Getting Married

Obviously with a title like this you would assume that this will be a happy and love filled post. However, this is not the case with mine! On the 22nd of November 2008 I married a dominator. Maybe somewhere deep down I knew this, I knew he wouldn’t make me happy, but I guess I was blinded by what I thought was his love for me. If you hadn’t already guessed my wedding day was not the happiest day of my life.

While contending with an abusive partner I also suffered from depression and still do. I would say that he has contributed to 90% of my depression with the other 10% being an ongoing issue since I was sixteen. I don’t really want to dwell on this, but I do suspect that if I wasn’t already suffering from depression I would have never married my ex and at the first sign of betrayal (the incident in my first blog) the relationship would have finished. What I am trying to say is that abusers target insecurity and build that sadness into a way of life and you don’t even notice how much you have changed until you hit rock bottom. My rock bottom was about 5 months ago when I had left my ex husband but still couldn’t cope, I had no self-worth and I attempted suicide.

My wedding was not in any way traditional or the day you had dreamed of when you was a small child. Even though I had never wanted a flashy wedding with horse-drawn carriage and doves being released from a diamond encrusted cage; I did want more than what I got. We were only engaged for six to seven weeks and only told our families a couple of weeks prior to the big day. We got married in a registry office and had about twelve people present. To be honest those weeks leading up to the wedding and actually the day itself is all a bit of a blur. Maybe my memory is saving me the pain of remembering what a huge mistake I was making and then subsequently made.

What I do remember clearly is the evening. Both of our parents had left, unlike mine my ex’s parents were separated and let’s just say not very civil. When his mother left after the wedding meal there was tension between his father and mother and subsequently my then new husband got involved. There was an argument, but I was not present so do not know what was said or done, all I got from the altercation was his foul mood. More people joined us on the evening of our wedding and they were all his friends, as I had already at this point had a fading relationship with mine. The night turned into a bit of a pub crawl and I was having a good time and yes for all my sins, I was getting drunk. All night I could feel his disapproving eyes on me and if he wasn’t glaring at me he was nowhere to be seen so I had to keep leaving the bar or dance floor to find him. Eventually he had obviously had enough and he dragged me out of the pub, into a taxi and back to the hotel we were staying in.

So we are back at the hotel, I am upset that we left the pub as I was having fun and wanted to stay longer (remember I was only eighteen) this, believe it or not, did not go down well with him. He constantly told me what a drunken mess I was and that I was now a married woman and shouldn’t behave the way I did. He also started with the sob story surrounding his parents separation and that I didn’t know what it was like to live the life he did. Obviously he was the only young man in the world to experience parental separation even though he had five bothers! It eventually got to the point where I could no longer bear the sound of his shouting and whining so I submitted. I apologised and begged for his forgiveness, I told him over and over that it was just the drink making me act stupid and that I will never act like that again. I then proceeded to comfort him, it was my wedding night after all. When it got to where I was fully undressed and ready to have sex, he pushed me off him. He told me I was disgusting and he just wanted to go to sleep and that is what he did. He rolled over and within minutes was snoring. I was humiliated and genuinely felt vile, after what seemed like a life time of replaying what had just happened in my head, I had no idea what I had done wrong. I gave up trying to work this out so I eventually just went to sleep and told myself to pretend that what he had just done never happened.

However, I wasn’t the only one keeping up this pretense. The next morning he was loving and kind and told me that he was so lucky to have me and that I had made him the happiest man alive. For the rest of the day I focused on these sweet sentiments he had fed me and brushed aside what had happened the previous night. I guess it’s safe to say that the head games had well and truly started.