I'm Tired Of Playing This Game

Just as I had expected, my joyful, carefree relaxed feeling ended abruptly as soon as Dick came home following his jaunt. Without a doubt the ambiance of our home suddenly took on a cool, unwelcoming, unfriendly air. It was unmistakable. I've heard that people emit their own positive or negative energy fields. Dick's aura has to be in the sub-zero zone. Whenever I get too close to him, my blood turns to ice. Trust me, it's true. Experiencing it firsthand is uncanny.

Renewed, refreshed and recharged from his recent excursion, Dick was raring to go. He wasted no time in picking up where he left off prior to his departure. I knew things were too good to last. I just can't stand how brief the respite is between his unending, maniacal malicious attacks. I'm well aware that these bouts are his rush... his drug of choice. Putting others down, outsmarting someone else, getting away with something he shouldn't brings Dick to life. He craves this need for power and control. For far too long, I've been his favorite target, and an easy one at that. He knew he could do whatever he wanted to me and get away with it because he didn't have to account for his actions to anyone. Thankfully that's all changing now.

Throughout the years, I've often wondered what occurred in his childhood that would cause him to become such an angry, bitter, rage-filled, mean-spirited man. Always so secretive about his past, Dick built an impenetrable wall around himself that was impossible to scale. After a while I gave up trying and caring. To stay sane, I also built a protective fortress around myself. This relationship that the two of us shared required way too much energy, work and fortitude. It drained the life out of me. I was completely spent and I wanted and needed him and his venom out of my life. But I still had a long way to go before that would happen.

Like a preschooler, Dick loves to play games and makes up his own rules changing them at whim to guarantee he is always the winner. His latest escapade was to order me around with demands for food and other items that he expected me to buy for him with the money he was required to give to me. While he was busy conjuring up outlandish requests, I kept telling him if he wanted something, then he should have gone out and bought it himself. Without fail, this set off major verbal sparring matches. Neither one of us won and the level of communication, respect and civility declined several notches with each incident. Even though I was in the court and Dick was not, he adamantly tried to convince me that he knew exactly what the judge meant by ordering Dick to give me cash for spending money and my lawyer and I had totally misunderstood the situation. Luckily for me, he was more than happy to enlighten me.

And he tried to educate me on several occasions. There was one particular incident that took the cake for farcical behavior. Dick decided that he didn't care for the loaf of bread that I bought and in no uncertain terms, told me which bakery to go to, what variety I needed to find for him and when I should pick it up... because, as he put it, "That was what the judge ruled. I was supposed to buy all the food and necessities for the house with the money he gave me to do so." I outright refused. Dick was not used to me disobeying him. He went ballistic. Regardless, I stood my ground. I did not buy him what he wanted. As a means to retaliate, he placed umpteen phone calls to his lawyer regarding that loaf of bread. His legal fees for those repeated phone calls cost a a lot of dough. When all was said and done, he learned that I was supposed to have access to the checkbook all along. For the first time in his life, he was losing at his own game.