CynicalOptimist

blatherings about life, the universe & everything.... or more likely just books, students, family, & someday politics, religion and those more esoteric themes related to self actualization. Trying to be optomistic, but raised w/ Tricky Dick, bumbling Ford, Teflon Ron, Waffling-Read-My-Lips Bush & Slick Willie as her formative Presidents. Could we once again have intelligence & integrity in our nation's capital & capitol?

Friday, February 22, 2008

Dear Ones:

Today is the second snow day in a row. After returning to bed from a 45 mile round trip (I was just over 1/2 way to work when I got the information), I awakened refreshed.

FBE & I were on the phone for the morning trip, which is our custom. I know some of you cringe at the idea of talking to other people at 5:30 in the morning. But since we have already been awake for a while & I'm even en route to work by then, it is our version of a breakfast conversation that any husband & wife might have, except his wife is sometimes what we discuss, as was the case this morning. The financial stress of fighting for a more equal custody of children is wearing on FBE. The emotional stress of that and the emotional stress of continued disagreement is wearing on him. He likes being a nice guy. He doesn't like fighting. He is accustommed to letting her win. Though I appreciate his nice guy & anti-fighting stances, I have trouble with him letting her win. The divorce was because he was ready to stand up for himself, or so I thought. Similar to my divorce. NO, I am not advocating fighting just to fight. I advocate sticking to his guns about what he thought was Right for his kids.

Recently she has let him back into the house frequently to be with the kids when it isn't his day. This is good because it shows that she trusts him around her & the kids, and it lets him check on his kids more. This is bad because not only can it give her false hope that they can reconcile, but also because it makes him forget what the legal rules are for now. I also think it could be confusing to the kids to see them still doing many normal family things. If the parents can get along well enough for these family times, then why get the divorce? I am glad that he gets to be with his kids more. He loves them; they love him, and the separation was tearing at them all.

BUT I think he's got to stay firm to protect his future legal rights. She's on meds to even out her emotional cycles. She's in counselling. BUT I still bet she's not stopped being a manipulative fighter to get what she wants. I told him that her drawing this out, and forbidding contact & then softening back up is a strategy that is set up to make him give up the fight for more custody. It can make him feel like she'll always be this easy going about when he sees the kids, and cost him more money than he can afford... so why not give up? What has he to lose except money? Yes, I do not trust her. Yes, I am cynical.

I tried to explain that he is basically still letting their old pattern continue, even if it's not as bad as it was. We talked about battered wife syndrome & similar patterns in emotional & verbal abuse. How they are similar. How some people have been conditioned some how during their life to put up with shit that they shouldn't. Like me, and like him, and like some other people we know. I felt frustrated cuz I couldn't figure out how to make him see the similarities between how she treated him as a second class citizen & those situations, but then he either changed the topic or was at work... so it felt unfinished.

Anyway...

FBE called during our usual lunchtimes as is also our custom. During the conversation, we somehow got around to him asking me when I lost my virginity. Mid-November 1985 with RICH boy with whom the discussion of marriage in our futures had happened, but no formal engagement, yet.

I've probably told the story to you all before; I know I've told FBE before, but here it goes again. Come Christmas break my period was LATE. What if I'm pregnant? Well, back then a period had to be 11 days late for the home pregnancy test to work. That's a long time when you're living it. He said along the way, "People of my class don't get pregnant and then married." For years RICH boy had insisted that we were of the same social class and that class didn't matter or exist, etc. That sentence rocked me to my core. I started backpedalling on my emotional attachment to him right then. Come January, he knows he's in BIG trouble with me but I've not found the voice to fully explain just how badly he has screwed up. I just ask to be left alone for awhile. He doesn't understand I mean longer whiles. He eventually comes over with a HUGE box of condoms to apologize & to try to kiss & make up.

Well, it is called making love, so I give the kissing & fondling a chance to re-establish an emotional connection. But I'm not feeling the love. I'm feeling groped. He proceeded to try to enter my body. I said, " I'm not ready." He thought my physical body was not ready. I meant my emotional core. I started bawling as He thought he was solving the problem. He did not notice until after his body was physically done with the situation. He then noticed my tears & said that I probably felt raped. He was accurate, and I was an emotional zombie for several months. Almost flunked out of college that semester, but rallied just in time to save the grades if not the soul.

But how to explain why I didn't kick him in the balls, shove him away, tell him to stop? Even though there was no violence, I felt immobilized. I felt a vice on my vocal chords. Why did I feel powerless to speak up & defend myself then & later with my ex until things were awful? Why did I feel a vice on my voice? I couldn't explain it over the phone today, but perhaps here?

Well, in a History of Women class I took during my 30's, I learned that many women of various cultural upbringings in America felt voiceless... Jewish, Protestant, African-American, Native American, lower class, upper class, middle class. bel hopkins, who does not capitalize her name, has a book about it still happening in modern America. I spent that semester doing much self- analysis. Showing my ex the paper I wrote about my past & feeling unable to speak did not help our relationship like I hoped it would.

Anyway, for me.... phrases like "turn the other cheek," "Vengence is mine, saith the Lord." "Return blessings for cursings." "pray for you enemy." "ladies don't do that..." "sticks & stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me" were strong influences on me. I did NOT have the image of Jesus throwing a fit in the temple protesting against Wrong at that time. Another influence? My mother's silence in my father's house. Ok, she did eventually get around to saying, "Yessah, massah" but usually not in his hearing. We did things his way... We also obeyed her.

Let me firmly state, I was never aware at the time of my father being verbally or physically abusive to any of us. I knew him to tease me about being chubby, and I was for awhile, but I didn't know that I grew out of it. I knew him to be strict. I knew him to be impatient. I knew birthday spankings hurt enough that I didn't want the real thing. I knew him to use the belt 3 times total between my brother & I. These things seemed within the realm of normal for back then. I even thought my parents were much more lenient than some other parents I knew, though we did seem to work more.

I must also firmly state that the town bullies did a serious number on me. Different bullies: Stormy in kindergarten era smashing in my nose; Robin & her big friend in middle school stealing my only shoes during pe; Bret, Mike, Eddie in middle school showing me their dicks at Tracy's house, verbally insulting me & damaging our family vehicles in high school. Russell as a senior with Kevin, & others around asking me in front of the school library asking me if I "want a fuck" & the others saying that I probably didn't even know what that meant. My best friends not inviting me to parties, or hugging me when they hugged each other. Being on the outside of the talking circle, etc.

I turned the other cheek. I prayed for those who persecuted me. I didn't understand why I didn't fit in. I knew I had hand-me-down and homemade clothes because we were so money poor. Could not having the cool tennis shoes really be that important?

To escape pain, I read. I read & read & read. Most books were biographies, histories, or "Leave it to Beaver" type teen books of the 60's, cuz that's what the library had. Beany Malone, Katie Rose, Cherry Ames, Laura Ingalls.

I knew the kids made fun of me because I didn't approve of cuss words. My family didn't use them... Well, when Dad would let a mild one slip, Mom would reprimand him by saying his name as 2 syllables; it is a one syllable name.

I knew they made fun of me because I didn't understand sexual jokes... but then they didn't explain them to me either, or tell me all that many either so I could begin to piece it all together & understand (my college friends did explain for me). OK, so I didn't approve of sex jokes either... a lady isn't supposed to, and as with cuss words, the Bible says it is what comes out of man's mouth that makes him unclean.

They made fun of me for not drinking. My family didn't drink (at least not when I was looking). Beers & wines still smell & taste nasty to me, and I've sniffed & sipped several versions trying to please the college friends & the Ex. Rum & coke may have been good, except I still don't like Coke either.

Any way. I was emotionally scarred from it all. I felt stupid. I felt unworthy of compliments. I felt friendless. I needed to escape.

Yes, I had FBE in my life. I wrote him letters, & he appreciated me. It kept me alive. I loved him for it.

Today, after I told FBE about being a zombie for months after Rich boy, he asked what I was like after I broke up with him. Suicidal is the truthful answer. I did not tell him that I had lost the person who actively said I was loved, and beautiful & smart or that I lost the person who appreciated me, who knew me better than anyone else because in my letters to him I poured out my thoughts & feelings. Ok, I evidently didn't tell him all about the bullies, as he has said that he never knew my teen years were that hard on me. As I told him today, I didn't break up with him because I quit loving him under my understanding of love at the time. I broke up with him because I wanted something better for my life than I thought he could give me. Basically, I was a snob, but I didn't realize it until later...much later.

I was upset with myself because of lying to him & and hurting him. See, I wrote two letters. One was sweet & full of love & wishy-washy, but perhaps we should break up anyway. The other was blunt. I thought he was not smart (he can't spell well & uses country grammar), we didn't have common interests, we would have too many babies too soon, & be poor & live in a trailer house, I would never get to college, he didn't seem to be a Christian, etc. I pretended to have accidentally mailed the two letters to the wrong people. It was a lie. I did it all on purpose, because that was the only way I thought my fears would be heard. The only way I thought I could speak my mind. I didn't know that a lady can speak her mind.

So then not only was I stupid, fat, ugly, a social reject for reasons I didn't understand. I had broken my own rules... God's rules. I had lied and purposefully hurt FBE. I deserved to be rejected by God, too.

I am alive today because of a voice in the dark firmly stating to me as I sobbed onto my giant teddy bear about what did it matter if I died, "God would be pissed." Pissed was not a word I spoke or thought. I still rarely think it & even more rarely say it. I didn't know then why God would care if I lived or died.

I think I do now. I think of the kids who have opened up to me because I could say I've been that close to dying. I know of the kids who are still alive. I know of the kids who come back to the school & hug me even though they hated me while in my class. They thank me for giving a damn about them even though they didn't "get it" then. The kids who have cleaned up, straightened up, accepted God. No, I'm not claiming to be the ONE who made them clean up, straighten up, or accept God. I just am saying that they come back & tell me thanks.

Anyway.

I told FBE that someday he needs to tell me what emotions go through him, what he thinks when I tell him about why I broke up with him and more about how he felt. It was time for him to go back to work, but he told me that he wished he had pursued me better, longer. He said he would have let me back into his life at anytime I was still in college or even soon after that.

December 1986, I graduated & got dumped by a man I thought loved me & was going to marry me. He had never said he loved me; he had never proposed. As he put it, I was everything he thought he wanted in a wife and life partner, but he had just never fallen in love. He kept thinking he would, he just didn't.

Spring of 1987, I went back & basically re-checked out all of my ex boyfriends except for FBE. I didn't think he would ever want me. I didn't really think I was worthy of him. I just needed his forgiveness, but was afraid he would not give it, so I could not ask for it. I had no money; I was living in a trailer house. I didn't see the irony of it all. yet. I've begun to wonder, "what if?" but I've a feeling I still wasn't grown up enough.

May 1987 is when he married. They had been a couple for about 5 years.... yup, that goes back to 1982... not so long after I broke up with him.

I met my ex in April or May 1987, while I was still checking out the old flings. Started flirting & then dating in September. Proposed to November 1987; eloped December 1988.

Well, to make a long story short... Neither of our spouses treated us as though we were their equals. FBE is an intelligent man; he has not lived in abject poverty... their incomes were similar to ours... we have interests and opinions that are common, (yes, we have some differences too). Their firstborn daughter was born after ours; they were celibate longer than I was. He has accepted Jesus into his life.

So would my fears have been lived out? I never gave him the chance to convince me they wouldn't have been. I was too bent on escaping the hometown hell I'd lived in. He was looking forward to coming home to it & me.

Me? Well, I've learned to speak my mind, and still be a lady. I've learned that poverty is just a state of mind. Intelligence is unrelated to spelling & grammar. I think I've forgiven my dad, and the bullies, and maybe even the ex. Ok, sometimes I can still get angry at them all, so I'm not certain... but I've certainly tried. I know God loves me. I know that God knows I want to forgive them all, but I'm still going to pray that he forgives me better than I forgive others. I've accepted my responsibility in my marriage failing, and in the rape.

Yes, I know the victims are not supposed to accept responsibility. They are supposed to say that it was not their fault. That mantra kept me paralyzed into my marriage. It did not help me realize I have power, too. In my case, things would not have happened if I had spoken up, if I had fought back. Maybe with the ex things would have been worse, but if it had been worse I would have seen it as bad instead of being in the realm of normal, or only "borderline wrong. " When things were really bad and out of normal realm, then I did act.

Early on in the reconnection with FBE, he asked me if my old feelings for him were returning. I told him he better hell hope not. He was puzzled by this. Those feelings were of a scared, lonely voiceless girl. These feelings are of a confident, outspoken Woman who knows she has friends and is loved. This woman is not a conceited snob, my love sees past his spelling & grammar; my love sees past the current financial crunch. I see his faith is strong, and his habits even more noticeably Christian than mine. Ok, I still feel selfish sometimes. It's not a jealousy type of selfishness. I trust him around his wife and other women. I just wish I could have more time with him, but I can be patient and trust that this time we will talk about our worries until we can have more time together.

It's almost time for FBE to get off work. It's almost time for us to... the phone rings 8 minutes early.

Got to go enjoy what I can get for now.

May you enjoy what you have in your life, even if it's not all you want.

Take care,
Pete

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