joyful2beeblogs

I am sharing some personal stories about my marriage and the changes that took place. I want to help someone else see themselves or their partner through my experiences in order to detect symptoms of abuse or domestic violence that might be present in their relationship.

Somewhere between our fourth and eighth year of marriage, our relationship began to unravel. I noticed insidious changes in his personality; he was more irritable, controlling, and much less affectionate.

We Changed

There were interludes between the bad times when we enjoyed our life together. But when I did something wrong or upset him, he became angry or furious; calling me names, telling me I was lying, if I remembered something differently from him; or even if I had forgotten exactly what I had said earlier, (which may have been a defense mechanism or response on my part).

There were times, after a bad argument, he would ignore me for a day. Then when I asked him about or for something, he would say, “Why should I cooperate with you! You didn’t cooperate with me!” Apologizing became a way of life to survive “peacefully.”

Many times I cried during these altercations; feeling horrible that I couldn’t do anything right; that I made him angry; and later feeling angry first at myself for ruining a potentially calm, peaceful day! But somewhere an anger at him was being kept from him and me. I descended into deeper levels of stress, self-recriminations, poor self-image, and lowered confidence.

He was a very intelligent man with first a Bachelor’s, then Master’s and then Doctoral degrees. He could speed read; quote lines from everything imaginable; and could speak, read and write German, Ancient Hebrew. and had a memory like a steel trap! I was a three year diploma nurse and worked in hospital patient care.

I decided to leave most of the decisions to him. After all, to my mind, I only had a diploma and “only a year of that was in college.” (I had been gas lighted so many times that I had forgotten how intelligent I was!)

On the occasion of a major decision he would ask me what I thought. If I told him a different idea than his, he would counter with his “logical” ideas and explain how his idea was better. I kept thinking how could my” puny” brain compare to his! I often later wondered why I had agreed with him. In short, I gave him the power over my life and my mind, but not my soul.

More fear and stress

I became more stressed and became afraid of disappointing him. Sometimes if we had a short list of groceries, I could remember a few things. But often I became so anxious, that even with a list I forgot something or bought the wrong brand! Then there were the times that I had a list but left it at home. (I sometimes wondered if this was my subconscious rebelling to his controlling treatment.)

I knew there would be an argument when I got home, so I just shut down and let him yell at me. Since it was after all “my fault.” Sometimes he made me drive the 15 minutes back to the grocery store to return the item that wasn’t on the list.

An angry husband

Our situation degenerated to insults and more hurtful names than “Bitch.” I whitewashed his behavior by deciding he was just under a lot of pressure from finances, his studies, etc. After all earning a Master’s degree and then a doctorate was quite stressful. He stayed up late studying often. So I figured he was just exhausted.

But things didn’t get better after he graduated. I will not go into the “minor” ways he physically abused me. But the first time I remember physical abuse from when he shoved me hard against a door. He pushed me in my solar plexus (bread basket) and I was briefly in moderate pain.

At first he didn’t believe I was hurting and said, “I didn’t push you that hard!” Then he realized where he pushed me and apologized. Of course I forgave him, since he “didn’t mean to push me there.” (Boy do I feel dumb, I should have been more upset that he shoved me and hurt me!)

Friends knew something was wrong

When some very close friends confided to me that they were concerned about the way he spoke to me or treated me. I continued to excuse his behavior with how stressed out he was over our finances, his job; or he was behind on his sleep or whatever. I wanted others to see the good side of him and not stress over the bad characteristics. After all as my husband reminded me, “This is private family business.”

Talk about stress!

Through all of this, I worked night shift in critical care units and later a heart monitor floor; slept short hours many times. To be able to function in these environments, I had to be intelligent, organized, able to handle stress and make decisions. I was not stupid, forgetful, or inadequate, I was under so much stress and fear that it was hard to think right. I had Stockholm Syndrome. But that was where I started to see that I was a very good intensive care nurse and knew what I needed to know to be a good one!

Stockholm Syndrome

“There is a set of behaviors titled “Stockholm Syndrome” from an incident when bank robbers took four hostages in 1973 in Stockholm. The behaviors that I was showing  matched those of a victim with Stockholm Syndrome. Children and spouses of abuse frequently develop this syndrome.

They are frightened of their captors at first. The victim sees the power of their captor and their own lack of power. They begin to adopt a mindset of subservience, admiration, defense of or even love for the captors. They may think they have some control over their captors after finding that “good” behavior makes the captor treat them better.

But this behavior becomes a pattern of behavior that they adopt as their own thinking. This behavior takes away every shred of the captive’s strength to resist, self-esteem, and even power over their own lives.” Below is my resource on this topic.

https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/why-stockholm-syndrome-happens-and-how-to-help-0926184.

The awakening

My real eye opening experience for me to realize that I could stand up for myself, happened when I was working in an ICU. A particular rude and mean doctor came in and asked me to help him assess a woman’s lungs. She had a central line in her neck with a well taped bandage over the site. I helped him sit the woman up in the bed, with him listening to the anterior aspect of her lungs and then the posterior lungs. As we set her up I put my hand over the dressing on her neck to protect it.

Dr. C. looked at me sharply and said, “Don’t pull that line out!”

I looked at him sharply but said nothing! When we got to the central desk outside of the patient’s room, I loudly asked him, “Did you really think that I was trying to pull a patient’s line out!!! I was supporting her back like you were with one hand and protecting the central line site dressing!”

His only reply was, “Well I thought you were going to pull the line out!”

I was furious before I left the patient’s room and let him know that I was a very good intensive care nurse and I knew that what I was doing was correct! He walked off.

Finally, my “cork” popped and I had let out some of the frustration, rage, pain, and finally realized that I still had a good amount of self respect!

More to come!

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