February 14, 2013

February 14, 2013. That was the day I knew Vincent was incapable of love or empathy and was truly evil.

In January of that year I found out I was pregnant for the first time. I was excited. I know now that my desire to have a child was an attempt to find love…because I knew that Vincent didn’t love me. You don’t treat people you love the way he treated me. But, at the time, I wasn’t as educated on the topic of narcissists and empaths and codependents and the dynamics that led me into an abusive relationship in the first place. And I was happy to start a family with Vincent. He wasn’t as thrilled.

Unfortunately, I started to miscarry on February 11. It was a Monday. Vincent had to work so I went to the doctor’s office myself. There was still a heartbeat, so I was sent home to rest. Vincent didn’t like for me to rest, ever. He started in with the complaints immediately. “Why don’t you get up and do something to take your mind off of it? What don’t you clean something instead of just laying there?” There was no sympathy at all. Total lack of empathy. But it would get worse.

By Wednesday I was in a lot of pain. I went back to the doctor. They confirmed that I had lost the baby. I was heartbroken and I felt like I had done something wrong. I didn’t realize how common spontaneous miscarriages were. The doctors admitted me to the hospital because I had a fever and they thought I may have an infection. Vincent took me, but was obviously upset. He had family in town and hated hospitals so he blamed me for having to miss time with his parents and his 10 year old son that he had from a previous relationship. I was so cold when I arrived to the hospital that 3 different nurses tried multiple times to get an IV in me and couldn’t. Once again, Vincent blamed me for delaying him even longer in getting back to his family. He left me there. I was hurt of course, but it was expected and just the way things were. That hospital stay was probably the best 24 hours of my entire marriage to him. Once the pain meds set in, I could relax and didn’t have to worry about being called lazy for laying in bed.

The next day was Valentine’s Day. After 24 hours of pain meds and antibiotics I was discharged from the hospital. Vincent picked me up and brought me home. There were no cards or flowers or chocolates are any mention of Valentine’s Day at all. Instead, Vincent was cold and distant. He again told me I should clean something. I went to bed to rest. Later in the day, he came into the bedroom and asked me, “Are you dead yet?” Later in the evening he told me I was using too much toilet paper and needed to use less. I ignored him and went to sleep.

When I got up the next morning, Vincent had already left for work. I went to the bathroom and all of the toilet paper was gone. I went to the other bathroom and that toilet paper was gone too. All of it. Vincent had waited until I was asleep and hid all of the toilet paper in the house and then left me home alone, bleeding, suffering a miscarriage with no toilet paper. That was the moment I knew he must have truly hated me.

By this point, I knew some of his hiding places. He would often hide things from me…jewelry, money, tv remotes, my phone. I found 2 rolls of toilet paper hidden in a shoe box at the top of his side of the closet.

I asked him when he got home why he would do something so hateful to me. He shrugged it off and walked away.

To add insult to injury, when the $3,500 hospital bill came in, he refused to pay for it with “our money.” I had to borrow against my 401k to pay the bill.

It would still take me nearly 2 years to leave this man that obviously hated me. By this point, I was so worn down by all of his physical, verbal and emotional abuse that I was pretty numb. Nothing really hurt me anymore. But looking back on it, it’s so despicable. I think there’s a special place in hell for him because of this particular incident.