On April 2,2008, I did not want to disappoint my son, but I wanted to See what my husband wants to do. Since by that time in our marriage. I did not trust his motives and I knew he always has his own agenda for doing anything he does. It just so happened that he needs me to prepare my invoice to the company I was subcontracting services to and I’m sure he wants to talk to me long enough to get me to agree to do this before he comes up with the next rage to push me away and mark me cry again.

I don’t trust him with money at all, He had stripped me from every penny I have including my retirement money. He made me pull it out of my retirement account, pay the penalties, and took the money supposedly to invest and I never saw it again. If I ask, I’ll get yelled at. He just wants and wants and wants and if he doesn’t get it, he’ll be a raging Monster. All these years, I just fed the Monster.

 Another thing he always did when he starts raging, was to tell me how many people tried to stop him from marrying me. He’d say ” I should’ve listened to my mom when she told me how awful you are” or “God, why didn’t I listen to your cousin who said you’re a handful”. He not only told me how much he hates me, but how many others did too. I resented all these people even if I knew he was lying to me. I 1 kept away from many people who were very close to me before I got married.

 I knew the day my son thought he scored a victory of peacemaking between his dad & I, that my husband was just playing a game. By then, I’ve Learned a lot of his behavior patterns. I also knew he’ll pretend to hear me out and be quiet because our son will be in the room witnessing everything, and by the end he’ll agree with me, maybe throws an ”I’m sorry” in there and immediately follow it up with, can you prepare the subcontracting invoice right away? we have no money to pay the bills and we need it'”

 I’m not one who can strategize and plan how to get someone to agree with me. I’m very direct and always say what I mean and put all my cards on the table especially when the conversation is with my family. Even if someone is capable of bluffing or convincing others to give in during negotiations. I don’t believe these types of maneuvers should be part of family discussions.  I do believe If everyone has the other person’s best interest at heart, then just being open, honest, and direct should be enough to resolve all issues. Unfortunately, my husband has misled me for 19 years now, and no matter what I try to do to prove to him my love, honesty, and caring about our family, he has not reciprocated in kind. As a matter of fact, he is so stubborn he takes everything I say, every gesture I make as a challenge to contradict. He has lived for 19 years with me and knows, in his mind, that I am dumber that than a rock, so learning anything from me is just a very backward step and an insult to his intelligence. Sure, in his mind again, being intelligent means, taking advantage of your wife. keeping her controlled and stepped on all the time and make her do what you want all the time. So, being smart and intelligent has worked for him for 19 years, and since he only cares about himself and himself only, why should he change? the Hell with the Family!!

I did not have the heart to tell my son on April 2, 2008 that his dad had made gestures like this in the past more than 1000’s times. He had suggested many times to do something as a family together whether for one afternoon or a whole weekend. Unfortunately, he never delivers. I did not want to be the bearer of bad news to my son, while he’s trying to make my day, and say let’s see if we go any place this weekend. My husband believes what he says even if he knows he’s lying. He would say,” Let’s go to the mall “for example. If we say “yes let’s go” he will delay and cone up with things he must do before we Leave and keeps doing this until it’s too Late to go anywhere. He applies this to everything; hell say let’s go out of town and we get ready and then not go,

he’ll say don’t make plans because I’m coming home early so we can watch a movie together and then not come home, and it’s always in a passive silent way where he would not do what he wants us to do. 

Very This is not a once in a while occurrence, this is an all the time habit of his. when I say all the time, I do mean. all the time. the common scene in our home, we are ready to do something he’d promised us to do, and he is sitting in his office trying to finish something he cannot get out of, we wait until it’s too Late to do what we were supposed to do. 

Before we played the waiting game, I used to try to peek in his office door and ask how much longer he has before we can go? If I did this once or twice, he would turn into the Yelling Monster, he would start cussing and yelling and would not stop. I guess this behavior on his part trained me to just stay put and wait. Either way, we don’t end up going anywhere but at least waiting and not going without being yelled at, insulted, and eventually crying, is a better option for me. This is yet another controlling tool he used in order to put me down and to feel better about himself.

Another trait my husband has, is when he tells us let’s do something, in his mind, he’s done it, so he is satisfied that whatever he suggested whether being a trip, a purchase, or anything else, it’s already taken place in his mind, so he doesn’t actually huge to do the act.

Over the years, he’s purchased cars for me and my son, taken us to many places, cooked many meals for us, and cleaned the house aid done yardwork, all in his mind, the actual times we did any travels, I initiated and talked about in public where it left him no option other that than to deliver.

When we first got married, January 1989, my husband talked about how we need to save for our future. He suggested we get direct deposits from our work and have both our salaries into one account and live of one salary. He said that way we can save money to start or invest in future businesses. At the time, I was so in love with him so it did not matter what he was going to say, I was in full support.  He also told me that in order not to complicate matters of the check writing, one of us should be dedicated to doing so, and since I have so many chores to do, he’ll take this task. I was beaming with happiness for our shared chores in our new family. I just wanted to please him and do whatever I can to help us get to the next step in our lives.

10 years later, he opened an account with both of our names and for the firs time, my signature was on the account. I asked for this because over time, we’ve had many unpaid utility bills and which left us without water or electricity while he is out of town and cannot pay the same day to get our utility back up.  Non of this lack of payments were due to lack of funds, this was strictly lack of willingness to part with the money, carelessness toward his family’s wellbeing, and his typical selfish behavior.  In February of 2008, I told him that I needed 2 checks; one for $400 for a car service, and the other for $450 for dental crown work. I also asked him for few more check just in case but assured him that I will let him know if I needed to write any of them. I ended up writing one for $24 for after school stays for my son, and another for $78 for Dr. fees for the dental crown work.

On the morning of March 9, 2008, I could feel that he is going to throw one of his temper tantrums.  There is nothing that I could do to avoid these tantrums. Any word or move on my part can fuel his temper and he will erupts to the big scale of screaming and yelling.  I woke up at 5:30 am and went downstairs to do my workout on the treadmill. Even though he did not acknowledge my presence, I kept going because that wasn’t unusual for him, but I did not know what’s making him act like this.  When his rage starts to build, All I could do is avoid him all together to save myself.  It feels like you are just barely outside a cage of a raging wild animal who’s doing everything possible to brake the locks of the cage and come after your flesh and you know you’re not fast enough to run away and you’re so scared your feet get stiff.   I’ve had so many bad feeling and vibes coming at me from him that it became the usual attitude.

When I finished my exercise,  I ironed my son’s school shirt and went to his room to put his clothes on his bed before I took a shower.  As I walked into our room, my husband was standing in the middle of our room and began his tantrum. He started with he cannot do this anymore, I am spending money we do not have, and I am driving the family to bankruptcy.  I kept quiet to find out what was the crime I’ve committed, he then told me that I have written 2 checks one for $400 and the other for $450.  I told him that I did tell him about these two checks and he was ok with me writing them, he said just because I told him does not mean I can. He then asked me about the other 2; the one for $24 and the one for $78. I was so scared that words would not come out of my mouth.  I started saying A..A.. A.. and before anything came out of my mouth, he started making fun of me and repeating A.. A.. A.. in a mocking voice. At this point, I just stood there while his voice got louder and louder, his was condescending, demeaning and  just yelling as loud and as rude as can. While raging he said something about my attitude, I then turned to him and said “look at yourself and listen to what you’re saying, then tell me who’s the one with the attitude”. He then told me that if I wrote one more check, he’s going to close the account. Here he is yelling a screaming because I wrote less than $1000 of checks during a time we were making more that $300,000.00 and in one month, he’s threatening to close the account. I told him, “Fine, go ahead and close the account, don’t wait, close it now”. I went to the bathroom, took a shower and get my son ready, had breakfast, and left for school and work.

While in the car, my son asked what was going on that made his dad so loud again.  As soon as he said that I broke down and started to cry. I told my son why his dad was yelling at me for paying for my car to be fixed, my dentist, and the other two smaller checks. My son said to me ” So mom, if he knew about the large 2 checks, the he’s only fighting with you over $102, right?” I said, “yes, this whole rage is over the $102. But even if it was one dollar, he was going to rage like this regardless”  I kept crying and telling my son that I did not know if I could handle it anymore, I kept apologizing for not being the strong mom he should have and deserve. My sweet son kept trying to make me feel better by telling me that I was strong. I then told him before he was born, when his dad was so abusive to me, I prayed to have a baby and asked God to please bless me with a baby. I was so naïve and stupid thinking he would pay attention to the baby and raising him that he won’t worry about the insignificant things in life, that these bad behaviors would seem so unnecessary. Now I know that I was living in never never land when I was thinking he’d change one day.  A bad person is a bad person regardless of life’s circumstances.  My husband is a very bad person no matter how good God has been to him.

I told my son on the morning of March 9 while driving to school that when I had him, I was so happy and thankful to God for answering my prayers and gave me the perfect child, but now I question if I/m doing the right thing by staying in this abusive relationship.  Am I serving and giving him the best life by allowing him to witness his mother being so weak? I am so broken now that his dad keeps walking all over me and that is just not good for him to witness and grow up in this environment where he sees him mother being treated so badly.  My so told me that I wasn’t weak at all, I just take all this because I don’t want him to grow up in a broken home.  He too began to cry while was uttering these words to make me feel better. I told him that I’m not sure anymore if I’m doing his justice by being him mom and being so down and depressed like this. He deserves a mom who can help him grow to reach his highest potentials, be happy and risk taker.

I stopped the car, got out of the car, went to the back seat and sat next to my son, gave him a huge and long and kept apologizing for sharing this with him, but mostly, I thanked him and thanked him and thanked him for being the wise guy and the glue in the family.  I tried very hard to make sure he forget about our talk and to go to school and h=be busy with his friend and forget about this whole subject.  He assured me he wasn’t going to pay attention to this and was going to have fun with his friends in school.

Even though I went to work and got busy with that part of my life, I could not forgive myself for allowing me to share this with my son the way I did.

My husband, on the other hand, felt he was in the right doing what he did and did not feel bad for his behavior on that day or any other day for that matter at all.

I’ve been married 30 years. 30 years of nothing but put downs, complains, manipulations, yelling, screaming, using me for his benefit. Why haven’t left? It’s not because I have low self esteem, not because I could not succeed without him, and not because he’s the best I could do. I didn’t leave the first 8 years because I was naive into thinking that once we had a child, he’ll change. I thought he’ll realize that raising a child is more important than everything else in life. He’ll focus on doing the best job as a father and don’t spend time on small stuff like how I washed the dishes, or how much soap I used. Obviously I was wrong thinking he’ll chance.

I then spent the next 10 years trying to raise my son to be the best human possible under the circumstances we lived in. I protected him from his father viciousness toward me yet exposed him to his dad Love toward him. I wanted him to be close to his dad despite his dad’s efforts to remain a very bad person.

During the last few years of my son’s high school years, I moved to the downstairs spare room and have been sleeping there ever since that time. I have tried numerous times to approach the subject with my son of leaving my husband but he’s always replied with one reason or another justifying the staying is a better deal than leaving. He never told me not to leave but he would bring up reasons of how his dad true colors would be exposed to other close members of our family and how hurtful to them that would be. I’ve stayed because I just did. I’ve stayed because there is no law yet that can give me back what he’d robbed of me. I’ve stayed because I don’t want more pain and suffering that a divorce will bring. I’ve stayed because I don’t want others to know, I’ve stayed because…