It gives me chills to even write this, but I have to say it somewhere...

My H has been REALLY REALLY MEAN to me for the past couple of weeks. It's been terrifying and triggering...I've tiptoed around hoping he won't blow up, but I have no idea what will make him go off, so I don't know where to step. It's exhausting and scary and awful.

He just gave up nicotine (gum) and caffeine, so I know that's part of it. But that's not all of it. This is how he has always treated me, for 17 years of marriage. I never even thought that much of it. I mean, I didn't LIKE it, but other than thinking "ugh,this is scary" I've just dealt with it.

And the stupid thing is, I'm this HUGE "giver" so I have spent 17 years doing EVERYTHING - all the child care, shopping for food/holidays/gifts/etc, cooking, cleaning, lawn care, car maintenance, home maintenance, bills, banking, school for the kids, laundry, pet care, etc, etc, etc, etc. If something has had to be, I have done it, 100% of the time. H goes to work and hangs out. I'm almost ashamed to write that. If I ask him to do anything, he just gets angry, and that scares me, so I do everything myself.

Things have been SO bad the past few weeks that I finally just GIVE UP. I told H that his anger doesn't bother me anymore, that he can be angry all he wants, but I'm not going to be scared of him, or let it affect me. And H said "well, I guess it's over then, because you can't turn off your feelings about my anger without turning off all of your feelings - it's like flipping a switch" He's right, actually. I can't....but I am GOOD at turning off my feelings, that's how I got through my childhood. If I have to do that temporarily, so be it.

Now H is being REALLY nice to me. It's scary. He says things like "you're so pretty, how could I be so mean to you?" When he feels guilty, it usually morphs into anger directed at me. I'm just trying to get through all of this.

Here's the thing. THIS is a crappy point to be at...realizing how I've let myself be treated for all of these years, how I've shown my kids I deserve to be treated. That makes me sick. But I couldn't even SEE IT until now. I was treated so badly growing up, that anything would be an improvement. And I realized responding to blue's thread that I have ALWAYS felt like I did something "wrong" and deserved to be punished...so H's behavior played right into that for me. Reading and writing in that thread made me realize....I didn't do anything wrong. I deserve to be treated kindly, just like everyone else in the world.

I am so grateful for therapy. Because of bloom's threads, I've been thinking of all of the times I almost quit therapy. And there have been good moments too when I think I'm done with T, because of the amount of healing I've done. But the thing is, my self-esteem was still so low that I didn't even see that there were things to work on, that my life could get better. I thought that was as good as it got.

I feel sad and scared. I feel hopeful, but I also feel like I can't believe how I've let myself be treated all of these years. I've only hinted about it to other people, even T. I think I knew on some level how wrong it was. I feel angry but I also feel really small. I feel like my eyes have been opened to something, and I can't not see it again. I don't know what to do with all of this. For right now, I'm just going to sit tight and breathe and wait. I am getting coffee with a friend this morning and my band is playing at a party this afternoon. I'm just going to be.

But ugh, my feelings are so stirred up. I'm scared. I really REALLY want T