Hit a snag, but things are better now (Part 2: leaving)

I am sorry if this reads like a list. I think it will be good for me to work through again all the things that happened, but it feels like a ton of things happened in a short time; I definitely felt that way at the time also.

Getting back to the story, I finally got TE to go to counseling and he got on some medicine, and he was treating me better in many ways and treating the kids a lot better. But one of the weird things is that, even though he did some things (like stop screaming at me, mostly) that I was really proud of him for, it was worth a lot less than it would have been if he had independently wanted to make those changes (since I had to basically ask him repeatedly over 5 years). I wasn't sure how to tell if it would last, or how much change would be acceptable. Once he got into individual counseling, I thought it was going to work (though I was expecting it would take a lot of time).

But there were other new issues. It seemed that he felt that I didn't appreciate his changes or that I should just get over it already (he later put this sentiment into words, complaining that I shouldn't be so worried about his abuse anymore given that "I've only hurt you twice in the last 6 months" ... in this case hurt meant emotionally hurt by doing something really outside of the bounds of normal behavior, but not physically...I remember this well because when I was trying to explain the interaction to my sister, she just interrupted, uninterested in what the ways were or the number of months, and she said quite forcefully "no, we're not counting"...that clicked for me, hey, the number was supposed to be zero, and anyway I get to decide what is and isn't important to me).

He got more and more concerned about the time I spent with BB, and started to get possessive in a way I hadn't seen before. He said he only went to counseling because he was worried I would leave him for BB, which was sad for me because I'd been asking him to go for years and he was telling me that my asking him to do something without threatening to leave him wasn't enough. I was spending a lot of time with BB, and I talked with TE about it multiple times. I asked him what limits he'd want to set, what he felt comfortable with, talked to him about how I was feeling like I had a crush on BB. The last time I had had such a strong crush (which was about 5 years earlier), TE seemed to think it was cute. I used to update him about the crush, and TE said it would be fine with him if I kissed him. I felt like, with TE and I being together since we were kids, and having kids together, we couldn't really envision being with anyone else in the long term (I know I couldn't). So I thought if I talked about crushes he would get it that it wasn't about not being happy with him but about finding another person really interesting also. This seemed to be the perspective TE took regarding BB as well, initially. But then he seemed to switch, and acted like I was keeping something from him.

Meeting with my girlfriends once every couple of weeks an hour away wasn't enough, and I definitely leaned on BB a lot, probably even more so as TE became more possessive. The possessiveness was scarier than the other stuff. Before, if he yelled or restrained me it seemed like he had suddenly lost control and then would be better again later, and I had been learning how to deal with that for more than a decade. But the possessive stuff seemed more premeditated and cold, and it seemed like his overall message was that I wasn't allowed to leave him. Previously I always thought this had been a voluntary arrangement. I felt closed in, unfree, watched, trapped. I asked him if I could move to my own room, and he said yes. I remember that first night in my new bedroom--I was so happy! I felt like I had space to breathe; it was my safe space in the house and it helped a ton.

Still, I didn't feel very comfortable alone in the house with TE and I tried to have BB there for dinner and to help with the kids as many nights as possible. The kids had grown really fond of BB. BB had broken up with his long distance girlfriend, but after setting him up on a blind date that totally did not work at all, eventually I set him up with a friend of a friend (BB is an introvert and still didn't have many friends in town). It was really hard for me to see him less when he got more serious with his new girlfriend, but I was happy for him. He lived really close and I saw him quite a bit anyway, sometimes together with his girlfriend. Me and the kids really liked his new girlfriend, especially my daughter, who saw her as the girl version of BB. But something never quite clicked with him and his new girlfriend, and eventually he told me he had a crush on me. We started flirting a lot more, though at that time I thought I would be able to stay with TE. TE had said he didn't care what I did with BB as long as I didn't kiss him. BB broke up with his girlfriend a few weeks afterwards. A few months later, the grant that BB and I wrote started, and he began as a research scientist on the grant instead of a postdoc. The chair was his supervisor instead of me which made me feel more comfortable being close with him.

TE's possessiveness escalated. He logged in to my account and read my messages with BB. Of course, he was my husband and I am not a secretive person, so if he had asked I would have shared them--on principle, I would have told him every little thing I ever said to BB--I would have been a bit uncomfortable but also happy that he was interested in my thoughts and feelings. Instead, he secretly read them and then messaged me from my own account about it, apparently to intimidate me (he later claimed he didn't even notice which account he was using). He talked to me like a misbehaving child, and it seemed like he wanted to set all the rules rather than discuss what would make us both feel more comfortable. It was scary for me to watch him switch and start thinking the worst of me and my intentions, and it felt like he was hanging around watching me (I later found out he was secretly taping me).

If it were just about BB, maybe I could have understood it better (though it's still hard to understand when I would openly do something and talk to TE about it, and then later he would essentially accuse me of having done it in secret). But TE also got possessive with respect to my friends. Reader, my friends who live an hour away predate my whole adventure with TE by many years; we grew up together, and they are more like sisters. When TE asked me to talk less to them and instead talk to my sister and another friend (each of whom he called to talk about his case), that was a huge red flag for me. I am not sure why, but he thought my grade school friends were telling me to get divorced, and they were a bad influence. Actually, they were very supportive of me as a person, and wanted to make sure I was safe and happy, and didn't push me towards a particular decision. They knew it was my decision. The contrast with how they talked to me versus how TE talked to me was so stark, it helped me see how much TE treated me like a lesser person, or a child. TE even messaged my friend when I was out with her, apparently to check up on me, and said he wanted to call her father ... we didn't give him the number. I remain confused about how calling her father would have helped, but it sounded like he wanted to tell on us for discussing getting divorced? TE started tracking my movements on my phone and I felt even more trapped.

TE and I tried marriage counseling in the middle of all of this, but he used it as a way to make things worse. I think we got a bad counselor; she sort of followed up regarding the abuse I talked about, but I don't think I called it that, and I said he wasn't yelling at us anymore. I said I thought the kids were safe now (I thought that and also didn't want her to call anyone about the kids). The rest of the counseling didn't really take into account the history very well. TE said I wasn't being compassionate towards him (it seems like he wanted some huge praise for not yelling at me very often, while I was just busy trying to catch my breath and think about whether I wanted to stay with him and under what conditions). So we had to take that at face value in the session rather than reflecting on why, during a time when I specifically asked him for more space (explaining the reasons and getting him to agree to a plan), I might not be as physically warm with him. Later, my grade school friends reminded me how compassionate I am, and said it was compassionate that I was working to get TE the help he needed. One friend from out of town said that TE was using my best features against me (I tend to be optimistic about people and their intentions, and try hard to help everyone, and that was part of why I had always made excuses for TE and thought the best of him rather than acknowledging that what he was doing was unacceptable). I also got a counselor and I the kids each got one too. I'll have to write a whole post on the damage to the kids, which was especially severe for LP, someday.

Even with this possessiveness issue, it seemed like TE was really changing. For awhile I thought he may have stopped yelling at me and the kids for good. But I had lingering doubts, and somehow things felt off. In years past, I usually felt sorry for TE (in a certain way) when he got so angry and yelled at us; it didn't seem like something a reasonable person would want to do, and inside he was clearly hurting. Inside, he seemed like the one who was hurting more...even though the yelling and other things obviously hurt me quite a bit, I felt like I could handle it and bounce back. But he didn't seem to be handling everything very well, and I just wanted him to feel better. I thought some of it was coming from his stress at work, and I said he could quit and find something he loved to do like building things, even if he didn't earn income for awhile. I felt like I was the more resilient, happier one, and I had a responsibility to help him more because he struggled more. I felt like he generally appreciated my help, and, most importantly, he loved me and seemed to treat me better than he treated himself in his internal dialogue. However, I saw a big change after TE got into counseling. Besides not yelling at me, he was feeling better about himself. He seemed to think very highly of himself and was proud of trying his best, even if that just meant not screaming at the kids. He didn't seem to feel much better about me, though, only more suspicious. So while he was treating me ostensibly better by not yelling, he was now treating me worse than he was treating himself. It seemed like he didn't love me or appreciate me as much anymore.

There were some important exceptions to him treating me better, and each time it was worse because now it was in the context of him deliberately trying to do better, and saying that he would. People talk about the cycle of how they do something hurtful, apologize, then are nice to you, then hurt you again...I never felt like we were in that cycle until after TE got into counseling. Before, he usually wouldn't really apologize, or have a period of being nice; I would just kind of give up on getting him to understand and I'd move on. I felt like we could only handle this cycle a couple more times before we broke. I asked for a full rest from the marriage, a separation. We took our last marriage counseling appointment to discuss what it would look like I said I wanted space to think through what I wanted and who I am and I wanted to be free of marriage obligations, as though we weren't married. I said I would keep in mind that we were trying to make it work again after the separation so I wouldn't, for instance, sleep with BB. But I wanted to date and really understand what it would mean to be away from TE. TE, making everything tit-for-tat instead of realizing he had different issues that he needed to work on, clarified that he would be able to date also. That was fine with me. We were living in the same house but had separate days where we were taking care of the kids, and we could leave or keep to ourselves in our rooms on the other days. TE moved to the basement to be further from my room. We told the kids we weren't sure if we would get divorced, we were just separated for now.

I'll have to make a whole post about dating in my mid-30s after not having dated anyone other than TE since I was 16 :) But while separated, I dated a friend SS for awhile; he was moving out of town, and knew about my situation, so it kind of worked out nicely in terms of what we needed. I also flirted more with BB sometimes, and I even kissed him once while separated :)

It was really important to me that I didn't rely on TE; I wanted to be separated and know what it was like. So I never asked him to watch the kids for me on my days. Also, he wouldn't get up in the middle of the night when they woke up and needed something, no matter whose day it was (I had always done that). One day, I was going to a party to flirt with SS (we weren't really on a date); I put the kids to bed and asked BB to watch them in case they got up. Because my room was my safe space, which I had repeatedly talked with TE about not going into, even just to get something, and TE didn't like BB at this point, BB and I decided he would wait in my room with the door closed, and avoid TE entirely. He would be able to hear if the kids woke up and called for me, and that is where they would go if they were looking for me. But TE "forgot" again about my room being my safe space, and went in, supposedly to get laundry. When he saw BB, he lost it. I don't understand why BB being in my room meant to TE that I was involved with BB, or leaving TE for BB, since I wasn't even there at the time. TE, who is very muscular and good at martial arts, though he is a bit shorter than BB, was very intimidating, and stood in front of the door. Apparently he was ranting about me and BB ... BB messaged me to come home. When I got there, TE was still ranting. I was able to get him to calm down enough to go downstairs and talk to me. When I finally finished talking with him, I went to check on BB. I could tell he was really spooked; I called my dad for advice and decided I couldn't live in the same house as TE anymore; BB probably should have called the police when he felt threatened, but it's hard to know how that would have turned out; he told me he slept in his living room for a couple of days after that (which has two entrances so doesn't feel as enclosed).

I told TE the next day he needed to move out for the rest of the separation. He could still stay in the house when he had the kids, but when it was my day I needed to be in the house alone (because I couldn't leave otherwise during my day without taking the kids with me). He apologized a lot and asked to stay. It was clear he recognized he messed up and it was fair for him to go, because we had pretty clear boundaries we had set when we agreed to the separation in the house (which was not what I wanted anyway, but he had wanted to save money). It was clear that he was going to keep begging and panicking and it wasn't going to be a productive conversation, so I said I'd think about it to calm him down. Over the next day, I just became more sure that he needed to go. I made a plan to leave safely, to wait for my day with the kids and take the kids with me to a colleague's house overnight and email him about my final decision on him moving out. I knew he might get more upset when he thought I was really leaving. I called the national domestic violence hotline and talked through my safety plan. I packed what I needed and the kids needed for the night, emailed him, and took them to my colleagues. I said that I needed him to be not in the house by 4 PM the next day. I was determined to feel safe in my own fucking home. I thought he'd just go stay with his parents or friends or get a hotel room for the night, since he had seemed to recognize the fact that he may need to move out just three days earlier, and I was supposed to be think it over and get back to him. But he didn't go, and we had to stay another night at my colleagues. I hadn't packed for 2 nights. I taught 2 classes without going home for new teaching clothes (but I keep extras in my office). It was hard to explain to my kids why we were staying there (the first night, it was like a fun visit, but the second night, they were confused ... I said that my colleague was having a baby soon, and he wanted to know what living with kids was like).

Even when I asked him to move out, I still thought TE would keep working with his therapist and get better and we'd be able to stay together after the separation. But when I found myself lying to my children about why we were staying away from the house, when TE was deliberately refusing to let us come home (because he knew I wouldn't go home with him there and he was able to recognize it was fair for me to ask that), that's when I wanted to get divorced. And even though I waited to say it out loud to him until after the separation, and at times I thought I might be willing to give him another chance, I never really changed my mind. And TE later made it very clear it was the right choice (one more story to save for another day).