Respecting women….really

I had always thought John respected women. He always had female friends. In fact, he got along with women better than with men. He wanted to spend all his time with me and said we were best friends. When I was out with friends he would offer to come and pick us up if we had been drinking….even showing up early to come and have a drink with us. I didn’t think of it as controlling behaviour. He was just being the nice guy he really was….or was he.

I have since heard from friends that they always thought it was odd that he would show up. That he would drive me places. I knew he always liked to drive because he wanted to have the control. Even when he was drinking and I was the designated driver he would sit in the passenger seat and give me turn by turn direction…even though I knew how to get home. But, it didn’t matter. I would let him feel like the big man….it was easier.

Of course, by taking the easy road, I made it even easier for him to continue with the control. He already controlled the money. Occasionally he would say he thought I should know what was going on with the money, but then he would just say he would show me later. And I trusted him. I still thought he was a good guy. Plus, I had small children that were my responsibility. I was to keep them quiet so he could sleep. I was to make sure they behaved properly. I was to explain to him why our son was not sleeping. Why our daughter made noises. He told me I should just ignore our son when he wakes up screaming the night. FYI – turns out he was allergic to dairy and was in pain. And our daughter needed to know who the boss was. I shouldn’t let her get away with anything. I still have no idea what it is he thought she was getting away with. But I was questioning myself as a mother. As a lot of mothers do.

He would show me how the kids did exactly what he told them to. He was the boss. I was failing. I was trying to get them to make decisions for themselves. To learn that they are in control of themselves. It was as if he was training a dog. When his way didn’t seem to be working he would walk away from it. It was now my job to raise them. He would just critique. I tried to keep the kids out of his way. He would say I wasn’t paying enough attention to him. I was always concerned with the kids. It was as if he was competing with them and I was not a good wife because I was concentrating on the kids.

We had moved to a different city from where we grew up. I didn’t know anyone and I didn’t have my family to help me out. I didn’t have anyone to leave the kids with. Of course now, I see how this worked to his advantage. He was able to go out with friends. Go play hockey and have drinks with friends and I was at home with the kids. He never had to check with me if he was making plans to go out. I would have the kids. He also knew there was no chance I would run into him with someone else, because I was at home with the kids. Yes. The same kids he would tell me I am paying too much attention to. This is when I started to see how truly selfish this guy is. I was exhausted. I started to think he was cheating but in all honesty, I didn’t really care. I was just glad he wasn’t home and I could get some sleep.

A couple years later, a man I worked with mentioned that he thought John was not the good guy I thought he was. He told me I deserved better. And that he was better. I told John. He was upset that he was going to end up being one of those dads who only saw his kids every second weekend. This surprised me since he never seemed too interested in the kids other than how they made him look like a good dad. A good man. The next day, when I got home from work, he told me he had got a babysitter and thought we should go out for dinner and talk things over. Then he told me he had cheated on me years before when he was at a training session for work.

When I was pregnant with my daughter, John was driving into another city for a week long training session. We lived close enough that he didn’t have to stay over night like many of the others at the training. He told me he was going to stay over with a buddy one Thursday night because they were going out. When he was packing I noticed that there were condoms in the toiletries bag. I asked him about it. He got really defensive. Saying they must have been there from before I was pregnant. He was really upset with me for suggesting such a thing. So. When he later confessed he cheated I told him I knew exactly when it was. It was when I was pregnant and my mother was dying and our son wasn’t sleeping and I had an amniotic fluid leak and was worried I would lose my daughter.

He said, no, no. It was after our daughter was born. After his vasectomy that he got because he was such a good guy. I had the kids so the least he could do is have the vasectomy. Of course, now I see how the vasectomy decreased his chances of getting caught cheating by an unplanned pregnancy. And, of course, it seems obvious to me that it wasn’t “just that once” like he said. It was at least both of these times.

Next came his justification. I wasn’t giving him enough attention. He had a high sex drive and I wasn’t helping him with it like he said he needed me to just after we got married. Of course, when a pregnant woman has an amniotic fluid leak she cannot have sex. I was on bed rest for two weeks so that the amniotic sac would heal. And he was upset because I was not having sex with him….and I owed him as his wife.

But he didn’t end there. He needed me to know what the girl was like. He said she was like me. She had a degree in psychology. She was talkative and outgoing. She even had long dark hair like I did when we first started dating AND was a bit heavier, just like I had been. So, obviously, this wasn’t his fault. I was to blame. I was shocked. Stunned. Who was this guy? But worse…who was I?

I was a woman with a 3 year old and a 5 year old who just realized she didn’t know her husband….but what do I do? I have no support. Do I stay? Do I leave and try to make it work with my kids? I don’t have a clue about how much money we have so I don’t know if I can make it on my own. And he was so worried about losing his kids. Do I have the right to take the kids from their father, who at this point I am still thinking is a pretty good guy and dad. I mean. Maybe it was my fault for not paying him enough attention. You know what they say about hindsight. It really is 20/20.

I do not regret marrying that man or having children with him. What I really, really regret is not packing up the kids and leaving as soon as he admitted to cheating. I should have headed home and asked for help. In fact, that is my new mantra. “Ask for help when you need it, and take it when it is offered.” It has made an incredible difference in my life and I highly recommend it to others.

Now I understand why he always had female friends and not guy friends. As women we are told to nurture and take care. And a guy who plays the poor me – his mom was too hard on him. She actually wanted him to do well in school. Uh. Yeah. But guys saw through him. They didn’t feel the need to help him. To take care of him. So. This is why I stayed. I was going to help him. I was going to make him feel good about himself. I was going to mother him…….but I am a bad Mom……apparently.