My Husband Refuses to Recognize Reality

This story is one of hundreds Colin Flaherty planned to publish in a book before his death. American Renaissance will post one a week.

My husband and I are college graduates. He has a masters in social work and I have a degree in communications. We both come from upper-middle class families, him from the Boston area and me from Scottsdale. We met in college and I was instantly taken with him, his romantic progressive approach to life, his brains and his energy. I still love him very much. Since we had both lived such sheltered lives, and since he was getting his Masters in social work, we both agreed that we needed to experience life at the other end of the spectrum and after he graduated. And we did. We moved to one of the absolute worst areas of one of the worst cities in the country. My husband was able to land a decent job as a victims advocate working for the county and I got one working in job placement, but left after getting pregnant. We have lived here for 18 months and we have seen and heard everything: murders, robberies, bodies lying in the street, power outages, garbage not picked up for weeks at a time, etc. Any symptom of urban blight you can name, we have experienced. I have been assaulted and groped twice while trying to get into our building. I actually feel fortunate that is the worst that has happened to me. As much as I hate to say this, as two (now three) white people, we absolutely stand out and I believe the only reason we haven’t experienced worse is because people know we are willing to call the cops.

We had our son about six months ago. My husband always promised me that we would move once he came because he knows how afraid I am to live here. I essentially became a hermit that doesn’t leave our apartment. Sometimes, the isolation makes me feel like I’m losing my mind, especially with a six-month-old baby. As much as he promised, every time I brought up moving he would tell me (truthfully) that he had a really important case he was working, and that if he left the neighborhood his “clients” would lose faith in him and see him as another slum tourist just earning a check. I appreciate his honesty, but six weeks ago, I took our son and went to stay with my parents in Arizona. I hate admitting this as well, but I am finally sleeping at night because I feel like I can relax and not worrying about what may or may not be flying through our window.

I made it clear to my husband that I’d like him to move down to the Southwest, too. Instead of doing so, last Friday he issued me an ultimatum, demanding that our son and I return to him. I said that I would but I needed a guarantee that we would be moving soon. With that, he started screaming at me (and I do mean screaming), saying I was a typical, racist, middle class, white bitch who couldn’t handle the true nature of the world and was “turning a blind eye to reality.” I let him rant for a while, then calmly responded that I felt like I had done my time living in the inner city, and as much as I agreed that we both had been spoiled by our childhood, I had to consider our son now and that he should as well. He hung up. I resisted the urge to tell him I would soon be contacting a lawyer.

Since then he has called me dozens of times and sent an avalanche of texts. The message is always about how sorry he is. I have yet to respond. He also called my dad under the auspices of just making sure our son and I were safe. At no point has he said what he needs to: That he will move us to a safer place.

I don’t need to be called names. I don’t need to feel guilty for thinking of my baby’s safety. I have lived in our ghetto a long time and have both physical and mental trauma to show for it. My heart breaks for the people who don’t have the means to leave, but I have to think of my son’s safety and I’m heartbroken that my husband can’t appreciate this. I think it’s probably time to get the divorce proceedings underway.