If I am the Prize…

I remember thinking many years ago, ‘If I’m the prize, it wasn’t much of a contest.’ It’s a thought that would come to me every time my second husband accused me of doing something with some imagined lover. He had a problem and he transferred that problem onto me…in fact, he did it so often, that I began to think there was something seriously wrong with me.

People that know me, either love me or hate me, there doesn’t seem to be any “in-between” and I don’t mind that. Because I realized it, early on, I came up with another little ditty that covers that too, “Everybody loves me. They either love to love me, or they love to hate me, but I have it all covered.” Some things you cannot change, and I cannot change giving an honest answer to a sincere question. With some people, people that believe they have to be right, all the time, it’s unsavory to hear someone disagree with them, with others, it’s just an opinion. To me, it’s just an opinion. However, there are opinions and emotions that do true damage to any relationship; jealousy and anger are two that are difficult to deal with, particularly in a marriage or long-term relationship.

When my second husband and I were grocery shopping, we might meet someone and that person might begin a conversation. My husband never minded me talking to people that I didn’t know as long as they were female. “Talking to men that you don’t know, even when your husband is with you, is very cheap” he would say. If the man were someone that we both knew, it was alright for me to talk to them, but if he didn’t know them, then I looked like a “Whore" talking to a man he didn’t know. Jealousy becomes a way to control another person’s actions; under whatever circumstance the other person feels it is necessary. He knew that if he could make me feel cheap, make me feel bad about myself, that it would make me think twice about talking to someone he didn’t know or didn’t like—in some cases.

 I never found the right way to deal with his problem, but I do know it was his problem and not mine—that part took time to realize. I also know that jealousy is a manipulative emotion and it causes more harm than any other emotion in the great realm of human interaction. My second husband was never physically abusive, until the chemotherapy took his mind. He didn’t have to be, he was always emotionally abusive, and that left deep scars. You don’t  have to be a beautiful woman to have an emotionally controlling husband. It can happen to anyone, and it has happened more times than most people are willing to talk about, even among women.