\u201cI\u2019ll do it. Let me do it. You look tired.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t really need anything new. Why don\u2019t we just make my car do and get you a new one?”<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sorry, I\u2019ll turn the music down; I\u2019m sorry, I don\u2019t mean to get in your way. I was just trying to vacuum.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter the drinking and the cheating and the beatings, which he said I deserved so I must have, now I\u2019m divorced and finally have someone who is such a good person. But\u2026\u2026why does he insist on helping me with the household chores? I don\u2019t want anyone helping me. I can do it myself. And why does he want to take me shopping for new clothes? He wants to watch me when I play guitar. Doesn\u2019t he know I want to be alone; that I need to crawl into myself and hide? He won\u2019t let me give him his ring back. He tells me he\u2019ll never leave me unless he dies.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has lung cancer; he has four months to live. I am so filled with pain; the shame is suffocating me. It is my fault. Somehow I\u2019m to blame.\u201d<\/p>\n
“Someone new is in my life. The men keep coming, one after another. Maybe this one is good. “<\/p>\n
\u201cHe doesn\u2019t like me wearing shorts if I\u2019m out doing yard work but it\u2019s so hot today so maybe just this once he won\u2019t get angry.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI must have done something to make him angry. He\u2019s never hit me before. I try to do everything he says but I know I must have screwed up. What is wrong with me?<\/p>\n
“Why does he insist that since I\u2019m his wife it isn\u2019t rape? He wakes me up repeatedly to have sex. Several times a day he has to have sex and I know that means rape because I can\u2019t take it anymore. It brings terrible memories, times when I was 13, laying in the bottom bunk bed and my father comes in in the middle of the night. I can\u2019t take the rapes. I keep fighting back. I feel like I\u2019m losing my mind, buried in terror.”<\/p>\n
\u201cHe keeps telling me I\u2019m no good, that I\u2019m a bad person. It must be true.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI went to my first Co-Dependent meeting tonight with my best friend\u201d. After the meeting she said, \u2018I don\u2019t need to go to any more meetings. I think being co-dependent is noble. I know my husband does drugs and cheats on me but I just have to accept it. That\u2019s what my mother told me when my grandfather chased me around the house when I was 13, pulled up my blouse and played with my breasts. She said, \u2018He\u2019s just a dirty old man, ignore him.\u2019<\/p>\n
“I said, ‘How did they find me?’\u201d<\/p>\n