Jack

The events of a narrator, the writer, as she experiences her relationship during her husband's deployment which eventually leads to divorce.

Its been almost a 8 months since I’ve done any good writing. So much has changed since the last time I wrote anything worthy of being read. Before Jack went to sea duty we had a party and those few days we fought on and off. I was having separation anxiety and also I was upset because his mother was involved in the situation way too much. 

I've been married for four years now to a military man. It seems like its been too long though.

Then we drive down to San Jose and stayed at the hotel. While there Jack manages to show up but earlier in the day. His mother was saying some stuff to me in the Burger King. She said I shouldn’t tell Jack anything serious while he’s at sea because it will upset him and he doesn’t need that kind of stress.

I grew very angry with her. First off, me and my husband agreed not to keep secrets and secondly if he finds out I didn’t say anything then it will cause more problems between us. She was very adamant about the whole thing. And I was just as equally adamant about the privacy me and him share. Then at the hotel I confronted her about my feelings and told her that what goes on between me and my husband is between me and him.

She really seemed hurt and upset that I rejected her advice but I’m a grown woman and I’m not her kid. I’m her son’s wife and I have the right to decide how and what to say to him. Its my business not hers or my mother’s.

So that night Jack is practically drained and falling asleep and I asked almost begged for him to come with me to the car so we could talk and we could maybe have sex? One last goodbye? And he was like I’m too tired and I can’t do it. 

Do you know how disappointing that was? It hurt. I felt so neglected at that point but I understood he was really tired and dealing with conflict between me and his mom is never an easy situation to deal with. Anyways the next day we get to tour the ship and I got to see his shop and meet some people. 

Then we had to say our goodbyes and I held my tears in. Jack’s mom noted that I wasn’t crying and I said I’m not going to. She thought like it was something heroic and showed I was strong by being strong for Jack. That was a load of bullshit. I just didn’t want to cry in front of her. 

Then on the way back she tries to make the whole drive sound pleasant when really I can hear in her voice she’d like to kick me to the curb if she could. She hates me and really I don’t care anymore. She thinks I’m this terrible person and frankly its her problem. She has never truly sat down with me and tried to work on issues so what can I do? I can’t change her. I just simply try to keep a distance as best as I can.

So during the sea duty the first month was not easy. Then October comes along and I do a tribute Chinese death ceremony at Jack’s father’s grave with his family. I don’t believe in that stuff one bit but to each their own and since Jack couldn’t be there I did it for him. To pay my respects and show that even though I don’t agree with their beliefs that I can still be respectful.

I didn’t stay to eat. I told him I had to go take care of some things. I think when I reflect on the past year Jack almost every weekend went to see his father’s grave with his mother and a lot of the time he dragged me with him. I didn’t really understand. I just felt like they were morbid. I miss my dad and its painful but I don’t visit the grave every weekend. He’s already in heaven and that’s just his body sitting there as a way to remember and honor him.

I guess that is what they were trying to do but I honestly felt like total emotional mess each time we went. Finally I told him I couldn’t go anymore. I really tried to understand but my heart cannot and it just hurts so much. Grief has never been handled well in my family nor have I seen anyone I know handle it well. This just is uncomfortable for me and I think I have a right to say no if this is not okay with me.

Anyways I digress, so October I drive Jack’s car over to a Museum and I got lost in the fog and a tumbleweed scraped the side of the car. It was horrible and I was freaking out like badly. I was so scared of what he would say or do to me. The man had threatened everything from whipping me to tossing me out to even killing me at one point during our first year of marriage. How was I to know how to respond in this situation? 

You know sometimes I long for this to be over...but I just can’t leave. I wish I could know why. What is it that makes me stay with this man? I don’t have the answers. I feel confused and lost sometimes. 

A day or two later after the car got scratched, I emailed Jack the news and of course he flips. After some emailing back and forth he suggests a place to fix the car. I told him I will call them and take care of it.

I didn’t get a chance to do it. November rolls around and things are pretty much okay until I’m talking to my mom one day about all my past hurts with Jack’s mom and somehow my phone dialed his mother’s number. I’m suspecting that when I called her earlier in the day that her number got logged on speed dial and so because the screen doesn’t lock that’s how it dialed her number. 

I said some pretty crude things about her to my mom. My intention was never to hurt her feelings or to speak badly about her. I was expressing all the hurt this woman has caused me. She smiles at me and then says passive aggressive things to my face about how I’m dressed or act. Nothing I do is ever enough and I feel drawn to a sort of convoluted system of trying always to please her and in the end never satisfying her. 

My mom also talked a lot about her feelings about Jack’s mom. I guess Jack’s mom heard the majority of the conversation. However she never called me back and when I finally got ahold of her the next day she sounded clipped on the phone but didn’t say why she was upset or what was going on. I didn’t know my phone dialed her number either. 

Jack sends me an email like a week later saying he now has to deal with this situation. I was like what situation? So he tells me and then we email back and forth. Mostly just him yelling at me and threatening to end relationship if I don’t make restitution.

I am feeling turmoil. Inner turmoil about him. I don’t know what to do anymore. I try very hard to do the right thing but it just seems like its never enough. I love him as a wife should but it feels off like something is missing. I’m just loving him because a wife should love their husband but do I think I will enjoy sex with him anymore? I hate sex, I hate our marriage. Nothing about it satisfies me anymore. The thought of cheating is not an option but to divorce...I don’t know if I have the strength to approach that. 

I just feel so lost and confused. Where do I go? To what harbor can I anchor myself? To find the strength to know what I can do and what I am capable of! I feel like I don’t even know myself anymore.

I ended up calling his mother and then later on going to the house and bringing a card. I was genuinely sorry but there was also the aspect of how much she has hurt me and how that has never been addressed ever! She accepted my apology but says she has given me so many chances and said much more that I can’t even remember. I didn’t say a word except that I understood and okay. I was very upset that she even listened to the conversation between me and my mother. I felt like I was being spied on.  And if it was such an issue why didn’t she say something right away? And she also told me not to upset Jack and yet she goes ahead and does that?

Things are kind of tense in email but seems like he’s working on things on his end about feelings and what not. The feeling I got afterwards was akin to this is the end for us. I just had a place in me that felt ready to leave. I told and warned him after what he put me through last time that I would not go through this again. Where he name calls me and puts me down through an email system. I don’t care what he is facing on his end of things being at sea...he has no right to treat me this way. 

And do I believe that he is truly capable of change? My hope is that he is but in my heart I know he is not. I feel like he is just saying stuff to make himself look good. But my heart and my head are at war and I feel caught between them. Making excuses and trying hard to resolve this with an open mind without judging or accusing anybody involved. Its just so hard not to blame his mother and not to hate him sometimes. I know he has not been faithful in the past but I can’t resolve the pain of it. And my belief in marriage is so strong I cannot question the possibilities without feeling a strong sense of guilt and shame that divorce will bring. Like I let everybody down including myself. That I didn’t give my marriage a chance. I just feel so lost!

December came and of course that’s always a painful month but I managed to enjoy the holidays even so. Also I visit with his mother and bring a basket of food for her and try to spend some time with her. I really try regardless of how I feel to put myself and my pride aside to be honorable. I want her to know that no matter what I care and I don’t want there to be bad blood between us.

Still I don’t visit her much because one she’s always sitting there telling me how I don’t do this right or I shouldn’t do that. Secondly, she’s a manipulator of my relationship with Jack and whenever he talks to her she tells him about her upsets with me and he comes back to me all mad. I feel like this completely unfair on so many levels. There is something wrong with how this keeps happening. I feel so bad and like I’m just a puppet in this messed up triangle.

So I limit my contact with her. Also I found a job in November and then I quit in December because I lucked out with school. They accepted me and so I was rushing to get everything done for January. January rolls around and things are looking good. Despite everything despite the terrible darkness I feel surrounding me and the hopelessly lost feeling I have I finally am seeing some light in my life. 

Until that fateful day...when everything seemed to break around me. People with brain cancer, a shower broke, an Uncle with alcoholism is acting out. An Aunt who has so many problems is shaking my mother’s world and I am caught between my marriage problems, my in laws, my family problems and somewhere in there is me. I feel small and less every day. Like reality is taking from me everything that is good and hopeful. 

I have lost hope and faith in so many things. This world is like a plague and I long sometimes for the sweet embrace of the void. The dark empty solitude of a quick death that brings with it the peace of no more pain and just a peace that I long for so badly.

For awhile during this I began to get dwindling emails from Jack. I began to fear that he was cheating on me again. But I just couldn’t admit this either. The last phone call was October 8th. I was so sad that he stopped trying to even make an effort to call me. I am his wife not some girlfriend. And doesn’t he love me why wouldn’t he want to call me? 

I know the situation with his car and his mother is painful but that is no reason not to talk to me! Around November I went to his relatives house and we skyped but he didn’t betray anything of what was going on with him. He seemed normal just like his usual self. I suspected nothing of what he was doing. 

Finally in February I cannot take this lack of silence from him anymore and I find my voice to speak up and ask him what is going on. That’s when his response is shocking to me. He is suddenly calls me names, puts me down, says I’m a terrible person...hates me and wants a divorce from me. 

His words bite me to the core of my being. Its like a dagger twisting and eating out my heart. But its slow and painful beyond measure. Whatever love I felt suddenly or was still left in me, fled. And all that was left was a bitterness...and a empty cold hatred.

But still the echoes of the love we once shared shattered even this dark place that had swelled inside of me and was eating at me. It was the echo of love that kept me frozen in time as I read each new email and felt more pain coalesce inside of me.

Finally in a desperate plea for this to stop. So that he cannot hurt me anymore I chose to move out. Even though technically he asked me to. Something inside of me snapped in that moment during all the tears and the hating him and knowing that he was cheating again but still unwilling to admit reality.

I decided that I’d had enough of his accusations and betrayals. And all the times during our fights when he’d say, “This marriage isn’t going to last”. I’d had enough of his mother and everything else he tried to hang on my neck and place on my shoulders. 

I started moving out. The process was franatic at first and terrifying. I remember my emotions were all over the place. I just for the first time heard God during my renewed prayer time and he said RUN. 

So I did what he said. And I kept second guessing even that. Wondering if I was making a huge mistake. If I should stay, just give Jack one more chance. He was my husband, how could I give him up? We shared a passionate love once and I wanted him in my life not out of it! 

What was I thinking? Leaving like that! But the abuse was so terrible. So painful and it hurt me in so many ways. I lost myself during it too. I couldn’t find the words to express what was going on inside. I just needed direction. 

I wanted myself back...to be whole again. Not this half life I was living. This dream that I longed for that wasn’t really true anyways. I was slaving myself over this dream, this fantasy...and in reality it wasn’t even real!

Valentine’s Day was so bad but you know what...I managed to find some good in it. My online friends on were very supportive. I got a few phone calls and hugs. I managed to go shopping and get a few things for whatever that is worth.

Overall even though my husband is hurting me in the most basic way possible and seems like he is serious about divorce I’m just so tired of this. 

I’m so sick of the same old tune and never having my voice! This isn’t the first time he’s done this to me. Last sea duty he made me really cry and feel bad.

So sadly I am almost moved out of the house and I changed all my passwords, deleted all the porn on his computer, tossed stuff he doesn’t need. 

I took everything that I purchased or was basically mine and I even changed my mailing address. I took out of the bank most of my money since if he’s really serious I won’t be using that bank for much. 

Yea he had porn on his computer. Apparently I wasn’t enough for him and since he wasn’t willing to speak to the councilor about the sexual problems he sought solace in seeking out sexual images online and he did cheat on me with this disgusting woman from his past. 

I remember discovering the truth of what he was doing and I just told him either your with me or not. Chose. And if you really want her then I’m done and I’ll move back home and we’ll get a divorce.

Just the thought of all of this makes my head spin and the anger boil inside of me. The oppression I experienced at his hands...and his families was so wrong on so many levels.

During the move, I made sure to bring my jewelry down first. The other things that have to be changed is my car insurance and I will have to go back to prepaid unless he does the give me money and then I can pay for the phone plan. Also I had to quit school.

He sounds so cold, distant and uncaring in his emails. He said at first it was just post deployment stress and that not to do anything rash. But then in like a span of hours he starts flipping out and saying really hurtful things and tells me to leave. How dare he treat me this way? And nobody is saying anything! 

At first my rational side surged up during all the emotional stuff and I was wondering is this just another phase, could this be his mother talking to him or is he is just cheating on me. I don’t know what is going on.

So this time I take action...I left.  I reread a lot of my diary and he put me through so much unnecessary and cruel situations. Stealing, setting fire to s**t, yelling at me, telling me I’m worthless, useless, lazy, fat, ugly etc. 

He made me lose my self worth over the years but these few months I’ve gained a backbone and I’m no longer going to allow him to treat me like he feels he can.

So now I sit here think what the hell now? What if I acted rashly in all of this? What if I just screwed up everything for me and him by my emails and moving out?

Then I think about it and I was like well eventually he was going to have you either a broken mental case or his slave. Neither option sounds appealing. He emotionally and mentally abused me over the years I’ve known him. I wish when I’d been dating him I’d paid more attention to the signs.

But I loved him and now I just feel like well even if I loved him doesn’t change much about how much of an a*****e and mental case he is! I am really in belief he is mentally unstable. 

There is so many things I could do to really hurt him and jeopardize his career HOWEVER I would not do this to him because I love him. I just want him to see my pain and meet me! 

Is this just me hanging on to security of the relationship? He said in his email I would destroy him and he claimed I am doing it. All I did was ask the ombudsman some questions!

Where do I go from here? My life is in turmoil and here I sit contemplating my fate. Divorce is on the horizon and parts of me are waking up and realizing I need this. That this can’t go on forever. Something must change. It has to. Because I’ve lost enough of my life to this Jack. I can’t do this anymore. I just can’t.

Author's Note

This is a fictional story. I know it needs some work in regards to grammar and sentence structure. I would love to know what you think of the story and your thoughts on the characters mentioned.

Reviews

[Bexfinch]

Hmmm... this was long, I would say maybe make it a little bigger because my eyes kinda hurt reading it. But the persons inner dialogue was really good. I could really imagine myself listening to the person and there were some really sad things that happens to the boys father. I think that although it has this key strong point it is lacking in background. I have a half baked idea of how everyone looks and everything. Which IDK if you did this on purpose. Good job and keep up the good work! Bon vacances