So, I keep thinking about how my husband is all about winning, and how he keeps making me the “loser.”  He is the good guy, I am the bad.  He is the victim, I am the bully.  It is upsetting.  It causes a lot of fear for me.  I am not a competitive person.  Over the years, my husband and I have talked here and there about school and how it was for us as kids and teens, because both of us had some good college scholarships. My husband has always emphasized how he was going to be the very best and prove to everyone he was the best and he worked so so hard to prove it to everyone.  Meanwhile, I was kind of a daydream kid who just thought about stuff and did the work—usually anyway—and sometimes I did the work late because of kind teachers—and I just got good grades.  Because I was just me, doing what I liked, and I liked school and tests and math and writing,  hahaha.  I mention this not about school grades so long ago, but because it has always struck me how my husband’s goal was not even to “do his best,” but to really really prove to everyone that he was the very best.

When we play board games, as well, he is super competitive, and he has gotten mad at me before for winning a board game, like telling me I am a haughty winner and swiping all the pieces off and huffing about it.  But I am not a sore or bratty winner—just happened to win that game.  I love board games!  And when we do play a game, I strategize and play that game! But I do not care one bit if I win or lose.  I work it hard, but  I just like playing. (Except Scrabble, ick ick ick). My husband has told me he HATES board games.  Although I notice he plays them with the cool teenagers at family reunions.

So now I keep thinking that his life rules are just a win/lose game, and there is only one winner in his game: him.  No room for anyone else, and it has been my job to do all the work to make it possible for him to do whatever he wants whenever he wants and win!  Including, he has required me to take on the role of “bad guy.” And this is getting pretty intense lately. 

So, I have felt anxious:  how do I “win” when I am I am up against such an adversary?  And especially because I do not like that win/lose thing, and life is not a game!

And I realized: part of the abuse is him forcing me to play this arbitrary, destructive game. And, I realized:  I do not need to win it.  I just need to step out of the room.  I choose my own rules.  He can stay in his room and decide there is a winner and a loser.  He can keep telling me he is a winner and I am a loser while he sits alone with his crazy winning crown!   He can keep telling everyone he wants to that he is the winner and I am a loser.  And maybe some people will think, wow, you sure have a cool crown there.  But I do not have to play, not at all.  It is not even that I “win” by leaving his game—I do not even need to think about winning and losing, so I do not “win” and  I do not “lose”; I just do not accept that objective at all.   Not at all.  I just get to be!  I just get to be me.

Last edited by OnMyOwnTwoFeet (May 2, 2019 7:53 am)