wow - like everyone else, all i can really think is "Adam hung himself".
this is often the downfall of patriarichal men, if you A) aren't yourself brainwashed into Patriarchy and B) pay attention and/or ask the right questions. i avoided marriage to a guy [who, by the bye, claims to this day he's an atheist] by telling him that not only would i not accept a Christian ceremony, because I'm pagan and he claimed to be an atheist, but i would accept NO ceremony that had some sort of "obey" line that was only applied to the woman. he tried to INSIST that it be Christian, and that i promise to "love and obey" him - and couldn't answer why. so i said "if you can't explain why, i won't consider the idea at all - and if you keep insisting that i do this, just because "you said so", i'm not going to MARRY you at all."
he turned several lovely shades. he tried to "convince" me that it "wasn't about religion - it's about reality!" because I, as a "mere woman" couldn't be trusted to always make the right decision.
and i said "ya know, you might have a point - obviously being involved with you was NOT the right decision. although, what's your excuse? you live in my apartment, you eat my food, you drive my car - EVERYTHING in here is something that *I* earned, before we met. it's mine. and i refuse to hand it over to you, i refuse to hand mySELF over to you. forget the whole thing, and get out."
but, see, I was raised Pagan. and, horrible as my life was [and my mother's lack of notice or care about the abuse and rape at the hands of my stepfather] i NEVER got lessons along the lines of "i must obey bcuz he is MAN", i was told ALL of my life that i could be anything i wanted and didn't NEED a man - and i entered adulthood with the solemn vow to never, ever let another fucking person abuse me. PERIOD.
now, everyone can be taken in - i was taken in by the above ass for months. things started changing as soon as we got engaged - no longer could i go anywhere or do anything without him - he had this weird thing, that everyone who talked to me or smiled at me or anything wanted to sleep with me - and, because they wanted to screw me, i WAS going to cheat on him if he wasn't there to stop it. the first time he explained this [less than a week after we got engaged] i laughed like a lunatic. it didn't make him happy, he demanded to know WHY i was laughing. i said "if that were true, why would i be with you?"
probably not the thing to say. he slammed his hand into the wall by my head [large hole made] and told me to stop being disrespectful. i told him to go ahead and hit me, and then he'd be homeless. he started crying. and i allowed myself to be convinced - his exwife, he divorced her because she got pregnant with someone else's child, and he was having trust issues. i told him i understood where he was coming from, but i was having this issue that he was INSULTING ME - telling me that i was, in effect, nothing but a whore. this made him cry more, appologize all over. i thought the matter was settled.
but i never really managed to go out without him. if i went on a "girls night", somehow, he'd end up there. etc. i just ignored it, assuming that once he saw i had no intention of cheating or breaking up, he'd get over it.
then the conversation about marital vows came up. he brought it up, actually - he wanted a Catholic wedding, for some reason. the ONLY way to have the wedding he wanted was pre-marital counseling. at first, i went along - but the priest we saw gave me the creeps, and spent the first 3 or 4 sessions going on and on and on about what my "wifely obligations" would be. finally, i snapped "so what are HIS "husbandly" obligations, then?!"
the priest, scandalized, said that other than "providing" for me, his only obligation was as "head of the house". *I* was the only one with REAL obligations - and then he said, smugly, "obviously, you've lacked the proper education. women are to be under a man's authority at all times" and blah blah blah. then he got into children and birth control.
look, i have a disease, and it WILL KILL ME if i try to carry a pregnancy to term [11 weeks of pregnancy damned near did it.] i tried to tell the priest this, that i COULD NOT have kids, and he said "better to die a martyr than commit the sin of birth control"
i demanded to know how birth control was a sin. i got in HUGE argument with the priest, throwing verses back and forth. he got more and more angry, and finally called me a "spawn of satan, using the bible for evil"
and that's what led to me demanding a NOT Christian wedding.
seriously - most Christian dogma and rules make ZERO sense to me, and are NOT biblicially supported [especially compared to their antithesis - look at abortion, it's advised or orded BLATANTLY in multiple places...]
i guess i should thank that priest - if it weren't for him, i might never have had the argument about the wedding and vows. and been stuck married. i like to think not - i was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with K and his crap. but realisticly, i wouldn't have been fed up until AFTER we were married, if it hadn't been for that priest.
that's EXACTLY what happened with you and this Adam guy - if he hadn't started *OFF* throwing his weight around to you, if he hadn't DEMANDED your obedience right from the start, you probably would have been not only resigned to your fate, you might have looked FORWARD to it! i mean, from what i can tell, MANY QF girls look forward to being married, when they are now in charge of the house! their parents aren't there all the time yelling or preaching or whatever, and they won't have to take care of a dozen younger siblings anymore! even if your husband turns out to be an ass, at LEAST you don't have those younger siblings, and can expect your children to help once you've trained them [NOTE: i am NOT advocating or saying this is GOOD, i'm repeating what i've heard from former fundy girls/women who got married for those reasons]
Adam [ironic his name, no?] brought it on himself. in a weird way, you might even feel gratitude for his abyssmal attitude... he COULD have been more like my ex, K, hiding his patriarichal evil behind a winning and charming facade.
instead, he was a blustering asshole whose behavior gave the REASON to escape hell. Hell, *I* could kiss him for that!
on an entirely different note - write faster! or more! or something!!! [you write amazingly vividly, it just sucks me in! also, as someone else - tapati? - said, it's an edge-of-the-seat sort of tale. and i'm horrible impatient
i'm so impatient i can't watch TV, because i can't wait a week for the next part of the story! lol]
and thank you for sharing your story.
*HUGS*