Look Your Past in the Face

and Build Trust for Your Future

No one can share your story better than you. You have it within you to heal from the hurt and the pain. Many times I’ve thought about divulging my story, to get even for all the wrongs. But it doesn’t change the past. I’ve come to terms with it and I’m happy. How will rehashing it change anything?

It won’t for me, but maybe sharing my story could help another.

After I split from my ex-husband I said screw it and just put the fully decorated Christmas tree in the master bedroom and closed the door. It was April before I finally took it down and put it away.

I couldn’t stand to go into that room anymore, so I moved into the spare bedroom. Many times I slept on the couch watching the Late Show. And then the Late Late show.

History, especially family history is really a passion of mine. So why hide my own history? Just because you ignore it, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

My ex-husband read my diary and changed my life forever.

It’s taken me years to trust again. It wasn’t only the invasion of my privacy, but the beginning of the verbal abuse that followed throughout the marriage.

Not only did he read my diary, because “he didn’t know what I was thinking” he put a program on my computer. In the days of chat rooms and ICQ (one of the first instant messaging programs), I felt free to share my thoughts.

You could hide behind a username and it felt great. In the infancy of the internet, men outnumbered women online. It was great, I’m not going to lie. I was popular for the first time instead of the shy overweight introvert that I was.

Everything I thought and shared with another — he spied on. He dumped printed pages of what I had written on my lap. He had a program, which was a macro that copied every keystroke.

I’m not proud of those days, I was cyber cheating. I tried counseling before, and couples counseling as well. You can imagine how that went.

An introvert in counseling — “how does that make you feel?”

“I don’t know.”

In my head, I thought “I can’t express my feelings verbally, with you or right now. I know how it makes me feel. Worthless.”

Confessions from your ex-wife

Picture this, you’re standing at the bathroom mirror. You’ve just washed your face and brushed your teeth. You neatly fold your washcloth and place it on the sink for tomorrow. Rainbows and butterflies and off to work you go to start your day.

Last night, you pissed off your wife. She walks into the bathroom and sees your neatly folded washcloth. She looks in the same mirror you just did. She picks up your washcloth, wipes up the pee around the toilet on the floor and neatly folds it, and returns it to the sink for you.

And you think you won the fight, right?

Gosh, I wish that was me. I didn’t have the wherewithal to come up with something like that. The worst thing I did was open the doors to his dresser and violently throw his unfolded clothes in it.

Wow, that must have hurt.

There are many painful parts to my past, many that I’ve just blocked out. I thought I left the memories in my past. But I didn’t really.

How do you face your past and make room for your future?

Shortly after I remarried, we were driving somewhere. My husband might have turned a little quicker than I would have. (They call me the turtle because I’m very cautious.) I’m sure I winced or something and my husband looked at me and said, “what did he do to you?”

It could have been the road rage trip.

My ex drove like a bat out of hell, and you had better get out of his way. More than once he put the car in park and got out ‘have a talk’ with the other driver.

It escalated on another trip. I was sure we would hit the metal barrier because he decided to pass traffic on the right shoulder of the interstate going 75 mph. I could see the overpass coming and the shoulder running out. In my mind I could hear the crash coming, I prayed not to die.

Isolation increased after we moved out to the country.

If you’ve never lived out in the sticks before, it’s a big adjustment. You’re on your own, and even more dependent on him. Driving to town with all the kids packed in the van, we ran out of gas. He turned the key off and said it wasn’t his van and he wasn’t walking for gas.

My stepdaughter and I walked toward town. We passed by a house and a kind stranger grabbed his gas can and drove us to town and filled it. Imagine his surprise when he pulled up and saw the old man sitting on his ass in the van.

The stranger refused to take his money but graciously accepted my thanks. With tears in my eyes, we shared a look. He knew. Thank God for the kindness of strangers.

Fear and intimidation lead to control.

Time and time again, he threatened to leave. Nineteen years of threats and intimidation. Pounding his fist on the table to get our attention or just running out on us.

When you’re living through this story, you can’t wait to write a tell-all.

Justification for all the struggles that you lived through. But it’s strange, that when you let enough time pass, it seems a distant memory. You dreamt how it’s going to be great to let him have it and tell all the world what an asshole he really was.

You learn why all the time he was trying to figure out what you were up, was because he was cheating himself.

Imagine late one night, you wake up and he’s not in bed. You go downstairs to get a drink and you hear voices. After months of no intimacy, you walk in on him sitting naked at the computer with the cam pointed down there.

More couples counseling.

How does that make you feel?

Drop dead.

No really, drop dead.

Idle threats of divorce began to fall on deaf ears. It just didn’t hurt anymore. I was numb. One day I said we’re done!

How Do you save your ex-husband’s life? You divorce him.

His control mechanism was gone. I let go of my biggest fear, that he’s going to leave and divorce me. The most dramatic event to control everything started to unfold.

I started getting phone calls from him while I was driving home from work. I could tell he was drunk, and he admitted it. He accused me of not going to work. He drove by the shop and said my car wasn’t there.

He was in the kid’s playhouse with my bottle of whiskey. With each car that passed by our house, he said is that you? Is that you?

He said he’d burn in hell. It was then I knew what he was planning. I hung up and called my mother. She called 911 and they got my daughter on the phone.

I arrived home before the police arrived. I slowed down and turned off my lights until the police pulled into our drive. Several hours later they found him drunk in the field carrying the gas can.

I knew he was going to set himself on fire and I didn’t want my children to see their father burn to death. After this suicide attempt, he moved out.

It’s an internal struggle that you go through. It would have been the answer to the nasty divorce.

You can finally face your past, I did.

It should be freeing to expose all the hurt and lies, all the injustices you face. Look out sucker, now you’re going to get it!

But it’s not. You think how you’re finally going to get even. You have to relive it all to remember what you want to get even for.

Is it even possible to get even with him? I doubt it. If you really want to heal from your past, you don’t enjoy causing pain to another after experiencing it yourself, do you? I’ll answer that for you, no you don’t. You might think you would, but you won’t.

Here’s a chance for you to unload your hurt. Do what matters and share your comments with us, we want to know, “How does that make you feel?”

Remember you’re not alone. We all have a story, share yours in the comments below with us. Share as little or as much as you feel comfortable with.