last night I decided to attempt the impossible again. I had a conversation with my n husband about "the difference between romance the world's way, vs God's way. To my husband, the intimacy between husband and wife is supposed to sound like a porno flick. To me, more like a soap opera. I feel used, cheapened, and degraded. His response is always "well, there aren't any CHRISTIAN manuals written on this topic and the mechanics are all the same either way.
This has been an ongoing battle with him and me for YEARS! Since the only form of "intimacy" he has ever known, was a distorted, perverted form by his abusive father or his perverted friend, that's how he has always practiced intimacy in our marriage. There was a time that I went along, play-acting with him, because I thought it made me a good, obedient wife, but, since I've decided that I don't want the "ways of the world" being part of our marriage, I've put my foot down and said "I will NOT talk/act that way. It's DISGUSTING and WRONG." He blames my "new attitude" on, going to college and getting into "all that psychobabble stuff." It's not that...it's that I don't want to be OBJECTIFIED in ANY part of the marriage.
Now, the one arguement both he and Kay always gave me, when they didn't want to change something, was, "can you EXPLAIN what you mean? You say all this stuff, yet you never explain what you mean." Sooooooo, I go through this big long explanation, about how a Godly woman or even a decent one, wants her husband to tell her "you are beautiful. I love you," rather than "oh baby, you know you want me. Beg for it!"...only to end up right back with N saying "but you never EXPLAIN what you mean." THIS HAPPENS OVER AND OVER AGAIN ABOUT THE SAME TOPICS, EVERY TOPIC, till you are thinking "you stupid idiot, I DID just explain everything to you! You didn't hear a WORD of what I said!"
That was last night. I explained and explained as best as i could, and, always, it came back to him getting this baffled look on his face and saying "you never explain anything to me."
Further, he has some robotic phrases that he says all the time, when I'm trying to tell him what I need emotionally from him. They are the following:
"I guess I just wasn't wired that way" (rather than, "oh honey, I'm so sorry I hurt you. I will get help for this so I can communicate better with you.")
"It's over and done with." (this is his way of refusing to admit to his faults of the past, yet, he will readily beat me up over things i did in the past, saying "well that's different.")
"Calm down calm down" (he says this once he has succeeded in riling me up by going in cycles in the convo...he tries to look like the calm, cool and collected one, so he can say "LOOK AT HOW FRUSTRATED YOU ARE GETTING. THERE IS NO NEED FOR THAT.")
"We'll get through this" (this is his cop-out way of saying that he intends to just let things "take care of themselves" such as when the cockroaches were crawling on my baby's face, eating her eyebrows.)
"I don't understand why YOU have problems with the car. It works fine for ME." (his way of negating that I said there is something wrong with how the car is running, and thus, doing NOTHING TO FIX IT)
"I just talked with the kids...they didn't have anything bad to say..." (this is his weapon of letting me know that our children saw all the years of poverty and weirdness as "an adventure.")
"People tell me..." (this is used to let me know that others agree with him that I have it SOOOOOOOOOOO easy, by not having had to work and being able to stay at home doing "nothing") along with this goes "there are women who just WISH THEY HAD IT AS EASY AS YOU DO!"
"Just let's say..." (comes before a nasty thing he will say that someone usually in his family, has said about his "good for nothing" wife...usually this phrase goes something like "Just let's say there were MANY times I wanted to take the car and NEVER come home." "Just let's say you're lucky that I'm a man who is committed and faithful." "Just let's say I"ve had to really consider whether I wanted to stay in this relationship with you being as crazy and neglectful as you've been.")
He has this other annoying thing he does, where I'll ask him something and he'll say "yes. yes." Then I'll say "really?" and he'll say "I don't know." (sounds like this: me: "did you remember to mail my letter to my mom?" him: "yes" me: "are you sure?" him: "yeah" me: "I'm not sure you did..." him: "I don't know." me: "then WHY did you say you did and now you are saying you don't know?" him: "huh?"
It is this everyday banter with an insane man that can make you want to rip your hair out if you don't have a firm grounding in WHO YOU ARE PERSONALLY.
Oh, the latest thing he said to me was "you said yourself that you have it so good now that you don't want to leave, and now you are saying you want to leave. I heard what you told your friend on the phone."
(actually what he was eavesdroppin in on, was when a counselor asked me "why do you stay?" I told him "Because being here, I don't have to go OUT to work. I work right in my home and i'm fine till he's around again. Why should I yank my girls out of school, upset my own life, have to drag myself out of the bed every day to work, when I already have it good in the way of a roof over my head, a husband who HAS to work no matter if I do or not, a "familiar" place I'm used to, with my own office at least, a home that my girls grew up in...." so, you see, he took PART Of that convo and twisted it to say that I was bragging about how GOOD I have it.
Such is my life at this point. Now, good news...this week someone from my church has invited my husband out to lunch to discuss things. My husband has AGREED! this is a HUGE thing and a FIRST for him. Ya'll please pray and I'll let you know how it goes.
~Laura
