I told him there was a lot of unwanted touching in our
relationship and I do not want any touching now. That’s when he said “Well when do I get my
hugs?” I told him I wasn’t sure he was
ever going to get them willingly, to which he replied “then I’ll just do it
anyway.” Really? Forcing an unwanted hug makes you feel
better, or in control, or what? I have
no idea.
After going back and forth a bit, I told him the
best way to improve our relationship right now is for him not to hug me. He finally
sort of seemed to accept this. Then
today he called to finalize some details for tomorrow and said that he had been
thinking about what I said yesterday and the unwanted touching. He said “you mean like when I would demand to
touch your boobs?” I didn’t know what
to say, I was to taken aback, so I said “Yes, like that.”
He seems to have forgotten all of the cornering, the shoving
and grabbing, the coerced sex, the strangling.
He is a very large physical presence and his physical intimidation and sexual coercion was a
very large part of our relationship. I've decided, though, that it’s not worth arguing about. He’s told
me before and again just this last Friday that he only ever touched me to shut
me up in front of the kids. He admits he
should not have touched me, but he says he did it to keep me from screaming and
scaring the kids. Yeah –that’s better –
strangle their mother in front of them to keep them from seeing her scream and
cry because of your abusive behavior. The
problem with his theory is that it is categorically not true, the worst
incident happened when the kids were in the car. A lot the incidents happened in our bedroom
or after the kids were in bed. Many of
them did happen in front of the kids, and yes, sometimes I screamed at him to
stop as he was yelling at me and chasing me down and making me crazy with his verbal abuse. I guess it did not occur to him that walking
away or backing down would have stopped my screaming immediately. He has clearly invented a reality to deal
with his abusive behavior.
Back to the hugging.
As of that moment on the phone, he seemed to sort of accept that I don’t
want hugs and has his own version of why I don’t want them. He is incapable of
understanding the revulsion and the post-traumatic stress induced in me by each
of his hugs. Then he says to me that he’ll
deal with it for now (or something like
that), but that he really needs the hugs because I am such an unemotional person,
the only way he can think of to get positive emotions out of me is the hug.
What? Why does he need positive emotions from me? I am barely enduring having to see him and
he wants to be best friends, and needs postive feedback. He says he
wants to talk and be friends “like we used to be.” The problem with that theory is that he
repeatedly told me during our marriage that we “never talked” and that he did
not like me, and he would never have been friends with me if we weren’t married. He basically only dealt with me because he
had to – or that was his story anyway.
It boggles my mind to think that he has fantasized some
relationship between us that never existed, and he wants to get back to that
mythical state. I feel like saying
“You’re lucky I talk to you at all under the circumstances,” but of course I
can’t. I hope he doesn't hug me anymore
for a while, and I'll bite my lip when he discusses what our relationship
was actually like. Up is down and down is up in his world, but I know I’m
right. So I keep reminding myself which way
is up to try to avoid tripping and falling down into his crazy world.
I would offer this suggestion for future dealings.
ReplyDeleteYou really only need three phrases - and you need them at hand so they are your kneejerk responses:
1. It is every person's right to set their own boundaries.
2. Your 'needs' do not outweigh my 'needs'.
3. You are infringing on/crossing my boundaries.
You don't need to explain yourself to him. And it won't do any good (which I suspect you know. It's not that he doesn't understand hugging you makes you uncomfortable. It's that YOUR comfort is really not his concern. It's a way of asserting his ongoing influence or power over you - even if he would never express it that way, or even realize that's what it's about. Probably, he just knows that HE would feel better if HE could make you hug him.)
So - he says 'give me a hug.'
you say 'I don't think so.'
He says, 'why?'
You say, #1 'It's every person's right to determine her own boundaries.'
He says, 'But I want us to be friends!'
You say, #2 'Your needs are not more important than my needs.'
He says, 'But it's just a hug!'
You say, #1 'It's every person's right to determine her own boundaries.'
He says, 'It's because you're seeing someone.' (or some other ridiculous thing meant to engage you further).
You say, #3. 'You are infringing on my boundaries. I am not discussing this with you.'
It will go around in circles, but at least you'll come away feeling exasperated but not violated.
And an important afterthought - your children may need some help in learning about appropriate boundaries, especially considering they're partly being raised by someone who has no respect for other people's autonomy. This can be very hard with kids, because they are kids and as such, they don't have full autonomy.
ReplyDeleteYou may need a professional's assistance for that.