It Ended In Terror

I left our home to take a proctored test at the local college; I was finally trying to get passed only having a GED. When I returned home I found the gate to the backyard was hanging open, as was the gate to our chicken run, and our entire flock of chickens were gone. In a panic I checked the chicken shed/coop and found it completely empty. No chickens, no chicken equipment, just some misc items.

I entered our home to find the walls bare of every picture of our children, furniture missing, and things in general disaray. With fear in my heart I called out to my family but no response came. Upon checking the room of our youngest I found that their desk was empty, their office chair was gone, and their walls bare. In our room I found that an end table was missing as was all of my spouses clothing. My initial thought was that we were being evicted and my family was packing things up and moving them somewhere; my spouse has a long history of failing to maintain finances while telling me everything is fine and I usually only find out the truth due to bill collectors or disconnect notices. The dog was, after all, locked up in its kennel, they couldn’t be far right?

As I passed through the dining room I found a note from my spouse:

You gave me an ultimatum. Live as your prostitute or leave. This is my final answer. Do not attempt to contact me as we cannot talk this out. You will be hearing from my lawyer.

In that moment the horrible reality hit me and it was all I could do not to vomit. My spouse was referring to a conversation we had had earlier in the week, a conversation they were grossly misrepresenting.

Our relationship had been an on-again/off-again situation for years, and it was never without its friction. A week prior I had sat down with my spouse and told them that it simply wasn’t working. I felt that they had continued to fail to keep their word, that they continued to deceive me or make cover stories, and that they had failed to keep any of their promises towards therapy, towards communication, towards making a budget, towards not lying about our expenses and towards working on our relationship. More importantly, I was tired of feeling like I was living with a horrible roommate whom seemed to think that every time I wanted to sit down and have a conversation, that that implied I needed sex. That I felt that we were just crappy room mates with benefits, and as a sexual assault victim I would rather have a meaningful conversation over sex. My spouse wasn’t working, they rarely helped out around the house, they made promises they never kept, and they were regularly busy on their phone talking with random people or playing random games; quick to lay the phone face-down whenever I entered the room. It simply wasn’t working.

Our youngest had just turned 18, and I informed my spouse that I could not take this life anymore and that, after our youngest had moved out, if things did not change we were through. I felt that I couldn’t keep living with someone whom wasn’t participating in a relationship and whom seemed to think they could pay their way with sex. To me it felt like prostitition. I told them that I was done being used, that I wanted control over my body, and a say in when/where it was time for sexual intimacy, to not have it forced on me as a substitute for a real relationship. So I gave my spouse a choice, they could either continue on as they had been and that I would refuse to call it a relationship, or they could get a job and they could start helping with rent/utilities/bills/debts. That regardless, we would start the separation process in expectation of our youngest moving out once they were done with high school. My spouse and I sat down, taking notes on their tablet, outlining expectations, requirements, commitments and a clear indication that I would be taking over the expenses; my spouse had failed for the last month to even start the buget plan that they had regularly promised they would work on. My spouse drew all of this up on their tablet, 2 columns on a single page. The left column had the headline of “prostitute”, quotes and all, to reflect the way our current relationship felt to me, the right column had the heading get a job.

Much to my surprise, my spouse made the comment “Well, if this is what I was already doing, then let’s give it a try”, referring to the rhetorical option of living as as we had already been living, but with me refusing to call it anything but prostitution. I stared at the notes, the shock still washing over me and trying to make sense of how to interpret that choice. In order to re-inforce that this was not something forced on anyone, nor even something I really wanted, I had my spouse amend the conditions such that none of these choices were permanent and that they could be changed at any time, thus retaining the power of either party to say “no” and to give us both the option to think things over and propose alternate solutions moving forward. I made it clear that if they chose “prostitute”, that from here on out I would stop trying to start conversations, and they would stop trying to force sex on me as a method to deflect my attempts at conversations. That if I was in the mood for a sexual encounter that I would clearly state it, and again, these choices could be changed at any time. It was not entirely clear to me if my spouse was entertaining some odd fantasy or if they were really fine with that as an option instead of getting a job. Considering their complete lack of meaningful communication, it was a complete quandry to me as to what was really going through their head.

Still, I was very nervous about the choice my spouse had made, and so the next day I brought it up again, and we went over all of it again and further amended the notes in their tablet, and again they chose “prostitute”. Later on when I asked them how they felt about their choice they replied with “I am not certain yet”. I wasn’t certain either.

Somehow this choice, that could be changed at any time, was an ultimatum according to my spouse’s letter, that required they live in servitude or leave. At the end of the letter was a note, added by our youngest, declaring me the worst parent in the world.

I collapsed and cried, the agony tearing at my chest as I realized what my spouse had done, and total fear of whom else they had told this distorted tale to.