Punished

I have learned that my life is not about his screaming fits.  It's not about him making marks on my body.  It is about manipulation and mostly about guilt.  It has gone on for so long.  Makes it hard for me to discern it.
But, it goes like this:  he is mad that I have a job and have some money (very little) in my own account, so, he creates and makes huge any little money needs.  It's not that we are wealthy, we aren't.  It's that he doesn't like me to feel comfortable.  I always have to feel guilty so that I will make it work financially.  So that I will throw my two cents, as it were, into the pot.  It won't fix anything.  I'm using it to buy groceries as it is.  The whole thing is that he makes it into an impossible situation.
Several years ago, we remodeled our house.  It ended up taking a LOT of money.  The guy who did the remodel was a friend from church.  Since then, I have to "pay" for the fact that we lost that money in the remodel.  It's just one of those things where, for him, it can't just be a lesson and a going on.  He likes to use it now to show how if that hadn't happened, we would have plenty of money now....um, frankly, probably not, since he was looking at stocks as well.  At least we have a house to live in that is paid for except for taxes and insurance.  But he can't point out the good.  That's what the trouble is!  I get it.  Suddenly....he can't point out the good in people or in situations.  He is never the one standing up going, "this is going to be fine, look at all of this good...." And while I still live in that area, I am not doing it for him anymore.  I am weary of being towed under.  Weary of trying to swim while he is trying to drag me back to shore.  He wants the feeling of safety, even if it's only an illusion.
None of us are safe.  Japan was an amazingly run country with kind people.....that did not make them safe.  Haiti had so many sweet children and people who were just good and not selfish; they were not safe.  We are not safe because we keep trying to hide or swim back to shore; we are safe in Jesus.  He is the shelter in all storms.
So, I'm tired of the punished mode.  So glad to go to work again.  And...yet, I need a "real" job.  I want to do it.  I want to breathe a free breath.  I get the worries of life.  I don't like to pass them onto the kids when I don't have to.  I tell them when I need to say no.  But I don't guilt them about their needs.  I bought my daughter a new pair of pants and a shirt the other day...on sale;)...and she nearly cried because she was so happy.  I hardly ever get to do it.  That was why I got griped at last night.  Money had gone out that he hadn't known about.  It was hardly anything.  but he was fishing around for what I spent it on.  "someone has been using the card and spending this amount of money.....I called the bank...blah blah blah."  Someone, my butt, he meant "YOU have been spending my money without me knowing about it....".  I didn't give up my daughter and her clothes.  No guilt for her.  Just a heaping scoop of guilt punishment for me.
He was in his room door closed when I got home last night.  Never came out.  That's very unusual since he has to have his nightly snack and chocolate milk.  Ha.  I was being punished.  Pretty bad when the "punishment" is what relieves me.