If You Had Lived Through What I Lived Through You Would Have Done The Same As Me.


Which is a long winded way of saying you should listen to 'Walking In My Shoes'.

After all that happened, nobody in the world would willingly endure it. Nobody could've if they had a choice. I had a choice. It was the hardest decision I made, nor one I ever wanted to make, but it was right.

Either we stayed together, and all of us were miserable - and there were frequent, escalating physical skirmishes and emotional violence : largely me not doing anything whilst I get hit with objects and weeks of frozen nothingness – or we seperated. By seperating I knew we would be unhappy, but we were unhappy anyway. At least if we seperated maybe we could've been happy apart at some point in the future. It looks as if both of us are at least, a lot happier apart than we were together. Which means the decision was the right one to take, even if it was painful.

It was no decision I took lightly. To take all that my son had known, the world where Mummy and Daddy lived together, and to tear that apart. But it was being torn apart anyway. The marriage was on the operating table, dead. Nothing could've saved it. I held on far longer to finding a resolution, tolerated more abuse than I ever have before and more than anyone ever should, in the hope that it could be salvaged. And it couldn't.

By her own admission, she was a 'Monster' to me at the end. What is a shame is that she knew that, and yet, she couldn't stop herself. I felt as if I was living with The Incredible Hulk, who would explode in an irrational and unstoppable fury with a fraction of warning and could not be reasoned with.

These things happened to me. I am not a victim by saying that they did. It is a statement of historical fact. By correctly apportioning responsibility for unreasonable behaviour to the people who committed them, I am not saying I was a victim. I'm not. A victim probably thinks they deserve it ; that each slap and punch is in some way deserved. Mine wasn't.

I was walking up the stairs carrying clothes to be dried when I was punched several times just for the crime of walking up the stairs.

There is no fucking way this is reasonable behaviour. I'm not pretending I deserved that. You've got to be out of your fucking mind if you think I did.

Sometimes I think maybe I should've stamped down fiercely on such behaviour and knocked her fucking teeth in to teach her that violence is a very painful thing to experience. But I was brought up not to hit people, and to see violence as something to be avoided at all costs. So maybe I did bring it on myself by not stamping down it like a cartoon anvil from the heavens crushing a cheaply animated roadrunner, but I thought I was doing the right thing.

I made mistakes, certainly. Said cruel things, sometimes. But ultimately, I neither stole nor assualted people. I waited until the relationship was over, and the marriage was a long way into the process of slow and inevitable dissolution, before I considered anything else.

Can you say the same? How can you judge me when you did – and would do - at least the same as I, if not worse?

Not many people would take a rain of blows around the face from someone who used to love them, and not hit back. Not many. I would've been justified in self-defence with launching a response to neutralise the attack. Even when I was assaulted so viciously I had a potentially fractured wrist under an X-Ray in A&E, massive bruises, and broken glasses, I did not strike back. I would've been within my rights to use reasonable force to prevent the attack. Well within my rights. And we all know it. You would've done the same as me. If not more. Those of you who judge me may very well have struck back – and been weaker than I.

I didn't deserve to be assaulted, or stolen from. I was abused. It's not just asshole men that hit women. Sometimes, it's the asshole woman who hits the man.

I was a victim of domestic violence and abuse. End of fucking story. If being a victim means naming and blaming the people who committed the crimes against me – and not blaming myself for other peoples actions - then I'm a victim.

I made mistakes. I know I did. But not mistakes that justified or explained what happened to me. The punishment I received did not fit the crime. I'm not going to pretend it did to please you.

I'm not going to say I was perfect. I wasn't. I retreated into a world of movies and music and trivia, a comfort zone, where nobody could hurt me. But we split up a long time before I was able to announce it. I remember the very day we did. 442 days ago.

We lived together, seperate lives forced together by circumstance, for six months, before they moved out. I was in an environment where I came home and was told that I was locked out of my own home, and in effect, had to sleep on the streets in winter.

How could I have chosen this madness? What kind of fucked up world is it where people think that kind of behaviour is justifiable? How could I say that I wanted that? How could anyone NOT blame the perpetrator of this behaviour for their decision? How could anyone NOT see that that behaviour is completely fucking nuts?

People take sides. Of course they do. But people who see ugly and abusive behaviour like that – and side with it – are not my friends and I have no moral ground in common with them. None at all. I've always taken the view that we should Be Excellent To Each Other, and have always tried to avoid subjecting anyone to behaviour I would not want to receive myself – not always successfully but for at least 99.9% of my life I have succeeded – and I have never hit anyone, sprayed them in the face with de-icer and thrown them out of the car, spat at them (hang on, I might have when I was 7 or so), punched them, hit them with shoes, stolen thousands of pounds from anyone, locked anyone out of their own home and made them sleep on the streets in winter, broken their glasses, tried to run people over, kicked them, tried to smash windows, tried to drag them into the street to attack them, or thrown objects at people. I haven't done that. And I feel that I did the right thing by not doing those things. If you think by not doing those things, I did not do the right thing then you are as bad as them.

The relationship was long finished before I met anyone else. Anyone who has been in a dead or dying relationship, and found another - yet lambasts me for the same - is a hypocrite for judging me. Truth hurts. But not as much as being hit by a shoe several times. Believe me.

If you'd've been in my circumstances, you would've done exactly the same thing. Judge not less ye be judged.



i hope it is all in the past.
- posted by Mark @ 8:21 pm