I can't do this everyday

It's been a bit over a year since I ended my marriage.

It's been a good year for me but... there's still signs of the damage I was left with.



Self-esteem is never the easiest thing for anyone to maintain. It takes so little to damage it. I've never had the strongest self-esteem but I can usually manage to put on a brave face and make people believe I'm tougher than that. There's times, though, when I need to not receive any more blows to my fragile ego.

Over the course of my marriage, if I am honest, my husband took far too many opportunities to belittle me, to keep me where he wanted me, to reduce my confidence to almost zero. He quite possibly didn't even understand he was doing it to me. He would say something hurtful and when I seemed upset he would tell me that I wasn't feeling that at all. He would tell me I couldn't cope on my own, couldn't do a particular thing, all those insidious comments that beat us down. During the last four years of my marriage it was worse than ever. He had turned to alcohol and drugs to deal with his grief and that in turn caused him to be harder to deal with than ever before. I couldn't count the number of times he reduced me to tears with cruel comments or by bringing up past events in such a manner as to paint me the blackest of black, knowing that I would not retaliate. He made me feel stupid, inadequate, unattractive, undesirable, incapable of being more.  I would speak to him and get no response. I would ask when he would be home and be told to get off his back or that he'd be an hour only to have him turn up a few minutes later. He would spy on me through the living room curtains, go through my belongings when I wasn't home, tell me he was going to bed and then stand in the hallway shadows and watch me.

Beer came before me in all things. Even though I refused to have sex with him if he had been drinking he would still drink until drunk and then expect it. Or if it suited him, he would drink instead of it. We went through the typical dance of the alcoholic and the partner. I would raise the matter of his excessive drinking and he would find the reasons it was all my fault. I would offer to change the things that 'caused' his drinking and he would find other reasons it was still my fault. I tried to get him to see a counsellor, with me, without me, about me, whichever worked for him to accept some help. I never succeeded but I did end up seeing a counsellor myself. I dealt with the deaths of my children and 13 miscarriages without one. I couldn't cope with this slow destruction of my sense of self.

I was constantly ill from the stress he caused me. I could not count the number of colds I suffered over the last four years of my marriage. Every single one of them lasted far longer than they should have and left me with a debilitating cough. A friend felt certain it was the voice I was not using to tell my husband what he was doing to me with his behaviour. I think my friend was right. I ended up being diagnosed with asthma and I can remember one day when I asked my husband for help with the kids to be met with, not quite a refusal but all the reasons it was so difficult and I told him not to bother. He rang and asked me if I was okay with the kids later and tried to tell me that he'd said to call if I really needed help. I'd already done that and got none... I had an awful asthma attack that day and wondered if I would make it home or collapse before I did... I got home but no thanks to him.

I stayed with him far longer than I probably should have but I was determined to give him time to realize what he was doing to me, to us and ultimately to our children. For so long as I could shield my children from his behaviour I vowed I would stick it out. My happiness did not outweigh that of the other three people in my family. Ultimately he crossed the line and forced me to make a choice. I chose a life without him. For the past year I have been on my own with my children. It has been a good year but not one without shadows from the past.

I have days when all I want to do is find a deep, dark hole and crawl in there to die. I have days when I am certain that no-one wants to spend time with me, no-one will love me again. I have days when I have no patience with my children and I'm certain that they would be better of without me. I have days where it's all I can do to get up and put on that pretend face and go through the motions. Those days I have no shield against anything. Rejection, on even the most peripheral level, just about destroys me. Those days making a comment on twitter or a post on facebook that elicits no response makes me feel like I am in that deep,dark hole. To make a comment directly to someone that is ignored/overlooked/missed makes me feel like someone has covered that place over so I'll never emerge again.

Those are the days when I hide from everyone and at times, even unfollow someone so I can regain my equilibrium before I go back with my brave face patched on to me and in the hope that I really am someone worthwhile.

I don't always succeed in finding that brave face very quickly. I try to remind myself that I am a strong, independent woman but after so many years of being told I'm not, it's hard to dig that out from the depths. I don't need or want people to constantly validate me but I do need & want people to understand if I hide at times.