41 years

 So today, December 17th is my 41 year wedding anniversary.  I am still married, just legally separated.  

I find it so hard to believe that I am still married to the same man after 41 years.   I don't know how to feel today...I know that John and the kids are probably thinking about it...or maybe they don't even remember today is their parents wedding anniversary.

41 years ago, I married John.  I married him because I did not want to have to move to Hawaii where my folks were stationed.  I married John because I knew he would be a good father, a good provider and a good man...he did not drink, he was not abusive and he was kind.   Everything in a "dad" that I could find.  I married John, because I wanted to have a baby...all my life I wanted to have a baby...and I knew in my heart, that John would NOT be the type of father (fathers) I had.   I knew that John would never beat, abuse or do anything horrible to his child...

I use to put a little bible under my pillow and pray to god that I would not die and that I would be able to have a baby when "I grew up"...I wanted a baby, so I could love it and give it the care, support, and affection I did not receive as a baby, child.   I wanted to prove that I could be a better mother than my own was...

John also knew that I did not love him when we got married....I told him that...but his answer was "you will learn to love me"....and there were times early on in the marriage that I thought I did love him...But I was confusing love with security....I was physically safe, as were my kids...but I had no ideal that as our marriage grew, the psychological and mind games started..the more John embraced Christianity, the more controlling he got....he started dictating what we could or could not watch on TV, what we could and could not listen to on the radio...he refused to take me to the movies..he started dictating what I could even wear, where I could go and who I could hang out with....

The abuse started again...this time it was not physical or sexual abuse, it was mental abuse...he was the ultimate gaslighter for god.    We no longer had conversations,  I would try and tell him something and he would always say "I will pray about it", then that was it....nothing was ever communicated from god to him to tell me....His religion got so extreme that I could not bear it anymore...I left as soon as I could, as soon as the kids were grown and gone, as soon as I could financially leave....the final straw was after my suicide attempt and consequent hospitalization and the fucking "ignoring of this event by everyone" finally was it....I had to leave...I could not breathe anymore, I was walking on eggshells to not upset John and get "religious scolding's"...I was a grown ass women but John treated me as his "servant".

Since he is so fucking religious, he refused to divorce me (I had for years, over 20 years asked for a divorce) but he did allow me to legally separate from him.   Mostly for two reasons, 1-he thinks I will sow my wild oats then come back to him, and 2-he didn't want me to lose my health insurance as I have pre-existing medical conditions.   So we legally separated.  We are divorced in every since of the word, all that is left to sign on the dotted line.....

So, I don't feel married at all...but yet I am....41 years now.....I am hoping that I do not suffer from the new anti-No default divorce.   This new Christian Nationalism wants to do away with those types of divorces...effectively giving women zero rights to leave a marriage...Oklahoma is a solid red state,  I left John, my decision,  will I lose that decision and be forced to honor our marriage?  Or will my legal separation be grandfathered in and I will not be affected....if I am forced to go back to that marriage, I will die.   pure and simple.

I will not go back...I would rather go to prison, than go to John....wow...

S