Curse of the Phone

As crazy as this sounds we went round and round over my phone.  Keep in mind that he didn't pay my bills and he didn't have access to them either. That didn't stop him from insisting he should be allowed to review my phone records.


As in most instances the phones were a double standard.  Mine only came into play while he was insisting I account for my time.  He would ask, "What do you do with your day?"  "I wish I had a camera in this house so I could see what it is you do with your time!"


I suppose he justified those remarks and the camera comment because of a minor infraction on my part.  He didn't see his requests as unreasonable.  If something were left in the dryer (my dryer) by mistake, the outrageous commentary would start and it would somehow be tied in with my phone.


If my phone would ring while he was home he would become agitated and tell me, "I bet it's one of your kids!"  He hated my phone and initially, I had no idea that it bothered him.  It didn't take long for him to let me know it was a sore point.  Admittedly, I did spend my share of time on my phone but it was primarily when he wasn't home anyway.


While he was working out of town and would call, there was hell to pay if I had my grandson.  Not always but I never knew when he would react and start in on me.  I did everything short of gagging the child to keep him quiet.  I didn't want my emotional vampire to hear him in the background.  I loved having him, but "he" would get annoyed if I got distracted or the focus was off him. 


I started getting anxiety when the phone would ring.  If I were with friends and I said I would call him back he would say, "I can tell I'm not important, bye" and hang up on me.  I started to feel badly if I was doing something with anyone.  His expectations were that I always be available to satisfy his needs, but he refused to meet few if any of mine.  Not that this was a competition by any stretch of the imagination, however, relationships are supposed to be both give and take.  He was a taker.


He was still insisting that he wanted to see my phone records.  He told me that if I showed them to him and he was wrong, he would apologize to me.  This was no way to live.  The assault on what I did with my time was ongoing.  He would bring up the phone records many times and each time I refused to print them out.  I wasn't about to give in and the time I spent talking to my kids and friends was mine alone.


He often told me I was a spoiled brat if I asked something of him.  He also told me that I was selfish and that he could tell I was used to getting my way.  In this relationship I was far from spoiled and in all fairness, I was extremely emotionally deprived.


His demands were unreasonable and motivated by his selfish and abusive nature.  What he was attempting to do was isolate me as much as possible.  Although he was out of town and he knew I wasn't doing anything close to being unfaithful,  he wanted to monopolize all of my time.