The man whom I had married was not the man I now knew.  This was a different man, a spiteful, childish and hateful man.  He agreed to a marriage counselor, so I very specifically told him to find someone, “who is licensed, experienced and holds a degree in counseling, and not someone who relies on Christianity to heal.”  He found someone, but did not follow my very specific criteria.  The woman he found had a PhD in Industrial Design (!) and had some experience in marriage counseling.  She also had a very strong Christian orientation, but I agreed to talk with her and asked the ex to book the first session.

Prior to the session, he told me that he’d confess all of his wrongdoing to her, take responsibility for his actions, and look for ways for us to heal and move on.

That’s not what happened.

Instead, he talked with her and unbeknownst to me, had given her his version of why our marriage was failing.  Why?  Because of me.  Because of my inability to adjust to married life.  Because of my incompetence as a housewife.  I just couldn’t handle it.

He repeated this opinion during our first session.  I was devastated.  It was a classic “bait and switch.”  After the session, I felt so defeated and angry.  I sent her a text message and told her that I would not meet again; that I had to work on healing myself.  I then spoke with him and told him that he’d played his last hand with me.

I blocked him on my phone.  I haven’t spoken with him for almost five months.  I have no intention of speaking with him.  And, I’ve served him with divorce papers.

He continues to call me from mysterious numbers.  I know it’s him because I don’t know anyone in Mississippi.  He continues to send things to my PO Box – money, cards, notes – in an effort to try to bait me into contacting him.  He even convinced his idiotic niece to call me.  I spoke with her, and then blocked her also.

I’ve no desire to talk with him or anyone in his family.  It’s over.

After hearing about his “encounter” at age 14, I wrote this now 71 year old man a letter.  I told him, again, that I was not coming back, and I gave the same reasons: impotence, disability and toothless.  I asked that he reimburse any and all moving expenses and other expenses I’d incurred.  When we talked, he agreed to do so.  As a precaution, I had my mother listen to him promise to reimburse me in full.

We had almost the same circular conversation every night.  He wanted me to come back, I refused to agree to come back, over and over, ad nauseum.  Finally, I told him that I would consider coming back if he’d agree to marriage counseling.  He would have to pay for it, and find a marriage counselor who did not stress religion and was licensed to practice as well as experienced.  After pretending that he’d go along with it, and me calling his bluff, he agreed to do it.

I explained to him that he’d have to agree to take responsibility for abandoning me when I was pregnant at 17.  He had to admit that he coercively raped me when I was 32.  His response to the rape?  “Heh, heh, heh, you were special.”  The tone of his voice sounded unreal, almost like a cackle.  It frightened me.

He had mentioned before that when I was 17, I should have come to him and insisted that he take care of the baby.  I should have had the baby and trusted that he’d provide for it.  It became all my fault that I’d had the abortion, even though he was 24 at the time and legally could be jailed for statutory rape had I had parents who were responsible.  I was again shocked that he took no responsibility for the pregnancy, and for the fact that he’d abandoned me.  I was a child with no means of supporting a baby, living at home, and finishing up my senior year of high school.  I knew nothing about life, but I certainly learned.

He agreed to find a marriage counselor.  But, he began to call me every morning and argue with me.  Argue that he was getting better, argue that the shack could be fixed up, argue that he could take care of me.  I would go to work every morning stressed and confused.  I began to question if I’d been wrong about him.  I began to think that perhaps something was salvageable.  Confusion and fogginess were my friends.  I became uncomfortable in my own skin.

He could be loving one moment, and ugly the next.  I didn’t know who he was.  I was beginning to not know who I was.

I had escaped.  I was safe, and my shipments were on their way to California.  My daughter picked me up at the airport.  I was so happy to see her, so happy to be back on California soil, and out of the Mississippi Twilight Zone.  I was home.

But, little did I know that the trauma bonding would continue.  The mask was about to come completely off.

I phoned him and told him that I’d arrived safely, and also told him, “You know that I am not coming back, don’t you?”  I told him that there was no way I could face a winter living in that shack he lived in.  There was no heat, the windows were all broken or cracked, and one of the dogs lived in the house about half the time.  Plus, even if he lived in a palace with all of the amenities and luxuries a woman could possible want, he was a broken man.  He could only walk very slowly and laboriously.  Most of his teeth were gone.  He was impotent.  He was a shell of the man he once was.  I explained that I did not want to be burdened with a disabled man, especially one with no resources.  But even with resources, I would not have stayed.  I would not go back.  I told him, “you are twenty years too late.  If we’d married twenty years ago, I’d stay and take care of you, but I don’t owe you anything.”  He insisted that the land could bring some money.  He insisted that he could walk better, and was “getting better everyday.”  I reminded him that I’d just left, that I knew what his condition was, that I knew where he lived and how he lived.

He kept trying to paint an illusion of happiness, freedom and travel.  He knew that I loved to travel, so suddenly he was also a lover of travel.  (I was to learn later that mirroring is a narcissistic behavior because they are empty).  I asked him when he was last on a plane.  He couldn’t remember, but he remembered that he had a fear of flying (!).  I patiently explained that he would not be able to travel without a lot of support, and would need to practice flying for short distances, then build to longer flights.  He insisted that he could.

I knew that he wanted to trap me, keep me in Mississippi working for him, being his assistant, nurse, cook, housekeeper and driver.  As well as financial consultant and occasional sex partner.  For me, that would have been the ultimate prison.

We would go back and forth like this night after night, with no real resolution.  It was like talking to a wind up toy, who had rehearsed his lines and waited for the full effect, which never came.  I never agreed to go back.  Then his frustration set in.

“You know, I used ta go with my father and work in New Orleans.  His sister lived in New Orleans, and we would go there sometimes to work around the yard for the white woman his sister worked for.  One day when I was about 14, I went there, and the housekeeper called me upstairs.  That was the first time I saw a woman’s pussy.”

I was shocked.  Shocked that he told me that.  Shocked that he was molested at 14.  Shocked at his trauma. Repulsed at the act.

I asked, “Why did you tell me that? You realize that I’m your wife and not somebody on the street?  I did not need to know that.”  His response was to shrug it off.  He’d had the desired effect of wounding me with the information.

There was even more to come.