Maid is a limited series on Netflix. Perhaps you have watched it. If you haven’t I will give you a short review. It’s about a young mom who is trying to get out of an emotionally abusive relationship with a small child all while caring for a a bi polar mother.
Too a point it was really my life, as I was watching this show I just kept thinking that was my life.
My husband was bipolar, suicidal and emotionally abusive. My father in law suffered from depression and threatened to kill himself more than once and mother in law had an eating disorder. My in laws had an explosive relationship and my husband had an explosive relationship with them that they hid from me until after we were engaged. In fact the first fight happened the night we got engaged. But I believed him, that it would never happen again.
The first mental health break happened within the first three months of our marriage. Hospital time, doctors, meds,that lasted for about 6 months and he was fine and didn’t need the meds.
My life became a lot of walking on eggshells. I never knew what would set him off. What would make him yell, or worse the silent treatment. We watched what he wanted to on tv, we listened to his music, I made sure that the bills were paid, and that he had spending money and drug money. If he wanted something new and I said no he would either just go buy it anyways or break the current one so we would need a new one.
He never understood that we were out of money, because he would tell me to go ask my parents or his mother. It put me in such an uncomfortable position. I never told them the truth that he was spending the money on drugs or on random things. I just needed to make sure that our electric bill and gas bill was paid.
There came the time that I finally said enough is enough and asked him to leave. He drained our bank account while I was at work, attempted to put my house up for sale, and when I saw that evening he broke my wrist.
I spent my spring and summer dealing with lawyers and advocates and judges and suicidal husband. My husband died right as our divorce was finalized and for about two years I blamed myself for his death, He died of heart attack 4 days after his mother died from cancer. So maybe he died from a “broken heart” .
It’s been almost 4 years since all this happened and I have realized that I still think about that time with him, I always will. I am angry about the things he stole from me. Working on that. But really the hardest part is figuring out who I am now. As I told someone yesterday, I am not really divorced and I am not really a widow. I live in a weird place. But more importantly I need to figure out what is next.
So my friends if you read this far, and you recognize someone who is a situation like this. Reach out to them, tell them that you are there for them and will do anything to help them. If I hadn’t had a few people in my corner including a doctor. I wouldn’t have been able to do it.
Until next time,
Juli
Juli's Blog 