Today we are going to hear from Alicia. Her story of the man she met and married, then ultimately kicked out of her house warrants a retelling. Alicia was kind enough to share her story with us.
Without further adieu….here is Alicia’s story in her own words.
Chris asked me to tell my story as it could help some women realize they are not alone if they married badly and that they can stand up for themselves and that in the end it can get better if they move past the pain.
I have been fed up with my husband for some time now.
The guy I am married to (we are apart and are getting a divorce) no longer resembles the man I first met. My husband has turned into a monster and I am afraid to live with him a second longer.
Truth be told, he always had a bit of monster inside him. I was just foolish and looked the other way, making excuses for him or taking his side, when in reality he was dead wrong about a lot of things.
Men who mistreat their wives make you cling to fear.
Not that I feared that he would do something really evil to me. It’s just that I see now that I married a really bad guy. He is not marriage material. He is just all about himself. I hope that no other woman has to put up with him and all of his games and antics.
Did I kick him out because he treats me like dirt? Yes, that’s part of it.
Is it all over between us? Let me tell you our story and you decide if I chose wisely.
For some time, I really had a hard time making up my mind. Our marriage was always an up and down affair. I accept my mistakes in making our problems worse. But my role in the unwinding of this marriage is small compared to my husband’s antic and cruelty.
Now you might be wondering why I wouldn’t have known what he was really like at the core when I was going with him. You may be thinking how could I get mixed up with such rotten man. After all, if he is a monster now, why didn’t I see all his shortcomings back when we were dating.
I ask myself that question all the time too.
Why Didn’t You See He Was A Bad Choice
No matter how many times I run it through my head, I don’t think the worst of his damaging antics and bad manners was something I could have seen coming.
It’s like he felt a sense of entitlement once we got married. My husband seemed to think he could just do everything his way, without any consideration of what I wanted or my needs.
I know a lot of people think, “who in their right mind would be attracted to such a lousy man”. But some guys are good at hiding their faults and I do confess that I was seeing things I wanted to see and ignoring some of the obvious signs.
That’s on me and I have learned to be more attentive and selective and think more with my mind.
Knowing what I know now, I think he has some hang ups with women and wanting to control everything. I can’t live that way, so we clashed. But sex would be our way of making up. I see now how I got wrapped up into a bad pattern.
Our sex life was really good and all of the excitement carried us in those early days. But the real truth of who we are emerges eventually. That’s when I came to see his selfishness and core meanness.
I am convinced of all this now, but back then (two years ago) I was not seeing it. It took that long for his true self to emerge and for me to realize that I had married a monster man, intent on making me his punching bag.
He really didn’t hit me, though when he would throw a fit and start screaming he would hulk around acting like he wanted to do tear up things. He would throw stuff and smashing things and scream at me.
He was possessive about so many things. I felt like I couldn’t breath sometimes. My husband would fly into jealous rages over nothing. I wanted to just escape, get away. I would literally just cover myself up to hide.
Other times, when it was all happening, I would freak out and not know quite what to do. I thought maybe I had triggered all of this bad mess. I would question whether I had done something wrong.
But now I know it wasn’t me. It was him. He is the one with the problems. I understand now that he was the bad husband. I was the good wife, just trying to please and cope. It’s not right when your husband won’t let you have your own personal life while married.
I see now that his manic and controlling behavior emerges from his personal hangups. I am so glad now to be out from under him.
It took a while, but I have learned to accept that I made a huge mistake falling for him, getting mixed up with him and advancing the relationship. But I think that is really all I did wrong.
I tried my best to make an awful relationship work and I know I stayed in it far too long, taking on his attacks and abusive outbursts. I will carry a lot pain because of that choice, but I have learned that if I can survive that, I can get through just about anything.
He was a terrible husband. My husband thought he had broken my spirit. but that is not true. I am woman strong. I admit I went through a period in which I carried a lot of resentment for my husband. I think that was the number one reason why I was so angry at my husband all the time. Even when we separated, I still had a lot of anger in me about what he put me through.
There would be some days in which he just would go on a slow burn and play like he was the victim. He would talk to me like I wasn’t there, like I was a stranger.
He would say things like, “my wife gets angry at me for no reason.” The way he acted, it might come off like I am always mad at my husband. He would whine to anyone who would listen about his troubles and ask them…. why is my wife always irritated with me…… like they really know what is going on.
He would put on an at like he is reaching out to me and will be loving. But when I got pulled in, he would turn on me.
He was that way. He would play innocent, like he was the victim. That was one game he played. There was no honesty in our marriage.
I know all of this effected me and I started having anger issues.
The truth is even now, memories of my husband makes me so angry I want to hit him. But I have learned to channel that into something positive.
I guess that is why I kicked him out because it was getting to me back then. I was throwing things and freaking out. I would later replay my behavior and get upset with myself because I am not that kind of girl. But I wasn’t going to put up with his crap.
What should I do I would often wonder.
It was different when I was younger with him. Earlier in the marriage, when he treated me badly, but I wasn’t thinking of leaving him, I would feel sorry for myself.
I made up excuses. I would tell my girlfriends my husband treats me bad, but I still love him. They thought I was an idiot and that he was abusive. They were right, I was wrong, but it took me time to get out from under his spell.
When someone you love treats you badly in a relationship you don’t quite see it all at the time. You don’t ask the right questions of yourself, like “why does he treat me so bad – why doesn’t he love me in the way he should?”
You want to believe he will change. That he won’t act like a monster and turn cruel and say demeaning things when things don’t go his way.
When your husband tells you over and over you are wrong about everything and breaks you down in lots of little ways, no matter how strong you think you are, it has an effect on you.
I guess I finally reached my limit.
I had been reading about creating distance and using the no contact rule with one’s husband if your marriage is unravelling.
That is what happened to us. I now see that my husband is selfish, insecure, and a control freak. He is also a cheater. I caught him. Of course he lied about it at first. Then blamed me for it.
Did I kick my husband out for cheating? Not entirely, but that was the final straw.
I am not going into details, but when it became clear to me what happened I told my husband to leave. Did I think when I kicked my husband out that he would come back again some day? Honestly, at first I held out hope. But later I did want him coming back.
Its been several months now and I still don’ t want him back because I can’t see myself even trying again.
He is making some noises like he is sorry for what he did. I think the reality is I married a coward. Now that he has gone too far and blown up his marriage he thinks I might give him another chance.
But the truth is I have given him tons of chances.
Did I kick my husband out for drinking? No. Did I kick him out because he was often cruel and was a monster to me? No. Did I kick out my cheating husband out for lying and being selfish. No.
I kicked him out for all these reasons.
We are separated now, but I have filed for divorce. I am not taking him back. I am moving on. He tells everyone he walked out of my life. But I don’t care, because I know the truth. It doesn’t matter what my ex says because I know that is his way. He cannot be wrong about anything in his mind.
Moving Past Your Past Hurts
I knew I had to turn the corner.
He was out of my house and out of my life. I wasn’t going through a No Contact with him because I was secretly hoping he might come crawling back.
I wanted a clean slate so I knew I had to throw myself into something. My mind would go racing to often thinking about the past. I would have weak moments sometimes and when he texted me and said nice things, I fell for it once. He knew out to manipulate my feelings and draw me back into his spell.
So I wasn’t perfect in how I handled him post separation. But as I got better, I got stronger and more confident and felt a lot less vulnerable.
Three things saved me and got me started on a new life.
I would worry about if I could ever find someone else that I could love and that would be good to me. Sometimes I would obsess over it and get myself tied up in knots.
I don’t like being alone and want to share my life with someone else. Foolishly, I thought my ex husband was going to be that man. But I was younger when we got together. I was naive to some extent.
I had a big heart and a lot of hope. And some guys and this certainly includes my ex husband, can talk a good line and hide a lot of their faults.
My biggest mistake was rushing through the courtship phase of our relationship. But that is behind me now. So what I was thinking is how can I turn it all around. I was in a miserable marriage married to a monster, but I needed to head for the light. I wanted to put the past behind me. I wanted to be happy. Then I wanted to have some hope there might be someone out there for me.
So my plan was to keep it simple and do three things for me. This is what Chris kept telling me.
Chris would also tell me that things come to you when you often are not seeking it out.
That is what ultimately happened to me on the man front. But he would say I needed to get back to finding myself and become my best friend and do something to make myself proud.
The first of my three focus areas was starting up a quilt business with a friend. I always wanted to be my own boss and that became a reality. Since it takes a ton of time to do everything to be successful, it really kept me busy, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I am sure it has been therapeutic for me.
The second thing that filled up my life was my devotion to bicycling. When rage would fill me up about my past, I pedaled past it. The daily exercise I got from that made me feel fit, look good, and gave me a lot of extra energy. I would recommend it to anyone.
The last thing I focused on was going back to college to pick up some business and marketing classes. It helped me and my friend run our business better and the routine of going to classes filled out my life. I look forward to it every night.
That is where I met my new boyfriend without even looking for him.
It’s funny how things can turn out when you turn yourself away from the bad.
It’s hard to step away from a husband, even a bad one. You get use to certain things and it’s hard to imagine a life that is different. It’s like the weight of being with your husband, no matter how wrong he might be for you, can’t be budged.
Then things happen and you break off the marriage. Then you find yourself again and do things to be proud of yourself. Then someone else comes into your life. All this happens and you look back and wonder what on earth was I thinking before.
Let me just tell you. The bad spell you might be having with a bad husband can be broken.
It doesn’t take an earth shattering event to turn you life around. You can do it in pieces and parts.
That is what I did. I eventually made my husband leave. I resisted the temptation to be pulled back into his web. Then I began to rebuild.
Here I am now, a much a happier, more complete person.
