I just found this audio file buried deep in my emails. It’s from a sadly, rather typical fight Asshole and I had back in the summer of 2019. As I recall, he was angry at me for picking up my phone and doing something work related in evening while I was supposed to be giving my full attention to the TV show we were watching in bed? If I also recall correctly, I was only responding because it weas actually something important that needed to be edited on Facebook related to a legislative action. Like I was saying to him, “give me a minute…hold on…I’m almost done’, because I was trying to tag elected officials or someone appropriately and NOT look like an idiot at my job. And I can even hanker to guess that I might have even let the tone of annoyance creep in as he proceeded to give me a hard time and bitch because I dare pay attention to something other than him.
I DO remember clearly that he “twocked” my phone out of my hand. You know, like he went to flick it away with his fingers, but with quite a bit of force and, yes, it fell from my hands. I was not happy about the way he did that. It was not a good touch. He definitely did it out of anger. This conversation happened immediately afterwards.

There was a time, starting maybe in 2018-2019, when I would record our “conversations” on my phone. I don’t even know what I ever intended to DO with them (it wasn’t this!), but I was feeling just so confused and the beginning of crazy. Like we would have these round and round conversations for hours and hours at a time and in the end of them, I would find myself apologizing for things with little or no recollection or logic of how we got there. I really just wanted something that i could go back to as almost assistances to my understanding. I hadn’t yet found the definition of “word salad” nor really understood gaslighting in action, so it was just all bewildering to me.
Part of me, too, thought, that IF I could get him to listen to the way he sounded, THEN he would HAVE TO SEE HOW MEAN HE WAS. Which was really always my goal through everything.. to just get him to STOP BEING MEAN AND ABUSIVE!

I did know him well enough to know that IF he KNEW I was taping, then he would throw my phone against a wall and break it. So yes, I was sneaky and hid my recordings from him for a few months. For my own sanity and to not have to spend a grand on a new phone, yes, I did that. Was I thinking that IF I had about a dozen different instances collected, that i could use those to make an impact and force him to be accountable for this behavior? Yes, that was the eventual idea. Did he sense me taping before hand and call me out on it. yup. Was I honest and told him all of the above, also yes.
Of course, he did not believe me. He insisted that I was collecting evidence to make him look like a horrible person. Not that he WAS ACTUAL a horrible person and if he DIDN’T ACT THAT WAY THEN THERE WOULD BE NOTHING TO COLLECT.
Did he insist that I hand over the handful of Mp4s I had. Yes.
Did I delate them all? No, I pretended to and sent myself copies to my work email. Did they ALL somehow disappear even thought I have search diligently for them and I have a practice of never delating anything, also, oddly, yes. In fact, my entire rather New PC suddenly fried itself out of nowhere just when I actually WAS gathering up all the evidence collected during the very last summer (2021). Do I think that he actually sabotaged that desktop because he was scared to death of his actions being seen by all. Yes, yes, I do.

Anyway, this one escaped the purge! A survivor! It’s only really the first 4 minutes. After the scuffle, nothing else happens. Which is good because honestly, this is enough. Yes, this is often how conversations with him went. Once he was triggered by something, ANYTHING, then we were off to the races and nothing I could do would help him regulate. It would be hours and hours of this, over and over again…..