I would tell my 20 year old self, “Get out of this marriage.”
I should never even have married.
Mores were different in 1954.
Unbelievably different.
There was nothing worse than being an unwed mother. Nothing.
“Shame. The most powerful, the most poisonous of human essences.“
– Jean Korelitz
There were many times I should have left my marriage.
Many times; many reasons.
“Write with honesty and don’t worry about the feelings of others, because no matter what you say, they’ll hate you anyway.”
– Isabel Allende
In Ardmore, he claimed she was spreading lies; that she was not pregnant; that if I heard the lies to ignore them.
Within days he moved us to Dallas.
We moved often. I was never consulted about a move. Not once in 16 years was I informed that we were moving.
I should have left.
“I knew Rome was burning but I had just enough water to scrub the floor, so I did what I could.”
– Barbara Kingsolver
In Dallas, I had just given birth to my son when I received the letter.
She said she was pregnant; that when the baby was born, she would leave it on my doorstep to raise.
With my son in my arms and my daughter in hand, I went to her door. When I confronted her, she said she was angry with him and just wanted to cause problems.
I should have left.
“There are some among us who live in rooms of experience we can never enter.”
– John Steinbeck
He wouldn’t consider marriage counseling.
“I don’t have a problem. If you have a problem, you go.”
I should have left.
“Conquest and liberation and democracy and divorce are words that mean squat when you have hungry children and clothes to get out on the line and it looks like rain.”
– Barbara Kingsolver
My son was 5 years old and became ill.
The doctor in Beaumont referred us to Blue Bird Clinic in Houston.
After the tests, Dr Chao talked with us separately.
Dr Chao looked at me and said, “Your husband is extremely domineering and he makes you very nervous doesn’t he.”
“Yes”, I said.
Dr Chao, in a restrained but emphatic and measured voice said, “Why_don’t_you_leave_him.”
“I don’t have anywhere to go”, was all I could say.
I should have left.
“There are so many answers. All of them are faultless and none good enough. What did I have? No money, that’s for sure. No influence, no friends I could call upon in that place.“
– Barbara Kingsolver
There is not a shadow of a doubt that he was a narcissist.
A sociopath is a narcissist with cruelty added.
He was indeed a sociopath.
He was in his recliner with a glass of iced tea.
My son was a toddler and accidentally bumped the recliner.
Some iced tea spilled.
He threw the iced tea in my toddler son’s face.
I should have left.
“I didn’t set out to leave my husband. Anyone can see that I should have, long before, but I never knew how.”
– Barbara Kingsolver
He would whip the children with a belt.
I don’t mean spank. I mean whip.
He threatened them if they cried.
“If you cry, I’ll whip you again.”
I should have left.
“The memories we bury under mountains of silence are the ones that never stop haunting us.”
– Carlos Ruiz Zafon
I only tried to stop the whippings once.
He whipped them even more.
I didn’t interfere again.
I tried to reason with him.
”But you don’t get it” he said.
“I do not care what you think.”
I should have left.
“To truly hate is an art form one learns in time.”
– Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Sunday after church, my daughter didn’t get to the car quickly enough.
He was leaving her behind in order to ‘teach her a lesson’.
It meant she would have to walk 5 miles to get home.
I got out of the car and said I would walk with her.
That would have been too embarrassing for him to explain to church members, so he waited.
I should have left.
I drove my daughter to town to meet up with friends.
I was to return for her at a set time.
When I returned later, she was not there.
After waiting a short time, I drove home.
My daughter called to ask that I come pick her up.
“If you go pick her up, I will whip her and then I will whip you”, he said.
I should have left.
“Oh, a wife may revile such a man with every silent curse she knows. There are no weapons for this fight.”
– Barbara Kingsolver
I have referred to the children as ‘my son’ and ‘my daughter’.
The children were mine.
He never changed a diaper, got up in the night or held a baby. Not one time.
He took no interest in the children until they were old enough for him to dominate and to control.
I should have left.
“I begged God to grant me this, to take his life….as the just price for his transgressions.”
– Sue Monk Kidd
If you knew him, you knew he was a pathological liar.
He would lie when the truth would have served him better.
“…was a pathological liar and enjoyed the power his lies gave him and the injury and confusion it caused.”
– James Lee Burke
“…they seemed to deceive always, as if deception was the very blood in their veins.”
– Michael Ennis
I should have left.
Sociopaths believe that rules and laws simply do not apply to them.
He didn’t hesitate to commit forgery.
He made a large business loan to a ‘friend’ without the required collateral.
He kept insisting he had the document; forgot to bring it in; it was at the house.
His boss drove him to the house to get it.
In the bedroom, I watched him place the document on the window glass.
He forged the needed signature.
I should have left.
“Sooner or later, we all sit down to a banquet of consequences.”
– Nancy Horan
He was Treasurer of the Muskogee Round-Up Club.
He embezzled funds.
In time it became known.
In order to avoid criminal action, he
gave up our 1957 Chevrolet as restitution.
I should have left.
“Strange to say, when it came I felt as if I had been waiting for it my whole married life. Waiting for that ax to fall so I could walk away with no forgiveness in my heart.”
– Barbara Kingsolver
I would tell my 20 year old self,
“Get out of this marriage.”
– Sue Williams