Unless..Until..I Leave Him...

Apparently there are two sides to every story; well- here's mine.

I can't remember every time it has happened but I remember the first time that it did. My Hubby and I were in his bedroom at his parent's house. He pushed me into his dressing table and the mirror fell off but didn't break. His parent's were in the next room. They didn't make a sound. I was seventeen.

I turned thirty two last year.

My Hubby( well, Defacto, actually- he's never bothered to ask me to marry him in sixteen years) is not a Wife-Beater. Just ask him. And to be fair... what I experience is not habitual. It only happens every two years or so. He has pushed me into walls, televisions, to the floor, off the bed. He has split my lips, given black eyes, bruised my lung, cracked my rib (though it was already weak from an earlier injury after falling off a chair while drunk). I had a headache for two days once after he smacked me up the side of the head. The most recent stoush had me being held down and choked and repeatedly punched in the back of the head.

Do I lay still and take it?

No. I've given him two black eyes in the same day- for which I later apologised. I think I gave him a fat lip another time. I've slapped. Threw drinks over him. I've kicked until I thought I'd broken my toes. Scratched with bitten fingernails. Drew the line at biting...

I know I'm not totally blameless.

I know I weigh way less than him and can't fight my way out of a wet paper bag.

I know it will happen again. Unless...until...I leave him.

What we have are Irreconcillable Differences. He thinks it's alright to hit me AND then feel no remorse for it- that's just what I get for trying to talk to him. About why he thinks all our problems in this relationship are my fault. About why he is sometimes nasty out of the blue and for no discernable reason other than he feels like being a cunt to me. About how he thinks I am a worthless member of this household who contributes nothing. About how he ignores and dismisses my feelings as meaningless.

You would have thought I'd gotten a clue he doesn't want, respect, love or even like me very much Somewhere in the last sixteen years.

Maybe on the first night that we met and he gave me a fake name; maybe when he disappeared into the night after I'd shouted him drinks all night; maybe when he made a mock-punch to my stomach the night I told him I was pregnant with our Eldest Son; maybe when he didn't even see our Son until he was six weeks old; maybe when he played cricket at the beach with his friend's rather than be with me when I was in labour with our Little Son; maybe when he went to the pub for ten hours the same day I came home from hospital with a new-born; maybe when he tells me he'll just stick his dick into other chicks if I dare complain about how he treats me; maybe when he called me an 'Alcohol Prostitute' for wanting to stay out a little later than he did; maybe when he rings me up to collect him from the pub and I turn up only to discover he really only wanted more money; maybe when he tells me I'm not allowed to go out and spend any of His money; maybe when he tells me I am an unfit person and mother to our children. Or when he tells me to fuck off out of His house. Or when he calls me a fucking mental bitch-end quote.

What he would have to do is change his entire opinion of me. He might have to stop pushing me away emotionally. He'd have to stop putting me down. He'd have to stop pulling away from me when I just need him to listen.

I keep thinking I'm transparent but keep forgetting that he doesn't even know me. How can he expect to know me if he doesn't even bother trying?

I honestly think that the only place he's ever admired me from is from Afar...which is exactly where- just quietly-I should probably be.