Brain Injury Support Group

Hi,

In a sense you're lucky, I'm 78 years old, and am still married, but **finally separated**!

My wife is a person, who, like my parents and sisters, victimized me. (You name the abuse ...)

Anyway, I have lived separately before, and I already have my own trailer, but I've been like a moth who is attracted to the flame.
On our 50th wedding anniversary, I took a tiny pinky ring which she had given me in college ... which she had worn all of her life. O.K., as I said, I really polished it up, and bought a gold chain, and told her that I was going to wear it around my neck from then on.

Her response was ... "So?"

Her sister told her, "If there's any better way for a husband to say "I love you", I don't know what it is. As a result, she sort of apologized, and that was that.

Recently I had a lot of balance problems, and I forgot doctor's appointments. So, I told myself (like a fool), I would have to move into the house so that she would take care of me. That has been the nightmare all of my life, that I would have to have her take care of me.

Well, we decided that she could sleep better if I had a separate room. So, she spent a lot of money buying an expensive spring and mattress, and I told her and my daughter, that my concern was unfounded.

But, the ncxt week she told me the wrong day and time for a doctor's appointment. She told me, "That's what you told me". I thought maybe I did make a mistake. **But** I have a favorite brand of cereal, and she knows it, and when I got ready for bed, and took the box, she had put some other granola in the box, which I can't eat, because of ...
I woke her up, and said, "I can't find my cereal. "It's on the top of the refrigerator". No, only the box, with some other junk in it. "Well, I don't know anythng about it, and be quiet, I want to go back to sleep."

I went back to the kitchen, and I called down the hall, "I'm going to drop each wrong cereal you have up there, one by one, until you tell me where it is". There were about 6 boxes of cereal which she tried to get me to eat, and I simply took them off the top of the refrigerator, and let them fall on the floor, one by one. "Do you remember what you did with my cereal yet?" Silence. O.K., here goes another box". Silence. I dropped all 6 of her boxes straight down on the floor, and they clunked, but she didn't know that I as intentionally dropping them so that they wouldn't spill.

"No more boxes ... a pause, "Well, I guess that I'll have to move the chair, and start dropping things from inside the pantry". She appeared, and reached under the table, and produced the box, without a word, and went back to bed.

I reslly asked her the next morning, "Why do you do that stuff all of the time?" "What stuff?" "Hide the cereal, and stuff." "I didn't hide it, I keep cereal down there all the time".

"Gee that's right, if you mean the ***cats*** cereal. (she has seven of them).
No answer. When I finished eating I just went and picked up my stuff, and left the house. Only **this time**, for the first time, I told myself ... Have you finally woken up, and realilzed that she's been pulling this stuff since our first date?"

I've talked to her on the phone once or twice, but I really feel differently this time, "I'm tired of being abused. People have been doing it to me all of my life."
Well, if I get enough sleep, and take my meds, I'm *not* ready to be "taken care of", and you'd damn well, better believe that!

For the first time in my life, I have finally decided that "I'm not going to take it anymore". I'd much rather not have anyone to talk to, or to cook dinner for me, than to put up with that kind of ~~~~ anymore.

I'm in a time of grief too. I loved my wife. I used to think that she loved me. But having finally recognized who she is, the kind of person she is, and that she's not ever going to change .... I don't have a wife anymore, (if I ever did)

BTW, I know the kind of grief you are feeling, and I don't mean to in any way say that it's not terrible. But, after living 78 years, being abused, and only now recognizing who/what my wife is, she is "Dead to me", because I'm not going to allow her to abuse me, just like my parents did. I'm having to learn of an entirely diferent way of thinking, and living, and sure it's "great" to finally "get free", I'm loved her for 56 years, and I miss her, even though I now know that she is very bad for me.

Right now, I'm not sure that I should post this, but I haven't had anyone to tell about how I'm grieving over a finally lost dream.

God

Barry
shalba1
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