Guilt is a Heavy Burden to Shoulder

I had been planning for this moment in time for years.  I was tired of the expectations, rules and control.  I did not sign up for this when I accepted his proposal.  I was not aware the environment inside the house was going to be so different from the months we had dated.  How could someone change in a few hours?  All that changed was that we were married now and the "honeymoon" was over? I had plenty of memories to remind me of why I wanted to leave, but the guilt settled in.

He had wanted me to promise him that I would never leave him from before we were married all through the union and here I was contemplating just that, leaving him.  Was it justified? Was the issue really Worm and once she was gone, he'd be different? He loved me, I knew that.  Everyone shows love differently.  He was concerned for my safety, was that wrong? 

He was from a different generation and so he had different expectations, I knew this when I married him. He had no interest in doing anything that I wanted to do as he claimed he had already done it and didn't care for it.  Did that mean that I could not experience life because he already had? He didn't believe in friends, so did that mean I was to have none? He felt life was too short as he lost Mollie at such a young age, so he believed we should be connected at the hip all the time, no time alone, away from each other. 

The house we lived in had belonged to his parents and  he had bought it.  This was the house he grew up in.  It was not a house we picked out as our home.  This was his house, he dictated how he wanted it decorated and he had no desire to update the inside or to complete the many projects he had started and not finished.

He had torn the kitchen down to the bare walls and remodeled it prior to or marriage, but there were still things that needed to be finished. I didn't really like it, but he refused to change anything about it.  He had picked out the ceramic floor and Mollie had selected the tile on the counter.  They compromised as neither liked the other one's selection and the two just didn't blend. There were things that needed to be finished, but this kitchen took close to twenty years for him to finally finish everything in it. It wasn't much that needed to be done, but little things left uncompleted made the kitchen always look like it was under construction .  He had cupboards, but no shelves in them. The radiator heat unit was broken and so there was no heat in the kitchen. Little touches. A wall that needed to be finished by putting the Z brick up that he had started long before we were married.  

We had torn the greenhouse off the master bedroom when we got married and built a deck, but the exterior door we put up didn't have trim around the door or at the threshold. There were a lot of  little things that he just didn't finish and there were a lot of things that needed to be done, but he had no  interest as he only cared about what people could see, on the outside.

I wanted the inside done.  I wanted it to feel like my home.  The furniture was all his taste.  We had just ordered custom made bedroom furniture and he was going to install a marble floor  in the bedroom.  I didn't want a marble floor, the room was already meat locker cold as he didn't allow the heat to be turned on much above 58 degrees. 

I wanted something that was me and he was not interested in allowing me to make this my home.  Could I live in a house that I just lived in? That did not make me feel comfortable and at home? 

Could I live with a man that expected to be waited on hand and foot but did not give in return? He loved me.  I knew this.  I kept repeating this over and over like this was the answer to my heartache. He loved that I took care of him and he appreciated every thing that I did because I made it special.  I left notes for him to find to let him know I loved him. I sent him cards. I made cute little treats to go with his coffee and served them on special plates.  I went over and above to show I cared.  But I got nothing in return.

Christmas was nothing exciting.  Killer required a list and whatever I put on it, he bought.  So  there were no surprises. I knew I'd get whatever I put on this list. Our anniversary or my birthday, a card and jewelry. But I had to remind him the dates were approaching.  Dinners were always at the same restaurant on the same day. Bill Knapp's on Friday nights.  Coral Gables for breakfast on Saturday morning. The Knight Cap for special occasions.  There was no deviation from his routine and never would be. Could I live the rest of my life doing the same thing every day? Could I live the rest of my life with these rules and expectations?

Killer was not one to be affectionate unless he wanted something.  I am very affectionate.  I am a touchy feely person.  I love to touch, hold hands, snuggle and hug.  Killer's hugs had reached a point that I didn't want him to touch  me.  He'd come toward me and his hands would be breast level, he'd skim his hands over my breasts to hug me, one resting on one breast and the other slightly hugging me.  I would constantly ask for just a hug. Could he just hug me without touching my breast and the answer was always the same, "Women everywhere are wanting to be hugged and I'm hugging you and you don't like the way I hug?  Do you know how many women would love for me to hug them and not care that I touch their breasts doing so?" 

Did I always have to wear a bra when he wanted to have that little horizontal refreshment? I had to get up and put one on  if I had come to bed without one thinking I was going to sleep. Would I ever be able to sleep in without him pestering me like a child to wake up cause he wanted his coffee or to go to breakfast?

The list was endless yet the guilt was so strong.  I had made a promise.  I had taken a vow and I was thinking about breaking it. I would break his heart. Could I live with that? I was twenty-six, he was forty-two.  There was a lot of life ahead of me

The book about risks that Michael gave to me forced me to look at all of this and more, weighing the pros and cons. While I was contemplating all of this, life continued. I came home shortly after Worm left to find his suit thrown on the bed to be hung up.  I didn't hang it up.  I didn't even touch it.  As bedtime arrived, he pointed out that his suit had not been hung up.  I told him that I wasn't going to do that any longer, he could  hang his own clothes up.  I guess he thought I was joking.  He moved it so it was on my side of the bed, forcing me to hang it up.  I  picked it up and placed it on the floor in front of his dresser. This continued for two weeks.  I didn't take his dirty clothes and put them in the laundry, they laid in this pile along with his suit coats and dress trousers.  Every night the same routine would be played out, who was going to break first? Killer didn't realize that I have the heart of gold, but if I am pushed, I do not break, I don't even crack.  It drove me nuts that these clothes were on the floor, but I'd be damned if I would hang them up. Eventually, he hung them up, threw his dirty clothes down the clothes chute to be laundered and he continued to hang them up, but the silent struggles between us was evidence that he had no intention of giving  in and contributing to the partnership, he felt he was the ruler, the master, the King of his Kingdom.  

I decided that I couldn't do this. I couldn't live like this for the rest of my life. I began my search for an apartment.  I looked at several but nothing seemed like "home," they all had that apartment feeling.  Stairs to to your little spot of heaven, thin walls and the smell that lingers in the hall of every one's life. I was not happy about this, but I found my little place of heaven in new apartments that had just been built.  They looked like ranch homes.  Single units with your own door just steps away from where you parked your car.  No one living over you, no one living under you, just beside you.  

It was so adorable. I had only my first apartment to compare it to, but I loved it.  It had a bit of a modern feel to it. It wasn't much, one bedroom, bath, living room, eat in kitchen and a utility room with an attic! I loved it! I could store things in the attic with the drop down stairs in the utility room.  I could some day get a stack able washer and dryer, but the laundry room was just across the driveway from my little place in heaven.  It had a little patio with a privacy fence around it and a little spot that you could plant your own flowers.  This was it!  I found my little piece of heaven and it was affordable.

I went to the managers office to complete an application and put a deposit down on my new nest.  The world is extremely small if you have not come to this conclusion already in your life.  For inside the manager office, the complex managers sat, I recognized them.  I knew them and my stomach sank.  They had moved to Lansing to take this position of managing this new complex, they had moved from Jackson, Michigan.  They had been the condo managers where Mimi and Pop lived. They remembered me.  They knew exactly who I was and who my in-laws were. They remembered me because of the way I dressed and how beautiful I was. 

I had to confide in them that I was leaving Killer and that no one knew.  I could not risk them calling Mimi, not that they would have, but I didn't know.  I was not able to move for another month and I needed this to be kept a secret.  No calls.  No mail.  It had to remain a dream and not a reality until the day I informed Killer that I was moving out.  I paid my deposit in cash.  I managed the  finances so Killer would have never seen the cancelled check, but I could not risk any chances of him getting wind of this before every thing was in place.  I had marked off the second task on my plan to freedom.