The spoon - 11/2 - Censored version

Not sure where this one fits-

Kara's married life spiraled steadily downward in the years following the birth of her second daughter. Between fights, separations, and her husband's physical and mental illnesses and drug addiction, she managed to keep things afloat, but at a terrible personal  cost.
      How many times can a person be called stupid,a c*nt, a cow, a b*t*h before she internalizes and it makes her feel worthless? How many times can the mouth that said "I love you" and "I do",  the mouth that kisses you when you "make love" -- how many times can that mouth spill lies and vitriol until she tunes him out, becomes numb, dreams of killing him, fantasizes about affairs? How long does it take her to realize she is setting a bad example for her kids? How many sleepless nights? How many episodes of yelling, screaming, spitting, punching holes in walls? Sometimes the final straw is a little one in the grand scheme of things. Sometimes there is a whole stack of them and finally something clicks. If you had asked her a couple of years ago, she would have said, "I was never abused. My relationship wasn't perfect, but whose is?" What does it take for her to realize she was abused? For some it might take a shovel. For her, it takes a spoon.
     She looks at the spoon in the drawer. She always avoids it. So do the kids. Tom has been gone 4 months, and still everyone avoids the spoon. The unspoken rule. "Daddy's spoon." If you asked Tom about it, he would laugh, say how stupid she is being, and say, "What's the big deal? I like my spoon because it was my grandma's." But it isn't that Tom liked the spoon. It's that he obsessed about that spoon. "That's my spoon", "Why do you have my spoon", "Give me my spoon"  It became a rule. One of many rules. Don't touch the spoon, the bowl, the remote. Don't be too loud in the morning. Don't let the cat in the bedroom, don't let the cat on the couch. Don't let the cat in the bathroom. No wonder the cat peed on his stuff. He hated him. Apparently, the cat had more sense than Kara did, for a long time.
     There are many things like that. She wants a man who doesn't care if she snores. She wants a man who doesn't heckle her driving until she is shaking like a leaf and driving in circles in hysterics. She wants a man who likes the dog, and the cat. She wants a man she can trust.
     In the end the financial toll was high -- infidelity to the tune of $50,000 in the form of everything from stolen cash to credit without her knowledge, to bounced cheques in her name, and pawned and stolen items from the house. She will never know exactly how much and what, because he will never admit all the things he did.
     As for the incidents, they are still coming back, in bits and pieces. Bits and pieces she feels obligated to write down. Maybe it will help someone. Maybe it will make her not feel so isolated. Maybe it will help her move on. She just knows it is something she is compelled to continue doing.

Reviews

[Matching Socks]

I read this first. Am I in the right order. First from the top?
This sets a good base for the story which is to come, which I don't think will be pretty.

[Lyn Anderson]

Sort of. I have decided this should be right after the Prologue. Then the rest are labelled sequentially.

[John Alexander McFadyen]

Ok I read this out of sequence. It sets out the exact nature of the abuse very well and the way in which it is difficult for the abused person to accept what is happening to them as the struggle to cope using displacement and denial

[Lyn Anderson]

Yes, well, the spoon happened during but after, and I may have to re-write to put it all together. At the time, the whole thing started with opening the drawer.

[Vidya Bacchus]

This is sad kitty.Kara deserves to have somebody treat her right.How Tom behaved and treated her was wrong and that was because he was unhappy with himself and a bully.Kara and the kids are free now and its like being imprisoned for so long that when the doors finally open you are hesitant to take the first step.I personally would throw that damn spoon so far away I would never have to look at it again.