JustMattHenry.com: gossip, life and humor

Joint Counseling, Separate Bedrooms and Unhinged Thoughts

By

Matthew Henry

If I could kill my boyfriend and get away with it, I would.  I know just where to stash the body after the deed is done.  There’s a parcel of land in West Virginia, seven acres of mountain views, which we looked at last summer as a place to perhaps build a nice vacation home away from the city.  Tucked away in the woods on that land there’s a little wooden shack—an old outhouse, maybe—with a rusty lock on the door.  When I first saw that dilapidated structure, even before I had plans to kill the boyfriend, my very first thought was, I could hide a body there.  Or rather, somebody could hide a body there.  I would hide his dead body there or, at least, parts of his body.  Best to scatter them around, I imagine. 

Believe me, I’m shocked, shocked, to hear myself say such things.  But he’s driven me to it.  Three years of cheating and lying and pretending to be someone else (laid out for me, of course, like some cheap buffet just this past Christmas) has landed us in joint counseling and separate bedrooms.  Such thoughts have become part of my daily routine.  Yes, there are the tears and the sadness, the self-pity and self-loathing.  Yes, I feel the anger and the hate, the worry and the stress.  Sometimes, I feel a boost of empowerment.  Fuck him.  I don’t need him.  Most of the time, however, I feel vengeful. 

Revenge fantasies are quite fun, actually.  Full of performances that would win me a whole mantle full of awards, they all serve one ultimate goal:  to hurt him; to make him feel what I’m feeling now; to make him want to just curl up and die. 

I don’t believe in an eye for eye stuff.  That’s amateurish.  Going out and whoring it up isn’t going to do me any good, especially if I’m shelling out a thousand a month for therapy to save this perhaps unsalvageable union.  Besides, if cheating didn’t bother him much when he did it (again and again), I’m pretty sure it’s not going to bother him that I do it. 

Sometimes I think about killing myself.  Honestly?  I do.  I know it would hurt him.  He would feel responsible.  My parents, my friends and co-workers would glare at him at my funeral, thousands of people strong (I’m quite popular), knowing it’s all his fault.  He hurt me so bad that I just couldn’t go on living.  I would hurt a lot of other people though by doing that.  I don’t want to hurt them.  Just him. 

What if I just accidentally died?  A car accident.  A mugging gone too far.  Mauled by pit bulls.  How sad he would feel.  Going through all my things, packing them up along with my dog and driving them down to my parents, oh, the hurt and sense of loss pulsating through his veins, throbbing at his temples!  What joy!  But all those sound kind of painful, and I’m not too keen on that whole blood thing.  Maybe if I was in a plane crash or an explosion.  No pain.  Just death.  Lord, I’m morbid.

Sometimes I think if I just beat the crap out of him that might be therapeutic.  I’ve never been in a fist fight before, but I’ve always kind of wanted to.  I’d totally kick his ass too.  No competition.  No way.  Blacken an eye; break a nose, and one right in the groin to really pound my message home.  And he would have to continue his life with those bruises and cuts, and people will ask, “What the hell happened?”

“Matt did it,” he would reply.

“Well, good for him.  You deserved it.  No, seriously, you did.”

Those bruises will fade and those cuts will disappear.  He would be left with only a memory of the night his boyfriend kicked his ass.  Unless I knifed him.  That would leave a scar, something that he would have to look at every single day and be reminded of what he did.  The same way that I have to look at our couch, where I watch television, where I nap, where I fold his underwear, and be reminded of what happened the one time he brought it home with him.  But again, with knives, there’s blood and I’m just not into that or cleaning up the mess it would make. 

Truth is though, these are just crazy thoughts that need to get out of my head.  I love him too much.  Each counseling session is a step towards recovery, and I—we—can only take it one day at a time.  We have so much work now before us, and I’m pretty sure I have not cried my last tears.  I have just as much work to do as he does.  At night, as I lie awake unable to sleep, listening to him breathing in the other bedroom, wishing I had the courage to just crawl in there with him, my mind wanders.  What if?  What if one of these horrible day dreams came true?  What if I lost control of myself and committed some heinous act?  It’s all just therapy.  Just get it out.  Out of my head and onto paper.  Crazy.

I love him, and the last thing I would ever do is hurt him.  I don’t care what he’s put me through; I don’t care how much pain he’s caused me.  I would never hurt him.  Besides, West Virginia is such a drive.