My Greatest Heartache of Marrying a Controlling Man

It still brings tears to my eyes

“I don’t want to leave my mom,” I say. “She never left me. I don’t want to leave her.”

It’s one of the few times I am unyielding with my boyfriend.

He wants me to move to be with him.

My stance is non-negotiable.

I’ve graduated college and found my way home from Scranton, Pennsylvania. My college boyfriend is a year older than me and lives in Philadelphia.

I don’t know that my words are fair but they are honest.

He tells me he’s willing to move. He doesn’t like his job and says he’s ready for a change. I’m relieved. I don’t mean to be selfish. I’ve been raised by a single mom and I’m the youngest. I’m the last to leave her.

My mom doesn’t make me feel this way.

My bond to her does. When your father walks out, you develop an incredible loyalty to the one parent who was the constant in your life.

My boyfriend accepts a job with a company.

I lull myself into a false sense of security. I am young and unaware of the intensely controlling man I am attaching myself to. He appears easygoing. I don’t realize there are covertly controlling personalities.

Passive-aggressive is not yet in my vocabulary.

He has said one thing but plans on doing another. It’s foreshadowing our entire marriage. But again, I don’t know this yet. I think he’s respecting my inability to ever leave her.

About a year and a half later, he tells me he’s going to be transferred.

He says he doesn’t know where. It could be anywhere in the country. My anxiety increases. I still don’t understand I am with a passive-aggressive personality.

I don’t understand manipulation as a means of control.

I don’t realize a person will say one thing when they plan on doing another.

I felt indebted to him. He moved to Virginia for me. How could I not move with him now? I owed him that. Didn’t I? I felt conflicted. I had the same resolve I had previously.

My mom was non-negotiable to me.

Just as I had been to her.

I was incredibly relieved when he was transferred an hour and a half away. It may sound silly but to my mom and me it felt like the East Coast versus the West Coast. Yes, it was close. But it wasn’t day-to-day close.

I wouldn’t be stopping by to drop in on a Tuesday.

I wouldn’t be meeting her for lunch.

I wouldn’t be a part of her daily life.

Before I tell you the most outrageous part of this story.

The dubious and devious passive-aggressive part.

Let me tell you the craziest part.

It’s the absurdity of my own personality meeting a controlling man. I should never have felt compelled to move with him. He knew how I felt. There are plenty of jobs when you’re in your early 20s. He knew I didn’t want to move. He never acknowledged it.

He made me feel like this job took precedence over everything.

I’ll get to the outrageous part.

First, let me explain my heartache. My mom collapsed within months of my moving. Her seizure led to a four-year illness. I was 28 when I lost her. I not only didn’t get to spend our day-to-day together, but I also wasn’t there for her in the end.

He didn’t care.

He never looked and me and said, “I feel bad. You told me you didn’t want to leave her because she was the only parent who never left you.”

It would be years later when I would discover his truth.

The position he took in Virginia was never permanent. It was a training territory. He knew when he accepted the position that Virginia would never be where he would ultimately work.

It’s the signature of a controlling passive-aggressive personality.

They say one thing.

But they intend on doing another.

I believed him. I trusted him. I thought he moved to my hometown because he understood my emotional attachment. I don’t know that I was being fair but I was being honest.

He never was.

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