I’ve been on a wicked & surreal ride the past few years, and I’d like to share. My husband stopped loving me (or at least making an effort). He stopped loving me around 6 years ago when we had our first child together. He loved me so much in the beginning of the relationship. He was attentive, caring, affectionate, he would cuddle, we would make love often. He cared about my thoughts, my feelings, and I thought I could share anything with him. I bared my soul to him, and I kept waiting for him to do the same with me….the longer I waited, the more standoffish / closed off he became. He then had the audacity to accuse me of “stonewalling” him, everytime we had a serious conversation. I wish I knew that projecting and accusing a lover of the doing what you are doing is a CLASSIC sign of someone with narcissistic personality traits. My purpose for sharing….to help others recognize the tell-tale signs of a toxic relationship. Get ready for a wild ride – grab your popcorn and favorite fluffy throw, shits about to get real.
I’m white, and midwestern. My husband is Indian by birthright (though he’s never lived in India), and he claimed to not hold any of the traditional Indian values, as he grew up in the US. Naturally, I have a lot of midwestern values: I’m nice, kind, loving, generous, hard working, have a positive attitude and have a strong appreciation of family and friends. Everything he told me about his beliefs, and values have VERY different definitions of the actual words. I didn’t know this about him, when we met, but fast forward 10 years, and I figured it out quickly in marriage counseling. Loyalty, to him, is being in the same home, and not going out. It’s perfectly fine to emotionally abuse and emotionally withdraw from your spouse, because if you are physically there, that means you are loyal (what a crock of shit). Loyalty, to me, is sticking through the thick and the thin and working it out, side by side. It’s being vulnerable with one another and talking through the tough shit. It’s walking through fire to help your spouse battle their demons, and still want to have them hold you at the end of it all. He didn’t walk through fire with me, he didn’t hold my hand, he screamed at me, shamed me and blamed me, and told me it was my fault fire existed.
He was shunning me, ignoring me, often, for not being “strong enough” because I asked over and over again for sex, for cuddling, for affection, for any signs of him adoring me, and he responded with this is normal, I was the one with the problem as he told me I had no “good example” of a healthy relationship because I was a product of divorce, while his parents remained married through his early adulthood, until his mother took her own life, shortly after the last child left the nest.
I left the marriage when our shared child, a 6 year old girl, started ignoring / shunning me, when she didn’t get what she wanted, just like how Dad did. It was a wake up call to see exactly how inappropriate he was treating me. How he gaslit me each time I tried to bring up my feelings and his words / actions that lead to them.
Mommas, Single Ladies, if you are in a relationship and you feel like you are crazy for sharing feelings, this is your sign that the person that is supposed to love and care for you is playing mind games with you. See it for what it is, and address it. If nothing changes, you have to take charge and make a change.
More to come…check back soon. Here are some words of affirmation that I have to tell myself often & they are worth sharing:
*I am doing my best
*I am worthy of love
*I believe in myself