This part of my journey brings me to a rather tumultuous time in my life. I had left behind the Land of the Morning Calm (Korea) and had confessed my affair to my first husband.
We were on leave in Virginia. At first he was willing to work things out with me. I was wanting that. Even though he had broken my trust emotionally with his EMT instructor and felt justified. I laid everything out for him to walk all over.
I had also discovered I was pregnant. I had used protection with the other guy so the likelihood of it being his was slim. That did not make a difference to my husband. Even though he proclaimed it didn’t matter... it was always brought up in every argument.
We moved on to Ft. Hood, Texas. My pregnancy was clouded with sickness, emotional abuse, and a lot of alienation. He would go out all the time. I thought he’d be going to the arcade... but as it turned out he was having his own affair. I never knew until after we divorced but all that time he spent punishing me and making me feel like a worthless piece of shit while I stayed at home carrying his daughter, he was out fucking another woman.
When we would argue... my words meant nothing. I had no say. I was Hester Prynne from The Scarlet Letter. No penance was enough. The entire ten years we were married.
Now... I did not make things any easier on myself, by any stretch of the imagination. Which I’ll explain in a moment.
This man I was married to... would get drunk and start berating me... without provocation. He’d wildly wave a loaded gun around while yelling how much of a whore I was and he would work himself up into such a frenzy... he’d punch holes in the walls.
He never hit me at this point. Not physically... but I was so scared of him. I was unwanted. Cursed. Unloved. Unforgiven. Unsexy. I was nothing. I had no voice and no rights. I was beneath everyone. He carried a picture of his ex girlfriend in his wallet that he’d show to people and say, “This is what I gave up ... for her.”
He thought he was paying me a compliment.
Eventually... I dealt with my depression in the worst possible way. I had another affair.
tbc
