It was March 2023. I decided to keep a log of every time I felt afraid or belitted by my husband. I quickly jotted down moments in the Notes app on my phone. It happend way more than I realized. These are some days during Spring Break while we were on vacation. These weren’t “bad” days. This was pretty typical. At the end of these entries I wrote: “I don’t know how conscious these episodes are for him. Is it habitual and unconscious mistreatment? Or is it intentional? Or is my perspective off? I am not sure what to do about it. It’s so pervasive and subtle. Reacting to it makes it worse.
I’m writing this down to help me see what’s going on and understand why I feel bad so often.”
One Day on vacation:
Story: Trainline H. The train station. When we arrived at the train station, I said I’d go figure out the train lines while we waited. I said I thought our train would be on H because the arriving train from the city where we were headed was there. He told me definitively it will be a number, not a letter. I said, “Okay, Really?” He said, “Yes, saw there were numbers on the board.” I said, “Hmmm. I didn’t. But okay, I’m still going to look around.” I discovered all Trainlines are on letters, not numbers and shared a photo of this info(I took a photo because I expected him to not believe me and he’d make us miss the train. I just wanted to know what to look for so we knew what to do to get on the right train.) I showed him the pics and what I discovered. His response was a monosyllabic acknowledgment with a sucked-in bottom lip. (That sucked-in bottom lip is the sign that he is angry and it will send us all into terror.) He couldn’t even make eye contact with me. When he gets like this it’s like a physical force is controlling him. It’s so strange and disturbing.
Story: Checking in for the flight home. Our middle son’s ticket. The 5 of us were sitting on a bench in the train station waiting and we decided to check in for our flights home. I noticed some audible frustration from my husband while checking in with the airline on our middle son’s phone. Our oldest had no problems checking in. The app prompted him to check in for both he and his younger brother, and then share the boarding pass. HIs dad told him emphatically and angrily not to do that. When I assured him that our middle son would have everything he needed to board by doing that, he angrily told me that was untrue and that our middle son MUST have the boarding pass in the airline’s app on his phone or there would be problems for him getting on an international flight. I assured him again that that wasn’t the case and cited that I’ve done a lot of international travel this year and the shared pass is sufficient. But he utterly rejected that. The app wouldn’t let our oldest proceed without checking in his brother so he waited. Then his younger brother tried checking in and he was ALSO required to check in for his brother. We didn’t say anything and let him proceed with checking in. Then he shared the boarding pass with his older brother (Oh the irony!). There was a sense of rage and “don’t you dare disobey me” in my husband’s tone toward me and our oldest son. The rage was palpable.
Story: What’s in the food bag? We made it on the train and enjoyed the several hour train ride in icy peace. We were all getting hungry, it was getting late, and we still had to take the subway to the hotel. Our youngest son saw that his dad was holding a bag of snacks and such, so he asked, “What’s in the food bag?” His dad answered, “Food.” This wasn’t said in a funny way. It was said in an unhelpful way, like how-dare-you-ask kind of way. When I answered with what specifically was in the bag to truly answer our son’s question, his dad responded in mock surprise, “Oh , that’s what you’re asking?”
Another Day.
Story: Three hour train ride to a new city. Forcefully knocked water bottles into next seat. Because they were in the way? Not sure. Just got startled when they violently hit the seat. We were all moving our stuff around getting settled in our seats. There were 4 seats facing each other with a table in between. Our youngest son and I were on one side and our water bottles were on the table as we were moving our stuff around. Suddenly our water bottles slammed into our seats with force. I’m glad we aren’t sitting down already. I almost exclaimed, “Did you just throw those?” It was that much force. But then I didn’t want to make a scene or increase his rage. I realized he was angry. Like a caged animal. He was moving his backpack and he was frustrated at the small area, so I think he yanked his bag across the table with complete disregard for anything in his way.
Story: He said he wanted to “rip the table out” of the train because making uncomfortable. I could tell he was getting really upset about his seat, so I offered to trade places with him and take the inside seat. He agreed and was appreciative that the outside was better, but he was still frustrated by his knees touching the table and said he just wanted to “rip the table out” and he made the motion with his hands as if practicing how to do it. It was intimidating.
Story: Buying ferry tickets. Talked over me at the boat ticket counter. As a family, we were gathered together discussing how the schedule worked and what tickets to buy. He shared some information and then I started adding some information, but as soon as I’d said a few words, he started talking over me. Uncharacteristically, I asked him to let me finish and kept talking. He huffed, but was silent. Then as soon as I finished, he said “got that” in a snarky tone dripping with sarcasm. His tone implied it was not necessary to listen to me because he already knew what I was going to say.
Story: Threw his phone when he missed a turn. As we were leaving the port that evening, he wanted to take the route that would take us on a scenic road. But the directions were confusing so he took the wrong turn. This put us on a route we couldn’t easily get out of. When he realized this, he threw the phone down on my side of the car in disgust. It wasn’t “at me”, but it was startling and intimidating. It definitely let me know he was angry so I tried to keep safe.
Another Day.
Story: Why would I go there?. We rented e-bikes in an island park. Myself, my husband, and our three youngest boys ages 17, 15, and 13. After lunch, we got turned around and we all stopped to consult the map. I opened up Google maps to see where we were. My husband was convinced we should go a certain direction to get to the place we wanted to go. Google showed the opposite. I suggested a route. In a condescending tone he said, “Why would I go there?!” He kept repeating that he thought we should go the other way in a way to ask for consensus from the kids. Nobody said anything. So I filled the silence by repeating the direction Google said we should go. He ignored me, looked at the map and then asked everyone again. Again everyone was silent. Then he did it again. Our 17-year-old said he thought we should go the way “mom shows on the map”. Then he was ignored. The whole situation repeated itself twice more before he agreed to go the way Google said we would. But he wasn’t happy about it.
Story: I want to, but I’m going to go this way. We were heading to a spot on the island and he realized were going the wrong way. He said we should turn back the way we came, so we did. When we got to the spot where we got off course, it seemed he missed the turn, so I noted it by asking, “Didn’t you want to go that way?”. He responded with a condescending, “I want to, but I’m going to go this way.” It took me a second to realize that was a snarky response to a sincere question. He had decided to go a different way than he had just told everyone. I was confused. My lesson, “don’t ever question him”.
Story: He only rode beside for a few minutes the whole day. He’d been leading our group of bikes most of the day so far. I was slower than everyone on the bike. He dropped back to ride beside me. We passed some people going the opposite direction, so we had to drop into a line-ish. He said he’ll drop behind me. I took that as an FYI. Then he said it again more loudly. I realized he wanted me to do something different than what I was doing so I asked, “what do you want me to do?”. He said he wanted me to move forward and go faster so he could get behind me. Our 13-year-old was directly in front of me. I don’t know how or why he expected me to do that. He dropped back for a second and then sped ahead and never rode beside me again. Or even walk beside me for the rest of the day. I was alone in the group.
Story: Back of the boat. “Coming through!” Tapping me. Sat somewhere else. On the ferry from the island, we were on the top level sitting beside each other. As we pulled out of the marina, I noted the sign with the name of the island and I mentioned that I wanted to get a picture of it. I turned around to take a picture and he tapped me on the shoulder with an irritated, “coming through”. I said, “just a second” as I was trying to get the picture. He immediately tapped my shoulder again, this time harder and with a more aggressive “coming through!” He stood up and moved passed me and knocked the arm that was trying to steady the phone to take the picture, so I didn’t get a clear pic. I was going to move to where he went and sit beside him, but after that I decided to stay where I was. It was less windy in his location, but he was giving me cold shoulder vibes. Plus the children were on the bench next to mine and I like being near them. I enjoyed my spot and am glad I made that choice. He sat by himself in another part of the boat. Weird.
Story: Uploading pics to Dropbox. After we returned from the trip, he asked me to upload my pics to Dropbox. This gave me anxiety because I’ve gotten tongue lashings from him before about getting photos. He refuses to get them from our shared folder. He refuses to have them air dropped. He demands that I upload them to a separate folder. I am happy to do that, however, there is something weird with the way my computer handles the file structure and I can’t find the folder he wants me to upload them to. The last time we got in an argument about it, he refused to use any of the pictures I uploaded (in the video he made) because they didn’t come in the folder he wanted them in.”
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A Martyr No More 
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