Trusting My Own Experience And Letting Go

17/05/24

^{EDITED TO ADD: WARNING – CONTAINS GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE} 

Somewhere around year three of my relationship with EH, an incident happened that I’ve never been able to fully process out. My primary method of dealing with it has been to ignore it as much as possible. 

It’s not working. I want to release the trauma and lay it to rest. 

The night in question occurred while the ex was still drinking. There were six of us; me, EH, his brother, a male friend of theirs, plus two young females I didn’t know (one was shagging the brother, the other was her friend, who I assumed was planning to hook up with the spare male present). 

When the pub closed, we ended up at my house and the drinking continued. At some point the male friend (let’s call him Bob) and I decided to walk round to the 24-hour garage to get some cigarettes. It takes maximum 15 minutes to walk there and back. 

In that short period EH had got snuggled up on the couch with the female friend (we’ll call her Stacey). I’m not talking, leaning in together chatting, I’m talking laying full length on the couch with her on top of him. 

Unsurprisingly, I kicked off royally. 

She didn’t even get off him, just propped herself on one elbow and smirked at me. EH also stayed as he was. 

At this stage I physically hauled her off him and started to push her towards the front door, telling her to get out. She resisted, continuing to laugh at me. EH sat on the couch, doing and saying nothing. 

All the commotion brought the brother (Kevin) and his girl (we’ll call her Stephanie) running down the stairs (I later discovered they’d been screwing on my son’s bed, but that’s a minor outrage I shall set aside). 

Kevin got to where I was with Stacey and without asking a question or saying a word, he punched me in the face. 

I reeled backwards into the living room, brain not quite able to compute, and looked up, expecting EH, or Bob, to jump up and do something. Neither did.

In fact, EH turned his head away when I started to plead with him to help me. 

This was all Kevin needed.

He laid into me with fists and feet, he dragged me out of my own house by my hair, smashing my head against walls, continuing his assault in the front garden. 

No one moved to help me. 

I was peripherally aware of Stacey and Stephanie standing watching, like it was some kind of spectator sport.  

I was acutely aware that EH wasn’t moving to help, but hovering in the background, occasionally ineffectually muttering things like, “C’mon, Kevin, leave it”. 

Throughout this beating, from the explosive pain of first punch through to losing part of my scalp on my porch wall, there was this detached, inside observer part of me coldly thinking, “Yeah, go on you motherfucker, give it all you’ve got. You’ll get tired before I fucking break.” 

Of course, there was also the majority of me just experiencing the trauma and abject confusion. 

Eventually neighbours’ lights started to go on and Kevin stopped. As he, Stephanie and Stacey walked towards the gate, EH looked at me, momentarily hesitated, then turned and followed them. 

No matter what he says about sex droughts and university and other bullshit being what killed our marriage, it was that moment, when he turned and walked away, when something in me died.   

In walking away he created a wound which, properly tended, could have healed. Instead, it was left festering, ultimately killing my ability to trust him on any level. 

So, they all trotted off to the in-laws’ house (EH’s parents) and I was left with hovering Bob.

Despite the emotional space I was in, I quickly recognised that he thought he might be able to prey on my vulnerability and get me into bed. Awesome dude. 

I rang my mother and told Bob I’d be fine if he left. Which he did. 

Mother arrived to me sitting, bloodied, bruised and sobbing, in the midst of a room that had quite clearly been the scene of a fight; drinks were overturned, cushions scattered, there was blood on a doorway, a picture was askew… 

She did all the things you would expect, hugged me, wiped my face with a cool cloth, made tea, handed over tissues, righted the room a little.

Then she sat next to me on the couch and said, “So, what are you going to do?” 

I remember exactly the thoughts and feelings that went through me before I flatly answered, “Well, I’m going to have to call the police.” 

In the moments before I spoke, I remembered the promise I made to myself after escaping physical abuse from Kieran’s father – I swore I’d never again permit a man to hit me, and if it did happen, I’d take action against it. 

I remembered how helpless I’d felt while Kevin dragged my hair from its roots, a feeling I recognised all too well and didn’t want to return to. 

I knew it would spell the end of my marriage, but deep down knew that it wasn’t a marriage worth keeping if my husband could permit me to be beaten up in his presence – while perfectly capable, choosing not to assist me. 

My gut was telling me it was the right thing to do, even if my heart was being reluctant to agree, and, for once, I could hear my gut above my heart, and accompanying fear of abandonment. 

Weirdly, I can’t remember the exact words mother said next, but I can remember my sense of shock, immediately followed by self-doubt, and wavering in my decision. 

Long story short, she persuaded me that keeping the marriage together was more important than me having my moment by calling the police. With all the hoo-ha it would create with his family, I’d definitely be destroying any chance of reconciliation and future harmony. 

Unfortunately, at that time, my ability to follow my own gut instincts, respect my own boundaries, was so stunted and damaged, I couldn’t hold true to my inner voice. I agreed to not call the police. 

It didn’t feel right in the moment, and it’s never felt right since. 

It also seemed to trigger a switch in mother’s approach to everything. There was this sort of brushing off hands attitude, like the beating I’d endured was awful and everything, but that’s done now, and we need to look at how to heal things (the marriage, not me). 

It hurt at the time.  It became resentment later, when I realised just how terrifically awful her advice and guidance had been, and the sense of betrayal that brought with it.  

My feelings about it are currently hovering around the file marked, “Not To Be Carried Around Daily: Crappy Things Mother Did/Said That I Don’t Have To Take On Board.” – not quite in the file, but nearly. 

I don’t remember the rest of that night. I know mother left and I stayed alone in the house, but have no idea whether or not I slept. 

The following day is clear in my memory though. EH’s mother, my mother-in-law, came round to my house. 

After brief and perfunctory sympathy for my evident injuries, she got down to the real purpose of her visit – protecting her son. I don’t recall a lot of it, but the phrase that really sticks in my mind is, “Well, you were all drunk, you were all at fault.” 

In hindsight, I know that’s when my pre-groomed, pre-trained, pre-victimised self took the wheel. 

Although an inner part of me was still quietly protesting that no, I wasn’t at fault, at all, and that I should be getting a lot more support than this, the damaged side slipped seamlessly into the driving seat. 

Here’s what it was telling me: 

1. I didn’t do anything wrong. Except maybe for laying hands on Stephanie. But it’s not like I punched her or anything, just dragged her by the arm.  But actually, me doing that started everything.

2. Maybe I shouldn’t have started yelling. Maybe I should have just made an ‘ownership’ joke and jumped on the husband myself. 

3. Maybe I made it worse by not backing down to Kevin. 

4. Maybe I am the awful one. Maybe, I do owe other people an apology for making a really good night end so badly. 

Everything I’d done to heal after Kieran’s father, all the delicate recovery I’d demonstrated when I uttered the sentence, “I’m going to have to call the police” – all of it, gone. 

When EH came back to the house, mildly sheepish but far from prostrating himself, I tried to discuss what had happened. My main focus was on two aspects – his lack of assistance during the attack, and him walking away with my attacker afterwards. 

He half-heartedly protested that he’d never had a fight with his brother so he hadn’t known what to do. Even at the time my response was an astounded, “What the fuck?!”  Still the same. 

He repeated his mother’s line about us all being drunk. 

He got irritable and asked if I wanted to make up or just wanted to argue. 

I stopped talking and stuffed it in. 

The sense of betrayal on all fronts ate away at me, and made me feel so, so lonely. I saw the combined responses of others as uncomfortable proof that I really wasn’t good enough – all of these people held me to be responsible for this terrible thing. So I must be. 

For a few more years, very rarely, but now and again, that night would come up between me and EH.

I’d be trying to express my need to hear true remorse from him, especially with him now having the hindsight of sobriety. 

I was seeking comfort and reassurance that he would never allow such a thing to happen now.

He’d be pushing the topic way, irritated, wanting to know why I always have to drag up the past, and finally, shrugging and saying, “Well, there’s nothing I can do now.  It’s too late to change anything.” 

I stopped mentioning it, but it lived inside me, giving me the occasional jab so I couldn’t forget it entirely. Always confusing me with its flickering film reel of memories and emotions. 

Over the ensuing years there have been times when gaining knowledge about abusive relationships and how they work has made me view the incident through a slightly adjusted lens, but I’ve never been able to get full focus. 

That’s what I’m trying to do by writing this all out. 

I believe it helps to say it ‘aloud’, and to feel seen and heard. Although by the time of writing this journal entry, the decision to publish as a blog has already been made, I have no idea if anyone will ever stumble across, then bother to read this, or any other tripe I burble. 

But that’s not the point, that’s not where the seen and heard feeling comes from. Right now, in real time, I’m simply doing what I’ve always done – writing in my journal because it gives me clarity and makes me feel better – enjoying the therapeutic value of getting it out and working it through. Being properly seen and heard by myself. 

I worry sometimes, when I’m writing about all these horrible memories that I’m just splashing about in a toxic pond of pain and trauma. Or am I doing what’s necessary to cleanse, heal, and move forward stronger?  

I keep doing it because I’ve already experienced the incredible value of being able to look back and see, really see, how I was thinking, processing, feeling at difficult times; to be able to reassess, reprocess, with the benefit of greater self-awareness and better tools. I’m putting faith in this being a repeating pattern.   

Getting this out has given some immediate sense of relief. I feel a little lighter, like a cage door has been opened and a small, dark creature has flown out of my soul. 

I’m also very tired. I suspect my sleep will be deep tonight. 

JP