Freedom...

Ramble warning light: On. I'm not planning to do a lot of editing. This might get a bit too serious for some people's tastes - but when I woke up today and realized that I marry Didge in exactly three months, I knew I had to write this.

I need to say this, and then I will never mention it (or him) in this blog again: My ex husband is an emotionally abusive internet predator who charms women into a very sticky web of deceit so that he can use them to secure a place to live and the utilities to keep it comfortable. You see, when you have a completely decimated credit rating due to perpetually scooty habits and child support evasion, you can't get these things for yourself. Although happily free and clear of this monster, he did forge my name on his tax returns (in spite of a court order not to do so), making me accountable for said back child support debt should something happen to him. Contempt actions? Of no use, he simply skipped state again. How this sorry sack of sh@t continues to win, time and time again, and manages to get away with what he repeatedly does to people (abandoned kids, lies, singles profiles while married, more lies...) is beyond me. In the end, because he's such a successfully evasive soul (practice makes perfect), I've had to give up money I am owed and having my name removed from his tax documents - luckily, this matter will be resolved automatically once he files again. *If* he files again, I should say. I would put nothing past him. (Actually, things are now in place to make sure the system is alerted to this matter, so should he do his norm and dash off, a quick check of some things that have been filed would free me from what he's so obviously trying to do. But I would have to endure a couple of weeks of headaches while they check everything.)

He is a skilled cover-up artist. I have never met such a master craftsman of falsehoods, and I have never encountered anyone who refuses to accept blame or fault to the point of seeming naive. He is not bumbling and cute - he is skilled, cold, and calculating. I have seen him do something, and then refuse to admit he's done it seconds later. He will say something, and days later completely change his story - you must have heard him wrong, he will say. It's all about his very twisted truth, there is nothing beyond his version. In his mind, there simply cannot be - it's complicated, but very simplistic. (Look up "narcissist".)

When the lies begin to uncover themselves, he will launch a series of abusive tactics meant to undermine his partner's self esteem and isolate them from anything and everything they took comfort in. He went so far as to take my favorite pillow and blanket. (Everything is his. He simply appropriates.) The insidious controls start to go into place, too - over time, I had to make sure the knobs in the bathtub were turned to just the right position every night before going to bed, for example, because he could not think to turn them from any other position so early in the morning. (His is a subtle process, so by the time it got to that point I simply complied - you learn to swallow your anger in order to win approval again.)

It took months for me to recover. In the beginning, I would literally argue with myself over simple things like purchasing the brand of tea or soap I prefer. I walked around my own, empty, house on tiptoe, because he always said I walked like an ox. I kept myself shut in the bedroom so my keying would not disturb anyone - again, when I was at home alone. My mindset went to one of having no self worth OTHER than cleaning up after someone. None of my decisions were ever right - even about which day I would do my laundry. Once out and over the initial pain inflicted by that situation, I realized that I questioned everyone's motives - even the cashier at Kroger certainly didn't really mean it when she told me to have a nice day, for instance. She had to have been thinking I was a loser or a freak as she said it, right? (Chances are, that was never the case - and if it was, who gives a crap?) This list could easily continue into a one hundred page blog entry. Recovery took time, and I will likely harbor anger towards this individual until the day I die. The important thing to remember through that anger, though, is that I'm free of that situation and have recovered from the psychological effects of the deceit and abuse he doled out in such a cavalier fashion.

So why am I putting all of this out here? A few reasons. It's the last stone in the wall I've built between myself and that nightmare - this finishes it, gives me closure. Yes, I do hope he reads it - like I said, I'm ticked, and while I know it won't affect him at all due to his lack of conscience, this is like me giving him the finger. Quite frankly, if feels good to finally do this. Primarily, though, my hope is should someone in a similar situation read this rambling mess, she (or he) will realize there is a way out, getting away from such a person is possible, and that the world will not end if that happens. (Here's a link to some good general info. I read this, dug further into Biderman's Chart of Coercion, and began digging myself out.)


And tied to that primary reason for writing this: Good, honest people are out there - seriously, they really do exist. Recovery, and the ability to let those people in, is completely possible. When I first began realizing what was happening to me, I would have never believed that I would say what I just said, but it's an amazing truth. Your life can be picked up and shaped into what you want, and finding someone to share that life with in a constructive, supportive, absolutely magical fashion is entirely possible. *Really*.

There. Finished. Done. Except for one, completely, utterly puerile touch that it will give me cartwheels to finally say:

"Rumor"? "F" you. Don't let the traffic cameras scare you too much, and don't take red lights so personally. And nobody gets worms that way.


DAMN, that felt good.