We all know what chasing the carrot on the stick means. The clever farmer hung the tasty treat just far enough out of reach of his naive donkey to keep it moving in the direction he wanted.
The gaslighting cheater does the same. My husband has lead me further into debt with various methods, each one disguised to keep me following.
In the beginning he didn't have to dress that lowly ole carrot up too much. I had been a single mother who wore her kids shoes after they had outgrown them. I was perpetually five pounds under weight and let my kids eat first before I put anything on my plate.
A steady income, the ability to buy new shoes for my kids, pay all the bills on time was treat enough.
Then came the butter and glaze on that carrot. Extra money for a new car....one he wanted of course. Or maybe for someone in his family. He talked me into taking out cash advances in order to buy something before the money came. The only problem was that once the money came in he was no longer interested in taking care of that debt. He had his eyes set on something else he wanted to buy or spend that money on.
It wasn't long before I was in more debt than I would ever be able to pay off on my own. So I chased that carrot, now dressed up with Hollandaise sauce with fantasies of taking that next windfall and paying off a credit card or fixing something in the house. Only that never happened.
There were different times when I considered jumping off of this runaway train but a few thousand in the bank didn't seem like enough to live on. Or the credit cards were so close to be paid off, or I was still dazzled by that darn carrot.
Now, thousands of dollars in debt, a bad housing market and economy and an old car on it's last gasp, that few thousand in the bank and a house I could have sold looks real good.
And I wonder, now that I have no credit value or cash value is it time for him to go dangle that carrot in front of another woman?
Until next time,
Jane
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