north carolina

I’m no longer facing those assault charges.
So gather ’round and hear the tale of: The Girl who almost lost everything she holds dear because she couldn’t keep her hands to herself: A lesson in Turning the Other Cheek.

J. and I have never gotten along well. Even before we were married our relationship was volatile and tumultuous, always either the consummate love or the epitome of divorce validity. We’ve spent the majority of our marriage living in separate houses and I credit the fact that we’re approaching our 5 year anniversary to that.

I have a temper problem. A very serious one that I recognize. The only ones who are immune to my anger issues are… well… everyone but J. Before him I would blow up on anyone and everyone that rubbed me the wrong way. Since I’ve been with him I’ve discovered that he makes an awesome target for bitchiness and unwarranted anger. So whilst everyone else around me believes that I’m a complete sweetheart and one of the nicest, compassionate and civilized persons that you could know [READ: yes - they all think that. If they don't they know what's coming to them.] J. sees me for what I truly am – a temperamental fucktard who shuts down or blows up without merit or warning.

Now is this because he pushes every single button I have? Probably.
Is it because he does and says things that are purposefully hurtful quite frequently during his own temper tantrums? I think so.
Does it stem from the years of hostility I harbor towards him for the past? Yup.

———————-

That Saturday night he was washing soot off of the walls and ceiling from a kitchen catastrophe that I’d had a few weeks prior. The more he cleaned, the more aggravated he became at my mishap which, up until then, he had remained mum about. He just refused to agree to fried chicken afterwards. I saw he was becoming anxious and I left him alone. I wasn’t going to help so I settled down in the bed with The L Word. The girls were on the couch watching Help! and eating Goldfish.

He called for me. I came. He gave me the blinds that he had taken down. I wasn’t going to clean them right then and I said so – it was already dark and I was not going to start washing off individual blinds in the bathtub that I had scrubbed the previous day; not that late. That was his cue to start bitching. The oldest housewife/s@hm vs. working husband argument in the book – “You don’t do anything. You sit here all day. I work. You don’t. You don’t do this. This is always like this. I’m tired of walking into this.” At that point I told him he could do every fucking thing himself since I didn’t do anything ever in the history things or ever. He could work all day and clean all night and care for them and make dinner and comment on all my blog subscriptions and keep up with my DVR recordings and whatever else it was that I didn’t do. I left. Determined not to argue anymore.

I hear The Bella go into the kitchen. I hear him tell her to leave. I hear her say that she wants water.

J – “Tell your mother to get it.”
B – “I already have some in my glass.”
J – “Tell your mother to get you some water, I’m cleaning up her mess.”
B – [stomping, perceiving being misunderstood] “I already have some!”
J – [Yelling] “Get OUT!!”

The Bella comes running into my room and whines that daddy won’t let her get her water and that he wants me to do it. I tell her, loud enough for him to hear to just go in and get her glass and drink it in the living room. She goes back.

B – “Mommy said I could get my glass.”
J – “GET OUT! TELL HER TO COME GET YOU WATER!”

At this I pop up and I’m fucking livid. Don’t yell at my child. Only *I* can yell @ my child. Yeah, because she’s just *my* child and not anyone else’s – sperm or no. <–That complex stems from raising her in a house different from her father’s from the time she was 13 months old and enduring all the woes of a single mother.

I storm into the kitchen and ask him what the fuck his problem is. He starts rambling off about how he’s cleaning with bleach and it’s on the ceiling and the floor and might get on her – even though he’s on the opposite side of the kitchen from where her water is. I bring this to his attention amidst a slew of profanity and personal jabs and he retorts with “Well you obviously don’t care about her health because you don’t even clean the dishes well…”

At this point I’m fuming. I’ve mentioned that my ears get hot when I’m angry. Well those big fuckers felt like red coals on the sides of my head about to set my hair on fire and send me screaming like Michael Jackson filming his Pepsi commercial.

I doused him in the glass of water I was holding. The Bella’s glass. I instinctively realized that she still needed water so I went into the refrigerator and poured her a new glass, handing it to her.

He kept throwing out his insults. He smirked at me and I saw in his eyes that he was getting a great enjoyment in how angry I was. I threw the bottle of Coke I had grabbed when pouring The Bella’s water at him. He continued his malevolent tirade and after he called me a fat ass for the third time I couldn’t stand the ignominy anymore so I started to hit him. It felt good to hit him. I kept hitting him.

I pulled him down from the ladder he was on and hit him more. He shielded his head and face from my blows, which aren’t light and are always well placed as I used to box. He tried to get away from me – but there was no stopping me – I kept coming. He said ‘Get away from me Maria‘ in a tone that obviously meant ‘I’m about to hit you back‘ and I really fractured. I took it as a challenge and if there is one thing I don’t realize – it’s fear. If it’s not a waterbug or a bridge – I’m not afraid of it. I’ve certainly never been afraid of a person. I stepped back, rocking and bouncing from foot to foot, hitching my pants up and daring him to hit me.

I told him that I wanted him to. That I was going to fuck his life up permanently and he had no idea how much of a devil I’d be. That I was the wrong person to piss off. That we were done and I was taking them – he could expect a child support suit within the next week and a custody suit after that. That I wasn’t afraid anymore and that him suing me for custody last time was a good thing because it made me secure in the fact that I didn’t have to worry about losing them to him [READ: long story there too]. I yelled more. Too much to remember.

He started to leave. I kept hitting him. He turned his back to me put his hands on the door, hanging his head low. I reached beneath his arm and uppercut him the best I could from behind, landing my fist in the soft cartilage of his nose. The blood splattered everywhere, all over the door and walls. He opened the door and I started to yell for him to get the fuck out of my house. I saw my neighbor outside across the street so I stopped hitting and started pushing. I was composed enough to know I didn’t need witnesses.

J. wiped at his nose which was streaming blood down his face and looked at me with pure malice. He forced his way back in and grabbed his phone and the car keys. I told him that if he left in my car I’d call the police because he doesn’t have a license, bluffing. I closed and locked to door behind him.

For some reason, I went to the kitchen and grabbed the towel he had been cleaning with, went back to the living room and cleaned up every drop of his blood. I ignored the Coke and water splashed everywhere in the kitchen – just the blood. That would work to my advantage later, although I didn’t fathom at the time that he was outside calling 911 on me. The Bella looked at me and said “That was worse than the last fight you had!” and I realize that they were witnesses to all of it. Pangs of stupidity and remorse and guilt hit me, but still only for them – not him. I cried. From anger. At him and at myself. Goobie hugged my knee and kissed it, babbling baby comforts of “D’okay mommy, okay.”

There’s a knock on the door. Two officers stand on my porch – one uniformed and one in plainclothes. Jason stands at the end of the driveway with more cops and our neighbor.

Uniformed Officer – “Can I talk to you, Mrs. Young?”
Me – “Sure.”

They come in and look around. I can tell they are looking for signs of a struggle. There aren’t any – the house is intact.

Officer – “What happened here?”
Me – “What are you talking about?”
Officer – “How’d your husband get that bloody nose?”
Me – “What bloody nose?”
Officer – “His nose is bleeding pretty bad out there.”
Me – “Maybe he walked into a wall or a tree.”
Officer – [Rolling his eyes] “Okay ma’am, I’m gonna need you to be upfront with me and tell me what happened here.”
Me – “We argued and I made him leave.”

I’m not stupid. In NC, if you are accused of domestic assault, you are going to jail. Whether you admit or deny it – you’re going. I wasn’t admitting to shit that could affect me negatively later. I knew what was going to happen.

Officer – “Did he hit you?”
Me – “No.”
Officer – “Are you sure, I need to know if he put his hands on you.”
Me – “No, not tonight. In the past yes, but not tonight.”
Officer – “Well what happened? I need to know how he got that bloody nose.”
Me - “I said I don’t know. Maybe he did it to himself. We argued in the kitchen and then he was leaving but started to come back in so I started to push him out and then I closed the door, that was it. I didn’t hit him.” [hiding my purple, throbbing and rapidly swelling hands]
Officer – “Alright, I’m gonna go talk to him for a minute and I’ll be right back.”

He leaves and I stand watching at the door. I hear him tell J. that I denied everything and ask him if he wants to press charges. J. says loudly “Yes. If she had just said what she had done I would say no but if she’s going to lie about it then yes.” I roll my eyes. Obviously idiot-box doesn’t realize that I’m going away in that police car whether he presses charges or not because he’s injured and he’s accused me. The officer come back.

He arrests me, right there in front of my girls. I’m not allowed to say goodbye. When I last see them, Goobie is standing with her hands and faced pressed to the glass of the door watching and The Bella is standing farther back but watching just as intently with furrowed brows. I almost cry but I don’t. I won’t let anyone else see me cry – I never do. J. walks by me to go back into the house and keeps his eyes averted.

I went to jail. Of course I thought that the magistrate would set a bond and I’d be out that night. She didn’t. I wasn’t. It was Saturday night and I had to wait for a Monday morning bail hearing. I still didn’t cry. I thought about them, the fact that I’d never, ever been away from either of them that long.

Jail sucked. I fasted. I read. I slept. I dealt with a horrible migraine.

Monday I was given a $500 unsecured bond and released. My friend, Kathy from the Playgroup Fiasco came to get me after I had called Jeanie, who was at work, and Jeanie had called all of the ‘Underground Mommies’ attempting to arrange me a ride home. I called the police to assist me in getting some things.

They called J. and he was sitting in a lawyer’s office – a lawyer who said that they didn’t want me anywhere near the house, J. or the kids. And they were in the process of filing paperwork to make it so. I eventually received my things, but days later; days of borrowing clothing and toiletries from Andie [also a pseudonym from the playgroup blogs], days of being embarrassed and angry that I’d hoped he’d welcome me home after putting me in jail for 2 days..

That week was hell. I couldn’t see or talk to my babies. I didn’t know what he had told them, what they thought, where they were… But I got them back. I stuck to my ‘I didn’t do anything’ story from start to finish.

It finished yesterday when the charges were voluntarily dismissed by the district attorney, at the request of J., my lawyer and my arresting officer. Yes, the cop that arrested me came to court and talked the D.A. privately on my behalf. I probably forgot to mention that I worked as much magic as I could in the back of that police car that night. He really believed by the time he turned me over to the sheriff that night that J. had probably made his own nose bleed. He also told me in court that I looked nice but you know, every time he’d seen me previously I looked like shit.

So. I need anger management. Badly. I’m starting soon.
We’re also in marriage counseling. We’ll make it work.

And now you know what happened.
And why he deserved it I did what I did, justifiable or not.
I love him. He loves me. We’ll be fine.
That’s the last time I’ll hit him.
Hopefully. As long as he never cheats.
Then he might die. I’m just sayin’…

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