10/14

I understand what my husband is going through. I really do. I just spend $85 on a book called Passive Aggressive Personality Disorder: A Manual for Therapists, the Client and Their Victims. I have full knowledge of what I am right now experiencing.

I have great compassion for my husband. I totally get that he is full of rage over being abandoned in the name of God. I totally get the shame and the anger at growing up where the appearance of spiritual perfection was valued over his heart every time. I do have compassion for him.

I am sincere in wanting to live a life of Christian love, and live in harmony with the Holy Spirit. I am sincere in wanting to live a peaceable life in all quietness and honesty. And it is not enough.

My husband still rages. He still blames me. He is still caught up in the cycle of expressing remorse wrapped in hostility, offering to "help me" when what he is really doing is trying to get me back on the basketball court. I just don't want to live this way anymore.

It is terrifying to me to think of divorce. I have no money of my own. I haven't worked outside the home for twenty-three years. I have no idea how I would survive.

My family of origin won't help. Even if they could they wouldn't. And honestly, no one but my oldest sister is even in a position to let me come stay with them. She lives out in the country so there's no way I could find a job out there anyway.

There is just so much unresolved between us as siblings born to an NPD mother that it would be not much better than here anyway. She'd probably kick my out before long even if she did help at first.

I can't believe my husband has betrayed me like this. He was once such a gentle, kind soul to me. He help me when I cried about all the loss I had suffered growing up in my mother's home. He was once a patient and involved family man. He was so good with all of us. We would go camping and hiking and have so many fun adventures.

Now he is just as angry and unpredictable himself as my NPD mother. He's not NPD, though. He is a real person who once had a tender heart and conscience. I just don't understand how he came to be this way.

I mean, I do understand about the childhood trauma. I don't understand why he thinks emotionally brutalizing me is an appropriate way to deal with it. I don't understand why he doesn't stop himself from being so hateful to me.

He was going to walk out on the marriage yesterday because I went to see what the dog was barking at. Seriously. He wanted me to take his word for it and I wanted to see for myself. I had no malice or ill intent, in fact I thoughtfully determined that since I was the one bothered by the barking, I should be a big girl and go check it out myself.

He became so angry! He said that I loved the neighbor at the door more than I loved him, just like his mom loved the Indians more than she loved him. Now with a huge clue like that statement, it was obvious he was really angry at some buried memory with his mom.

But he still brutalized me. Even though he saw how much it hurt me, even though he knew it was out of proportion to the situation, even though he knew his anger had more to do with his childhood than his present. It didn't even slow him down. I tried reasoning with him, but he just talked over me with angry accusations and demeaning words. He could have stopped and been met with mercy. He chose self-righteous indignation instead. So sad.

He was still at it this morning before work. I avoided getting dragged back in to the cycle of doing and undoing, the false offers of help, the false apologies dripping with hostility, the projection with which he uses these hypocritical and cruel tactics to hurt and provoke me, so that he can then say I'm the one with the problem instead of him.

I am proud of my self-control, but it has done nothing for our relationship. Basically I had to get to the place where I realize and understand that he is my enemy. He is filled with hostility towards me. I am no more at fault than the iguana from the rain forest. I am just conveniently here.

So the lesson learned this morning? Give up hope of reconciliation. Harden my heart to my husband and walk away. I hope to begin counseling next week. Yes, I realize it could go both ways. It could be the strength I need to hang on while my husband gets help. Or it could be the first step leading to separation and eventual divorce.

But that was not my choice. He is the kephale of the family. This is what he chose for us, hatred and enmity. I can't stay and be immersed in this, nor do I want it for my children. He is the one who holds our future in his hands, not me.

What a foolish, foolish little missionary kid. I should have taken the clue when he told me how he would blow frogs up with firecrackers as a kid in boarding school.

Instead of realizing I was marrying a walking time bomb, I thought I was getting into a marriage with a righteous man of God who loved the Lord. I thought his whole family loved the Lord. Foolish, foolish Jesus girl, with stars in her eyes.

I should have known that religion is no guarantee of tender mercies. Religion burns people at the stake. Religion starts wars. Religion kills the tender hearts of little boys in the name of Jesus.

I hate religion.