Wednesday, September 05, 2007

True Wife Confessions 206 - the number of bones in a normal human skeleton according to Gray's Anatomy

Confession #2051

You have to be the most narcissistic person that I know. Every time that I try to talk to you about something you always turn the conversation back to you and your interests. And you wonder why I rarely talk to you anymore.


Confession #2052

We're coming up to our first year anniversary. Sadly, due to work, we'll be apart, but that won't make the day any less special for me.

We had a rough year, no thanks to your ability to not stand up for me. It's getting better and I appreciate that you realize what harm it caused. Thank you.

We spent the most amazing honeymoon together and I want to thank you for that. It was fantastic being alone with you in a new city, exploring and walking about.

There are days I forget I am married, not because I hate it, but because when I think of all the complaints that other wives have, living with you and being your wife is easy.

You're a fantastic husband and I love you with all my heart.

Confession #2053

You are such a dumbass. I can’t decide if you are really that stupid, if you think I am that stupid, or if you are screwing with me. I found your MySpace page MONTHS ago. I have one too. We met in college. I found yours when I was browsing the Alumni. I can’t believe you haven’t found mine yet. I am not hiding it. I did, however, make it private so I wouldn’t have to worry about what I say and if it is going to piss you off. Yours is not private and I check it out every week or two. Your girlfriend leaves you comments all the time about how she can’t wait for the special weekends you have planned for the two of you. Then she leaves you comments about what a wonderful time she had afterward. These are often weekends that you told me you had to work so you couldn’t see our children!!!!! When they tell you, on the phone, they miss you and wonder why they can’t see you until next month, you tell them you have to work to make money for them. Then you head off to the beach for the weekend or go to a concert. It breaks my heart for them and it makes me think less of you every time I catch you in a lie and you act so wounded and demand to know how I dare accuse you of putting less than your best effort into being a father. And it is right there. The truth. Where anyone with a computer and half a brain can see it. I manage to conduct a decent social life every other weekend (usually in much less time than that.) You have every week night and every other weekend free, if you choose. In a year or two our older child will be able to log on and see it for herself and then how will she feel? Asshole!

Confession #2054

I got drunk last night and spent two hours sending pictures of my feet to a friend of mine who, like you, has a foot fetish. He said my feet were "yummy." It seemed so much less creepy when you said it.


I still don't want anyone but you, dearest. Too bad I would rather beat you with a wrench than be near you.

Confession #2055

Sometimes...
Sometimes life gets to be too busy
Sometimes I don't realize what I have before me....
Sometimes I get angry - really angry....
Sometimes I think I'm all alone.

Until -

The middle of the night,
in your sleep you roll over
and pull me into you ...
I know I'm not alone.
I know I'm loved...

Then you start to kiss my neck ....

I realize I whine, moan and complain
but I also realize and I know just how lucky I am....
afterall... I am the Duchess....

I love you....
lets just quit the whole pissing me off part K?

Confession #2056

We live together. Two years now. I have 2 kids from a previous relationship and he has 1(child doesn’t live with us full time, only every other weekend). We live in my house. Had huge argument last nite. What it boils down to is this. I pay the mortgage, utilities, groceries, all of it. For two years. He did pay the house taxes last year ($3000), he pays for a dinners out when we go, a majority of the time. Also, I do housework and yardwork. (My girls help out with chores etc.) He had the gall to say to me that I live beyond my means, I told him that it was none of his business, since he doesn’t contribute to the household. He never complains when I am spending my money on groceries that he eats. If I have to rely on credit cards to help me out when I am short, due to me trying to cover expenses, that I feel he should be helping me out with, then that is what I have to do. I shouldn’t have to ask, should I? This is not really a confession, I just needed to get this off my chest. He is a good man all around. (He has a Flip-house project that we both worked on and is trying to sell, he is paying mortgage on that but that has been only since 3 mths ago, he pays child support to his ex). Am I being unreasonable to blow up, been stored up too long.

Confession #2057

All I ever wanted was for it to be just "us"; you, me, and our daughter together in our own home. But you and your mom had to go behind my back and get a house for us all to share. Now I live with a woman I can't stand and will never get along with. I know she is your mother but I am your wife, doesn't that count for anything? I have given so much of me to you. I have given you a daughter, my unconditional love, my money, my heart, and my soul. Never have you told me you loved me and meant it. At our wedding you couldn't even look me in the eye. Why do I allow you to hurt me like this? Why do you allow your mother to disrespect me in so many ways? I do EVERYTHING for and with our daughter. You NEVER spend time with her or me because you are always too busy playing golf or hanging out with the boys. I don't ever trust your word anymore, you have lied too many times for me to trust you. I am tired of having to live in our room because your mother only has rude disrespectful things to say to me. I wish your mother would stop trying to raise OUR daughter the way she wants it done. I don't need her to make dinner for my child or tell me how to care for her. I also don't appreciate your mother cutting our childs hair without my permission. Why wont you do the things that will turn me on when we are in bed together? Does everything really have to be all about you??I am sick of your step-brother being a lazy fat pig and making messes and everyone expecting me to clean up after him. I didn't marry him or your mother, I married u!!! Stop making excuses for not getting a real job. Do you like when your boss takes $500 for your check because he felt like it? If you wont say anything to him about it then you should let me, but instead you hide like a scared mouse and beg me not to say anything. Let me say it out loud...I THINK YOUR MOM IS A BITCH. I know she does things on purpose to piss me off and I am about fed up!!! You need to start being a real man and quit being a little momma's boy!!!!

Yours Truly,

I wanna strangle u and ur mom



Confession #2058

My my...

I am one of those women that I used to silently criticize. I have been repeatedly hurt by a man, yet I keep going back to him. He does not mean to hurt me, he doesn't do it because he is a bad person, and I know he loves me.

He does it because he is a damned COWARD. He's so afraid of actually loving me that any time things start to get really good, he flinches away. I'll tell you what, buddy. If anyone should be scared, it's ME, got it? I should be afraid of the pain that I know will come again and again and again, but here's a hint: I AM NOT.

That should tell you something. Pull your head out.

I'm not going to hurt you, so what the hell are you so afraid of!?

I said I wouldn't go back to you the third time. I did. Then a fourth. This is the fifth time. I know there are other men. I do not want one of them. It's only you. If I have a say in it, then it's you, darling. If I don't have a say in it, then I don't want anyone.


Confession #2059

I think you would be very surprised if I told you how much I hated you sometimes. The things you say to our daughter, the emotional bullshit you pull on her just makes me want to puke. She's only 8 you asshole, don't say things to hurt her just because you are mad at me. We have been together 16 years but I KNOW there is no chance of 16 more. The next time you threaten to leave I wish you would really mean it.
I don't understand how you can be such a great dad & husband one minute & then the next you are such an ogre. If our friends only knew..... Your family knows. How do you like that? Your 2 favorite sisters know everything that goes on here...funny seems you pulled this bullshit when you were 8 too....you'd think over the course of 38 years you would grow up. I blame your mother. In her eyes you could do no wrong & you really believe that.
You disgust me.

Confession #2060

Many people will wonder or ask, why do I feel the need to hate Xxxxx so
much. What does it do for me, but cause stress and ill feelings in my
life, which is for the most part severed from him. The reasons I feel
the need to hate him and to hold it close to my heart are quite simply
to serve as a reminder. A reminder of how far away from myself I let him
drag me. A reminder of where I was when I met him, and the issues that I
was facing that made me vulnerable to that kind of man. A reminder of
just what a woman will put up with and in hindsight a reminder of why
she does this. A reminder of the absolutely mind numbing abuse that can
be so easily swept under the rug. A reminder of what my children had to
witness for the, "sake of the family." A reminder of the kind words and
gentle caresses, which can so quickly turn into acidic, corrosive
spewings and rock hard slaps which resonate into your very being and
change you forever. A reminder of how much time I wasted.

That being said, all of these reminders that I force upon myself
everyday, serve a purpose. That purpose is to help me raise my girls to
be strong women, who do not choose a man that hurts them, ever. A man
that loves them 27 days out of the month, but hates them the rest of the
time, IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH. To help them realize the potential that smart
women have, and help them realize that they can do it without a man in
their lives. To help them realize that no matter what the circumstance
they deserve to be loved unconditionally, from family members,
boyfriends, girlfriends, lovers. Be the type of woman who loves with
everything she has, and does not have any regrets no matter the outcome.
Just do your best in any relationship you have, and expect the best from
your significant other. Nothing less. To help them realize that the
things they do, have a direct impact on how other people see them, and
to know that it really doesn't matter. That they can be the chick in
school with multi colored hair, or the cheer leader, or the geek. That
the labels are there and always will be, but only you can take that
label and make it mean something to YOU. Only you can decide the future
you are going to have. I want them to experiment with everything, learn
from all of their experiences, and take something with them where ever
they go. To know that their feelings are just as important as everybody
elses, and if they have an opinion, SHOUT IT. Even if it is the most
controversial, least popular one out there. Especially if that is that
case. Shout it, but be able to back it up. Have a sense of humor, laugh
a little bit at everything. No matter what is happening you should
always try to find something humorous about it. It will keep your stress
levels below toxic, if even just a notch below. Draw on yourself, even
if everyone else says no. Eat cake for breakfast without feeling like
you have to go to the gym and sweat for 4 hours to make up for it, hell
eat cake for lunch to. Don't buy Glamour and Cosmo unless you can look
at the pictures and realize that those models have cellulite to, and
computers can do wonders. When your 20 take a bunch of lovers, use them
and throw them away, it is empowering. Sleep with a woman, you'll
realize that there is not that much mystery around it, and that they can
be just as hard to deal with as men, a vagina does not automatically
give you sensitivity. Go to college if you want to, but know that i will
not be disappointed if you don't. Know that your life is yours, and you
can do what you want with it, and you can do it with whomever you
choose, as much or as little as you like, wherever you want to. And know
that the only person you have to explain yourself to, is your boss if
you have a job. You will never have to explain yourself to me, I love
you unconditionally. Learn the art of kissing ass, you will need it at
work, and there is nothing wrong with kissing ass to get where you want
to go, as long as you balance it out with hard work and determination.
There is a way to kiss ass without debasing yourself, learn it, and live
it, it will help you. Believe in God if you want to, but don't do it
because someone tells you thats what you are supposed to do. Don't be
afraid to question what you are taught about religion, and don't be
afraid to do it differently in spite of what others may think. Be
gracious and kind, when you amswer the phone smile, it really does sound
different, and can make or break the conversation. Smile at people on
the street, random people that you do not know, people who look like
they need it. Let people think one thing about you based on your
appearance or your beliefs, then show them that you are better. Be proud
of being better, but not boastful. Help people as much as you can. Even
if it is just a little, its better than nothing.

Now you may be asking what does all of that have to do with reminding
myself about how much of an ass there father is. Simple, confidence, I
didn't have it because of him and the ways I grew up and lived my life.
I need to remind myself that I can give them what I did not have and I
can give it to them in abundance.

You never understood this part of me, and I know you never will...I am
glad I don't have to try and make you understand any longer.

The Courage To Heal

A Tribute

by Ellen Bass

We were five in a plaid dress with a sash and a little white collar.
We were nine, it was after school in the garage, the smell of motor oil
and cut grass through the open window.
We were twelve, fourteen, sixteen in our own beds, in seersucker pajamas
the rain pelting down and running through the gutters.It was a neighbor,
a priest, a stranger, our father, our mother. It was every day. It was
when he got drunk.
It was before our class trip to the state capitol.
When our mother was in the hospital giving birth. Just once.

We were left for dead.
We were barely scratched.
We were found in the coal bin, so wild they couldn’t catch us to wash,
to comb our hair.
Nothing showed.

We lay at the bottom of the stairs.
We found ourselves looking down from a corner of the ceiling.
We found ourselves out in the limb of a maple tree, in the night sky, up
in the stars, where it was cool and there was so much space.
We found ourselves in our beds. It was morning and our clothes laid out
neatly on the chair, our mothers prompting us to come to breakfast.

We told an English teacher with straight brown hair clasped at the nape
with a silver barrette.
We told our mother who slapped us once across the face and closed
herself like a fist.
We told by carving our skin like a pumpkin.
We never told.

We slept clutching a plaster statue of the Virgin Mary.
By day, we couldn’t concentrate.
The long division on the blackboard smeared in our minds.
We memorized everything.
Our handwriting an exact replica of Palmers cursive, only smaller.

We ate to erect a bulwark.
We wouldn’t eat.
We didn’t want our bodies.
We didn’t want to be a part of the food chain-eater or eaten.

We took enough pills to kill a horse.
We were in a coma for a month. And we emerged in rage.
We smiled.
We smiled.
We were drunk.
The first six years of our daughter’s life.
We held our sons hand over a candle.
We somehow knew how to mother. That gave us joy.

Deciding to heal was a choice.
The first one we ever clearly made.
We didn’t decide.
The alternatives just became too painful.

We cried every day.
We only cried once but it went on for a year.
We never cried.

We gave up and drove a motorcycle into a guard rail.
We threw a chair through the window.
We stood on the steps of the psychiatric unit weeping about something we
couldn’t remember.
We remembered everything it seemed, each detail etched into the soft
organ of our minds.

We blamed ourselves because he gave us a bicycle.
We blamed ourselves because we didn’t stop it.
We blamed ourselves because our bodies responded.
We stopped blaming ourselves.

We beat a hundred pillows and tore up a year’s worth of the Sunday Times.
We filled forty notebooks with writing that dug through the pages like a
plow.

We said once in a quiet voice, */I’m angry/*.
We told our stories and we were believed.
We told our stories and our families denied it.
Never were we left alone like that. It couldn’t have happened.
We told our stories and the faces that listened told theirs.

Once, we held our fingertip up to a woman with kind eyes and she touched
the pad of her finger to ours-for a moment.
Once, we were rocked in a safe lap and someone smoothed back our hair
with a tenderness not even we could deny.

But that wasn’t the end of it.
It went on and on beyond what we’d imagined, beyond what we’d signed up for.
We sat in fear like it was our own urine.
Our hearts aching in our hollowed out chests and down our empty arms.
We thought we would not survive.
Like stroke patients we had to learn everything anew.
We saw how it seeped into the corners our lives like smoke.
Nothing was untainted, except the tough kernel we were born with, the
seed of who we could have been, could still be.

We reclaimed our bodies, inch by precious inch.
Feeling our own skin, astonished, like touching a newborn.
We tried our trust, like experimenting with drugs.
We went back to school.
We took a vacation.
We spoke the truth.
We did what we wanted.
We learned to sleep.
We ate when we were hungry.
We woke in the morning, willing.
We wanted to be alive.

We were hungry for all we’d missed.
We took it with eager, patient or tentative hands but we took it.
We made a cup of tea in our own kitchen and drank it a blue table on
which we’d set a small bouquet of daffodils.



I thought I had a daffodil on my table when I met you, I did but it was
plastic. I have a whole bouquet now, and it lives forever in the eyes of
the man who loves me and MY children more then you ever did, more then
you will ever be capable of doing.

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

that poem there....ahhhhhhh...ouch. theres a dark corner in my mind where the skeletons live. Its locked, and best to not be disturbed. Theres a few dusty fingerprints from times I tried to touch it, to hold it, to soothe it, to understand it, to remember. The scars from that linger on, on the jagged lines etched into my arms and legs, on the slight cringe that lives in my soul, in the feeling of always trying to stay one step ahead of that damn dark closet. that poem, too much, but i thank you for sharing. It reminds me that my pain is real

Anonymous said...

Sounds like some people can't get over the past...... get on with your life.. it's all good. In other words get the fuck over it.

Anonymous said...

4:09 pm---Initially your post made me so angry...but I'm smiling now..your post reassures me that my world remains the same...the idiots are still out there in abundance! And I hate change :)

(I know that may get my comment deleted)

To everyone else...I have NEVER, in all of my life, and I am an avid reader....read anything as powerful as that tribute!

laniered said...

Wow. Just . . . wow. Everything I've ever thought about my own abuse, and everything I've ever imagined about anyone else's, and so, so much more. Tribute. Wow.

Layers of Everything said...

Reading this all makes me so sad tonight, every post. Come on 4.09 feel, live, love, hold compassion within your soul for every other human being that goes through our own experience of life. Please, like our mothers taught us, do not say anything at all, if you have nothing nice to say. Support, love, kindness...

Anonymous said...

hmmmm odd...so 4:09 is allowed to comment telling people that have been through something horrible in their lives to "get the fuck over it" but my reply to that isnt posted?hmmmmmm nice

Anonymous said...

I am 4:09.
I am a mother and a daughter. I am sorry for all that have had a horriable past. I have too. Way to much to put into words... But and this is a strong BUT.... Life goes on and each day is a blessing that you can look back and tell your self that you are filled with love and you can be a good mother and you have to let it go. The future is all you have... the past is gone and strive to put it behimd you. It makes you a better person.
My heart goes out to all that have had a bad childhood. Remember that time marches on.

Anonymous said...

4:09 - well said. Once again, words to live by. Was...is....always will be....

Anonymous said...

4:09:
I agree with your second post. In the future I urge you to perhaps word all of your suggestions like that, instead of shelling out dispassionate and rude responses. (For example: "Get the fuck over it.)

Anonymous said...

agree with 1:34 the 1st post really took me back, 2nd one much better and i totally agree. I live my life everyday for the present and the future, but for me, i truly know i will never be over it. For me, saying I'm over it is like saying its okay, and some things in life will never be okay. So, i move on and choose not to think about it, until i read poems like this one, or smell a smell, or have a bad dream, something random like that...then it hits me like a ton of bricks, I cry and mourn the little girl in me, and i promptly pick myself back up and move on. No time to waste on it anymore. But again, I'll never feel over it.

Anonymous said...

Damn, that was a powerful poem. Thanks so much for sharing.

Anonymous said...

Gee, thanks, 4:09, I'm so dumb that it just never occurred to me to just let it go. Ahhh, all better. Thank you, o patronizing anonymous internet genius with all the answers!

Anonymous said...

I hate those long-as-a-chapter-in- a-novel posts. The times that I do drudge through them they are enivitably boring as Hell. Keep em relativly short and sweet girls!

Anonymous said...

Some things done in our pasts are so heart scarring it's too hard to just 'let it go' - like molestation or alcoholism, or witnessing your mother being decapitated in a car wreck- I'm all for moving on- but 4:09 - not everyone is capable of putting those life altering tragedies behind them and moving on. Get real.

Anonymous said...

#2056-been there done that. My house, my kids, his on visitation weekends. My bills, my problems. His excuse to me was always "you had these same bills before I came along" and "wonder if I paid all this around here, what would I have to show for it - it's YOUR house...if you got tired of me, you could make me leave and I'd have nothing".....I found out later why he never had money and it's because he was screwing around on the side with some female with NO kids and no real responsibilities other than to herself and he could be the "center" of attention and not have to concern himself with the humdrum "life" that I evidently led (wow, working, taking care of kids, house...)....it never gets better. Get out while you can.

Anonymous said...

4:09's posts grated on me so hard because, no matter what her intentions were, she essentially flounced in here to tell us that we're processing our pain wrong -- thereby eking away yet a little more power over our own lives. If blissing out works for her, lovely, but it's the height of narcissism to imply that it's the best and only way (personally, teaching hardcore whoopass self-defense worked for me.)

So will "filling myself with looooove" (which smacks suspiciously of religious overtones) unsee the image of a mangled loved one in the morgue? Will it repair a destroyed vagina? Bring a six-year-old child back to life? Honestly, that was the height of rudeness, and I think 4:09 owes everyone an apology for that jaw-dropping spectacle of self-absorption.

Anonymous said...

4:09 - I'm glad you've been able to just put bad stuff behind you. Not everyone can, and how very condescending of you to suggest that it's just a matter of personal weakness and inability to let the past go.

Get the fuck over it? Get the fuck over yourself.

Anonymous said...

4:09 scares me. What is she, a robot? There are some things so terrible that you never "get over" them. If you are lucky and have the support you need you can get past them and build a good life, but getting over it is not an option. I agree with 3:44 about the religious overtones. I am a big believer in the power of prayer, but it doesn't fix everything all by itself. God helps those who help themselves and I am pretty sure He diaspproves of judgmental idiots with no compassion for the suffering of others.

Anonymous said...

Anybody belive in karma?
Be careful how harse you are being to 4:09..... they too have feeling.. Lets move on to something else, shall we?