If it wasn't for you, my life would be perfect!

by Sher
(Ontario, Canada)

That was the statement that ended it all.

I married Don because I thought he was my soulmate.

While we dated he was the most charming, loving and caring man. Everything was about me. I was on a pedestal.

We made plans to build a new house on a beautiful piece of property. I imagined how wonderful the rest of my life was going to be.

After about 6 months I started to notice things. Even though before marriage he acted as though he thought I was intelligent and creative, all of a sudden I couldn't do anything right. I was constantly being corrected.

I have no problem with constructive critisism but it was more like destructive. If I said I was going to work on some special project around the house he would ask me how I would do it. When I told him my plan he would say,
'Well if you want to do it properly' and then tell me how he would do it, even though he had never done it before.

It was as if he was insinuating that I was doing it 'improperly'. He would ask my opinion on something and then tell me my opinion was stupid.

I learned after awhile to keep my opinions to myself. If there was something he wanted to buy for himself he could justify spending the money saying that he was doing it for us.

I kept my mouth shut because if I argued he would accuse me of trying to ruin our relationship. If I made a decision on my own, he would always have done it differently.

It got so there was no point in me thinking at all. I would just do things his way to avoid pissing him off. I used to be a confident, outgoing person. Now I was nothing.

About every 2-3 months he would find a reason to completely blow his top. Every time it happened it started over something so small it wasn't even worth talking about. Once it was because he felt the toilet wasn't cleaned properly, once because I left a part filled tea cup sitting out. I should have rinsed it and put it in the sink.

He would get so angry that it seemed his eyes would pop out. He would yell, scream and call me names.

The strange thing is, he would accuse me of saying NO to him. He would say 'Everytime I want to do something you say NO, NO, NO.' He always got what he wanted so it made no sense to me.

When I asked him to give me an example of what I had said NO to, he would tell me that he couldn't think of a specific instance right now because he was too upset.

The last straw came when I remarked to him that I was feeling lonely because whenever we had some time together all he seemed to want to do is watch TV.

I did all the cooking and cleaning while he watched. When I brought him his meals he barely took his eyes off the TV to accept his dinner.

Well that made him very angry. He went away for about 10 minutes then came back and told me he was ignoring me deliberately because, same old story, I had said NO to something he wanted to do.

I was ready this time. I gave him several examples of things that he wanted and every one of them he got. He then said to me. "If it wasn't for you, my life would be perfect."

I spent the next few hours trying to choose between suicide and divorce.

I chose divorce and contacted a lawyer the next day.