I'm back home and I may have made the wrong choice

I came back home after I went to the shelter. I know you might think that sounds crazy. I know I think that sounds crazy.

I did end up packing up the babies and going into our local shelter. The room I was going to be staying in with the kids was not that bad. They were able to get me two cribs for the babies. (Since Jaiden and Suzy are 2 and 3.)

It was hard chasing around the babies without him there to help. I hate admitting that but it's true.

The day I went into the shelter I had plans to go get my 12 year old from school. I left the shelter around 2 PM and headed towards his school. I had turned my phone off in the morning in case he tried to contact me.

There were 3 texts from my 12 year old on my phone. It turns out, he had a flex day the day I went into the shelter. He messaged me to let me know he had gone home.

This was really bad! I had gone into the shelter with plans to not have to bump into Suzy and Jaiden's dad right away. Here I was having to face him already. I was nervous and very scared.

I rushed to the house to get my 12 year old who refused to come to the shelter. Then, my SO asked me to please not leave and he started crying. He said he didn't want us to break up our family.

I felt terrible and decided that the least I could do is try again. Why not? Right. I am pondering whether or not I made the right choice.

I know that my oldest daughter (she's 16) is going to be very angry at me for coming back into the house when I was supposed to leave this relationship. Honestly, I made up my mind that I was not coming back. Why is it that I turn into a complete ball of mush and change my mind at the last minute. Why couldn't I be brave enough to just go?

Deep down, I know that I love Suzy and Jaiden's Dad. I think I will always love him. I just don't know if we are ever going to make this relationship into one where we can both be happy. It seems we have been trying and trying and it just never get's any better. I've been home for about 10 days and there have already been at least 3 to 4 heated episodes of the two of us yelling and fighting (Again.).

I just want to be happy. I want to be in a place where we can both be excited about our lives. I am so tired of being told what I am thinking and feeling when the only person inside of my head is me.

I will post more soon. My plan is to use this blog as my journal and post every single day. I need to hold myself accountable for my life. I don't really have anyone in my life that I can go to and share what is happening. This is going to be how I will share my feelings.

I'm still making some progress.

Much has changed since my last post. The shelter never got back to me which left me feeling frustrated. I called the Domestic Violence Helpline and they made me feel better. I was talking to a very nice lady when my internet dropped my Skype connection so we got disconnected.

She helped me to brainstorm and realize that maybe they did not get back to me because they are busy finding me space. She gave me options and said that if I did not hear from them today, to call back the National Line and they would advocate and help me find another place. Even if it is not super close by. That eased my mind and helped me to feel better. Maybe I will consider somewhere a little further away. A change of scenery sounds nice. Just not in PA. I am starting to hate PA. 

Calling the National Violence Hotline has really helped me these last few weeks. Just talking to someone who knows what you are going through can really help you feel better. 

It’s Tuesday and I’m so annoyed that I am not gone from the house yet. It seems like every time I take 2 steps forward I go 3 more backwards. I wanted to be out of here already but my plans didn’t go as I expected.

My daughter is going to be calling me for an update and it is going to be hard to tell her I am still here. It’s crazy because when I wasn’t quite ready to go - the option was there for me to leave. Now that I have made up my mind, I am having a hard time getting out of here. 

I took mental stock of what I wanted to take when I go. It’s mostly clothes and personal items although all of the stuff in the house is mine. The TV, the Living Room Furniture, our bedroom furniture and the kids stuff. I bought all of it. The only thing he bought was my computer desk in the office.

The landlord contacted us to make an arrangement on the rent (We are being evicted - I’ll address that in another post) and of course he looked to me to pay the rent. “Hey, when you get paid can you pay the landlord?” In my head, I was thinking, why don’t you pay the landlord? Or, why not say, I’ll pay half the rent baby would you pay the other half. 

It doesn’t happen that way though. I am just expected to pay for everything all the time. It’s so frustrating. I am sick and tired of being used. 

There was a minor incident last night. He wanted to go to bed early because he had to work this morning. I wasn’t quite ready to go to sleep yet. He brings our blanket downstairs to sleep on the couch. Of course, that meant when I got ready to go to bed I would have no blanket. I got upset and he basically said I was starting a fight because I didn’t want him to be downstairs. The truth is - I just didn’t want to have to drag my blanket away from him!

Every conversation we have always turns into some type of fight. It really is a miserable way to live and I feel it more and more every single day. I long for the day when I can wake up and own my life.

I read a really good book on boundaries last night and I am going to practice what is listed in the book. I don’t ever want to be in this situation again. I want to live my life happy and free.

At least I got the ball rolling. Right?

Today is Saturday, January 10, 2015. 

I spoke to the shelter yesterday. I finally got myself moving towards ending this relationship. They said they aren’t going to have room for us until Sunday. 

He is off on Sunday and says he is working all this up coming week. I am going to make my plan to leave while he is working. That will make it much easier to do.

I know that most of the time - when you leave someone - you sit down with them and explain that the relationship is no longer meeting your needs and you are ready to move on. 

I can’t do that in this situation. If I tell him I don’t want to be with him then he will make a big scene. He won’t believe me. He will tell me I am just being moody and promise me he will fix all of our problems. I just don’t believe that anymore.

I am taking a huge risk putting anything down but I can’t help myself. I just want to write out my feelings. I want to be able to remember how unhappy I have been. 

We got into the biggest argument while I was getting dressed. My Mom is coming to pick me up so I fixed my hair. He went on and on and on about how I only fix my hair when I go places with my Mom. He said I never try to look nice when he takes me out. 

Why should I try to look nice? What’s the point? I haven’t been happy in forever and why would I even put forth the effort. I just don’t want to bother.

The truth is, though, that I am not fixing my hair because I am going with my Mom. I am fixing my hair because it makes me feel good. Nobody should ever have to justify to someone else why they are doing something that makes them feel good. 

I feel like I have been trapped for so long. I have spent a long time making someone else happy at the expense of myself. 

It’s funny, to, because I did not even realize that I was in an abusive relationship. It took an outsider to speak up for me to realize what was happening. I was working with two family therapists as well and they didn’t even see what was happening.. even though I told them enough that they should have been able to figure it out. They didn’t though. They were pushing for us to work things out even though it was at the expense of my mental health.

He told me while we were sitting at the table that while I was gone he was going to smoke weed with my babies. He said afterwards that it was a joke but who says that to somebody? Why? 

That reminds me of an incident we had just a couple of days ago. I have severe anxiety and it usually centers around there being glass in my food. It’s one thing that really bothers me. He came in the kitchen with his mouth bleeding. I asked him what was wrong and he said there must have been glass in the food we just ate. He went on and on with it then finally said he was kidding. Again, why would someone say that to a person (they love) who already has anxiety? I just can’t figure it out. 

I better wrap up here as my Mom is on the way to get me but I will write more as soon as I can. I look forward to the day I can write my feelings on paper and not be judged or have someone digging through my personal stuff to find it. Here’s to hoping.

I'm ready to Stop Pretending that it's all okay..

I am going to begin using my Blog as the journal of my life.  I started writing these posts on January 9th. I stopped on the 12th because I went into the shelter and I had some trouble with my computer. I am going to get back to posting daily. I feel that posting to this blog will be therapeutic for me. It will also give me something tangible to look back on as time goes on. Here is my first journal entry...

His favorite thing to tell me was that I was just looking for sympathy. Anytime I complained about how things were not right or even about how unhappy I felt. 

He never acknowledged my feelings. I had to hold everything inside for fear that if I shared to much - it would be used against me in the end. 

I thought for a really long time about whether or not I was going to be brave enough to share everything that really happened or not. The truth is, I still don’t feel right about writing anything down.

However, if I can help just one person to avoid the years of pain I endured, then I will feel as if I have done my part.

I am leaving him tomorrow. It is January 9, 2015. We have been together since 2009 and we have two children together. Jaiden will be 3 in March and Suzanna will be 2 in February. 

There are so many things that I want to put on paper. I don’t want to forget any of the things that happened. Sometimes, when things are going really well, I forgot the bad incidents that were a common part of my relationship. Forgetting things kept me in this situation for far to long.

I have been told so many times that everything is all my fault that I honestly believe it. I believe that the reason we don’t have a wonderful relationship is because of me.

I don’t by any means wish to portray myself as someone who has it all together. I did my share of things in our relationship. I never prevented him from being himself though. I never dictated where he could and could not go. I never told him that I would take the kids away from him and leave. 

I supported him. I wanted what was best for him. I wanted him to know that he could do anything he set his mind to.

He never wanted to do anything that I enjoyed. If he liked a show, I had to watch that show with him. If he enjoyed a certain type of food, I had to try that food OR ELSE. If he wanted to go somewhere, whether I wanted to or not, it was expected that I was going to go. 

I never had that same courtesy extended to myself. If I asked him to watch something I enjoyed - he refused or he would fall asleep within the first 10 minutes of it. If I asked him to eat something I liked - he would tell me no and that was that. If I wanted to go somewhere and he didn’t - he would find one hundred reasons why we should do what he wanted to do and not what I wanted to do.

Is this normal? Absolutely not. In a healthy relationship both partners are willing to compromise for the other on some levels (I don’t think you should do something you hate, however, every now and then you give in to show your partner that you care for their feelings.)

I need to get this written down to remember why I need to never go back. I can communicate with him because we have mutual children together. I must never enter back into a relationship with him. I must keep it together for the sake of my life and my kids life. 

My needs. My priorities. My life. It isn’t mine anymore. Someone has decided to take my choices in life away from me. It’s not going to happen ever again.