I saw a post on social media recently that made my blood run cold. I meant to save it but didn’t, when I tried to find it again, it was lost to the algorithm. In it, it shows a couple. It starts with her filming him as he scowls at her and gestures at the water all over the table, insisting that she spilled the water and ruined what she was working on. He glares at her while accusing her of doing “anything for views.” He is hostile and cruel. She defends herself at first, insisting that he spit water at her, but his temper quickly rises, as does his voice.
The video switches and it’s the same scene but from across the room, like it’s shot with a nanny cam. The scene repeats, but this time the viewer sees the seconds that preceded the argument. We watch him drink from a water bottle and spit it all over her, the table, and her project. He’s laughing at her until she picks up her phone to film and his tone immediately switches. He denies that he did it and launches into his deranged accusations. She is covering her mouth and backing away from him, clearly holding back sobs.
Maybe it was staged for views. It’s strange to live in a time where everyone is always filming and we no longer can easily tell what is real and what is done for an audience. Regardless, everything about it was triggering. The tone of his voice, his insistence that he did not do the malicious thing and blaming her for it, questioning her reality and insisting she was the one who made the mess.
I remember in my marriage, going to bed in tears after some insane argument and secretly googling “what is gaslighting” because I had heard the term, but didn’t understand what it meant. Was that what I was experiencing? Is it gaslighting when your husband does something insane and then insists that he didn’t, even though it was right in front of you? What is it called when you have to constantly either accept that he is lying or question whether reality actually happened?
He could argue over a speck of dust. I notice the baby highchair in the video and I remember when my son was small, sitting in his bedroom with him, trying to get him to sleep and soothing him over an argument he witnessed, one that didn’t make any sense and I wanted to help him comprehend. I explained to him what it means to make mountains out of molehills, and how sometimes poppa couldn’t see the molehill at all, all he could do was make mountains. That it was nobody’s fault and we could let him be upset about his mountain, because we both knew it was really a molehill.
On bad days, he would lose his temper at things utterly inconsequential, a sippy cup not rinsed out or blocks left scattered on the floor. From early on, I made myself into a human shield between him and the kids, making sure I was always in charge of bedtime, and the floor and dishes were clean before he came home from work. Instead of standing up to him, I made sure nothing was ever wrong. I bent myself over backwards to make sure he was happy all the time, because when his temper raged it was not just terrifying, but confusing for all involved. Why was he always so angry?
Every year on the Fourth of July we would go to his high school friend’s house, for 15+ years we celebrated independence day surrounded by good friends at a backyard barbecue, as god and James Brown intended. The last year before COVID, our friend was putting an addition on his house and the party moved to a nearby park.
I had asked Dave to please be sober and not drink, but parties make him anxious so he handled that request by retreating to the basement to get as drunk as possible before we left for the party. By the time we arrived mid-afternoon, he was more than three sheets to the wind, but surrounded by friends and old acquaintances and good food, I did my best to just let it go. I’d glance from across the picnic area at him talking to someone with a beer in his hand, and when he caught me looking he’d dramatically put the drink behind his back and laugh. I could hear the exaggerated “Chicken thinks I’m an alcoholic!!” jokes as I looked away.
After a few hours in the sun, he was more than a little wasted. He came to me and tried to hug and kiss at me but I was annoyed and told him to go chase the children around instead. Frustrated, he stormed off to the playground, where he started a game of chase with our kids and our friends’ kids. He was laughing and playfully spitting at the kids and running away from them when he chose the wrong kid mess with. The child, not part of our party, went back to his family and pointed at Dave. “That drunk man is spitting at me.”
The family immediately leapt to intervene, with the kid’s father pushing Dave up against a fence and telling him to stay the fuck away from his kids.
I wasn’t within earshot and I don’t know how it got out of control, but there was shouting and within moments, Dave was on the ground. Before I knew it, a police SUV was in the park, two of them rolling in with cherries on. The officers approached the situation while I grabbed my friend, the party host. I remember his calm energy as I dug my fingers into his forearm.
“They’re going to arrest him.”
“They’re not going to arrest him,” the friend was calm. “It was just a misunderstanding.” He was a paramedic and presumably knew more about these types of things than I did.
The officers led Dave over to the SUV, and even though I was 20 feet away I could tell he was about to have a panic attack. He was shaking and had that wild look in his eye, he was holding his arms above his head despite not being instructed to and shouting “PLEASE DON’T SHOOT ME! I’M SCARED YOU’RE GOING TO SHOOT ME!” while a crowd began to gather.
The three male officers surrounded him and tried to get him to calm down, while the one woman officer approached me. I identified myself as his wife and she pulled me out of earshot of the others.
She calmly asked me, “Is he off of his meds?”
I didn’t know what to say. “He isn’t medicated.”
“Oh.” A pause. “Is he always like this?”
My face was immediately hot with shame and embarassment, tears threatening to cascade down my red cheeks. “Only when he’s drunk.”
Her guarded concern for me was apparent on her face. “I understand.”
They put him into the back of the SUV while the kids and I stood next to each other, apart from our friend group, while onlookers watched. They wanted to book him for drunk and disorderly conduct, but he didn’t bring his wallet or driver’s license to the party. Using my ID, they wrote him up but I begged and plead and talking them out of arresting him with assurances that we would immediately leave and I would drive him home. They let us go with just a warning.
On the drive him, he was hysterical. Screeching at the corrupt Minneapolis police about how he hadn’t done anything wrong, that they were insane, that he hadn’t been chasing the children, that he hadn’t spit at anyone. I watched the kids in the rearview mirror, wondering what they were thinking, unable to protect them from this particular mountain that was, for once, not a molehill. How do you help your children through watching their dad be put in the back of the police car? I couldn’t decide if I felt happy and relieved that they hadn’t arrested him, or if maybe this time it would have been better if they had.
Nearing the house, his rant changed and he switched to how much happier we would all be if he was gone, that he was going to take the keys and go drive off the Lake Street Bridge tonight after we were all asleep. At the house, he retreated to the basement to finish the bottle of Jameson he had started in the afternoon while I put a movie on for the children. Later, after he had finally passed out, I took his keys and mine and the kids and I walked to the bike bridge to see if we could still see the fireworks. On the walk home, I called the friend who had hosted the party and apologized. I felt so bad for ruining the party. We were never invited back.
So sorry you had to go through this and your children had to witness it. Living with someone with so much rage is difficult -- I know. I experienced many decades of the same before my first husband died. I hope you have peace in your life now.
... we were never invited back... That got me. I'm glad your life is moving forward now, instead of constantly waiting for all the air to be sucked out of the room, the party and your lungs.