rationality to cassiopeia for my "rules" heehee

i read a post at room to breathe
that kind of
well...
got me going this morning
in my usual over protective over bearing over the top kind of way...
and i commented and said that
a rule that my husband and i have is
that we don't curse at each other
(as in tell each other to fuck off)
and we don't call each other names
(such as bitch prick asshole or whatever...)
this has worked very well for us in the ten years that we have been together
the only times we may have slipped would have been in drunken states
way back when we could afford the money or the energy to drink...

i met my first real boyfriend at 16.
we were engaged on my 19th birthday.
we fought alot.
he never ever ever ever ever apologized.
i always always always always apologized.
he was usually mad at someone else or something else
but took it out on me because
i let him.
and i apologized after.

he often threatened to drive the car off the road
into a telephone pole when we fought in the car.
he hated my family, but not to their face.
he complained incessantly behind their back.
he hated my friends
but would be nice and friendly and sweet in front of them.
he bought me expensive presents for all occasions.
he reduced me tears in a le chateau for buying a dress that he
didn't want me to buy
and cursed at me all the way home about it
but then bought it for me.

he cheated on me but never would admit it.
he broke up with me constantly
and i kept taking him back.
people at our local hang-out used to take bets on how long this "reunion"
would last.
he called me names and told me to fuck off.

then we moved in together.

he refused to drive me to work
i had no car or license.
i walked 45 minutes to work and back every day.
sometimes
i would come home and he would be pacing the floor
in anger
because the shower curtain
had been left open all day....
sometimes he would trip over a shoe
and i would feel sick to my stomach wondering if i had left it there
because if i did
it would be an excuse for a tirade...

when we did break up, it was always him that did it
if i started seeing someone else
he would threaten them
or actually beat them up...

a couple of days before christmas
when i was 21
he stopped coming home at night
he would show up at 3 or 4 or 5 in the morning drunk and rude
and mean
one night i got fed up
and i went out
and i met a boy...

the boy i met sent me flowers at work the next day.

i decided i was fed up with where i was and who i was becoming
and ready to move on...
i called my friend and said i was moving out, could i stay with her...
she said sure.
when i got home from work i was resolved...i was going...
he was putting up the tree and playing christmas songs
waiting for me
i packed my stuff into garbage bags
and said i was leaving
as i got in the taxi he stood on the balcony in his housecoat
and bare feet
and cried...calling my name...

i left.

he tried to get back together.
for about a year or so...he tried...
but i was done.
in the four years we had been together
this was the one and only time that i broke up with him
and i meant it

the boy who sent me flowers?
we dated
until he beat him up in a field...
then the boy decided this was too much to deal with
and we stopped dating...

i had to have him kicked out of bars everytime i went to one
because he would corner me and scream at me...
he would threaten anyone who talked to me or danced with me.
i wasn't allowed to go to the hotel/restaurant he worked at.
he had a jewellry box that belonged to my best friend who had been
killed in a car accident and he refused to give it back to me
he would say come and get it tonight, you can have it
but then he would never let me

one of those night that he promised i could have my stuff back
i went with him in his truck
in the dead of winter
i was wearing little shoes and a fall coat
and it was cold out
instead of driving back to our old apartment
he drove me to a field way back in the middle of nowhere
and tried to get back together
and then tried to sleep with me
and when i refused
he knocked my head against the door window
hard enough to bruise...
and when i still refused
he threatened to put me out of the truck
knowing i did not know my way back and there was nowhere to go
for help and that i would freeze to death before i ever found my
way to the highway...

i eventually felt dead inside when it came to him.

the last night he convinced me to go to the apartment to get the jewellry box
i beleived him as usual
everyone said don't go
but i went thinking..."its just____, what could happen"
he tried to get back together
he tried to sleep with me
i told him in a dead emotionless voice that at this point
i hated him
(i had never said mean things to him, ever)
he went to the kitchen and i thought he was taking an overdose...
so i waited.

i hoped he was.
i was done.
i would call an ambulance,
but i was fucking done.

then i realized he wasn't taking an overdose...
he was loading the shotgun that he kept in the storage closet.

i lost it.

i jumped on his back from behind, screaming and hitting his head against the wall.
i don't remember alot.
i tried to phone the police
he ripped the phone out of the wall.
i ran out into the hall screaming
and when i opened the door
our husband and wife neighbors were standing there
looking concerned....
he came to the door
and said come back in....

and
i
did.

we continued to fight.
the security buzzer rang for someone to come in
i hit the button to let them in
and it was at that exact moment
that i thought
there was possibility
that i
was going to die
that he
was going to kill me
because i let them in...
so i convinced him that i missed the buzzer
and when they knocked at the door
i said we could fix it
i would stay in the bedroom
they would never know
but they came in and they were friends of his
and they knew something was up...
and they saw the case for the gun...
so they took the gun
and they left.

i left
too
with the jewellry box.

and thats why i tend to get worked up over people
that don't apologize and take out other shit on you
and thats why my husband and i don't call each other
names....