It happened today, while I was taking a long hot shower. Must have been the smell of new body wash gliding over my skin that made me think, what do I want? This question has plagued me for about a month, always fruitless. Today was different. I stood there realizing that I was alone, really alone. The house was quiet, and I was taking a uniterrupted shower, although I had still locked the doors in habit.
My mind drifted back to 1998, Delaine's first meeting with John, at Skinner's Butte park. The sun was shining and we had decided that a play date at the park would be the ideal meeting. She was 18 months old and was adjusting to her new life with the separation. She smiled at John and tried to say his name. From that day forward he was known as "Yahn", she couldn't say her J's. He swung her, as she repeated "up as high as the sky yawn". Graciously he did, my heart melted. There would be several meetings at that same park between the three of us. Her happiness made me feel less saddened by the situation with her own dad and his addiction to Meth. As the bond between them grew, over a year period of time, things between him and I started to change. I felt invested, more so for her. But that all seems to contradict it's self when I really look back at each situation. Although I saw him be a great father to his own toddler at the time, now I can see that his closeness to Delaine was a manipulation to keep me where he wanted me.
We moved in together May 2000, after doubts and hopes in my mind. I had already struggled with his jealousy issues, but still felt strong willed and aware of who I was. The Brady Bunch life was hard. Delaine was three, and she had yet to be totally potty trained. He started pushing me to figure out what her problem was because his daughter had been trained by then. This happened with every type of developmental issue a child would have. My confidence in parenting at times was strained, the relationship between her and I became stressful. The tension to make her right was so hard, I was all that she had, I was her mother and her father, I loved her. No matter what I said to him, he would not let up, yet I felt so invested that I stayed.
August 2000 we moved to a larger house, closer to what would be Delaines grade school. She was constantly having accidents in her pants during the day and night. I would automatically get up and strip her bed down without saying anything to John, wasn't worth the shit I would get. His daughter cried off and on all night when she was at our house, there wasn't anything wrong with that. I got sick of fighting all the time, trying to express myself, he was like talking to a wall. This clearly wasn't the man that I had become friends with years ago. What had happened to the man that listened to my every thought and was unjudgemental? Now I believe he wasn't ever there, it was me and what I chose to see.
As the years went by living in that house on Oak Dr, I got married to him and had a baby. I was the one that wanted to have a baby, he wanted to wait until he was done with college. Seems sensible, but felt controlling. I carried that baby, I had complications with my pregnancy, and I was all alone. June 2002 just months after we married in Kauai, I was on bed rest so my baby could remain in the womb full term. School was out for John and his daughter, summer had begun, I dreaded the summer months. Suddenly I was living on the hide-a-bed in the living room unable to do anything for myself, at least I wasn't supposed to get up except to go the bathroom. My mom being the caring person that she is, stepped up and came over daily to take care of me. That lasted about a week, when her , my dad and step mom had a talk about what was going on at my house. They all cared deeply for me, but wanted my husband to play out his role in our marriage. You see it was summer, and I was suddenly left alone, on bedrest and tending to two kids. Afterall it was his summer break from college and fishing season. He would literally leave early in the morning to go fishing at the coast and come home early evening. My life had become so stressful, trying to make it the last two months of my pregnancy, taking care of a 5 and 7 year old and dealing with my family and their feelings. We fought a lot about those summer months, still to this day he doesn't understand why I was such a bitch about it.
This was the beginning of the end. Delaine was jealous of all the time I was spending with the baby after I had her. She had little comforting with John, mostly just leave your mom alone. The kid was lost and lonely. That is when I really started to notice the change in my daughter. She could see that the baby had a mom and a dad, her step sister had a mom and a dad, but she only had me. Now she didn't even have that. I could see it, and tried to stretch myself as thin as possible to compensate, he would always get mad at me. I baby her, I am too easy on her, it was more complicated then that, he never understood.
As things got harder and harder in the marriage he started acting out towards Delaine when he was mad at me. It was awful and painful, which is what he wanted, to see me in pain. I had lost all zest to fight any longer, nothing I could or would say mattered. But he couldn't live without the fight, he would follow me around the house trying to make me talk to him. That is where I learned how to avoid and be evasive, it was a matter of survival. I gave my life up, I was vacant and dying inside. But I couldn't leave, I had tried before, but couldn't muster up the courage to do it.
Then it happened in July 2004. In front of my two kids, I lay in a tub of water from being pushed my John. I can hear Delaine screaming "leave my mom alone". John yelling at me to shut the fuck up. It was over at that point. I was in a place never in mylife I had imagined. Delaine tried to get in the tub with me, as if to protect me, she was crying so hard and saying " I want Grandma, I want Grandma". I took the girls to my mom's that night, not exactly sure how I managed to drive there, but I was safe. I spent the next day in hiding avoiding John's phone calls. My mom called my dad to tell him of the previous nights events. He seemed less then supportive, as if she should stay out of my business. I ended up going home the next day, ready to fight back for my life. Delaine, Jillian and I locked ourselves in my bedroom that night and slept. She was so scared he was going to hurt me. Sunday morning I told him to pack his shit up and move out, he refused and begged for us to work it out. Sunday turned into two weeks, which melted into horrific fights and being woken in the middle of the night and being told to leave. That is what I did, I took my kids and moved out. I rented a U-haul and without his help moved my life for the better. There was pleading to stay, sweet kind words of love and anger after he realized that I was really going.
I have been at my Dad's house since then, being a full time mother and protector. Delaine used to tell me she missed Dad (John), that she worried about him. As the days turned into months she still calls him dad, but sees him very little. She is always quick to tell me that she doesn't ever want to live with him again. Sometimes you have to look at life through the eyes of a 8 year old, it's raw and unwarped. Something that adults no longer have a grasp on, and will never have again. These days she tells me that she is going to pick my next husband. I ask myself, who is this kid, and how old is she? My response is that I have no intentions of being married again. She replies that she has an idea about a list that needs to be made. The list would have guys who wouldn't hurt me or her and that I would have to pick from that list, and we wouldn't be hurt again. God I love this child and the innocence she is still clinging onto. I agree, we would look for a list and we wont be hurt again.
For that alone gives me the answer that I have been struggling to reach for the last month. I wont let anyone hurt us ever again, especially John.
