Chaos and destruction (part 3/3)

Threats

We talked very little about my miscarriage. He thought it was better that way. And the chaos that was our daily life took over within a few days. I wrapped my pain in a handkerchief, tied it in a knot and never mentioned it again.

I can’t remember what happened next. My memories are confused. My daily life consisted only of managing this chaotic family, trying to prevent A’s crises, coping with them when they occurred and working. Some days I couldn’t even do that. I was pondering whether I should give up everything. But the fear of being alone, of losing a family, the shame I felt at the idea of abandoning them when things were so hard, made me stay. And in the midst of this chaos, I don’t think I could think clearly or know what was good for me.

In a desperate effort to save our couple, we spent a weekend holiday in Brittany. I was expecting a lot from it. I wanted to have time to talk to him, to laugh, to recapture those light and joyful moments that had been ours at the beginning. We spent a day walking around. A few pleasant hours. Then the same implacable mechanics played out. He started drinking at lunch, and did not stop. In the evening, after a couple of hours spent at a friend’s house during which he had ignored me, he started screaming as we drove to the restaurant. He was angry at the world, at his family, he was angry at me. He blamed me for things which I don’t even remember. I stopped twice to catch my breath. When we arrived at the apartment we had rented, he refused to let me go to bed. He looked at me, cold, mean, sarcastic. My back was pressed against the window. I was silent, hoping he would stop. He looked me in the eyes and came closer to me, his face a few centimetres from mine: “Do you know that I can be a monster? Do you know what I am capable of? “He repeated it until he fell asleep, knocked out by the alcohol.

A year ends

We headed back to Bordeaux. He immediately went to see some friends. He would do this after every crisis, which is characteristic of violent men. Specialists call this the organisation of impunity: after each episode of violence, they act good, sympathetic, generous, funny… they make it hard for people to believe the violence which they are guilty of. I spent those few hours crying and thinking. When he came back, I told him I wouldn’t be going home. I will stay at my place, alone. I calmly told him that I was getting sick from the situation: I was crying uncontrollably, I had lost weight, I was living in constant stress and fear, taking care of his chaotic family and suffering his violent outbursts. I was exhausted.

He made one last effort to hold me back, prepared a fabulous Christmas dinner and covered me with gifts. He dragged me into the bedroom to make love. He said he wanted to make up for his mistakes, asked for forgiveness, kissed me. We started to make love. But my heart wasn’t into it. It all felt wrong. I asked him to stop. He didn’t. As he got dressed, he threw these words at me: “Oh, it’s all right, don’t play the victim”.

The next day I left to see my family for Christmas. I was stunned by what had just happened. When I came back, he left me. He had, in a surge of lucidity, realised the harm he was doing to me. I cried at first, clinging to a relationship I no longer wanted in some irrational and masochistic way. It took me a month to realise the reality of the relationship I had been in, the violence he had inflicted on me.

I threw myself assiduously into a work of redevelopment, made up of psychotherapy, emotional therapy, meditation. I tried a thousand treatments to heal from what I had just suffered. I delved into the past and the reasons why I had once again remained in a destructive relationship. Because I had already done it before.