Boundaries

I remember the first time I said “no” to him.

EX was accustomed to never hearing a direct refusal from me. Whether it was outings, spending, sex, or favors, he knew any of his requests of me would not get a “no”, at worst he would have to work around my excuses and explanations of why I didn’t want to do something, in order to wear me down enough to agree. One day, I was feeling particularly emboldened. I don’t remember the circumstances that led me to feel so exhausted and spent, but that hardly matters. I knew that I didn’t want to go anywhere that day. So, when he asked me to get the kids ready so we could all go drive into town and do “something” I already knew my answer. Even if I wasn’t feeling depressed, or completely worn out, I knew how these outings always went. I could see it play out just as it had hundreds of times before.

 I would be the only one getting the kids ready, while EX spent 10 minutes making sure his eyebrows weren't out of place and that his shirt was tight enough to show off his muscles (he hated baggy shirts for that reason). Once the kids were ready, I would still need to get myself ready. At this point he would be sitting on the couch on his phone while the kids run around creating chaos and taking off their shoes. Or, more recently, he would just get himself ready and then go sit in the car, leaving me and the kids inside. I would start on my makeup, and my hair, and steel myself for the inevitable shaming I would get for taking “too long” getting ready. I would swallow the bitterness and the ugly that rose in my throat, because explaining to him how unfair it was for him to get mad at me for taking up time, while he did absolutely nothing but sit in the car would go nowhere. We haven’t even left the house yet, and I’m already emotionally tapped out. Now, I’ve prepared the kids lunches to-go, because I know were too broke to eat out, I've made sure they use the bathroom, I’ve grabbed his wallet he forgot on the counter, and handled his phone call from the car asking why I’m taking so long and we are finally buckled up. Now, I would need to remember to ask if he wants me to drive. His answer is a trick, If he says no that he can handle it, it will get thrown in my face at a future point that he always has to drive everywhere. If he says yes, and lets me drive, he will berate my driving the entire time and it will ruin our day. I can’t win, I’m trying desperately to solve this riddle that he gives me “to-drive or not to-drive?” but I’m the punchline because there is no right answer and my efforts are in vain. Now, we are driving 45-60 minutes into town. The kids are restless, I’m restless, all of us but EX hates sitting in the car for multiple hours a day just to stop at a park and sit in a parking lot eating fast food. It’s the same thing every time we go out. My packed lunches for the kids are useless, it’s not enough to persuade him not to eat out. This routine of his is almost funny, if you knew EX, and you knew how often he talks about yearning for new experiences, financial freedom, and adventure, it is wholly ironic and kind of evil that this is his routine and if we don’t follow along then we are the kill-joys. God forbid if we act like we’re not having a good time, then he “can’t do anything right” and we’re “ungrateful and impossible to please”. Then we go home, after dedicating the entire day to what he wanted to do, and working around his schedule, we go home. He immediately wants to work out, so he does. I don’t even know what I want to do besides just sit and sleep and be alone for a while, but I can’t. It’s my job to make dinner, clean the kids up from a day out, serve dinner, clean up dinner, prep the kids stuff for the next day, put leftovers together for his work lunch, and in the middle of all of this? He interrupts my chores when he calls me into the garage multiple times to hold his feet while he does sit ups, and to film his form while he does barbell squats. Here, I am a tool, not a person. Even tools have their limits, and he has never even cared about maintaining me to increase my functionality, apparently that is my job as well. It is an important note to make that I am also criticized by him for not having a workout routine that I stay consistent with. 

Now, we rewind the day, he is standing there telling me to get ready because he wants to go out to town, maybe go to the park and get food. He doesn’t even wait for my answer as he starts to walk off. So, with as much grace but firmness as possible, I tell him “No thank you, I don’t want to go out today, but you’re welcome to take the kids and have a father-son day.” It took so much nerve for me to say this, I was trying my best to look relaxed, like this was a normal response from me, like I was not expecting any negative reaction from him. I remember the dumbfounded look on his face, then confusion, warped into disbelief, and then disgust. The disgust is when his eyes went wholly cold and almost black. He looked at me in a way I hadn’t seen before and even though he had never hit me, I felt scared of him. But I tried to keep a friendly and peaceful face. 

“What's wrong with you?” “Audrey, why are you acting like this? Don’t you want to spend time with your family” “Dude, you're being so selfish right now it's crazy.” Are some of the responses I got, I mostly shut myself off, refusing to let myself cave into his guilt trips again.

I told him “It is okay for me to need a break sometimes, I shouldn’t have to give you an excuse that you agree with in order to justify taking a break.”

He was livid. Oh, he was so angry. He almost didn’t go, but he decided anyway, I think in spite of me. Of course I still had to get the kids ready myself. On his way out the house he made a comment about how I have to have everything my way, and how I always get what I want. The house was so quiet and peaceful after that. I remember sitting in my kitchen, almost hugging myself on the inside saying “look, you did it, you CAN say no, you are valid and you are worthy of seeking peace.” 

When he came home, he made sure that I heard him as they came into the door to tell the kids to tell me how much fun they had and how they wished I was there with them. But that shit didn’t work on me anymore, and I think that was when he decided to start discarding me.

The second time I told him no, is a bit of a shorter story. My hands were full with something, I can’t remember if it was a chore or a hobby I was immersed in, but I had set time out of the day to do this. He decided to go work out, and had not told me beforehand that he was going to workout. In the midst of my project, he comes into the house and says

“Hey i need you in here to record my form real quick”

As my hands are full and I'm focused in on what I’m doing. This was what he was used to, me dropping anything and everything just for him, but he would never do that same for me. “This isn’t normal” I reminded myself “your time is just as valuable as his”. So, I looked up and said

“I’m sorry, I can’t right now, but you could just set your phone up on the shelf to film?”

Again, with the look of disbelief, and now anger.

 “Audrey, it's just for a few minutes, I need your help filming this.”

 “And I already had planned to be doing this, not helping you with your workout, so now is not a good time for me. If you wait, I will help you when I’m finished with this?” 

He stared at me fully with hate now, and disgust. His mask was falling, as he seethed

“You know, you’re getting wayyyy to comfortable…”

It was the closest thing to a direct threat that I had ever heard from him, and despite my attempt to remain neutral, my face showed shock. Maybe, past me would have groveled and apologized, but I had been building myself up on the inside in secret, in silence, and so instead this sparked anger in me.

“What did you just say?”

I asked him. He seemed to realize how bad he had sounded, and THAT goes against the image he wanted to paint for himself, so he didn’t repeat it. I asked him again but he refused to repeat it. He just stared at me silently with hate filled eyes and stormed off into the garage. For whatever reason, I thought that I could teach him how to show mutual respect, and how to have a healthy relationship with boundaries, but I was still heavily clouded in how bad things were. This was a moment that cracked that delusion, and the doubt that I could ever repair this relationship for the both of us really started seeping in.