Sometimes it is best to run away
Just like any ordinary Indian woman, I began my married life with lots of hope and dreams. During the first one year, I took things in my stride. My husband was very specific about his wants and needs. Every time he looked at me, while I was eager to meet his eyes and have a lively conversation with him, his eyes were always fixed on my external appearance. Every conversation, however hard I tried to divert, always ended up in how I should walk, talk and eat. I always gave respect for other’s opinions. Hence I took these as his opinions on how he feels his wife should look. I followed them as much as I could in order to please him. Gradually I came to realize after two strenuous years, that however I tried, he could never be happy. I told myself “People are different. This is how he is. It is fine. “Nothing wrong with that”. But then the physical abuse started. His beatings gradually and slowly increased in frequency and intensity. His emotional abuse became more and more overt with lots of “I hate you. I am stuck with you.”
After about 4 years of defending him with others and especially with myself, I realized one fine day, that the fault was not with me and that he had a deep rooted psychological issue that was beyond my comprehension. That day everything dawned on me. His covert and overt abuses, narcissistic behavior, obsessive compulsive disorder and his sadism. Everything became crystal clear one after the other.
People say “Ignorance is bliss”. I completely agree. It truly is bliss. The stage after ignorance and before action, the stage where scenarios and behaviors are more evident and unfolds to the brain, that stage is the most torturous one. It was painful to come to the realization that he never saw me as a person, but as an additional asset, besides the house and car. It was heartbreaking to come to acceptance that he indeed never liked me right from the beginning, let alone love. I had to decide one way or the other, if not I feared he would break my emotional state and my physical well-being and would keep me on the receiving end of the abuse forever.
Slowly, I started to say “no” to his ridiculous orders. Those persistent and continuous “No, not until you change for the better” from me, must have been an extremely open defiance for him to bear that he escalated the physical and emotional abuses. The more I paid attention to his interactions with me, the more I realized that he was never ever going to change. I finally accepted that my relationship was broken right from the beginning and there was nothing I could do or say to fix that. So I ran away from mine and my son’s dangerous future.
I believe I am a highly rational person and as I mentioned before I gave him plenty of chances. I listened carefully to his behaviour and actions and could not, even for a micro second feel a bit of remorse in his voice for the agonizing ways he tortured me and my son. That is when I understood “he is incapable of feeling empathy”. When a person is incapable of empathy, chances of the relationship failing are high. Therefore I ran away from the dangerous relationship like how I might run away from a chasing hungry wild beast. Sometimes it is best to turn back and run away.
I am currently separated from him. I am taking care of my son, striving to reverse the negative psychological trauma he caused my son and attempting to reverse the same for myself.
