Thank you for your support, all of you. It turns out I misunderstood the T comment. He was referring to the way I was raised, and how that influenced how I feel about myself now. But this still is part of the topic I want to talk about today. I'm kind of hijacking the thread a little bit, but since I began it, I guess that's okay.

When I was little I didn't think I wanted to be a little girl. Little boys just seemed to have it so much better. I liked being outdoors and hated everything about house work and indoor activities. I wanted to be rough & tough, not the dainty ballerina my mother seemed to think that little girls should be. It was a huge issue for me, and still is in some ways. This morning, as soon as I opened my eyes, I started thinking about how I tried so hard to fit in as a young adult. I wanted so much to be a part of all that social activity, but I had such social anxiety that I really didn’t quite understand how to fit in. I felt like I really didn't know how to be feminine. I felt like I was incomplete in that regard. But today, I found myself remembering the first time my husband asked me if I’d made it with another woman. At that time, we were just married and I divided my time, spending part of it living on campus finishing my last year of college, but coming back to our appt for the weekend and at midweek.
So, to set the scene, I’m home, in his arms, having missed this intimacy for a bit, and in these tender moments as love starts, he wanted to know, "had I made it with any of my girlfriends at school? It’s okay, I can tell him, cause that’s what he wants to hear." Sounds small and innocent enough, right? But it hurt. I had missed him, looked forward to being with him. I assumed he missed me also, and would want to be with me. Instead, he wanted to hear that I’d been unfaithful, and not with a member of the opposite sex, no, let’s hear that you have no morals, and have seduced one of your girlfriends, and would now like to discuss it with your husband, so he can get off on it. I’m afraid I started to cry, which somehow convinced him that I was feeling guilty about having done this thing he suggested. (In retrospect I guess this would have been a good time to point out what a self-centeredness !**#^! he was being. ) I let it confirm that I wasn’t whole, that there was an essential piece of me missing. Why else would he want to hear about others? Why else would he expect that I would do these things? What other reason could there be that just me, in and of myself, was not enough? The more I cried and denied, the more he believed it of me, and the more that set of beliefs, that I would be unfaithful, that I would chose a woman instead of a man, that I would seduce a friend, that I would be so unashamed by that behavior that I would enjoy discussing it with him, cut me to the quick. Why not cut yourself? The self inflicted pain upon your skin can not begin to hurt as much as this pain within your heart.

I've said for so long that I felt nothing for my husband now that we're divorced, and it seemed so wrong. How could I spend 26yrs with a man and feel nothing for him? What was the matter with me, that I could be so shallow? So, I guess, here are some of the feelings I’ve been looking for... Thanks,"honey", I’ve begun to find them at last...

And my question remains the same -- I let those words hurt me, but they were only words. He wasn't beating me, or even screaming at me, he was only talking. How can that be abuse? Can't be, right? So why does it still haunt me, almost 26yrs later?