Confession #4

When I first left my marriage seven years ago I had people tell me to not believe anything he said, especially promises he made. Even seven years down the road. I was advised to go for the jugular, and don't look back. I was warned that he would do things that were, "out of character," and that I wouldn't recognize him. To my embarrassment, I confess I didn't heed a single warning. After all, I had been married to this man most of my adult life. We shared the highs and lows of life. We had children together, and bought our first home... together. Certainly I knew this man better than any of these jaded opinionists who claimed to know my future regarding divorce.
If I could go back in time I would tell my younger self that he's not even the shadow of the man I thought I'd married. That the reasons that caused me to leave him in the first place were but a mole hill compared to the person I deal with today. To stop mothering, and nurturing him as I had throughout our marriage and let him take care of his own needs. That the delusion of an amiable, and respectful divorce that put our children's needs ahead of our own were just that, delusions.

Statistics:

• A woman leaves her marriage an average of seven times before she actually divorces/leaves him permanently. Personally, I don't remember. Seven sounds about right.
• A woman stays because the abuser will frequently promise that it will never happen again; she wants to believe that this is true. My experience, it was never true.
• An abuser rarely has a criminal record. Mine didn't.
• The cycle of abuse: Tension building > Violence > Honeymoon/Reconciliation > Tension begins to build again and the cycle repeats.

- Information courtesy of www.capsa.org

I want to be clear that there are many good men out there who have suffered at the hands of a woman. My experience however is as a woman, and for that reason alone speak from a woman's perspective.
The temptation is high to hate the opposite sex and blame their gender for a conglomeration of things, if not everything. Being the mother of boys I chose to resist this generalization. I found, in doing so, that it improved the quality of my healing process, and aided in my ability to see flawed individuals, and not flawed genders.
Bottom line...I will never regret trying to be a healthy, kind person towards the man whom fathered my children however, I will forever regret thinking that I knew him best. That I did not heed the warnings so kindly offered, and that I didn't realize that while I knew him in the role of a married man, I knew nothing of the man going through separation and divorce.



*Opinionists, I realize, is not a real word but I liked it so please forgive the self-indulgence.