Game #13: Excuses, excuses, EXCUSES

Passive Aggressive excuses, or, how can I make her be the bad guy for not accepting abuse?

Here’s a list of some of the excuses I’ve heard from my biggest abuser to not have been available, willing to talk, show up, follow through, keep a promise, commit to being in the relationship or not, essentially-why he couldn’t not be abusive. Of course, he didn’t see it as abusive. If you’ll note, every excuse is designed to make ME look like an asshole, should I have protested any of them.

• Forgot my kids had football practice, had to take them
• I am being subpoenaed in an extortion trial against my boss
• My sister’s ex- husband is being a dick and she needs my support and help with the kids.
• My nephew got busted for pot and I had to go bail him out of jail.
• Cell phone went through the wash, didn’t get your messages.
• Your texts didn’t all come through.
• My kids forgot their house keys and my ex is downtown and won’t be home for hours. They are staying with me tonight.
• Got to go see my grandma she is sick with cancer
• Working on my buddies’ snowmobile, said I’d help him
• I lost my phone.
• Have to go help the neighbors mow their lawn
• Helping my ex fix her motorcycle
• Plumbing in my ex’s house exploded, went over to help have to for the kids sake
• Phone went crazy, kept telling me to insert SIM card but it was in there
• Cant call you, my mom is upstairs and don’t want to wake her
• Meds for my blood pressure messing me up, fell asleep on couch
• No signal where I am staying for the weekend on road trip for snowmobiling
• Got called into work
• Mini crisis at work
• Slept all damn day, think I have the flu
• I’m feeling like I am emotionally in a coma right now.
• Didn’t want to respond to you and hurt your feelings, best to say nothing sometimes
• Been testing your patience to make sure that you want more from me than just sex
• Have to go I have an early start for work tomorrow
• I have trust issues with people and my living situation sucks
• A piece of cement fell on my head at work today
• An old girlfriend called me out of the blue and it distracted me
• My ankle is fucked and I can’t drive over
• One of my best friends just diagnosed with cancer that has spread all over

To name a few.

Yet I knew. If you have gotten excuses like this, then you knew as well. You knew he was lying, you knew that he was playing games, deep down, you just know that he is full of it. Some of the excuses- may actually be true. Most of it is crap. Yet-you can’t prove it. There was no way to verify if any of it was true. It was a lies I couldn’t prove, but just intuitively knew was a lie.

However, by the time you are done even hinting that you don’t believe in him, you have been rendered emotionally impotent by the suggestions that you are jumping to conclusions, you don’t trust him, how can you accuse him of things not having evidence, what is wrong with you, and if you didn’t react to him the way that you do, he might actually follow through on one of his many promises to be a part of your life.

Of course I saw it as bullshit. Of course, we fought about it. And yes, I did say goodbye. Many times.

It’s an emotional Chinese water torture with every interaction of this nature, eroding away your self-esteem. In fact, you may get LOTS of this. The excuses you hear for putting you off, blowing you off, letting you down, ignoring you, being unable or unwilling to communicate are meant to make you feel guilty, evil, too angry, uncompassionate, lacking, impatient, and not good enough….so you don’t see all that in him.