Regaining My Muchness

I lived through the horror and I don’t understand it. Early on in our divorce, I needed ‘understanding’, the ‘why’ he hurt me. Not anymore. Maybe there is a reason: mental illness, moral deficiencies, he wasn’t hugged enough as a child. None of them matter. He damaged me in ways that may not be repaired. Does the ‘why’ matter? The brutal change occurred the day after our wedding. When I use the word, ‘day’, I mean I woke up from sleep to find a monster had replaced the man I had married. The day after our wedding began The Devaluation. Devaluation is described as a substantial drop in the value of an object, in our marriage, me. The day before, I was priceless, of great worth, and in my Mormon upbringing, a “10 cow wife.” Now, a day later, I was worthless.

He is quite simplistic in his true nature. When he wants something from you, he puts on the entire show. He will shower you with attention and affection; make you feel special. He will isolate you from friends and family because his absolute need for you is so great insuring a total dependence on him. I used to think of his attentive behavior as ‘peacock preening’, but the bird is too pretty to associate with the ugliness that follows. Parallel to his draining all of your emotional and physical reserves, the peacock parading slowly fades; he becomes uneasy. He will quit pretending and be who he truly is and the devaluation starts. I was confused, bewildered, baffled…what had I done wrong? This abrupt withdrawal of affection had to be my fault in some way unknown to me. How could a loving, attentive boyfriend turn into a mean, vindictive spouse overnight?

Early in our marriage, his nightly routine involved coming home from work and complaining about the cleanliness of the house. I began to anticipate his return. Every toy would be picked up. Every surface dusted. On one spotless, showroom house day, he came home and pounded through the house on a mission. He finally found the object he needed in the downstairs guest bathroom. The guest hand towel was hung askew. I received an hour long belittlement about the value of symmetry and cleanliness.

We are not stupid people, those of us who love these two-faces. We don’t volunteer for the abuse. We don’t ask for or seek it. These people abuse us because they are master manipulators. They lie and speak in mixed messages, denying their words later or stating we “misunderstood.” Out of love, we believe them. Out of fear, we stay.

In my life with him, I was Dorothy. I whirled around him, tangled within the swirling mess of the tornado he created while he was content to occupy the throne in middle, protected from the chaos and disorder. At the slightest hint of a drop in turbidity, the threat of calm, he would stir up discord causing the wild, undulating madness to begin anew. From the eye of the insanity, he watched his family, those he should, but cannot love, struggle through the chaos he’s orchestrated, reveling in the power he’s mastered. He is an inhabitant of his own self-created, self-contained, special world running parallel to ours, yet never meeting. He will never reach out a hand and pull us from the storm into safety. We will never meet in the middle. But we can step out away from him, out of the storm all together. We cannot understand the chaos and disorder in his mind, his need for disharmony. We cannot. We are normal. Blessedly, happily normal.

In my life without him, I am Alice. Keeper of the Vorpol Sword, Slayer of the Jabberwocky. With him, I had “lost my muchness,” though, not as much lost, as stolen. He exists only in our esteem, in how we view him. He steals our ‘muchness’ to use as his own because of his very low self esteem. He knows there is something inherently wrong with him, but lacks the emotional IQ to describe it. He is weak and must destroy the strong. He will describe how his other relationships were superior, how other women were better in bed, in the kitchen, with their children. If he doesn’t have previous relationships, he will compare you with his mother whom he secretly hates because even she didn’t have enough to satisfy his consuming needs.

That is before. That is Dorothy, lost and homeless amidst the storm. Before, if asked by the Caterpillar who am I, I wouldn’t have been able to answer having surrendered my identity to him long ago. This is now and the Alice-me knows this.

“Lost my muchness, have I?" It’s there. Slowly, I'm extricating myself from the storm, dusting off my dress, brushing the tangles out of my hair. Dorothy may have found her way home, but it was Alice who sliced off the Jabberwocky’s head and reclaimed herself.