He doesn't know my past - tell him?

[country_gurl]

Hello everyone :-)

 

I'm in my mid 40s and years ago was in an extremely abusive marriage but I've been divorced since 1994 (I was the one to separate from my then-husband, move far away from him and file for the divorce). We had met and lived in his small home town. It was like a fishbowl. On the outside back then, everyone thought he was a great and funny guy; he had a lot of friends he'd grown up with who thought he was the cat's meow in terms of being a nice guy. They clearly did not know what went on 'behind closed doors' as is often the case with domestic violence. His mother and aunt worked for the same company I did, I should add.

 

He was also a serial cheat but I was young (I married at 25, he was 27) and pretty naive about the 'signs' or perhaps it was more that I suspected he was cheating but I never really wanted to "know."

 

I should have never married him because all of the 'signs' were there with respect to his abuse, but I was stupid, in love, and having grown up in a physically and verbally abusive home, I accepted a lot "more" because it was sort of the "norm" for me from what I'd grown up in.

 

Once we got married, I guess then that I officially became his "property" and it was even more of a license to abuse me. He was very cruel, very spiteful, hurtful, sadistic and just plain mean. The things he would say (or scream in my face) were often more hurtful than being smacked or pushed or slapped. He was very degrading and humiliating. His mother once witnessed him in one of his rages and she stood there in between us as I was crying and trying to pack an overnight bag to leave and he had his fist raised and was ready to sock me one; she was trying to stop him from slugging me in the head (and she was successful).....so let me say, she was no stranger to how he treated me.

 

The final straw was when we'd bought a home in the country and one evening he'd left in a great mood but came home fit to be tied and looking for a fight. When I wouldn't engage him, that made him more angry and cruel. He threw me across the room and essentially forcibly stopped me from leaving the house (at one point he slammed my hand in the door when I had tried to leave). I had tried calling the police from the upstairs phone but he heard me and ran upstairs and pulled the phone cord from the phone, and then did the same with the other phones so I was not able to make a call. I finally managed to leave through a door in the basement. It didn't take him long to realize I'd gotten out and he threw himself across the hood of my car and was trying to smash the windshield with his fist and obstruct my view enough that I'd have to stop driving. It was a nightmare as we lived in the country and there were no streetlights and there I was with a raging lunatic on the hood of my car and i can't barely see (it was almost completely dark) where I'm driving. I wasn't driving fast as I was terrified he'd slip off the hood and I'd run over him. I slowed down at one point enough that, although he was still holding onto the car, he was running along side it. I then took off and drove straight into town and to the police station and gave my statement. I walked in there with bare feet (didn't have time to get any shoes), a torn shirt, swollen eyes from crying, looking a mess. Long story short, they charged him with assault and unlawful confinement (they went back that night to arrest him but apparently he was hiding in a ditch near our property; they went back in the morning and he answered the door and they arrested him).

 

It was a nightmare and the final straw for me. We separated shortly after that/I moved out.

 

His family made sure to tell lies and make it out that he was a lily white angel and I was just this "terrible wife who should have never gone to the police." His mother, who worked where I worked, would come to work crying and people would feel sorry for her and she'd diss me..tell them I'd ruined her dear son's chances of getting into the police force (WTF? he'd never told me this was a dream of his, and he ruined his OWN chance...and trust me, he was the last person you'd ever want to be carrying a gun on the job). She let everyone and their dog know that her sonny boy and their family were the victims of a terrible woman who had ruined his life. bla bla bla. I couldn't find a different job in that small town as i was a nurse and that was the only hospital/only place to work. I used to hear through other people at work that his Mom would turn on the tears so people would ask her what was wrong and then she'd tell them that I was a bad wife, that "a good wife doesn't go to the police." For the year that we were separated, it was her sole mission in life to poison the minds of everyone that worked at our little hospital, about how awful I was, how I'd shamed her son and her family.....that her precious little boy was a victim. It was a nightmare for me to go to work each day because I was always wondering what people really thought; terrified I'd turn the corner and run into her and she might cause a scene (she was known as the town gossip, by the way; so much so that she had a police scanner in her kitchen and she had it turned on constantly so that she could hear the local police and who was getting arrested for what, who got a speeding ticket, etc etc....and she'd report it back to everyone and anyone).

 

Long story short, nobody believed that he was abusive to me because to them he was just a good ol' boy, life of the party, made people laugh.

 

We lived separate and apart for 1 year and during that time he stalked me, played head games, taunted me, would pretend he was sorry for what he'd done and wanted to make our marriage work (and i'd fall for it because I loved him) and he'd make plans to pick me up to go for dinner and instead he'd be out with this "boys" watching the strippers and getting drunk. After a year of praying he would change and 'man up' and take responsibility, i decided for my own sanity i had to move away and start over..........and file for divorce. So i did. And i last saw him in 1994 and our divorce became final in Oct 1994.

 

NOW..........

 

Recently on a dating site, I came across the profile of a local guy that seemed interesting and vaguely familiar. I looked through his pictures and holy crap, there was one of him standing next to a guy in a suit that looked like my ex husband (who I haven't seen since 1994, remember). I wrote to him and asked if the guy in the pic was _______. He said it was. As it turns out, this guy was one of my ex's good friends (grew up together in that same small town) who I'd only ever really heard about back when me and ex hubby were together; as the guy was married and lived across the country. I do believe him and his wife did come by to visit us once when they were in town visiting family. Probably why he seemed familiar. So this guy tells me he'd been married for 23 years, he married too young, it didn't work out. He seemed very nice. I certainly didn't expect, considering the circumstances, that we'd really continue to communicate through this site. But he seemed interested. He told me that I had a great profile, I am very attractive, he wanted to know more about me (not in a creepy way). I didn't give him anything too specific (for the record, my ex husband remarried many years ago and I have reason to believe that he got the woman he's married to know, pregnant, while he and i were married and he has 2 more kids with her).

 

As we got to emailing back and forth through the site, he made the comment that my ex had never said anything bad about me to him but that getting married "was a mistake" and this guy agreed that for him too he'd married too young because he was in love and felt pressured to. This irked me a bit. My ex was 27 when we got married, not exactly a pup......and I had certainly not pressured him into getting married, not in the least.......in fact, he had completely out of the blue proposed to me 3.5 months after we'd met.......all his idea, I had no idea.

 

So I responded to him by saying, "well perhaps he thought it was a mistake to get married but did he also think it was a mistake to smack his wife around and be out cheating on her while she was busting her hump working 12 hour night shifts on the weekend?". I figured that that comment would probably be the 'end' of our communication (LOL).

 

He wrote back saying he was sorry, he hadn't known any of that.

 

He was very polite and considerate and wanted to keep mailing back and forth. He then suggested that we could text as that was easier for him. I guess out of sheer curiosity, I agreed to do so. For the record, he wouldn't know my last name (he still doesn't think he ever met me), not even sure if he'd have remembered my first name?).

 

I could tell from our texts that he was interested though he did make the comment that it was a little strange communicating with _____'s "ex wife."

 

He was asking me things like "so what is important to you in a relationship".....what are your goals in life.........what kind of work do you do and do you enjoy it......the typical things that people ask when getting to know one another. Nothing inappropriate at all, or too nosy.

 

He admitted that he'd been divorced for 4 years, had had 2 long term relationships with women he'd met on that dating site but they hadn't obviously worked out.........they were "pretty but not a lot of fun, no sense of humor." At one point he apologized for being so chatty, claiming it was just because he missed having someone.

 

In the back of my mind, it still lingered that my ex had had the audacity to tell him that our marriage ended ONLY because my ex shouldn't have gotten married............and that like 99% of people in that small town, this guy had no clue what a nightmare I'd lived as a young, loving and devoted wife......all because of that pr*ck. After all these years people are STILL 'in the dark' and they still think my ex was a great guy and they don't have a CLUE what a mean, scary, controlling, violent, twisted SOB he was to me.

 

I ended up ending our text session because I had some things to do for a family event today.

 

The guy is very nice and my ex always had great things to say about him. He was extremely nice and polite during our communications last night. would I be interested in continuing getting to know him? I don't know.

 

I feel like this guy should be told by me, the extent of the abuse that I endured at the hands of his "buddy." I feel that if I were to continue to get to know him, that he should really know what a sick SOB my ex was because if he truly just believes that our marriage ended because we 'got married too young', well that just isn't even close to being true.....and I lived so many years knowing that nobody knew the real truth or what really went on behind closed doors. But then again, what guy is going to want to hear such 'dirt' about someone he grew up with and was best friends with as teenagers?

 

I know my ex bashed me when I left him because he was an ego-maniac and it really bruised his ego, the fact that his pretty little wife walked out on him..........so he'd tell big whoppers (lies) about the reason; told some I was 'crazy'.....told others I was a 'religious fanatic' (what a crock; we'd lived together before marrying for crying out loud) and he kicked me out because of it..............all kinds of crap I would hear through the grapevine, which is why I ended up moving 1500 miles away to start my life over (which was hard for me because I moved to a place where I knew nobody but at least I felt safe that he would not continue to taunt me and stalk me and play head games).

 

I'm not sure if I'll continue to communicate with this guy because part of me feels that he would remind me too much of a past that i've worked hard to forget and move past. But then on the other hand, a decent guy is very hard to find at this age.

 

If I decide to continue getting to know him, should i really tell him some of the things that his best buddy did to me, how really abusive and twisted he was and how I wasn't the bad one? or will that just make me look crazy?

 

Thanks.

Edited September 4, 2011 by country_gurl

[westrock]

I'm not sure if I'll continue to communicate with this guy because part of me feels that he would remind me too much of a past that i've worked hard to forget and move past. But then on the other hand, a decent guy is very hard to find at this age.

 

This is your ex's best buddy? You sure you want to go down this path and open up the past like this?

 

I get the impression you want to talk further with this guy to find out more what gossip he's heard and to try and set the record straight with him and hopefully then others in the town.

 

You can't control what other people may or may not be thinking about you and your relationship with your ex. First it's none of their business. Second, as long as you know what happened that is all that matters.

[thatone]

what makes you think this guy is decent?

 

decent people don't hang around with sociopaths.

[country_gurl]

This is your ex's best buddy? You sure you want to go down this path and open up the past like this?

 

I get the impression you want to talk further with this guy to find out more what gossip he's heard and to try and set the record straight with him and hopefully then others in the town.

 

You can't control what other people may or may not be thinking about you and your relationship with your ex. First it's none of their business. Second, as long as you know what happened that is all that matters.

 

Yes, I'm not sure if I want to go down that road again.....from the sense that the common denominator between us is my ex husband.

 

Both he and I live far, far away from their old home town (and my ex husband doesn't even live there anymore). This guy hasn't lived there since before me and ex got married. This guy wasn't living there at the time that we (me and ex) had dated or were engaged or got married. This guy didn't even come to our wedding because he lived so far away? (can't really recall now why him and his wife didn't attend, to be honest). This guy wouldn't have been aware of any 'gossip' around town because he didn't live there at the time and he never did go back to living there.

 

I guess it just kind of burns my butt a little that after all these years, it's still the case where his friends still don't know the truth and still see him as this good ol' boy who did nothing wrong. I lived amidst that mindset for well over a year until I left. I even had people I worked with who knew his family who would say to me, to my face, "I just can't believe he was abusive, he was such a nice guy, his family is so nice." I dealt with that all the time........the disbelief, that mindset of ignorance....that just because someone seems nice and funny and great for all to see, that doesn't mean they're that way behind closed doors. Ironically after I left him, one of his ex girlfriends (who'd moved away) contacted me to share that he'd been very abusive to her, too...and cheated on her all the time. She told me a story about how he was going hunting and she was in the truck with him. He was driving too fast down a gravel road and she was scared and telling him to slow down.....and he didn't like being told what to do so he stopped the truck and pointed the hunting rifle at her and told her to STFU. She knew what the small town could be like, she'd grown up there too...........and she wanted me to know that i wasn't alone.

 

I guess I'm just still a little miffed that a guy who was so abusive and mean and cruel (if I told you some of the things he'd done to me, your head would spin) could have done what he'd done to me.........and pretty much gotten away with it (he ended up pleading guilty and was given a 1 yr suspended sentence as was ordered to attend some kind of counseling sessions for men who abused women, that was it).........and nobody ever knew the truth nor will they ever.

 

I think it's likely best the more I think about it, that I just pass on continuing communicating with this guy. It's bringing up resentment that I haven't felt for almost 20 years.

[country_gurl]

what makes you think this guy is decent?

 

decent people don't hang around with sociopaths.

 

Well I'm certainly not defending anyone but they grew up in the small town, were very close friends all through school and into high school. The friend got married not that long out of high school and moved across the country with his wife. It's likely completely possible that the friend had no idea that my ex husband was an abusive, cheating SOB........and certainly not to his young wife (me).

 

Once the friend moved away at age 20, it's not like he and my ex husband continued to "hang out" so he likely had no idea how my ex treated women/me. The picture in this guy's profile, of him standing next to my ex husband, was taken 2 years ago; it appears they must have been at a wedding, they were in suits and had corsages on the lapels of their suit jackets; so perhaps they were groomsmen for one of their mutual friend's wedding, I have no idea. But they continue to live in different parts of the country so it's not like they have been hanging out all of these years. So in all fairness to this guy, I wouldn't diss him necessarily for remaining friends with my ex.

[Professor X]

I'd really advice you against furthering communication with him for the precise reason you mention: he will remind you to much of the past.

 

You know you don't wanna go there and it's inevitable with him.

[country_gurl]

You're kidding!

 

Too many people on this forum think they are novelists. Instead of writing a book, write a book report. You would get more replies. I got bored after the first paragraph, honey.

 

I thought that by providing the background and a more complete "picture", it would prevent what commonly happens on forums where responders either make assumptions and the person posting has to repeatedly keep responding back adding more and more details and the thread goes on for numerous pages. When I respond to someone's post on forums, like most people, I prefer to have the most complete picture of the situation to provide an appropriate response to otherwise it's just a waste of time to respond; I was trying to avoid that here. I hope that you feel better for slamming me like you did, and offering nothing of any value.

[threebyfate]

I read your opening post. Some things didn't line up but what jumped out at me was that you're trying to fix the past and even the score. The only problem is that this guy's an innocent party who might end up as collateral damage.

 

I agree it's best to move on from this guy. Too many ghosts from the past frightening away any real possibilities of a healthy relationship.

[sm1tten]

I understand what you were goign for, but really, most of that information wasn't necessary for any of us to tell you to not correspond with this guy because he is dredging up emotions that you have or at least have tried to put to bed.

 

While you have good reason to be so, any continued conversation you have with this guy about his childhood friend and what went on in your marriage only serves to make you look bitter and resentful - less like a woman who went through some bad sh*t and pulled through it, moved on. It doesn't really matter if the new guy believes you or not - what matters is that you seem overly focused on giving him the "right" story about what happened. It's not like you are defending your character to this guy - because he doesn't know what people were saying about you - and the fact is that you've already given him the gist of the situation. And on top of that, there's really no good reason for you to be discussing any of that in detail with him at this stage. Now, if he starts asking you to talk about it, that's a different judgement to make. But I wouldn't be volunteering at this point, no. But as I said, I think you should leave this one alone because it seems to have brought up some very negative feelings about that situation.

[country_gurl]

I read your opening post. Some things didn't line up but what jumped out at me was that you're trying to fix the past and even the score. The only problem is that this guy's an innocent party who might end up as collateral damage.

 

I agree it's best to move on from this guy. Too many ghosts from the past frightening away any real possibilities of a healthy relationship.

 

You know, I would have never have even mentioned ANYTHING to this guy about the way my ex had treated me, he HE not made the comment that my ex had never said anything "bad" about me except that he made the mistake of getting married and that this guy could relate because he got married young because he was in love and felt pressured to get married. It was that comment that flipped the switch for me. He was pretty much telling me that my ex had told him that the he shouldn't have married me because he was young and felt pressured.....which was and still is total BS. My ex was 27 when he got married, not a 20 year old. I never once pressured him into getting married at all............it never even occurred to me that a couple would even talk 'marriage' until they'd been together for at least a year and my ex proposed to me, which was completely a surprise (and yes, he had the ring), when we'd only been together for just shy of 3.5 months.

 

It didn't seem "right" for this guy to go on believing that our marriage ended all because my ex was some young guy who was pressured into tying the knot and it irked me that my ex would give that completely BS story when the truth was that I left his sorry a$$ because he thought I was his personal punching bag and that monogamy was apparently a type of wood.

 

I would have had no real need to 'set the record straight' had the wrong record been brought to my attention.

 

I have never been a woman to pressure any man into doing anything he didn't feel in his heart to do and the last thing I would want a guy to do is propose to me because he felt nagged or pressured.

 

I truly would have not mentioned, at least at that early point, anything negative about my ex due to fear of coming across as bitter or still hung up on him............but when he made that comment, I couldn't just let such a whopping mistruth go uncontested.

 

As it turns out, this guy emailed me a bit ago to mention that he doesn't speak with my ex very often but.........

 

"maybe we can keep anything between us as our little secret. would you be okay with that?"

 

Well I have done nothing wrong and I will I certainly wouldn't expect him to go running to my ex and telling him that he met me on a dating site, I am rather insulted that he's asked that I just be some dirty little secret. Obviously no possible future with this dude if i would always be kept a secret. He'd have to keep me a secret from all of their many, many mutual friends in order for it not to get back to the ex........nobody deserves for their presence in someone's life to be kept a secret, all because of something very wrong that was done to them. That's BS.

 

I won't be communicating with him again.

 

Thanks to those who responded.

[country_gurl]

I understand what you were goign for, but really, most of that information wasn't necessary for any of us to tell you to not correspond with this guy because he is dredging up emotions that you have or at least have tried to put to bed.

 

While you have good reason to be so, any continued conversation you have with this guy about his childhood friend and what went on in your marriage only serves to make you look bitter and resentful - less like a woman who went through some bad sh*t and pulled through it, moved on. It doesn't really matter if the new guy believes you or not - what matters is that you seem overly focused on giving him the "right" story about what happened. It's not like you are defending your character to this guy - because he doesn't know what people were saying about you - and the fact is that you've already given him the gist of the situation. And on top of that, there's really no good reason for you to be discussing any of that in detail with him at this stage. Now, if he starts asking you to talk about it, that's a different judgement to make. But I wouldn't be volunteering at this point, no. But as I said, I think you should leave this one alone because it seems to have brought up some very negative feelings about that situation.

 

 

Like I explained recently, I wouldn't have mentioned anything about why our marriage ended (abuse, infidelity) EXCEPT that he made the comment FIRST that my ex had never said anything bad about me except that he made the mistake of getting married (and for the record, I didn't ask him if my ex had ever said anything bad about me, this was just something that he volunteered)..........and this guy then went on to say that he could relate because he also got married young because he was in love and felt pressured. As explained above, this was not even remotely CLOSE to being the reason that our marriage ended. I couldn't just let that one go because I was not some young insecure dingaling who was pressuring this poor young guy into getting married when we were both so young, that couldn't have been further from the truth. As with anything in life, I'm no longer one to hear something that's completely false and just sit there and say nothing; whether it's about me or someone or a situation.

[sm1tten]

I get why it bugged you but I personally would have handled it differently, but different strokes, you know.

 

I could see maybe not wanting to broadcast that he's going out with his friend's ex but you haven't even started dating so that whole "little secret" thing just blew my mind a bit.

[country_gurl]

I get why it bugged you but I personally would have handled it differently, but different strokes, you know.

 

I could see maybe not wanting to broadcast that he's going out with his friend's ex but you haven't even started dating so that whole "little secret" thing just blew my mind a bit.

 

He'd emailed me this morning to tell me he really liked chatting with me last night, hoped I had a good day today at my family event, asked if i'd be interested in meeting up, then went to tell me he was going with a female friend on a hike in the mountains but went on about how they're "really just friends" and how they make each other laugh. Then the bit about the 'secret' which I too found to be rather out there considering there is nothing to MAKE a secret at this point for God's sake. Perhaps a bit of a weirdo.

[threebyfate]

Oh the tangled webs we weave....

 

More reason to get out of this situation. Don't bind yourself to the past, particular a past that's scarring, like yours. It's over and done with. You live elsewhere and have a different life. Let it go. Stay far, far away from old contacts.

[Janesays]

I don't know. I think went on between you and your ex is private and shouldn't really be discussed with people you don't know that well. Personally, I had an extremely abusive childhood and I don't discuss it with people until I know they care for me. It just doesn't feel classy to me to spill your "past issues" out to anyone and everyone, just because.

[country_gurl]

I don't know. I think went on between you and your ex is private and shouldn't really be discussed with people you don't know that well. Personally, I had an extremely abusive childhood and I don't discuss it with people until I know they care for me. It just doesn't feel classy to me to spill your "past issues" out to anyone and everyone, just because.

 

Who said I spill my past with "anyone and everyone"? I haven't thought about my ex in many, many years. I've never gone into detail about my marriage with anyone unless it was someone I had a well established relationship/friendship with and they asked; certainly wasn't something I volunteered because that was so long ago and it's been nearly 20 years.

 

The difference in this case, as I tried a couple of times to point out, was that HE made a point of telling me that my ex had told HIM that it had been a mistake to marry me, I'm guessing he implied it was that we were both young...because this guy went on to explain that he could "relate" to that because he himself had married young and had felt pressured into doing so...........which as I explained, was not at all the scenario with us. Our marriage ended singlehandedly because he was abusive in all forms of the word and he was unfaithful and untrustworthy. Why should my ex continue to skate through life, still not taking any responsibility for the demise of his marriage and telling lies and letting people believe mistruths such that it didn't work out all because he was just a poor young guy who felt I pressured him into marrying me. That's a crock and a bold-faced lie.

[carhill]

I'll echo TBF's advice and give an additional 'why', in that I'm hearing a lot of old and negative 'stuff' being stirred up just by revisiting this painful dynamic inadvertently. My advice would be to, one, discontinue with any contacts which bring this past pain to the surface and, two, consider seeking help to resolve it once and for all so future contacts with anyone which inadvertently brings memory of the past to the surface will result in different and IMO healthier words and actions taking place. I'm hearing a lot of anger and anger comes from hurt. The feelings are valid and they can be processed in a number of ways.

 

TBH, when I've met or dated women since splitting up with my exW, this 'processing of the past' is an area I watch carefully. It's not so much the 'what', rather the 'how'. For myself, it's a factor of compatibility.

 

Good luck!