I’m still afraid of Ted. Abusers are like that. They never go away. But only survivors can tell their stories.
Looking back now I realize how his frenzy and his fun masked the fear… like those crappy colored clouds of smog hanging over world capitals that we try to forget are actually pollution by pretending that they aren’t even there.
Ted’s doing kept me occupied. His always needing more and better had me running in circles. The circles made me so dizzy that I couldn’t see straight and so crazy that I couldn’t think of my own ideas all by myself. His un-paid monopolization of my managing and organizing skills for himself and for our family projects, was just another brick in the wall to keep me cloistered at home, chained to him and his choices, prisoner of his desires and the sex games he wanted me to play.
Which was exactly how he’d designed it, setting me up… to need him, to feel indebted, to be at his beck and call… So I would go to any lengths, go anywhere, do anything… to help him, to keep him, to skirt his outrage and his complaining, anything to escape those demons… as we’d begun calling them already.
It had all started so slowly, so progressively, but now I realize, with such intention.
Ted used fear, a skill he’d honed, like a domination tactic and also like a weapon that he’d sharpened his whole life. A handy Swiss army knife, that he could just pop out occasionally, to make his point.
He knew the extent to which his actions and reactions made others feel uneasy and he knew how to sprinkle that fear out… bit by bit, so as not to scare people away immediately. He’d get them used to it. Accustomed to his tiny tantrums, until the big ones went by, not unnoticed, on the contrary, but feared. Fear of Ted’s tantrums allowed him to act out however he wanted the rest of the time. Do whatever he wanted. Choose whatever he wanted.
And because these outbursts of his were so erratic and so painfully unfair, unwarranted, unrelenting and disconcerting… it became far better to avoid them at all costs.
Ted operated this special style of covert narcissistic domestic abuse, gradually twisting my arm further and further. So gradually that I’d adopt a posture to accommodate the twisting without realizing the extent to which he had me sacrificing my desires for his the whole time, subordinating my wishes and burying my dreams to make him happy instead. Until I could no longer see myself without him, but until I couldn’t do it anymore.
Ted was addicted to more of everything and I’d, by then, become addicted to Ted too.
He was nice also, of course. A lot of the time. But not all of it.
He wasn’t obliged to behave like a monster non stop, because a little intermittent reinforcement (just a glimpse of his secret weapon) was sufficient to keep me in line…
His anger issues were “so occasional,” he’d quibble.
One day he’d be friendly and funny and the next he’d go wild and give me the silent treatment for some unknown reason at some strange moment that never made sense… and then the next he’d take me shopping to make up for it.
Except that if I didn’t want to shop, there was a risk he’d go crazy again. So I did. And in that way, the frenzy continued. That’s how it was set- and kept — in motion. That’s how it had become part of our lives, how it had moved in, how it progressed and festered and putrefied.
Domestic violence is never a parade with colored floats and balloons and streamers. There is no drum roll or marching band. No logos or gimmicks or theme songs. It doesn’t announce itself. It gave me no warning. It was gradual, subtle, smooth even and easy… so easy… that I hadn’t even seen it coming.
We just constantly did what Ted wanted so Ted wouldn’t get angry, so Ted would be nice and fun and friendly, So Ted would keep his demons at bay.
And I was no trained acrobat but by the end, Ted had me jumping through hoops one day and walking on egg shells the next. Each of which are a form of domestic violence on their own, but together make an even more dangerous duo.
When I finally put those words : Domestic Violence — on Ted’s behavior, it suddenly became as clear as an uninvited and unwanted guest, like a hair floating on a bowl of soup…. or like a bomb in my living room. There it had been, sitting prettily against the wall like a flower one minute, then suddenly spitting in my face, taunting me after having held me, prisoner underwater, unconscious, unaware… for so many years.
Ted told me he’d kill me if I ever asked for any compensation for the financial, administrative, emotional and sexual abuse he’d inflicted on me during our union. He told me just how much he’d make me suffer.
I remember incredulously thinking how stupid it would be to murder someone for so little. But then… I still had no idea how damaging and debilitating and harmful his insistence on having it all his own way had always been. I still hadn’t realized that Ted would stop at nothing to control it all, stoop as low as was necessary to get his way, use every possible machination to be right.
When Ted finally left with all our stuff and our un-notarized paper documents to cheat me in divorce just like he’d done with his two previous wives, I was still in denial about just how violent our relationship had been.
It had to sink in. I had to let the frenzy dissipate… in order to allow the pain and the fear he’d infused constantly with his demanding manipulation to settle… like grains of Turkish coffee, to the bottom of my being.
Domestic violence is a form of terror that keeps victims silent through fear.
I’m still afraid of Ted. In dark hallways, in back alleys, in broad daylight, on paper and in court rooms… But I am telling my stories for myself and for other women now so that we will all become survivors.
And that’s a certain form of freedom I’ve found from him, finally.
