No, I am not doing my owl impression this morning.
I am thinking about who I am.
He told me I was a bad friend, a bad wife (the WORST), bad bad bad at everything. Eventually I started to believe him.
I forgot about the facts and got caught up in the hurt and emotion of my partner telling me I was crap.
Anything that I did, I did wrong. For example, one night after we were newly married, he asked me to tell him more about my mom. As I talked for a couple minutes he looked irritated. So I stopped and said, "what is it?" And he said, "I didn't want to know about that...tell it like this." I am not kidding. Apparently I told him the wrong answer to an open-ended question. It felt like there was a script and I was always on the wrong page. Heck, I was in the wrong book entirely! It was frustrating and tiring to keep up when I had no idea where we were going.
Conversation did not occur. Speeches happened. Diatribes that I was not allowed to leave or interrupt. There was no back and forth. This is narcissism. It is not marriage or relationship or even friendship for that matter.
Before I knew what it was, I talked to a counselor about the double standards in our marriage. His feelings trumped mine no matter the situation. If he called me a "cow" at 35 wks pregnant, it was my issue to know he was joking and have no hurt feelings about it. When I did get upset, I then needed to apologize to him. I felt like I was spinning all the time, tired, lonely, confused.
It is no way to live. It makes you feel insane. And that is their goal. Confusion. Sleep deprivation. Insanity.
Now.
Now I know who I am. But I still have to remind myself when those doubts creep in. I am not exaggerating. The other day after a very pleasant conversation with a stranger at a store, I thought, "see! People like you!" It might sound silly, but those little nuggets of support are part of my healing process. Through the love of family and friends and strangers and my faith, I have rebuilt the self-esteem that was just a pile of ashes when I left my marriage. It took a long time, and I am (and always will be) a work in progress.
You are not who someone else says you are. I know it is hard to remember.