Grief Series - Denial
**** Trigger Warnings****
Discussions of abuse, sex, murder, rape and use of profanity.
These writings deal with a lot of hard stuff that might be triggering for a lot of people. Please, be kind to yourself, take your time and step away for a bit if you need to.
Two minutes and twenty-four seconds. That’s how long the local news media deemed appropriate for me to tell my story and connect with other victims of Domestic violence.
Last October, after attending a candle lit vigil for Maria Pew, who was another victim of Josh, I connected with a local reporter who wanted to talk to other survivors for a segment he was doing for Domestic Violence Awareness Month. I had been wanting to speak out for some time and thought this finally might be the window of opportunity I had been looking for.
Unfortunately, the experience was much less than I had hoped for. The media station decided “that it was too long and your sound bites were too long. so a lot of the details of your story didn't make it.”
That was admittedly, quite a disappointing blow. Not only because I felt like the message I had so badly wanted to convey was barely even mentioned, but it also felt like a further silencing/ invalidation of my experience.
For the last couple of years, I had been working on a photo series around the topic of grief that I had planned to submit for an artist's residency. After the experience with the news station, it gave me the last bit of motivation to share my story, on my own, in my own way.
You may notice that, as I share these images, they don’t go in any particular order. Grief is not orderly. It would often feel like my emotions were in a tornado, from day to day or even hour to hour. I wouldn’t know which stage to expect next. I’ve heard that is common. Most people don’t work through grief in a straight line and neither did I.
Why a series on grief you might ask? Aren’t you the one that made the final decision to leave? Aren’t you happy to be out of an unhealthy relationship?
Yes, those things are true - to some extent. But, what I found myself having was a deep lamenting over the life that I thought I was going to have. Things that could have been but never would be. Grief for lost time. A loss of self. For not knowing what a loving relationship was supposed to look like.
I’ve battled with how much to write about my experiences. I’ve painstakingly sifted through hundreds and thousands of memories, journal entries and notes I left for myself. Looking at each one with a clinical eye, trying to decide if each situation was “good enough” to share. Did it properly show the abuse that I felt? When pulled apart and taken one by one, some of them didn’t really feel like it.. At least not to me.
However, my therapist helped me see and put words to the fact that something that makes abuse so damaging is the continuous pattern. That, more obvious forms of abuse as well as microaggressions absolutely do have an impact. One of the ways they affected me the most strongly, is that, because many of the things that were said and done to me were so subtle, I would question my reality and convince myself that, if they did happen, it was probably my fault.
This project has become one of the many ways I have processed the pain and trauma (I do not use those words lightly) of my marriage and the end of that marriage. Fear, anxiety and shame have been a constant companion for me these last 5 years, and oftentimes, I’ve let them rule my life and take control of me. I don’t want to let that happen anymore.
If not the specifics of what I am going to be sharing – my hope is that the images and ideas behind them strike a chord with you and that it can be a catalyst of conversation about hard things with the people in your life.
Abuse, divorce, grief, loss, broken dreams… we all have experienced these things and it’s ok to talk about them. *1
One more thing, before we get started:
When working on these pieces, I struggled for quite awhile with trying to decide if I should use my abuser’s name. My thought was, that - though I don’t want to shame or villainize anyone, I also think there is power in calling people out. I wondered if my being silent as to who my abuser was and how he mistreated me, was just further protection for their actions. I don’t want to protect them any longer.
So… Josh. Joshua was my husband and my abuser. We met when we were only 16. We were each other's first and only high school sweethearts. We were married when we were both 20 and I truly felt like God had directed our union and what we had was good and loving, at the time.
I would very much like to not only help break the silence that our society has about the topic of Domestic Violence, but also to break my own silence. To stop minimizing and downplaying my own experience. Thank you for witnessing this story with me.
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*1 I don’t think I’ve ever tried to do something so difficult. It feels like it should be so simple, especially given how much time I’ve devoted to thinking about my history. Why then, does it almost cause physical pain to put down all these thoughts into written word?
I think it’s because, at the end of the day, I’m scared to bore you, dear reader. I’m scared of my own recollections, that they aren't 100% accurate and that what I talk to you about won’t fall into that mysterious and elusive category of “that was definitely abusive and wrong.” (I don’t even know who is the person that gets to make that call?? Isn’t it crazy how much that detached “they/them/those people” gets to call the shots for us? ) Well, whatever the reason... I just felt like I needed to take a second to admit to you how hard and scary this process has been.
I don’t know if it was because I was very naïve or in part as a result of my upbringing in the conservative Christian world. Maybe it was the many life messages being misconstrued. (Such as: what sacrificial love should look like, the importance of the wife fulfilling her husband's needs, men should be the leader… ) – But for quite a long time… Probably about 7 years of my relationship with Josh, I felt quite superior in our relationship. I was so proud of our financial success and lack of arguing.
I think, to many people, it looked like we had it all together. So, when some new friends started pointing out interactions and behaviors that seemed odd to them… or maybe not as “respectful” as they could have been… I was a bit in shock. At first, all the things they were mentioning seemed so small and insignificant to me. Like, the way he would snap at me to get my attention (my one friend likened it to how you’d call over a dog.), or the way I would have to ask for permission to go out with friends and assure him that all my chores had been completed before doing so. Or the way that if anything that went wrong, whether interpersonally, financially or with the house, it ended up being my fault. - As some time passed though – I started seeing perhaps how some of these mindsets and behaviors were having a bigger impact than I could have thought possible. Still – It took quite a long time for me to stop looking for alternative solutions to these problems. Most of them involving my never ending journey to look a certain way, act a certain way, “perform” to make him happy. While doing this, I would try to convince myself that it really was something I wanted for myself… but, I think those closest to me could see that wasn’t the case, as oftentimes, it went against the sort of person I am at the core. I am, and have always been a person who takes pride in being and looking unique. But, it seemed the longer I was in a relationship with Josh, the more he disliked the way I expressed myself and wanted the opposite. I wanted to have dark or fun colored hair? He wanted me to be blond. I enjoyed my slender frame? He wanted me to have D cups (while also maintaining a 17% bmi). I enjoyed my gender neutral name? It wasn’t “sexy” enough for his tastes. As well as: my teeth were too big, my nose the wrong size, my moles were ugly, I didn’t have the type of “professional job” he wanted me to have, I was too tall and never ever thin enough.
I was a master of denial. I thought that since Josh and I never argued, because we said we loved each other and that we had both grown up with the same beliefs, that what we had was good. And, because when we met in high school youth group, and went to church our whole lives, I could look up to him as a “spiritual leader”. Everything seemed so ideal with our early relationship.
There was quite a lot of teachings around sex in the culture we grew up in. Not only that it was mainly up to the women to both satisfy their husbands needs, but also to be the one in control of not crossing boundaries too early, not make other men lust over her, while still being as beautiful and desirable as the bible talks about in Proverbs and Song of songs (Proverbs 31:10-31 Song of songs 4 ) Meanwhile, the guys were taught that if they just waited till marriage, all lights were green and all their sexual hopes and dreams could be fulfilled. Our bodies were created by God for their pleasure.
Denial was no more prevalent then when it came to mine and Josh’s sex life.
On our wedding night we learned that for some mysterious reason, sex was painful for me. But that didn’t seem to be anything to be too alarmed with. After all, I was a virgin and had spent so much of my life thinking and telling myself that sex was “wrong”, at least outside of marriage. So, we just figured there were some nerves there and things would get better over time if I could relax a little.
That day never really came. After doctors appointments, different medications, wholistic food specialist, chiropractors, acupuncture, two different physical therapists and many a “maybe have a glass of wine to help you relax a little” the pain was still there and we still were having sex. Lots of it.
You see, before we got married, Josh and I had a conversation about our hopes and expectations for what we would want in our marriage for intimacy.
In our society, I think especially in the convervative Christian world, we are drilled with the message that guys always have a higher sex drive than women and, if you want to have a happy marriage and make your man feel loved - there is no better way to do that than through sex.
So, Josh had stated that his ideal would be for us to have sex 3-4 times a week; and so, that is what we did.
This pattern of ours would go on for nearly our entire marriage.
Once, I actually did the math for it in a journal entry:
“Josh and I have been having sex 3 to 4 times a week (on average), that would mean we have had sex roughly at 702 - 936 times. Even if it was only twice a week for the past 4.8 years, that's still 500 times! From day one, I’ve never had truly painless sex experience…”
I will say though, that since leaving my marriage, my view on what “sex” can look like for different people and different bodies has grown into a much more beautiful and inclusive model. When I was married though, “sex” only meant PIV (penis in vagina) intercourse and anything less than that wasn’t good enough, it wasn’t “real sex”. It also couldn’t end until he had climaxed. I’ve now learned that “sex” can look like and mean so many different things. It shouldn’t be about any specific act. I believe it should be about care, curiosity, mutual enjoyment and an expression of both self-love and love for another human.
I once heard at a business conference a woman talking about her marriage and the idea of a husband cheating. She told herself that she was going to do it ALL, everything in her power – be the best cook, clean the house, take care of the kids, work hard at their business and of course look so beautiful that even if her husband wanted to stray away – he wouldn’t be able to find anyone that could replace her.
When I heard that, I took it to heart and told myself I’d do the exact same thing.
In an effort to be the “perfect wife” I would often initiate the intercourse because I thought that, if love was about sacrifice, then I needed to sacrifice my own physical comfort, if in doing so - I would be able to bring pleasure to my husband, if that was his greatest love language.
While I tried to deny what my body was telling me, Josh also ignored my tears of pain. Sometimes I would think that I was just an incredibly good actor and hid my clenched jaw and grimaces from him. But every so often – when it just felt like too much and we had finished (when he had climaxed), I’d roll away from him in our bed, curl into the tiniest ball I could manage, and cry silently. On some of those occasions, Josh would notice my tears and ask why I was crying (as if we hadn’t had this conversation dozens of dozens of times before). But then the next day, it would be as though nothing happened and then 2-3 nights later, we’d do it all again.
After a time, I developed coping mechanisms. I knew exactly the right way to move my body to get him to climax. Oftentimes I would do whatever it took. I’d move my body aggressively; let him penetrate me in ways that were even more painful and degrading than a typical night if it meant we could be done and finished sooner. At times, I would welcome a position in which I was facing away from him, because I could better hide my tears and didn’t have to pretend like I was enjoying it.
After years of this, I found that one of the ways I could better fake enthusiasm for Josh and push through the pain would be to drink. Though I do not think I was drinking to extreme excess, I began to black out right before the actual intercourse would happen.
That is when I finally began to stop denying what my body was trying to tell me for years. I started to feel a little scared and was able to admit to myself that “maaaybe, this isn’t how a loving relationship should feel.”
Eventually, after finally having someone, (my therapist), tell me that, not only was it ok to ask Josh for us not to have sex, at least for awhile, while I healed, but that the therapist felt it was vitally important that I do so. Of course when I told Josh this, he was not at all pleased. And there were several nights when he would guilt and coerce me into doing sexual stuff with him. On a few of those occasions when I had blacked out, the next morning I would ask him if anything physical happened. He’d respond with a dismissive “yeah, but you seemed into it.” There were other times, when I was fully conscious for what was going on, and yet I still couldn't utter the words “no”, rather my body would retreat into the freeze or appease mode. It was after yet another one of these encounters, when I was expressing to my therapist during a session that I felt betrayed or violated by Josh in some way. He looked at me with an expression of compassion and finally called it for what it was. Rape. “Alex, if you had been on a date with someone and they did those things to you, you absolutely would have the right to call the police on them. Just because he’s your husband doesn’t mean it isn’t rape.”
I wasn’t quite done with denial yet though.
Later, when the cracks in our marriage began to show even more. I still found many things to remain in denial about. I didn’t exactly deny that the cracks were there… but I did deny why they were there.
Even when Josh wanted to sleep with other women, and I found tinder on his phone, I was in denial. Not only of his actions, after all, I didn’t have absolute proof (even though I did see a message where he asked a girl about hooking up and set a time to do so), I was in denial that I even had the right to be upset about it. I honestly felt like he deserved better than me. Someone who could meet his “needs and desires”.
He did a very good job convincing me that no one else would want to deal with my “brokenness” and I thought he was probably right.
Minimizing, blaming, gaslighting… These were all things Josh was very good at doing to me. The hard part is that the primary way in which Josh would cut me down, or take control of our lives was through micro-aggressions. He never blatantly told me I was fat, said I was worthless or physically forced me to go somewhere against my will. But he would chip away at my resolve, my right to say No a little at a time. Until it felt like it wasn’t even worth my saying anything at all.