I wish I could say that things immediately get better as my story progresses. I wish I could tell you that everything you’ve read this far is as bad as things got for me, but that’s not the case. I want it to be clear that I am not sharing these personal and difficult experiences to gain attention or pity, but rather, to empower others who are in similar situations to reach out for help and make a change.

Too often, emotional and verbal abuse fall under the shadow of physical abuse. I have chosen to share these intimate details of my story to enlighten others of the dangers these overlooked forms of abuse can have. What we choose to say and how we choose to treat others have a much larger influence than we tend to consider.

I would also like to reiterate that everything that I share is written from my own point of view. I once was told that there are three versions of every relationship: the account of each individual in the relationship and what actually happened. I have gone out of my way to ensure that I share what I know to be true, but I also ask that you remember this is written from the only perspective I know, my own.

Family Fun

Because C and I seemed to argue every time we were left alone, we tended to go to his parents’ house for the weekends. We had our own room and bathroom there, so it was always really nice to be with them but also have our own space. C also seemed to be on his best behavior when we were around his family, so it was a safe zone for me. I loved his family. They were so fun and they always were up for a game or a little adventure.

His mom became one of my favorites. She had the funniest sense of humor and she said exactly what she thought. She wasn’t as nurturing or inviting as my mom, but she was loving in her own ways. She and I would go shopping together, bake desserts, go out to dinner, and talk about everything under the sun. She made their home my second home, and I truly always felt wanted by them. To this day, I am grateful for the refuge she unknowingly provided for me during those trying months.

C’s other siblings would almost always be visiting their parents’ house as well, and this just added to the fun dynamic. We would have huge game nights, sports competitions, movie nights in the home theater, and sometimes we would just lay around and chat for hours. My sisters-in-law were so amazing as well, and I felt beyond lucky to have them. Even though we were all super close, I never quite felt like I could open up to them about my marriage. I didn’t want to dirty C’s name, and I knew what they saw seemed to be a healthy and happy marriage.

One day the whole family decided to hike up the Y Mountain in Provo, Utah. I was excited for us to meet up with the crew and was looking forward to the hike. That being said, before we left, C began to reprimand me for forgetting to tell him my niece’s birthday party was going to be that night. He said I was inconsiderate and irresponsible for neglecting to inform him of my plans. The real reason he was upset though, was that her birthday party was during a BYU Football game. The rest of the morning, C refused to talk to me and wouldn’t even be in the same room as me.

When it was time to go over and meet his family, we both piled into his car and headed to the trailhead. Once we met up with his family, our facade was back on. We smiled and hugged everyone and began the journey up the mountain. As we were going, C began quietly whispering to me that I wasn’t going fast enough. He would tell me that he couldn’t believe that I wasn’t keeping the same pace as him. He was 6’4, how did he expect me to keep his pace? I kept trying to push myself, running out of breath and hope. Due to my body-image issues at the time, I wasn’t eating even close to enough calories each day to help sustain my body, let alone fuel me for a hike. Keeping up with C was impossible. Despite my efforts, C continued to look at me with annoyance, and that’s when it happened. Right there on the trail, I broke into a full-on panic attack. Tears started rushing down my face, my heart began to pound harder than I thought humanly possible, and I couldn’t breathe. I began gasping for air and looking around desperately for help. C’s family all gathered around me quickly, but C quickly told them to keep going. He told them we would catch up in a minute.

About five to ten minutes later, I began to calm down. My breathing began to level out, and I told C I just wanted to go home. He didn’t even give me a response. He just turned and started walking back down the trail to the car. He didn’t say a word the entire walk back or the entire car ride back to our house. Shaking and overwhelmed, I was scared to break the silence. I was scared he wasn’t going to forgive me this time. I had really messed up. As soon as the door clicked behind us and I sat down on the couch, I began to profusely apologize for ruining the hike. I begged him to forgive me and to be patient with me. It was then that C finally broke his silence. He told me that I was an embarrassment and pathetic. He told me he had married me because I was athletic, but it turned out I was incredibly out of shape. He began taunting me telling me even children could make the hike I had just failed. He told me his whole family probably thought he was a loser now because he had married someone who couldn’t even hike up to the Y. He said they probably all thought he had settled for someone with fat potential. Then he asked me why I was so set on ruining his entire life.

Immediately I began to cry and curled up into a ball on the couch. Every inch of me was shaking from the sobs escaping my body. I was trying so hard, but I still couldn’t be a good wife. I was an embarrassment. All I wanted was for my husband to love me. Only a few months ago he had told me I was his entire world, but now he was convinced I was the bane of his existence. Instead of apologizing and comforting me as I broke down on our couch, C began to tell me to cut it out. He said I couldn’t cry about everything I didn’t like, and that I needed to start taking responsibility for my actions. And with that, he led me to the bathroom, placed me in the shower and turned it on, leaving me under the incessant stream of warm water and my tears

It was as if he thought he could simply wash me off, and I would come out as good as new.

That night, C accompanied me to my niece’s birthday party, but he might as well have stayed at home. He simply sat in the corner of the room on a chair and watched the stats of the game on his phone. He didn’t speak to anyone, he didn’t play with the kids, he just sat there making his misery as obvious as possible. My sister asked me if C was okay, and I just told her he wasn’t feeling very well this weekend, and we would probably have to dip out early.

Once we got in the car to go home, I began demanding C apologize for acting so rude to my family. They had tried to speak with him, and he had blown them all off. It was fine if he wanted to be mad at me, but he was not allowed to punish my family. C didn’t respond, he simply just tightened his grip on the steering wheel. Five minutes passed and I looked over at my husband, and I began to plead with him to just tell me what was going on and what was on his mind. He responded by telling me that he didn’t think that was a good idea. I assured him that if I knew what was going on, then I could help him fix whatever the problem was. We were a team.

One more minute of silence seemed to stretch on forever, but he finally spoke. He kept his eyes on the road, avoiding eye contact, and told me that thinking about spending the rest of his life with me made him more miserable than anything in the world. He told me he felt like being married to me was a sentence to a terrible life, and he was disgusted by his life with me. And just like that, he casually turned the radio up as if to inform me that he didn’t want or care for a response.

How Do We Move Forward?

After C’s revelation, I didn’t know what to expect. Was he going to leave me? Did he not love me anymore? But to my surprise, he acted as if nothing had happened. He never brought up that conversation again, and he certainly didn’t apologize. If anything, he started to treat me better. We started playing games together again, we picked back up on our Netflix series, and we began hanging out with our couple friends again. He was apologizing through his actions, and I was willing to take whatever I could get. I was eager to welcome the old C back. It was as if things were going to return to the way they were before he had turned against me. Maybe we still had a chance.

But just as fleetingly as they left, his negative outbursts began to return. The distance between us grew palpable, and I wanted so desperately to learn how to close the gap. I was willing to do anything, but I was running out of ideas more quickly than I could come up with them. I was losing hope in my ability to be a good partner and I was losing hope in myself.

With everything going on, I decided it would be a good idea for me to start going back to therapy. I hadn’t regularly gone to therapy since my freshman year of college, but I thought it would be good for me to have a safe place to talk through all of my feelings and emotions. To my surprise, C was extremely supportive. He told me that if I was able to get a handle on my anxiety, our marriage could actually have some hope again.

Looking back, that was easily one of the best decisions that I’ve ever made. I went to fix myself for my marriage, but its actual role in my life became so much more. For the first time, I was able to open up about all of the heavy emotions I had been carrying around for so long. I went in with an open mind, and I was eager for help to stop my panic attacks, to stop being needy, and to stop being the problem. You see, at this point in my marriage, I fully believed that something had to be wrong with me. C had told me so many times that I was preventing us from enjoying our relationship together that I genuinely believed it.

As I continued to relay all of the events that had transpired throughout my sessions, my therapist began to see patterns in C’s behavior. She started pointing out how his actions weren’t fair, and oddly, I would defend him. I would quickly explain that he normally wouldn’t act that way, but I was the one pushing him to the breaking point. His actions were actually my fault, and I honestly believed that. I was so broken down that I thought I was responsible for his outbursts and abuse. Knowing that I wasn’t ready to address the real issue at hand, she continued to listen and console me, every so often challenging my mindset and poor logic. Finally one day, she suggested that I reach out to C’s parents for guidance on how to navigate some of his strange outbursts. She argued that these actions and behaviors couldn’t have just popped up out of the blue at the age of 23. He had likely acted this way in the past as well. I was doubtful, but I also was desperate. Maybe they would have some guidance?

That week I wrestled with the ethics of reaching out to his parents. C was my husband and my loyalty remained with him, but was asking for help betraying him? Wasn’t I really just looking out for what was best for him, for our marriage? I was genuinely concerned by the escalation of his actions.

That week I had woken up to him in a fury. I was so confused as to what could possibly be wrong, but then he informed me that if I loved him I would sleep facing him, not away from him. I was at a loss for words. There was no hidden meaning in my body language or sleeping patterns. I had just fallen asleep facing the wall. I was too tired to fight though. I knew I wouldn’t win, so I quietly apologized and told him I would try my best not to let it happen again. I told him that I never wanted him to feel like I was trying to avoid him. Things were getting out of hand, and I needed help.

That weekend, we went up to his parents’ house to stay for a few nights. The boys had gone to the Nike outlet to check out a sale, and I had stayed home with C’s mom. At first, we made casual small talk and chatted about my job and school, but I knew I needed to get more out of our conversation. Finally, with shaking hands and a pounding heart, I worked up the courage. I began by telling her how much I loved her son and how I thought so highly of him. I told her I wanted nothing but the best for him and that I wanted to be the best I could be for him. I then told her I was very concerned for him. Without going into details, I relayed to her how C had been acting strangely and erratically. I told her that I knew she knew him better than anyone else in the world and that I genuinely needed some guidance as to what to do to help him.

For a few moments, that seemed like an eternity, she looked over my shoulder contemplating my words. She then told me it was probably the stress he was having from going through the junior core, working, and being in a new marriage all at once. She said that all of these stressors were likely exacerbating his issues. I waited for her to elaborate as to what the issues were, but she didn’t. Finally, I prodded and asked her what she meant by “issues.” She then informed me that C struggled with a chronic mental health condition. She explained that he was brilliant and talented, but he struggled understanding emotional and social cues and had a hard time empathizing with others. I was shocked.

I then asked her why C nor his family had ever opened up to me about this subject. When I had started seriously dating C, I had opened up to him about all of my anxiety issues and laid it all on the table. I had even brought him along with me to a doctor’s appointment so he could ask any questions he may have. I wanted him to know exactly what my mental health struggles entailed. Why was this kept from me, the woman he was married to?

She then told me something even more shocking (yes this is possible). She told me C didn’t know. She and his father had decided that since it wasn’t an extreme case, there was no point in exposing him to the negative stigma and feelings that would come with a diagnosis. Suddenly my entire world flipped upside down. I had met people with this disorder before, but I had never suspected that C was anywhere in that ballpark. Didn’t he deserve to know about his mental health? Shouldn’t his parents have revealed this information to him about how he perceives and understands the world around him?

That night, I didn’t sleep at all. My mind was on fire. Still doubting this new-found knowledge, I slipped out of our bed and snuck into the living room with my laptop. I began researching like a madwoman, reading any and all the articles I could find about his disorder.

• Repetitive Behavior / Difficulty with change
• Inability to understand emotional issues
• First-person focus
• Exaggerated emotional response
• Exceptional verbal skills, but below-average non-verbal skill
• Lack of eye contact
• Extreme focus on one topic of interest borderlining obsession
• Ability to learn and recall vast amounts of technical and factual information
• A unique sense of humor
• High esteem for fairness or right and wrong
• A high IQ

Suddenly I began to see our entire relationship through an entirely different lens. Everyone always asks me if that moment was when I lost interest in C or lost hope in my marriage, but that actually couldn’t be further from the truth. Yes, new information I had not previously received was now playing a huge role in my marriage, but this gave me a whole new perspective.

Maybe C wasn’t trying to be malicious with his actions and words. Maybe he was genuinely unaware of the implications of his behavior. I could be angry when I thought he was just being hateful, but if he was actually struggling himself, I could be sympathetic. We could work on this. He wasn’t a different person to me, his actions and behavior just had a name.

Read more about the twists and turns in Madi’s marriage and how she handled them on her beautiful blog: https://medium.com/@mystory.mytruth