Built From Broken

If you haven’t read Part I already, what are you waiting for?! Hurry, I’ll wait…

When W and I first met, I thought I was so lucky to have found someone like him. He was smart, polite and charming. We seemed to click right away – it seemed too good to be true! His apartment was about 45 minutes away from my house, so for a year and a half we drove back and forth to see each other. Things were good, but we did have some issues. There were times where he would make negative comments about my appearance, or make me feel dumb for something I said. To me, at the time, it wasn’t unusual. I had lived with a bully my entire life – my mother. Since I had such low self-worth at the time, I just dealt with it. I’m not really sure what went through my mind at the time, or what I told myself to justify his harsh words. He would just “pick” at me, saying things like: “I bet you weigh more than I do”, or “pizza is fattening enough, why are you putting ranch on it?!” These comments upset me, and I did let him know that was the case. He would just apologize, and I would forgive him. This was an ongoing pattern in our relationship. He would do something shitty, I would get upset, he would apologize and I would forgive him. Wash, rinse, repeat…over and over again. I did love him – I did. Things weren’t always bad. It was the good times that kept me there for years, hoping things would get better.

After we had our oldest son, things got worse. W was still in graduate school, working on his PhD. I stayed home to take care of our son, N. W was never home, so I was left to take care of a newborn with little to no breaks. He worked 6 days a week, and when he was home he was always studying. It was a very lonely life back then – everything felt so heavy, if that makes sense. I lived 45 minutes away from any family, so we didn’t have help with the baby. I was mentally, physically & emotionally exhausted. If I brought any concerns to W, he would just get irritated with me and say: “If you don’t like it, leave,” OR “If you don’t like it, go find someone else.” Nothing I did or said affected him. It’s like he was made of stone.

I don’t know how I got through that. I basically raised N on my own for the first year and a half of his life. Even though it felt never-ending, W finally graduated. At the time, I was so depressed, I was convinced life wouldn’t get any better. I didn’t feel like I was W’s wife; I felt like a maid. I busted my ass every SINGLE day to make sure he came home to a clean house, a home-cooked meal and clean clothes – only to be shown over and over that I didn’t matter.

W was hired by a company based in Pittsburgh, so we moved from Ohio to PA. After we moved, things seemed to get better for a little while. About five years after we moved, I gave birth to my youngest son, L. Throughout the next decade, we moved around a LOT. I never felt like I was at “home.” By the time L was a toddler, I started becoming restless staying home day, after day, after DAY. I loved my boys more than anything, but I just yearned for MORE out of life. At this point, W and I were no more than glorified roommates. I cooked, cleaned, paid all the bills, made all the appointments, helped with homework, etc. W went to work, came home and did nothing else. I was so fed up. He used to throw the fact that I didn’t have a real “job” in my face, to the point where I felt guilty spending money on anything, even if it was essential! I have a lot of medical issues, and my medications are expensive. He would frequently complain about this, as if there was something I could do to change it. I felt absolutely worthless.

In 2021, I told W that I wanted a divorce. I will never forget this – I even remember where we were sitting. I was fed up with the lies, the fake apologies, the insults and promises for change. Most of all, I was fed up with being disappointed. I suggested therapy and he wasn’t interested. Everything I tried had failed, and that’s because I was the only one trying. It was always me. He swore up, down and sideways that he was going to make changes. He said he didn’t want to lose me. Foolishly, I gave him one last chance to make things right.

In 2022 we separated. Unsurprisingly, he never changed a damn thing. Now, close to 2 years later, we still aren’t divorced. It has been such a slow, long, painful process. W admitted to me that he treated me badly because he thought I would never leave. Well, I did. When I did, he made things SO hard for me. He left me with NOTHING. He cut me off of our joint account, with no way to even buy food. I was a stay at home mom for 10 years, so I didn’t have an income. It was, and still is, extremely difficult. I am still trying to recover, after starting over at 36 years old. I’m still in the darkness, but I can see the light coming.

Looking back on these experiences is really hard to do sometimes. I feel guilty for putting up with mistreatment and disrespect for so long, and modeling to my children that behavior like that was acceptable. Trauma is weird. It’s all I knew. It wasn’t until I started therapy, that I began to realize just how terrible it all was. It isn’t “normal” for your mother to be your biggest bully or for your father to just drop you out of his life for years at a time. It isn’t “normal” for your husband to insult you and make you feel small, or to be told you are dramatic just for having feelings. Hurt people, hurt people. It took me many years to realize that. Healing is a tough, gut-wrenching, beautiful mess. Healing is not linear. I wake up every day, trying to be a better version of myself than I was the day before. I’m still very hard on myself, because I grew up feeling guilty for just existing. That pain sticks with you. It’s hard to undo the mental anguish that trauma causes. The healing process will never truly end – I just have to take it one day at a time. I do feel proud of the fact that my children will never have to experience that level of trauma, because I pulled myself away from the toxicity to break free of generational curses. I do give myself credit for that – even though it’s hard. If the only success I have in life is being the mother to my kids that I never had, that’s okay with me. ❤