The locked tomb I kept locked

Just tonight,

I am so lucky, my best friend, {from FOREVER!} when I told her how I was writing about Symbol and how hard it was for me to open that chamber where I stored the shame, guilt, sorrow, grief and disappointment of the time spent involved with him.

I shared with her one of my insights from reading what I had written yesterday.  I realized that I had allowed Symbol to convince me, my friends weren't true.  That Symbol had become my entire Universe!

I think this withdrawal from friends and family has become a pattern now, as this theme re-occurred in my marriage. 

Back Then, my friend, who knew me before I started dating Symbol, told me, that I had ditched her!   That there had been some reason I had given that we could no longer speak to each other!   I am speechless and disappointed that I can't remember.   But, I am so lucky, she was there when it all fell apart and I was ready to risk being close to someone again.

So there is loads still for me to uncover and apologize for, to friends, like Dorothy, Amy & Tom.  I cannot remember why  we stopped having Egg Roll parties, or Halloween gatherings, we just seemed to drift apart.  Or, perhaps, like with Suzanna, who was someone I really admired, Symbol convinced me she was mocking me behind my back.   It is quite sad to think, that I might have had more fun and less tears if I had just met someone else.   Now the former blog was cut.   I had so much more to say but,  part of me wasn't ready.   So, now I know there is much more to this story and although I was being hurt, I hurt others around me when I tried to please him.     Symbol, had this trick of taking the phone and unplugging it from it's socket.   This was a small thing, but you add that to his 'lessons' he was giving me and 'mis' information, that was the smothering close bond.  Now, I graduated and finished my degree and so, a couple of close friends had moved away.  Dorothy would ring me from time to time.  So, if I didn't have the phone plugged in, I did get the phone calls.   I can honestly tell you, I didn't check to see if the phone was unplugged at the socket,  but I soon started too.

Symbol had some real issues with the fact that I had been with anyone before him.  What is even odder, is the fact that he had told me he had a girlfriend in High School and that their relationship had been a full one too.   I didn't learn until I had truly finished with him, that all those stories of he told about them were lies!

Now, I had a couple of boyfriends in High School. But, those situations were all well within the normal learning curve of any teenager.  I did a few things I can honestly say I am not proud of.  We all make mistakes.  In fact, without making mistakes, and sometimes hurting a dear friend, we don't really learn the true ramifications of our behavior.  When I look at them now, I don't feel ashamed, not as such, I hadn't taken a vow to renounce all pleasures of the flesh and be chaste.   In fact, I held the belief, that my parents marital problems stemmed from the fact that they had been virgin's when they married.    So I had made a choice, before I even turned 13, that I wouldn't be a virgin when I got married!    In saying that,  I hadn't been out to find the boundaries of the definition for promiscuous either!   
I have a story of being shamed by another student in High School for being one of the few virgins. {That is definitely on my list to write about!}    
Now, as a mother  and a divorced woman, I don't feel proud of what I did, but I don't feel ashamed either.  To me, it was well within the realm of teenage development and learning about romantic relationships.  That means learning to distinguish between the hormone fueled lust, and romanticized love.   Those lessons can take some people a life time.

This anxiety of Symbol's about the others before him, lead to months of torture.

Now, you may think I am being melodramatic,  but I was working two jobs.  I had a few hours teaching Dance and a Yoga classes.  So I took a job, working through the night at a Donut shop.    I would come home after 6 am and have a few hours to sleep, but Symbol would launch in.   {He had the advantage of a good nights rest}   It was as if he had thought up a new argument,  same theme.   He wouldn't stop telling me how he couldn't even stand my picture in the room with him, because I was so disgusting.  He would carry on until I agreed to his statements.   Mostly I agreed so I could just get some rest.  I can remember driving to my dance class and waiting at a traffic signal.   My vision started to blur, I could barely keep focus on one image with my eyes!   I remember now, that this started to happen with increasing frequency.

The other huge realization I had only after our relationship finished, was that he never professed love for me. He never said if I looked attractive, nor once did he indicate he thought I was attractive.   {When I read this now, I see, I really let myself down}

During this period, where he is 'educating' me in the way to think,  He also led me to buy a leather mini skirt.  I started to dress in clothes that he approved to please him.   This led to the whole, wearing the leather mini skirt, heels and fishnet stockings and being whistled at in stores.  Events that led Symbol to blame me when we returned to our apartment.  Now, I was dressing in that manner to please him!   So, why should I take the beating, if someone else made a pass at me?   Was that my fault?

If you asked me now, I probably won't bother to dress to impress a man now.  I am a totally girly girly,  I love perfume, dresses and make up, all of it.   But, at this point, I might just under dress if being introduced to a man.   I am that totally over it!  

What I really should have agreed to, is to wearing it around the apartment.  Wearing the black leather, didn't suit me, it simply isn't who I am, or what I like.  To my mind,  by dressing for him, I thought I was being a 'good' girlfriend.

The one person who did see the signs was my Dance teacher.  
{Facechating tonight, my good friend said, she always suspected, something}  

I told you that Symbol was a very keen martial artist.  He would often try to get me to spar with him.  He would say, we will go slowly.   This often ended with my being held in an arm lock or wrist lock.  These joint manipulations are generally taught for self defense, and it took me years to get over the mental block I had for being able to execute them myself!   So, sometimes, Symbol would smirk that the beatings were more about the fact that I wasn't smart enough to know how to stop him from hurting me.

He used to forbid me from discussing his affairs.  This threat of his, this non disclosure hung on me for sometime.

The last time I still behaved as if I was under this threat was a New Years' Eve.   I had been invited over to a small party.  The college students in the flat next door, had kindly asked me over.   Now their apartment,   was my old flat, the one that I shared with Symbol.   As we sat and drank, watching Dick Clark and the crowds in New York, I began to open up.   The Landlord never made any changes to the flat after I moved out, I could show them the obvious physical dents left in walls and floorboards.   It was okay, Symbol had moved to California.   Far enough away that this conversation couldn't get back to him.   After I enjoyed some good hours, I left and returned to my apartment, as I sat there enjoying some peace and quiet, I suddenly had the fear back!  I jumped up, ran over to the apartment where the party was, and begged them never to repeat what I said.

That right there, is my acceptance.  I should be placing adds in the newspapers with his photograph and proclaiming him to be the violent, nasty, woman hater that he is.  What if, he met someone more niave than me?   Without support, she might not get away.

Now, abuse wasn't talked about back then.  In fact I believe awareness of the cruelty one can rain upon another, has come into our social awareness within the last decade.  There is a poster  in the Post Office declaring the workers have a right to do their job without any verbal abuse. At the bottom of the poster is the Zero Tolerance campaign Logo.  It is good, it means we have to think about how we treat one another.  No one person has the right to dictate over another, even if they have money, power or influence.

People ask, why do you stay?   This is really hard to answer.  On a certain level, the abuser convinces you that they are the only ones who would put up with you & your shortcomings.  At times, an abuser will show you, by a statement like, "you are so ugly, you are lucky I hang around you at all."    Also, the violence becomes like fuel for the passion.  When you have been hurt by a lover, all you want is them to come and kiss it better.   It is a normal human reaction.   Sometimes that is the absolutely worse thing that can happen.  So, this type of relationship has an almost magnetic and dynamic whirlwind energy.   It is like being sucked into the undertow at the ocean.    You can't even see how bad it is for you, you are just trying so hard to create a 'good' day, one that goes by without upsetting their apple cart.

One night, as I lay down to sleep, Symbol was up studying in the bed next to me.   I was in that still semi conscious state, and I had this vision of Symbol taking a huge mallet and hitting me square between the eyes with it!   My eyes fluttered open!  I looked over and Symbol was staring at me.   I was very upset by this image, and it was a  profound, divine communication.   It was my spirit trying to wake me up to the fact that this guy would eventually one day kill me if I didn't stand up for myself.  Now, this was the longest relationship I had!  I was now in my early 20's.  Did I plan to become this man's wife?   These were the questions that were in my mind.  

But also, the new underlying subtext;-

  I couldn't find another man to put up with my ugliness.

  Would I find someone who would put up with my low mental capacity?

   I already had, 4 sexual partners, no other man would put up with a woman that used!

Regardless of the fact that I would have to be alone, I knew I could not go forward with this relationship!   I knew I wanted children.  If I couldn't keep myself injury free, how could I keep them safe?   It was time for me to find the way out.

Not long after this night, I had this dream.   In this dream a door opened in the wall of the apartment.  Out of the door came, me.  Not the me that I knew, but a me from the future.  She told me, I would meet someone really nice.  She told me that it would be okay.   I think there was probably a whole lot more to this conversation and spirit connecting message.   What I remember is that the me from the future was wearing an outfit, that I didn't own, and wouldn't for more than 3 years.   

Do you know, the last time, the very last time he started to beat me, I threw his combat boots out the door, and when he started to try and grab me and dig his fingers into my hands.   I was quick enough.  I was smart enough to grab his glasses off his face and smash them.   Then I kick him in the 'privates'.

That was the end of it.  He was either so surprised that I retaliated, or he really was just a pathetic bully.   {and that is the me now, who can see that.}

For some reason, we tried to get back together but the trust was all gone,  there was nothing but frail crack broken shell of feelings between us.

For the next 18 months, until he finished his degree and moved on, Symbol would periodically appear at my door and ask if we could get back together.  {It was much to my distress, that 18 months after I fled my marriage, that my x husband continued to asked me back!   When, this happened I thought I was crazy!   And I knew he was crazy.  In my mind, throwing belongings in black bags, and running to a Women's Aid shelter should be enough to say to any man.  I am finished with you!}

Two years after I married and left Ohio, my mother forwarded a letter from him to me.   I went through a wide ranges of emotions.  One of which was wanting to ensure my mother and sister were safe.   He hadn't been exceedingly clever and sent the letter to my mother,  but had addressed it to the old address and it was forwarded.  But, he wrote, we have unfinished karmic business and drew a circle.   I couldn't really get what he thought I needed to make amends for.   Also, I really couldn't imagine him asking for forgiveness.   No matter how much time he spent meditating.  
At that point in my life, I was newly married and living an entirely new life.  I was living my happy ever after.

The Last time I thought about Symbol was after my first child was born.   In one of those  half sleeping states,  I dreamed he had walked in and spit on my child as she lay sleeping in her cot.  I was so distressed by this image, I awoke and started patting the bed, looking for the 'nice guy' I had dated.  Now, this message was an important communication from my subconscious.  I hadn't realized that the pattern of control and abusive threats were present in my marriage.

To myself now, I promise to never accept such cruelty.  

I hope that you never have to live through or experience anything like the above.  I hope that you live with l.ove, in your heart and with those you share your life with.