It was last month. My Mum had just been visiting and I obviously had a good old whinge about my husband (as I'm sure is fairly common, whether happy relationship or not)and unfortunately due to train strikes my Mum missed her flight home to France.
To ease her stress and pressure I asked my Dad (they have been divorced for over 30 years) to drive her to the airport the following day, so she didn't have to rely on the trains. So this day goes and Mum gets to the airport just fine and gets home safe and sound.
Then the following week, my Dad invites me out for a coffee, this isn't unusual in itself, but it turned out he had something important to talk to me about.
Dad told me he was very concerned about my husband, as in the last few months he has got in a couple of fights and barred from the local pub and drinks almost every day. Not just a glass or two, but whole bottles of wine on his own.
(My Mum must have told him this on that car journey, because it wasn't me, but I can't thank them enough for having this conversation.)
A couple of years ago, my husband attempted suicide in the family home, after I pulled him up on emotional abuse and told social services a couple of truths, when he wasn't at that particular meeting, and this resulted in a separation for 2 months.
He promised that he would stop drinking and that he realised that he wasn't treating me very well and he'd treat me like I deserved to be treated. So I forgave him. My husband even called up my dad and told him he was going to change and made a bunch of promises.
We had a change of house and got on with our lives together, with our young children.
The drinking started again after 6 months of abstinence and has progressively got back to 4 or 5 times week now.
So my Dad in not so many words tells me that my husband doesn't treat me well and I wait on him hand and foot for little respect and all the promises my husband made two years ago have become null and void.
Up to that point I had been wondering whether this treatment was mainly in my head, so it was very enlightening.
But the real crux of the decision came when the thought entered my head how would I feel if it was me telling one of my daughters I was concerned about her partner - I wouldn't want them to marry someone like my husband.
My husband has been out of work with a damaged nerve sack for almost twenty years now, so although in pain everyday, some days he is bedridden, other days he seems manages just fine, like most evenings he manages to muster the strength to manage his pain to go out and see his friends, or wherever. Oh and being ex-army he still has a foot in there and disappears for hours on end on some mission or another.
Oh what a fool I've been.
Since that conversation with my Dad I've noticed the snide remarks and he has even had the audacity to call me a stupid bitch for losing the hamster (ah the hamster story that might be a more cheerful 30 Challenge story for tomorrow) under the sofa and heartless bitch for leaving my 3 year old to cry for 10 SECONDS, whilst I was doing something and that's just the obvious stuff, not the underhanded undermining stuff.
Now I haven't told him yet. I didn't want to wreck every Christmas and New Year memory forever more with the timing - would that be my words/thoughts or or his, I don't know.
When the kids go back to school and nursery I plan to ask him to go. I will ask him to go.
The things that worry me most are his face when I tell him and how his elderly parents will take it, as both have had recent health issues.
He goes out almost every night and leaves me to my own devices, so I'm almost hoping he has found someone else.
It's only taken me 14 years to come to this conclusion (I good at giving people chances, naive and I try to see the best in people), but he is a narcissist and I need to be happy and for that I need to to get rid of the toxic oil on my wings that he paints on, whenever I get too near finding a dream or purpose.
I have spent most of that 14 years trying to help him shine, despite his back problems and I think he has just tried to rub of mine.
Granted I did have a 6 month affair in 2009 and the two years after that were sheer hell, being called whore, bitch, tart A LOT of times, amongst other stuff, but I thought I deserved that. It was supposed to stop when the kids came along. What a load of bollocks that was.
I've been reading things like this: http://themindsjournal.com/narcissist-says-i-love-you/
And it makes me go "yes,yes, yes" that is how it is, how I feel.
But why do I still feel obligated to the idiot?
He tries to control me and the children and it has to stop.
I'll let you know how it goes. The critical conversation is coming...
Then I can be Hope Huggs in name and nature and allowed to care for whoever I want to care about - that homeless person who supposedly buys drugs with any money you give him (so don't do it) I gave him £5 the other day.
I have to break free, for me, for the children, so if I ever do find love again it will be a respectful kind of love, not a controlling one, so history doesn't repeat itself and the kids see how a real man should treat a woman.
I WILL break the cycle.
Then in the words of Robbie Williams I can honestly say "I love my life, I am Powerful, I am Beautiful, I AM FREE"
Images: Giphy.com
This is Day #2 of the 30 Days Writing Challenge
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