The Lies We Tell Ourselves...

Okay, so I started rereading my "old" blog. It really was a good thing for me back then, to blog. I am hoping that it is a good thing for me now, as well. But, I also see, looking back, how much I lied to myself (and my readers) especially in the beginning. Hell, my first few posts (about my relationship with my now ex-husband) were so much happy horseshit that I wanted to gag when I reread them.

Back then, I was trying to convince myself and anyone who would listen that I was okay. That my marriage was okay. But reading it now you see how quickly my marriage dissolved once I started to gain some of myself again. (After the night I spoke with HIM and decided that I didn't want to die.)

But even in my anger, I was still protecting my husband. Or myself. Or maybe both of us.

I didn't admit to the physical abuse in our marriage. In fact, I even denied it in at least one post. I think that I told that lie for a few reasons.

One was, I was ashamed.

Two was, even though I thought I wanted out of my marriage, I was still trying to fix it, and admitting to the physical abuse seemed like the step I couldn't come back from.

Three was, he is the father of my children, and while I was hurt, and scared and angry, and was verbal about those feelings, I did not want to admit that the man I chose to father my children would do THAT.

Four was, I had spent so many years "protecting" my husband from the consequences of the choices he made, that I was still protecting him. We had family friends that read my blog. I was trying to reach out to them in my pain, but could not find it within myself to be completely honest about how bad it was.

Five was, I did not want to admit to HIM that I was being physically abused. I was honest to a fault about everything else. But I was afraid HE would think less of me knowing I had accepted 14 years of mental, emotional AND physical abuse. I thought it made me look weak.

I am no longer ashamed of that. It was NOT MY FAULT. It was not my brokenness . It was my husband's broken soul that caused him to abuse me. It was his failure as a man that he abused me, not my failure as a woman.

What IS my fault, is that I started my affair, at least the EMOTIONAL affair before I left my marriage for good. I take all the blame for that. But I was HONEST about that with my husband.

I have been writing about the back story, and I will continue to do that. But for those of you with a lot of time on your hands who want to see a LOT of it played out in real time, you can feel free to visit my old blog and read all about it.

I have promised myself to be more honest this time around.

When I have a feeling I will feel it. Out in the open. ALL of it.

I got better about that in my old blog as I grew INTO ME, but then I had to start censuring myself again because my husband was regularly reading my blog and using it to hurt me, track my life, cyber-stalk me.

My ex doesn't know about THIS blog. I used a different email account. This one is just for me. I have told My MM (Married Man) that I am blogging again. HE used to follow my blog daily. But, I told HIM I don't want HIM reading this one. This one is for me, if I thought HE was reading it, I would probably not be as honest as I can be knowing that HE is not.

HE will respect that.

And so, in order for me to get completely honest with not only you, my readers, but also MYSELF, to claim back that part of me I lost while lying about the physical abuse I suffered, I want to say...

I WAS AN ABUSED WOMAN.

I MADE MISTAKES, BUT NOTHING I DID MADE IT OKAY FOR MY HUSBAND TO BEAT ME.

HE WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR ME, IT WAS HIS JOB AS A MAN, AS MY HUSBAND TO PROTECT ME. AND RATHER THAN DO THAT, HE USED HIS STRENGTH TO HURT ME... MENTALLY, EMOTIONALLY AND PHYSICALLY.

Here are some pictures that were taken after the last time he abused me. The bruises were more than five days old by the time these were taken. I will not protect him from what he has done anymore. I do not care if you think he was a bad man. He was. He is. Because he is still unwilling to accept responsibility for what he did to me.

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These are NOT the worst it has ever been, this is a very mild example of what happened to me regularly in my marriage. By the time those photos were taken the bruises on my neck from him choking me were too faded to photograph. My son took those photos. It was his idea. He said he wanted me to have proof of what his dad did to me. That makes me sad.

That's all, Goodnight.