Confused feelings

Living with an Abusive Partner

Living with an abusive partner while chronically ill or disabled, feelings and reason become horribly confused. The need for really desperate need for understanding care is unavoidable, but it isn't there. Reason, and a sense of self preservation, conflict with the feelings of love for the person -- the partner.
The pathology of abuse doesn't help. And Abuser cannot stop abusing, but will inexplicably reverse themselves at times to seem caring and even generous, as if the Abuser suddenly gets a conscience and needs to make up for their cruelty.

The Visit

When I was in the hospital after having a new hip installed, a Birmingham hip resurfacing really -- two pieces of titanium intended to grow into the bones of the hip and the femur to replace the completely absent cartilage, Ob rarely contacted me. Normally, such an operation means a 10-day hospital stay. Because of my size, and the simple fact that I didn't want to go home, I stayed 26 days.
The doctors kept me until I could put full body weight on the joint in the aqua therapy tank.

One day, Ob came in to visit. I missed her, and called to ask her to bring me some snack food.
She came. The expression on her face was one of looking at something foul.
In a wheelchair, she rolled me down to the cafeteria. I asked her to have a friend from New Zealand check my bank accounts online. She was affronted and said, "You trust (this friend) with your passwords and not me?" -- She was obviously disgusted and resentful.

I reminded her that she had threatened that she "had found a way to have me removed from the house" only two months before. Actually, she had threatened it over and over for most of two months. Her threats were that she could "take over the house and everything in it." She showed me two contrived entries to a "diary of abuse" she was compiling.
I read them, then pointed out that what she called abuse wasn't even a disagreement. We had settled both issues long ago. But that most of both documents certainly showed her selfish, cruel attitude in detail.
She finally relented when I forced her to admit there were no grounds for such orders, but stated flatly that it didn't matter.
(These days, I think forcing Ob to admit there were no grounds triggered the Abuser's switch to "generosity." I'll never know, of course.)

I had talked to volunteers at the hospital about my fears that I wouldn't have a place to return to when I went home. Telling them that I expected to find my things had been sitting in the rain.
One volunteer suggested that I get Intervention Orders against Ob and her grown daughter, Lob, who lived with us. (This was actually the first time I'd heard the term, "Intervention Order". Ob had just used a vague threat.) But then he chuckled, at the time I could only lie on my back in the hospital bed, "But you'd have to go to court to do it."

I mentioned my fears to the physician overseeing my care; and saw the hospital psychologist once.
Frankly, I didn't have time or energy to fight Ob and Lob and their plans. From where I was, I had to focus on recovering.

Ob had found the Birmingham Hip Resurfacing and brought it to my attention after that exchange. She was still telling me that I was only there out of her pity, and "everyone" knew it -- meaning her family, since that was our social circle. She even told me that "everyone" knew how I was treating her. -- I asked if "everyone" knewhow she and Lob were acting towards me? (That drew an angry silence...)

My increasing disability and her need for secrecy had excluded everyone else over those two years, even the next door neighbors.
She agreed to put the surgery onto a credit card so that I could use private insurance to have the operation.
Such twists of attitude cause powerfully confusing feelings:
One one hand, there is a sense of gratitude, even wanting to believe the person had changed and .. loved. On the other hand, her words were cold. Strangely, I could tell that she herself was torn inside. But as usual, we couldn't talk about it.

Confusion and Hope are just Denial

The worst confusion was the feeling of elation at just seeing Ob that day. I always had a happy feeling when I saw her, even on her most cruel days.
In the back of my mind were thoughts that I didn't dare express to Ob. Thoughts that I would come through all of this; that this painful surgery was the last of a bad patch in our relationship; and that I would prove myself to her -- and to her family -- in the future.
I had spent long hours studying for a career change to trainer/assessor. And more long hours studying specifically how to deliver such training online or in a blended presentation. More long hours were spent relearning the multitude of capabilities in the software used in business.
Quietly to myself, I planned to put all of these last few years behind me and make a better future.

Distant

All of these powerful feelings, hopes, and conflicts had to be pushed aside for that month in the hospital. I barely had the strength to concentrate on getting better. I realize now that it was just well-practiced denial; another way of making excuses for her brutal attitudes.
When I returned from the hospital, Ob and Lob were ever more distant; and Ob seemed to feel more free to be bitterly hurtful when she spoke.