see past the pain of what he said to know that what he was saying was cruel and untrue?  Why did I keep believing somehow that if I were just better he might actually like me?  It happened so subtly at first, I did not know what was happening until it got so brazen I could not ignore it.

And all along: he knew what he was doing; he knew he was not telling the truth.  He knew it all along.