The Invisible Scars

If you can't see a mark did the abuse really happen?

That is the age old question...did it really happen if you cant see the mark? I like most people grew up knowing about physical abuse, we all know that mental and emotional abuse are real issues in today’s world,but for the most part we only ever seem to acknowledge the physical. It’s so easy if you see a broken nose you tell them to leave, black eye broken wrist it’s all the same answer…..”just walk away, don’t you see how bad this is for you?” Not everything is always so black and white, there are scars that people can't see and wounds that will never heal, but you have to live with them.

I don't want to put a label on what I experienced through my 8 year relationship because honestly sitting here today I'm still not sure what happened or how it happened. I met my ex when we were still in high school, I was young and naive and had no idea what a healthy relationship looked like, honestly I don't think I even know what that looks like even today. When I met him I had low self esteem and low self worth, I had been told by a few other men that I wasn't worth their time or the energy to keep dating because I didn't give them what they wanted. My ex came around and told me how amazing I was and how much he loved me and I would do anything to keep it like that. I didn't want to rock the boat even then. My parents hated him and were trying to do everything in their power to keep me away from him…they could see how bad he was for me and how much I was changing into a women they didn't raise me to be. A women that would take the blame for everything and assume everything that went wrong was her fault and I just needed to fix it to keep him happy. Everyone in my life could see what was happening but as they say “love is blind” and I had no idea i just thought people were misunderstanding him.

I would love nothing more than to say that I came to my sense before I got in too deep, that i saw how harmful this relationship was, but I didn't. I got pregnant at 19 and got married a few weeks after finding out I was expecting much to everyone's dismay. The first year of marriage was hard..we didn't live together for a good part of it and we were both under a lot of stress. Fast Forward to a few years later and I found out he had been cheating on me for most of our marriage. Most women would have learned of this kind of betrayal and leave…..I found out and asked him what i did wrong...his response was he felt like i didn't love him because I wouldn't have sex with him. I took that...I thought back and saw how much i didn't really want that aspect of a relationship for awhile and maybe I’m seeing the past through the eyes he gave me...he was perfect and tired his hardest to make it work but everything was my fault. I started all the fights, I always blamed him for everything…I wasn't home enough and when I was I didn't have the energy to be with him…everything in our life I saw as my fault. No wonder he cheated on me…

For a few months I tried so hard to make it work I wanted everything to be OK I wanted my family back...I wanted a loving husband and a partner and I still thought he could be that. The more time that past the more I started questioning how someone who loves me could lie to me so effortlessly…how could he look me in the eyes and swear up and down that he wasn’t cheating when he was? How can someone that loves me make me feel like I'm controlling and obsessive when i felt like something was happening…is that really love? Is that what it's like to be loved by someone? Is it “normal” for a person to be that detached and cruel to someone they love? No…the answer to all of those questions is no. The amount of manipulation he did during that time was nothing for him he had no guilt and even admitted to putting time with his “mistresses” above taking care of our daughter and how he didn't care back then...about anything about how it would effect me or our child he just didn't care as long as he got what he wanted. Once I was able to answer those questions with a “NO” i made the choice to leave. To leave the home we had built and to leave him. I deserve better…..my daughter deserves better.

Now I don't want to put this all on him because I know I made mistakes too.I said some hurtful things when I got upset just like the rest of us but my intention was to never hurt him and normally he had pushed me so far past my point of being reasonable. So even with How much he put me through I know I wasn't perfect either and I'm not trying to say I was.

Deciding to leave honestly was the easiest part of all of this…now he and i have to figure out how to be co-parents, dealing with new partners and what's best for our daughter in regards to raising her. Now comes the hardest part...this man that had so much power over me knows how to make me feel crazy. Like I'm doing everything wrong still and he is doing everything right. Just because I chose to leave doesn't mean his power over me vanished…..in fact I feel like it's gotten worse. He tells me I start all of our fights and that he just wants to be civil with me for our daughter, he says he doesn't understand why she doesn't listen to me when she listens to him the whole time he has her. And to outsiders I look like this crazy controlling bitch who is trying to keep her ex away from his kid. I feel like I'm trapped in this dark hole that he is guarding and before anyone can enter he tells them how crazy and over dramatic I am. How i get angry over everything he says and he can't even talk to me anymore…so by the time they get to me everything I say is brushed off and taken with a grain of salt. Only now he has the power to try and take my daughter away from me…..that if I make him angry enough he will use my past against me…that he will use his uncanny ability to move the situation in his favor against me and I wont see my daughter…..I feel like I'm trapped in a dark hole…..that even if i tell someone how horrible he treats me they will never see it……that I'm the only one who can see that side of him……and am I just being too sensitive? Is he really being abusive or can i just not take criticism?

Everything I felt during my marriage and everything I feel now isn't OK...no one should make you second guess how you feel or second guess how you say things because you might sound crazy. Like I said at the start I don't want to label what I felt or how I feel because I’m still so unsure about everything…...all I know is the way I feel isn't a way any person should ever feel and isn't a way anyone should make someone the love feel. As I sit here writing this I'm still think of excuses for him…..that i started the fight, that I said some mean things to him which just made the fights get worse……that I even being dramatic saying I was emotionally abused…..isn't that what love is? Don't people fight and say things they wish they didn't?

Abuse can be there even if you can't see it

**Disclaimer: Now I don't want to put this all on him because I know I made mistakes too.I said some hurtful things when I got upset just like the rest of us but my intention was to never hurt him and normally he had pushed me so far past my point of being reasonable. So even with How much he put me through I know I wasn't perfect either and I'm not trying to say I was.