We were newly married maybe about a year into our marriage every time we get invited to go to dinner or go see someone he would say and do things to make me cry while on our way going to that event and then coming back from that event.

When we had company over and I’ve spent the whole day getting ready to entertain people but as soon as people leave he’ll start calling me out on everything that I’ve done. I said this wrong or I did that wrong and I end up crying because of all the things he says to me and the way he puts me down all the time. All I remember is the feeling that I’m just not worth being here.

The first eight years I wanted to have a baby so bad that I ignored his temper, his yelling, his screaming his jumping, his absolute horror because I just was focused on having a baby. I mistakenly thought that if we have a baby everything’s going be OK. We were then blessed with the most beautiful baby but tyrant husband did not change and now I had to deal with his verbal abuse and the bad treatment towards me and trying to protect and shield my son from him. I didn’t realize what I had done was brought somebody else to join in this terrible life of mine.

I kept trying and trying and trying for many years to fix things, but I just gave up about 5 or 6 years ago or maybe more than that, I gave up, I stop talking about him
He had a way of demeaning me in every possible way. For example, if we’re talking about someone who had done something really awful to somebody else and we discussed this behavior, before long my husband will start calling me that person’s name to insult me and tell me that I am as horrible as that person we just talked about.

For a long time, I subconsciously started to defend anyone and any behavior because I was afraid that when we go home, I’ll be identified as that person.

I married my husband because I really loved him and wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. I wanted to grow old with him. Now looking back at it he never cared about that at all. He had his own agenda and his agenda was to better himself and to keep everything for himself and keep me out of it.

Since we got married I realize that he has a lot of problems and I never encountered someone with those kind of problems before and I didn’t know how to deal with him he yelled and screamed a lot and just did a lot of things that I’ve never had encountered before him.

I was naïve and unprepared for his personality didn’t know what to do with the way he acted and treated me so I just gave in. I was always trying to find solutions and please him so when he, for example, wanted me to do something, my eagerness to please him was my guide so I did whatever he asked but he always criticized the way I did it. We always ended up in a fight. I don’t know whether he planned this or not but he got used to getting his way and it was a detriment to me because I couldn’t I could not be myself. I kept getting deeper and deeper into depression. I didn’t know how to pretend in front of people that everything was OK but privately, it was horrible, there was nothing OK about it.

I’ve been overweight all my life. In 1984, I discovered treadmills. I bought one and made it a commitment to do a minimum of 30 minutes of treadmill runs every morning before I leave home. I lost a lot of weight and kept it off for a very long time. By the time my husband and I got married in 1989, I was on my 5th treadmill. For the first year, I kept it in our extra bedroom and was exercising inside the house. My husband is naturally fit and does not exercise at all. In the last 30 years since we’ve been married, he’s exercised a total of no more than 30 days. He looks good, can eat what he wants and does not need to exercise. That’s all perfectly fine with me if he doesn’t have to work as hard as I do, but it’s not good with him. He complains about my exercise, complains if I eat carb, or if I don’t eat carb. He makes fun of me no matter what I do to lose weight. He doesn’t get that others have to work harder to get what he has. When we moved to our first house, he made me put the treadmill in the garage. Every morning, I go to the garage to exercise because he would not let me put it in any other room inside the house. Since this item is not his or important to him, then it’s just not important at all.

When we moved to our current house 22 years ago, I put the treadmill in the basement and kept on using it. After five or 6 years, my treadmill broke and I needed to buy a new one. A work friend offered to help bring my new purchase home in his truck in exchange for me to stay at the office to finish a project I was helping him with to meet an urgent deadline. When my friend came home, my husband told him to leave it in the garage. My husband told my friend he didn’t want to burden him with carrying the treadmill downstairs. Asked him to leave in the garage and later my husband will take it downstairs himself. My friend was very thankful and came to the office and told me what my husband said. I told him I wasn’t sure that would happen. My friend then told me that if my husband doesn’t take down by the following week, he’ll do it himself. He said “I promised you to take it to the basement and I’ll do exactly that”.

My friend came to our house the following week, carried the treadmill from the garage, we he had left it that week before, and put it in the basement where I had originally asked him to put it.

I’ve gained a lot of weight over the last 30 years and every time he gets a hint of me trying to diet, he’ll begin his bullying, making fun of me as a gainer, not a loser, and whatever I eat, he’ll say “that’s disgusting”. I’ve learned to stay away from him during meals because of his treatments, and the rest of the time for the same reason.

Yesterday was the day our son had us both talking. My Husband Promised he’d listen and allow me to talk so I tested him. Every time prior to yesterday I try to say anything, he would interrupt and start yelling. It’s been 19 years of this. Actually, a Lot less because since I had my son, I’ve stayed away from saying much to him. He still found excuses to yell, scream. & insult me in every situate he can, but I stay away from the raging volcano called my Husband. Because our son is young, he’ll find things I do wrong with him to use as excuses to erupt, or if I write a check like the issue of last month, etc. It doesn’t matter the reason he just cannot stand me.

When we sat to talk, I started with telling him that he dominates my life and suppresses any effort from me to tell him how I feel. I told man the things I remembered from the time in N.J, when I had to work at a department store after I came home from work to help with finances according to his nags and complaints. this took place just a month after we were married and my

dad had just giving us a large sum of money as a gift at our wedding. I have always listened to his needs and requests and tried to do what I can to accommodate him. I’ve considered his requests as my demands and go to bat to fulfill them all. In return, he’s done nothing to accommodate me. All he’s done is heard himself talk and he’s lived in his own world. He won’t let me say my peace so there is no other side according to him. All this time I’ve been able to take it for our son’s sake and I’ve been thinking I can keep on going like this taking this horrible life for my son’s sake. But when he blew up last month a day after his mom Left because I wrote checks to fix my car and to the dentist, checks that I did tell him about, I feel it is not possible for me to keep taking it like this.

While I was talking, I felt he was half way listening. I told him he just wants to do what feels good to him regardless of who he hurts. One example I gave him, was sleeping in our son’s room just because he’s mad at me he should not just use our son as a roommate. I told him since our son was little “you’ve been telling him he needs to be a big boy and sleep by himself. Now that he actually wants to be alone in his room, you go sleep in his room because it serves your interest”. You want everyone else to do the right thing, but none of this applies to you. I told him “I emailed you, I’ve told talked to you about it and even on son, has told you he wants to sleep alone, but you leave me every night and go to his room. Do you have any idea how his friends would mock his if they knew his dad sleeps in his room? None of them will think or believe him if he says it’s not him who wants this, it’s his dad. You justify everything to yourself if you’ve doing it, but if I tell you a fiend of our son ‘s dad sleeps in his kid’s room you’ll have a field day with it. You’ll Laugh, make fun of the dad and the son to the point we could not be friends with them anymore”.

This talk was not all like this, it took a long time, I talked, I cried, I Left and walked the neighborhood, came back and continued talking, and talked

some more. I also told him how he makes it so difficult to say anything to him. Even if I agree with him he yells and screams He did tell me he’s going to do better and that he’s working on his anger (I don’t know what that means) and will do his best to be a better person and more considerate. I really don’t know how I reacted to his reply, I was too emotional that I got as much out of my heart as possible, I hope all these declarations will be realized and he will work of getting us to be a better family.

Today, I’m just very down, even though I think I got my point across in front of my son and got him to admit his faults, I’m just very down and have been crying all day. Now, at 7 pm, I feel better and hope this was just a residue of what I was carrying in my heart all this time and it is gone now.