Straight Wives Survival: In a Dark Place

I’m an artist. Being an artist is my salvation. I decided on that path when I was 7 years old. It allowed me to escape when my sisters were screaming, and pleading “Daddy please stop! Please stop.” When it wasn’t me that time. There was only once when he broke into that secret world and raging he threw a scissors at me. It stuck me in my face. My early marriage was supposed to save me. My young husband was my white knight. Instead he married me to save him – I just never knew what I was supposed to save him from. So I buried myself in my own little world of art and poetry and my children. And I didn’t dare ask myself if I was happy.

Sunday, June 16, 2013

In a Dark Place

Awakening in this dark place ...

I was taking it a day at a time,
Like some 12-stepper working the program.

Now I am taking it one step at a time,

Deliberate
Mindful
Purposeful
Steps

To get from morning til night.


  © Copyright for all poetry, prose and artwork belongs to Maureen Kavaney Tillman

2 comments:

cathyvaskoJune 26, 2013 at 4:09 PM
Thank u for emailing me
I love your blog
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About Me

I was too young, too innocent, and too gullible to be getting married, but I believed we were destined for happily-ever-after. It was 1971. I was leaving my abusive father’s house to create a new life with my young husband. We were 20 - year - old college students. I was an artist, a poet … and a dreamer. I thought he would be my rescuer.

Instead he married me to rescue him - to fix him - and as a cover. Not as a partner nor a lover nor even a friend. And he understood early before any vows were exchanged that I would not fix him, or in truth I could not, and he hated me for it. It was all a secret, one that I was too blind, too invested in denial to understand or accept...for almost 40 years.

Afterpains

My ex never admitted to being gay. His closet was hermetically sealed and I unknowingly had been confined in it with him for 4 decades. Once he acquiesced to the label "bi" but within days he denied even that. He did confess to gay activities for just the last 20 years of our marriage, but even that I believe was a lie because I had seen most of the red flags in the first 6 years of our marriage, such as a 21-year-old newlywed man continuously refusing to have sex with his 20-year-old bride. There are men who do what he confessd to doing and know they are gay; then there are men who think if they only do that one thing then they are not gay. I believe he brought his secret into our marriage over 40 years ago, it's why he said we were doomed just 2 months into our marriage although I did not understand it at the time, and it's why I believe he married me under false pretenses.