It's Been A Long Road

I've been looking back along this road I've taken the past 18+ years of marriage. It was a good marriage in it's day .. it's just past it's day now. The result is an unofficial separation .. since January of 2005 .. complete with move to the spare bedroom for me .. that I've told no one about. A move that pleases me very much .. I actually sleep well now. :)

I wouldn't say that that is a bad thing .. sometimes it's just the way things go. After 3 years of marriage therapy .. twice in these 18 years .. although it changed nothing with my husband or the marriage .. I learned a few things .. so it wasn't a total waste of time .. :D

In many ways he is a good man .. an excellent provider .. not the least bit afraid to work .. and work HARD .. to keep us all well looked after .. a wonderful father .. one of my best friends I'd ever had. He also is his own worst enemy .. to the erosion of our relationship.

I've learned that my husband is a "feeder" .. and not in the perverted sense !! A feeder is a controlling person .. usually a passive/aggressive personality. They control by using a persons weaknesses against them .. such as food and weight issues .. and is the case with my husband. They also control by eliminating anything that brings pleasure to the person in their life that they are trying to control. It keeps them off balance and always wondering what's going on .. if it's their fault .. instead of fully seeing the undercurrent of control being exercised over them.

It's pretty insidious. I spent 4 years punishing myself with bulimia .. 14 years ago .. thinking I had messed my marriage up by being responsible for my husbands cold ways. Turns out .. it was him .. HE was unhappy .. he wanted me to leave .. it is the passive aggressive way .. make the person leave .. then you can play the victim. Except I just stayed .. eventually got through it .. and our marriage has never been the same since.

The control is subtle and .. always it is made to be your choice. "Here honey .. I brought you a cake .. what? .. you don't want it? .. yes I know you said you wanted to lose weight .. but .. I did this because I love you .. and you throw it back at me??? .. If you loved me you wouldn't reject me when I try to show you how much I care .. fine .. eat it if you want to" .. *drops onto table and huffs out of room* .. Then I would eat it .. ALL ... and my weight grew and grew .. along with my disgust with myself and my looks .. and, accordingly, down shrank my sense of self. My resentment of him grew too.

I believe now, that my husband has wanted out of the marriage for most of it .. that he systematically went about making my life a misery in order to drive me out .. yet .. at the same time .. effectively wearing me down and isolating me until I lacked the will .. and health .. to be self sustainable on my own .. because his own need to drive me out was superceded by his need to control me.

I accept my own culpability in that .. as it really was just easier to comply than complain and stand my ground .. insist that I be respected .. or else .. and meaning it .. in the face of coldly being ignored on anything that I wanted. NO one can put you down if you don't let them.

I spoke to a good friend of mine about this recently .. told him that things were different because it was now no longer acceptable for me to be treated that way .. he gently replied with .. "Sherry .. it never was .. ". He's right .. except that I didn't know it then.

That woman in the picture I've put in my About Me section at the upper right of this page, that's me .. a few years back .. but still me .. looking happy .. happy like I've not known in a very long time. It's funny how I went from this active, successful, single working mother .. to an overweight, housewife who has allowed her confidence and self worth be eroded away .. with the removal of her vehicle and being fed to such an overweight level that it's hard to imagine ever working again .. or having a man want to have anything to do with me !!

It's been a long road .. but .. I'm smarter now .. I've figured it out .. that part of it anyway .. so now .. I'm left with trying to figure out how to become that woman from so long ago .. again. To collect the scattered pieces that I so willingly allowed to slip away over these years .. and make that woman whole again.

This is one big step forward for me .. but I intend to be that woman once again. :)