Phoenix it was almost firghtening to read your post because so much of it was xah. I remember at one point in our marriage thinking I needed to get out because if I ever got sick-really sick-I knew he would not take care of me. I remember when I had a hysterectomy and he picked me up from the hospital and left me at home alone with our 2 young children because he had a gig. He did not cancel it. Then 3 days later he left for a week for a job interview-again leaving me with 2 kids to take care of. Not once did it dawn on him that I was having a hard time taking care of myself.
I was never allowed to be sick. I was extremely ill once and the ER told me I needed to get to urgent care immediately. I was so dehydrated that after the 3rd liter of saline they told me I might have to go to the hospital. Did he show concern. Nope. He was pi**ed off because I was sick and he would have to take care of the kids. If he kids were sick I took off work because he would not take care of them-even though he was home and not working. If he had a sniffle you would have thought the world was coming to an end and we all had to be quiet and cater to his needs.
I think about what I put up with for 12 years (although I also suffered severe emotional abuse from my alcoholic mother the entire time she was alive). What I had became when I was around my mother and around my xah was not me. I can recall xah (although he bad-mouthed my mom all through our marriage) turning it all around and telling me I was so hateful because I did not love my mother and did not know how to love anyone. That I had lied that she was an alcoholic. I knew the tide had turned when I became enraged when he said this because I knew what my mother had done to me and for him to basically sit there and tell me I was a liar and had made it all up and that I would never know how to love anyone. It is making me angry just writing about it.
Even finally breaking away and saying-no, I will not live like this anymore. I will not let you treat me like this. I will not believe all the garbage you have shoveled at me all these years (my mom and my xah). It does leave scars and it takes a long time to heal from those wounds. For me, I work daily to break that cycle of emotional abuse and not pass it on to my own children. My kids have many issues due to the horrible start they got in life (they lived in an orphanage in Russia the first year of their life). They are not easy children to be around but I make a decision every day I get up that it is a new day and whatever they did the day before is history. They were neglected and abused and suffered trauma worse than mine before they became my children. I some times wonder if God put them in my life because He knew that I would not let that cycle of abuse continue. Sorry, I am just rambling here.
Your post has brought out so many feelings. The abuse has stopped at me but the scars do run deep.