When we started dating, he drove me to more and more places. I started to rely on him and his car more and more. As a result I rode my bicycle less and less. By the time we were married I hardly rode it at all. It needed a tune up and a new chain. He built bicycles and furniture for a living. He never fixed mine no matter how many times I asked him to.
When I went back to school, there was some friction, but he still was the driver and he still controlled me that way. If I wanted to go someplace and he didn't we didn't go. Eventually that became the norm and though I didn't realize it them it was an issue. If I got mad and left to calm down he would follow me in the car real slow. The police even stopped him once because he was doing that. They thought he was stalking me.
When we grocery shopped if he didn't like what I was picking he would have a temper tantrum. We always fought while grocery shopping because he insisted on doing it his way. Eventually I stopped grocery shopping. He does it all now. I loved to shop for groceries but I let him take it away from me.
When we moved into the house we moved out of a year ago my parents bought us dressers because we didn't have any closets and I needed a place to put my clothes. He assembled the dresser meant for him, but mine and the night stands he ignored. The more I asked him to build them (remember he used to build furniture for a living) he refused. Almost two years passed before he started building my dresser. One of the pieces was broken and the company that made it didn't have the part anymore. When we moved to this house he controlled what we moved here. When I went "behind his back" and brought things over I wanted he had a hissy fit.
When I turned 40 and started facing my fears, coincidently the same time that our son was diagnosed with asperger's, and started driving more he lost some of his control and then things got much worse. When I went back to school a second time for my master's he tried at first to talk me out of it. His mother tried to get him to not allow me to go. I made it clear that the decision was made and I wasn't asking for permission, I was telling him (them) that I was doing it.
I can see it so clearly now, but I was blind to it while it was happening. I let him take so much away from me. I had no power until I started to assert myself. I wish I had done that years ago. They say hindsight is 20/20, I see that now. Now I just need stay on course and focused so I don't slide backwards. That is one reason why I am being so vocal about him cheating on me and getting this divorce. I need to follow through and do it. I don't want to look back on this time of my life and regret that I didn't get a divorce. Instead of dwelling on the past and hindsight now I need to look forward and stay on this path.
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