“Spinning Your Wheels?”

If you’ve never been stuck in something and felt like you were spinning your wheels, then you probably won’t relate to this. 

I watch Abby as she moves from emotion to emotion, her mind spinning and her heart racing to move ahead as quickly as she can.  It is painful to see her rushing so hard to move through the emotional pain that has bound her all her life.  I equate it to wearing an open-ended pair of shoes and trying to keep from getting your feet wet in a big puddle in a parking lot.  You’re almost trying to “walk on water”.  It is the same with these emotions, they hurt so badly and bring back so many unpleasant memories that the quicker she can go through them the less she feels the impact will be to me.  Well, this weekend proved that theory doesn’t work.

What does end up happening is these events of her past, including her past experiences with other relationships, attach themselves to her mind as parasites.  As a day or a period of days progress, in her alone time, Abby’s mind begins to wind up and the parasites eventually grow into monsters.  They place doubt in Abby’s head.  Then, because she feels less than adequate to hold my attention or my heart, the walls begin to close in on her.  I can see something is wrong, almost immediately.  Then begins the process of me asking her what is wrong.  She identifies these emotions in her “right mind” as being things that are from her past and churn up anger within her that she doesn’t want me to feel.  Yet, in her “emotional mind”, these things are projected onto me.  All the feelings of being made a fool of, being used and abandoned as if trash discarded without thought.  I can feel her pulling away from me, not because she doesn’t love me, but instead because she does.  You see, Abby doesn’t WANT to hurt me or project these past feelings on me because she knows in her heart that I didn’t do these things or deserve the retribution that comes with these past emotional experiences.  I love her for that but, inevitably I am going to pay a price of some kind for those who have wronged her in so many ways.

Now, for you men out there in similar positions, I know you think that it shouldn’t be that way.  You may even think that your wife should recognize that YOU are NOT those people.  Guess what, SHE DOES!  She also knows that THOSE PEOPLE were somehow able to get close enough to her to do significant damage to her emotional world.  It is a fear mechanism and it is not directed at you.  However, it is in some degree a test of faith for you and your wife.  She needs to see that you will share this cross with her and never allow her to fall.  Like it or not, if your wife is suffering through this type of dysfunctional abuse, you WILL have to make every step she does on her way to healing.  Now, does that seem fair?  Who cares, men like us must lift and support our wives through EVERYTHING.  It is what TRUE LOVE is about.  Atop this, I can think of no greater gift to my wife than to let her know I am consistently there for her for anything she needs.  After all, as Abby and I go through this, I see the other side coming closer and closer.  Each time, she is healing.

Emotional wounds run deep and may never completely heal.  However, they can be managed with the right support and understanding.  Remember, emotions so often don’t make sense.  Don’t believe me?  When have you awaken from a good nights sleep and just been in a bad mood for no reason?  Abby and I are not “gleefully happy” all the time.  If we were, I guarantee you something would be wrong with the both of us.  That is not real life, so don’t set the bar so high for relationships, especially when you are suffering with emotions that you can’t put your finger on. 

As I have told Abby again and again, this didn’t just happen in a day or two, it’s been going on for years and will likely take that long to heal from them.  Nothing is going to be a good fix if you are rushing through them. ”Spinning your wheels” insures that each inch you move is an inch you’ve been able to clear the mud from your tires.

I hope and pray that each of you have someone who is willing to walk the line with you.  As a husband, I fail miserably at times to see the hurt within Abby.  I found this weekend that I had not been doing a very good job with her but it was not intentional.  We’ve had so many other things come up in the past few weeks that I was trying to shield her from.  In doing so, I failed to connect the dots and left her feeling lonely and disconnected.  Lesson learned.  Abby tries to protect me from herself, which ends up making it worse. The emotional monster grows from anger rooted deep within her and I am the only outlet she has on a daily basis.  What we have discovered is that if she can talk to me the instance that something is triggered in her, we can work with it and she doesn’t “dump” it all on me.  I understand that sometimes, she will not be able to think rationally and will not come to me and talk.  It is my responsibility, as her husband, her friend, and her greatest admirer, to press through to her when I see she is struggling.  It is so much better to handle the monsters when they are small.  It isn’t always going to be easy or tasteful and sometimes I do get hurt, but it is what has to happen.  Abby knows when we get through it that she has projected things on me that I had nothing to do with.  This brings on guilt which I have to reassure her is NOT a positive thing and will erode all the progress she has made if it is allowed to grow.  So, we have to deal with the past (anger, disappointment, disrespect, hatred, loneliness, abandonment, etc.), and the present (guilt, anger at herself, sorrow, fear of losing us). 

It is with all things, nothing in life that comes easy is worth anything.  It is only those times that we have sacrificed and endured suffering that we are at our best.  Ladies and gentleman, this is your time to shine and feel the greatest reward of life.  TRUE LOVE.  I have found, after many years of being stupid and substituting people for what I felt the moment I laid eyes on Abby thirty years ago, TRUE LOVE.  I will do anything for her and endure all the pain that must come because I heal with her.  She is the ointment of my life.  I am honored that she has chosen me to open herself and let me see the beauty inside her as well as the ugliness of a ruthless world that took so much advantage of her.  I pray that God rains down all the power of hell on them for taking a wonderful, innocent child and scaring her with their self-serving, twisted, sick needs.  But, that is another post. 

I thank all of you who are out there that read Abby’s story and I hope that she can help you to move forward.  Hang in there, try to keep it simple and uncomplicated.  Don’t let guilt enter your heart or mind because that is a trick to keep you in the mud.  Please don’t think you are crazy or so different that no one understands you.  Those of us who know your suffering DO understand and we will be here hoping to be a support mechanism for you through our sharing.  You know you are a good person deep down, don’t succumb to what others say you should be or what your past may have labeled you as.  Lift your head and keep hanging on to the truth of who you are, not what these experiences have deformed.  You do have power over them and who you are at your core is what you must strive to get back to.  Don’t worry that you feel you are, “spinning your wheels”, that is not necessarily a bad thing.

How It Began

My first childhood memory is waking up to someone performing oral sex on me in the dark. I can’t see his face, so I don’t know who it was. And I’m not sure how old I was. What I do know is where it happened. I see clearly the house, the bedroom, and the bottom bunk bed I was sleeping in. It was in this house that I continued to be sexually abused on a regular basis by the “babysitter” after my parent’s divorce when I was 5 years old. My mother had a new boyfriend. He had a teenage brother who offered to babysit on the weekends while my mother worked nights at the bar. And the nightmare began.

R (the boyfriend) became my step-father, and T (the babysitter) became my uncle. And for the next 13 years, until I left home at 17, my sisters and I endured abuse at the hands of these two (and others) that crippled me emotionally.  We were beaten, ridiculed, humiliated and used for sexual pleasure. But R’s most powerful tool against us was fear. We lived every day in terror of what was coming next. He had free reign over us. I don’t remember one time that my mother tried to protect us from him. Maybe she was afraid. During their 13 year marriage, he broke her nose twice, broke her ribs, beat her with belts, and so on.  But she stayed so drugged out on pills to escape reality that she doesn’t remember all of it, or so she says. It’s the same excuse she uses for not remembering the abuse we suffered at her hands. The beatings with belts, fists, or whatever she could throw at us along with the vile words spewed with hatred towards us for being born.  We had no escape; nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. 

For years, I blamed and resented my mother for my childhood. Not only did she not stop the abuse, but she herself joined in. That is until she ran off with another man (her 3rd husband) and “instantly” became a different person. She never lifted a hand to us again. It’s as if she took on the personality of whomever she was married to or was socializing with at the time. Like a chameleon. She still brags today that she can “slum with the lowest” or “hobnob with the highest” class of people. 

My mother is 63 years old now, and on her 4th marriage (hopefully her last). She recently asked my forgiveness for those painful years, words I had been waiting my entire life to hear. I’m cautiously optimistic that we will be able to forge a mother/daughter relationship that will work for us both.

It’s a beginning.

Photo credit: http://s773.photobucket.com/home/AlexisNicoleGazaway