Well this
is probably the biggest question that hasn't been answered yet.
Why is
that? A: Nobody ever asked me.
They made
their assumptions, defriended me, belittled and ridiculed me, judged me and
slammed doors in my face. Most don't even have the slightest idea as to
why. So how about we address that?
Let's
address the obvious. Yes, I left Rob. Yes, I finally left him after
many failed attempts. Yes, I cheated on him, but that doesn’t answer WHY I
cheated on him, or WHY I left.
The reason
I left Rob was because of ROB!! Not because of Chris!! In my own mind I
had left Rob months before I physically left. Simply put Rob stopped
caring. Rob stopped paying attention to me a long time ago, long before I
even had thoughts of leaving and long before any relationship with Chris. For
years I, like millions of other women, believed he would change. It was
just a phase, medication, depression, surgery, illness....always an
excuse. The truth was he was just gone. There was almost no
physical relationship left, at least not unless I begged or guilted him. There
was hardly any conversation and for the longest time Rob just sat around doing
nothing. Well, not nothing, there was always the iPad, iPhone, or
computer attached to him at any given part of the day. Even in the last
months of our relationship he would sit on "his" side of the couch
playing on a device of some kind while I sat at the other end of the couch.
Rarely did he physically make an attempt at any form of physical contact.
When I did, if we were watching a movie and wanted to "cuddle", he
would still have the device in his hand and be playing. If I did finally
get him to put it down he would lay his hand on my back or shoulder and just keep
it there. Not really cuddly and very much like Sheldon Cooper with his hand
on my shoulder and a cold "There, there."
From the
day we got married I knew that Rob was different. I knew that he was
always very quiet, shy and closed off. What I didn't know was he had an
anger issue. Here lies the problem. Rob would have night
terrors. The first one was not long after we were married, just before we
moved to Ontario. I woke up to Rob trying to strangle me, yelling at me,
calling me "mom". He was having a dream about his mother and
acting it out on me. Well I assumed it was a fluke and not something to
worry about. It didn't happen on a nightly basis. Sometimes months
would go by and he wouldn't have an issue, but then something would happen and
I would wake up to him hitting me, choking me, yelling and threatening. I
confronted him about it and he said he didn't know anything about it. We
let it go, again! Rob also started sleepwalking. Years ago when we
lived in a house we rented, Rob would get up in the middle of the night, turn
on all the lights, sit on the couch and yell at the TV like it was on, but he
never turned the TV on. He would then get up, go back to bed, leaving
every light on and peacefully go back to sleep. So his night terrors
shifted into sleepwalking. It was very weird. The sleepwalking didn't
last long though, but then the night terrors came back.
I'm not
100% sure when the physical abuse got worse but I'm pretty sure it started
before we moved into the apartment, so we were still living in the rental
house. Things started to escalate again. I would wake up to flying
fists of fury and screaming rants. It's amazing the kids never heard.
When he was done hitting me and yelling at me he would lie down, roll over and
start snoring. I would be left sitting there in tears and usually in
pain. I again told Rob and he again didn't recall his nights activity.
Looking back you can usually pair his rants with something in our lives whether
it was family, money, and health issues whatever. There seemed to be
something to set it off.
What it
stemmed from was his inability to deal with any form of emotion in the hours he
was awake day to day. If he had a bad day at work, I woke up with a bruise
on my face. If he had a fight with his mom I woke up to being strangled.
Simple day to day emotional frustrations, whether big or small, could set off
an hour of pain for me at night. Bottom line was Rob was/is incapable of
dealing with his anger and it manifested itself at night and I took the brunt
of it.
I was out
of work and injured. I was doing sewing projects for friends to try and
make a little money. This is when I reconnected with Chris and his
family. Rob was working at Canada Post, still only part time, but putting in as
many hours as he could so we could buy our own place. During these two
years, Rob underwent major surgery for a stricture urethra. Yes it's as
disgusting as it sounds. He was off work for months. He was also
medicated for quite some time. We were getting along ok but just
"getting along". There was no spark left in the
relationship. We started spending a lot of time with Chris and his family.
We would get together and play cards or watch movies, star wars events, whatever...
Our two families became quite close. I confided in Chris the problems I
was having with Rob and he confided in me his issues with his wife. We
basically turned to each other for help because neither of our partners understood
our personal issues.
Thanks to
a Government tax credit and 10 years back pay we were finally able to afford
the down payment and buy a house, after spending the past two years in an
apartment trying to save the money ourselves. Our relationship was
already in a bad place but we bought our house anyway. Stupid! We
moved in, and things got worse. Rob would go to work for 5-6 hours maybe
and then come home and sleep all afternoon. He would get home at 12 maybe
1 and sleep till I quite literally had to scream and fight to get him out of
bed around 5-6.
I got so
sick of the fighting, sick of being ignored, and sick of not being touched; tired
of taking the physical abuse at night, because he couldn't deal with his anger
during the day. I tried to talk to him, tried to get him to get help but
always failed. He would look at me some days and say "I hit you
again last night didn't I?" and I would nod. Yet he still did
NOTHING!
The final
moments for me came in November 2011. Rob and I had gone to a movie and
on the way home he drove through Niagara on the Lake from The Falls. We
stopped near the lake and he told me he was feeling depressed and thought maybe
he should go to the hospital. When I asked how depressed he was, his
reply was "I thought about driving my car into a tree." Well of
course, I panicked and wanted him to go to the hospital right away but he said
it was so late in the evening we would just end up waiting in ER all
night. So I let him talk me into going home. The next morning he
refused to go. I did get him to our family Doctor though, who prescribed
him antidepressants and mood stabilizers. I was now terrified of
him. He was totally unpredictable. The night beatings became too
regular. I was afraid to leave and afraid to stay. Couldn't leave
at Christmas and where was I going to go?
After
Christmas, Rob decided to "make it up" to me by taking me to New York
City. We drove to NY and had a nice couple of days. Long before any
physical relationship with Chris I asked Rob, "If I had an affair, would
you be upset?" Rob's answer was "Yes, but I wouldn't blame
you." He admitted to not being interested in sex anymore and that
our relationship was in trouble. Unfortunately, nothing was really
resolved and we went home. Nothing changed, in fact, it got worse.
In March
Rob's sister became mentally unstable and ended up in the hospital.
Having our niece living with us only intensified our fighting. I didn't
want to be the one going to hospitals, or changing sheets because our niece was
wetting the bed. He would sit in front of the TV and play on the iPad
while I drove his sister to Hamilton to be admitted to the psyche ward!!
Where was he? He is her brother and he was never there. I
was! Well, I was going insane. I had an extra kid I didn't want and
was causing havoc with my own kids. By the third month I thought I was
going to die.
During
this time Chris and I had a falling out of sorts. There were some things that
happened in Chris's personal life that lead him to feel abandoned by his
"friends" to the point that even Chris and I were not talking.
That was hard because now there was no one to turn to. Rob dove into the
world of comicons and conventions. I had found full time employment by
this time, and Rob was off to where ever, every weekend. Emotionally and
physically I was done! After years of trying to fix it, after seeking counselling
for myself, and after begging Rob to go with me and being denied. Even
though I couldn't physically leave the relationship because I didn't have
anywhere to go, I knew in my mind and my heart at that point that the marriage
was over because Rob had already emotionally and physically left me years ago.
I was now hoping to physically leave Rob as soon as I found the courage.
For the
first time I realized what I really wanted and I had lost it. I missed
Chris and I wanted him back in my life. I realized everything I was wishing for
with Rob was standing right in front of me. I had someone who would listen to
me, someone who cared about my feelings and what was going on in my life, someone
who gave me the emotional support I so desperately needed. I realized I
was in love with Chris and our emotional relationship became a physical
one. I went and stayed with a friend for a few days and then I stayed
with Chris for a few. There were so many things that happened then.
The entire month of June was a blur! It became a revolving circle of
leaving Rob and going back, because I was too scared to tell Rob the truth. Escalating to the involvement of people who
had no business being involved, like the 3 guys going to Chris's to get my
things while he was out and leaving him with the impression I was “taken” from
him. I don't think I have ever been more of a mess my entire life.
I knew what I wanted I just didn't know how to get it. I was too
SCARED!!!!
Why
scared you ask? Well let’s see...Rob hit me. His friends weren't at all
supportive towards me and my emotional and physical needs. One telling me
how Chris would use me and throw me away, and that I would only be a “rebound”.
Another who chose to yell at me and put Chris down, insult him and belittle him
behind his back. So I needed to find that final straw. And I
finally found it.
After
finally finding the courage to tell Rob the truth about the relationship I had
with Chris, my worst fear became a reality for the last time. On June 30, 2012 Rob beat me and bad!
His friends and family said I had deserved it because I cheated on him.
No woman should ever be beaten for any reason....EVER! On July 1 after
putting my son on a plane to Vancouver so he wouldn't kill himself because of
the situation with my sister in law and niece, I told Rob I was leaving.
Only this time I was going to Gillian's Place. He was a little surprised
but showed no remorse for what he had done. That afternoon I packed my
things and checked into Gillian's Place for 13 days.
When I
got to the shelter, they wanted to take pictures of my bruises and call the
police to have Rob charged with assault. I was so afraid of what would happen to the kids
if Rob was arrested, I couldn’t take them and they weren’t going to FACS, so I
said no to having him charged. Stupid! After 13 days of therapy,
talking and healing I left Gillian's Place and I moved in with Chris.
That's where I stayed. I had only been there 2 weeks when I got sick and
was admitted to the hospital for a bleeding ulcer from the immense amount of
stress I was under. Chris was there every night after work to sit with
me.
So when
it comes down to it, I left Rob to save myself. I never charged him,
never sent the police to his house for hitting me. He came to see me at
the hospital and we were "friends" for a time. But all the
while he was telling people a different story; the story of how his wife
cheated on him and left him for another man. How I was the bad one, the
one who had lied and ruined the relationship. Well seems to me that the
relationship was destroyed long before this.
I left
Rob because….
- Our physical relationship was almost non-existent.
- There was no emotional relationship to speak of.
- He didn’t care about me or my feelings.
- He was never there when I needed him.
- All he cared about was himself
- He refused to get help.
- Above all…he was a wife beater!
