Initially I planned to write about my last meeting with Ex, which I will address soon, but what’s looming in my head today is something entirely different.
I decided to go back to bartending a month ago when my old boss called me at the hospital and said, “I need you desperately tomorrow night. Can you work at this new club I just opened?”
Since my social life has been as dead as Jimmy Hoffa’s lately, I agreed. It was time to get back into society and reconnect with my old customers and friends. But just one night a week. So far.
I now work Fridays, and I received a text from Anastasia yesterday morning saying, “Ex is coming over tonight. I need to get out of the house. Are you working?”
Anastasia’s husband is Ex’s only friend and I’m pretty sure that they’re in love with each other. They sit around and talk about gas prices, energy savings, solar panels, how Al Gore is God, and then afterwards, they make out. Well, that last part isn’t true to my knowledge, but Anastasia and I giggle about it anyway.
Last night was busy. I had a lot of friends in, gathered around my section of the bar, since I’ve now been back to this for a month and word is starting to get out that I’m back. Next to them were three people, a married couple and a single guy, all clearly veteran drinkers. Eventually, the married guy requested a bottle of Cristal. I was more than happy to oblige, since it was my first Cristal sale since I’d been back to bartending.
I chatted them up while I was doing the whole bullsh*t presentation of a $600 bottle of champagne and found out that married guy’s wife is a doctor. I complimented her genuinely on being both beautiful and smart, and she blushed while she looked in her lap.
I poured the champagne and the single guy took one sip, saying, “This champagne is fabulous, but I have to jet. I have to be in the next state at 8 am. Let me check out.” I closed their tab, thanked them, and walked away to talk to my friends gathered next to them. Ten minutes later, Anastasia grabbed me and said in my ear, “Almost, the guy with the champagne just punched the girl in the face.”
“What?! That’s his wife! Are you sure? Where’s the single guy that was with them?”
“Yeah, he just flat out turned around and punched her with a closed fist. No open-fist slap, closed-fist to the eye. And the single guy already left.” Anastasia, as I’ve said, is a Sergeant, soon-to-be Lieutenant, in the police force, so she’s always detail oriented.
“Where is she?” I asked, while I turned around, unable to find her in the crowd.
“I think she went to the bathroom.”
“I need to find her and make sure she’s ok,” I said.
“I’m going with you,” Anastasia announced. I wasn’t going to protest because I’ve seen this 120-pound gorgeous girl put an out-of-control professional football player through a wall. If I needed backup, I wanted her.
Just as we were heading to the bathroom, Doctor Wife emerged. I put my arm around her. “Are you ok, honey?” I asked.
“I’m fine, will you people please stop making a big deal about this? I’m fine, now where’s Timmy? He’s giving me a ride home.” Her whole body shook and tears slid down her cheeks as she proclaimed that she was "fine."
I have no idea who Timmy is, but apparently he’s acquainted with the promoter, because the promoter said, “He’s on his way, just hang on.”
The lights were about to come up, so still with my arm around her, I said to Doctor Wife, “Come up to the roped off area, hon. Do you smoke? Do you want a cigarette?” (Shocker – I work in a hospital and guess what? Half of your doctors who tell you not to smoke…. smoke.)
“Yes, please. And keep my husband away from me.” He was sitting at the bar, about to fall off of his bar stool from sheer wastedness, so it was easy to get her a cigarette and keep him in his state of idiocy. Though he requested another drink, I suggested water and an intervention with a 90-day rehab program specifically designed for a**hole rehabilitation.
Two minutes later, Timmy pulled up and Doctor Wife took off with him. The bouncer then put a**hole wife-puncher in a cab and we called it a night.
I began to think about my own marriage and abuse. Ex never laid a hand on me, though I can say that he abused me emotionally and mentally. Often in my day business, I come across spousal abuse and the stories always vary. The emotionally abused wives (or sometime husbands) say it’s worse than being hit. The physically abused ones assert that they’d rather be emotionally or mentally abused. I suppose it’s a phenomenological experience for everyone in the sense that you can’t ever judge what’s worse for another since we can never wear their shoes and experience what they experience firsthand. It's a conundrum that will probably never be definitively answered. One thing I do know is that when I realized I was in an abusive situation, I left. It took me too long, but I finally did it.
But I’m left with one question. What makes a smart, beautiful woman wind up with an abuser? And stay with him.
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9 comments:
Asshats like this are also terribly good at being manipulative sons of bitches, and are able to convince beautiful women that they cannot do any better. Or that they would "die" if she left them. Or they must just be good in bed.
It's a toss up really, and while I have never been a battered woman, I have certainly stayed with an asshat because the sex was good. Varying degrees of abuse and asshattery allow you to rationalize other good qualities such as wondercock, or money and goodlooks.
I've never been hit, but I have been pushed around emotionally. I'd hesitate to call it more than that, and it was long enough ago that I've over it. However, I agree with SD that people like that are very manipulative, whether to make you care about them or not care about leaving.
To me, your question remains one of the biggest and troubling there is, but it's hard to see into the psyche of others and really know. It's hard to help people who don't want or can't see that they need help. Hopefully you made a difference to the lady, but you did what you could and that matters a lot.
I'm so glad that you realized your situation and got out of it, and that you're strong enough to go and help others!
There's an article in Time (or is it Life?) this month that talks about why people stay in abusive relationships--it's an addiction to those glorious moments when the other is charming, wonderful, fun, etc. even if most of the time they're awful.
That's a terrible, terrible story. And here's what I think. It starts small - little comments leading to bigger comments, all to undermine her self confidence. And then the less she thinks of herself, the less he thinks of her, and so he starts behaving worse. By the time the abuse turns physical, I think a lot of these women genuinely believe that they're not worth anything, won't be able to find anyone else, and are terrified all the time - terrified to stay and terrified of the prospect of leaving.
Why do we stay? For so many reasons.
For me, it started so subtly and so seldomly (like a tickle fight that got rough), I'd think "was that what I thought it was?", and would brush it off. He would NEVER hurt me.
Then he proposed, and he had me for his own. JUST before our wedding, I found out that my guy preferred guys, but I didn't think it was that big a deal. He likes girls enough to like me, right? The wedding came and went. He took me away from my family and got me pregnant. He almost killed me during my pregnancy, and even called 9-1-1 on himself. I was just another statistic - abuse gets worse during pregnancy.
He abused me during my second pregnancy. He hit me in front of my girls. He hit me while I was holding one of them. The day he spit in my face was the day I actually realized that I meant nothing to him. Then I stopped caring. I started turning my back when he'd come after me. He soon realized that hitting me did no good, so he started forcing sex on me. I was raped by my own husband.
Why did I stay? I stayed because I FELT like I had no other option. I was a mom to an infant and a pre-schooler, unemployed because he wanted me to "stay at home". I stayed because he was the breadwinner, and without him I would have nothing. I stayed because he was the father of my babies, and somewhere, once upon a time, I felt something for that man.
I finally had him charged and testified against him in criminal court. He was acquited. We went to family court to settle custody and he won, by getting joint custody, although lawyer after lawyer assured me they never give joint custody to an abuser.
The truth is, it's still hard. He still tries to control me by refusing to sign my girls' passport applications and shitty things like that. But if I'd KNOWN how EASY it was to leave someone, how LITTLE heartbreak there is involved, I would have done it long ago.
I love your blog. Mine isn't nearly as exciting, but here it is, nonetheless.
http://shannymoe.livejournal.com/
SD, you are so right. And wondercock?! HAAHAHAHAAH!!!!
sarah, you're sweet, thank you. And you're right, you can't tell anyone anything about their relationship. If one has blinders firmly in place, logic works as well as punching a hole in water.
alexa, that's interesting - thanks for the tip. I'm going to look for that.
lisa, I totally agree. I think she really does feel like nothing despite the fact that she's successful, smart, and beautiful. Tragic.
shannymoe, your story just gave me chills. Thank you for sharing that. I can't imagine what you've gone through, but bravo to you for having the courage to go to criminal court and fight for your girls! I want to give you a big hug! And thanks for the link to your blog. I'm off to read it now. :)
I get abused both physically and emotionally/verbally the physical one sucks because you ahve to explain your injuries and the emotional one sucks that you have to explain your tears
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