DISBELIEF

I didn't know I was letting you get away with abusing me. I thought I was loving you, not giving up on you. I knew I couldn't fix you. I thought I was showing my faith in you. Each time you cried and apologized. Each time you said you wanted to change.  Each time you said you would change. I didn't know I was giving up boundaries, or that I barely had any. But you knew, and you used that.

I struggle with understanding the game. I struggle to grasp that you were playing a game. The lies, the malice, the destruction.

I understand making mistakes. I understand weaknesses and flaws. Things that we say, do, or think that may be in error but that we noticeably improve over time. What I don't understand is your intent to hook me, soften me. Ply me with holding my face in your hands, saying that we wanted the same things, and that you wanted all of those things with me.

I don't understand your intent to sell me this person that you never were. And to do it off and on, for years. The push-and-pull for years.

There was so much going on. All the tactics and mechanisms. A true blitz. I couldn't see or think through it. It was consuming. I'd never seen or heard of anything like this being done, never been the target of someone's rage. I became totally undone. 

The punishments and the abuse you meted out was something so powerful and terrifying. Each time you erupted, fear and anxiety took over. The only options that came to mind were to either do what you demanded and hope that would calm you, or to hide, and hope your rage would burn itself out. Often, those didn't work. I didn't know that nothing could get you to calm down. That your brand of abuse was to punish and crush until I was a heap on the floor, each time.  

Now, I'm trying to get myself to understand that this is who you are, that this is what you do. It's hard to accept. Even though you've done it to me for years, even though I've lived it for years, it's hard to accept. Almost all of the classic patterns and behaviors of an abuser. You've done them all. 

You call yourself a man of God, sell yourself to others that way, as well. They don't know what you do in private, habitually, after you've drawn someone in. You won't tell them, and you've broken and conditioned me enough to where I wouldn't tell. The words you use, the actions you take, the pain you inflict, the intent to deceive. To deceive all of us. 

You've admitted countless times that you are abusive, that you've abused me and taken advantage of me. But your admissions didn't stop you from doing it. 

I considered myself a fairly strong woman when we first met. But by the end of it all, I am hollowed out, whittled away, anxious. Barely able to make the simplest decisions. All at your hands. By your words,  ROW.