SooperMom2008
Finally, our conversations began to turn towards marriage. The romantic proposal took place in the perfect setting and, of course, I said YES! Our wedding was beautiful…. although not everything I’d ever imagined as a little girl. On our way out of the parking lot, everything changed. He was angry. Our honeymoon lacked the mix of tenderness and fun that I had anticipated. There was no longer a sparkle in his eye or admiration in his look.
From then on, things went downhill. From the very beginning he sexually abused me multiple times a week, sometimes more than once a day and many times after he had not showered for four or five days.
He would make fun of me if I cried, getting in my face and calling me a baby or mocking my cries.
He would play mind games with me, telling me that he wanted me to be more aggressive and “sexy” during sex but, when I would try to initiate, he would turn me down and walk away. About three months after we were married, he told me to quit telling him that I loved him because it made him feel like he had to say it back.
He treated me like a servant, getting angry if no housework was done while he was at work. He would blow snot onto the couch, carpet, walls or at me, my pillow, etc. On top of this, he made fun of my background and upbringing. He was constantly saying that if he hadn’t married me he would be wealthy.
A honeymoon pregnancy and partial bed-rest didn’t stop the abuse. Everything continued and even escalated over time. He slapped me on the cheek, smiled and peered around to see if it had left a mark. He continued to get angry if the housework wasn’t done, despite the fact that I wasn’t supposed to do it. To top everything off, I had now become a victim of marital rape on several occasions.
His anger was sporadic and explosive. I kept telling him that something had to change. If I tried to leave the house when he was upset (making me cry and shaken) he would grab my arms, stand in the door way and hide my car keys. He would make fun of me, ignore me, disregard my feelings and make everything my fault. He would raise his hand to hit me and I would recoil.
Our son was born and post-birth life was even worse than before. My husband wanted nothing to do with the baby. I felt completely alone in taking care of him. Our son was very sick the first couple weeks and, when he would cry, my husband would jolt him and scream in his face to “SHUT UP!” The few times he carried him, he carried our son around by the front of his clothes. Once, he got angry at a football game and punched a hole in the wall.
Just a few weeks after our son was born, my husband raped me out of a much-needed nap.
About a month later, he told me that he had been addicted to pornography. He said that’s what had been fueling his anger. We talked for a while and he seemed genuine. But… thirty minutes later, he wanted sex.
I was in and out of the ER with stress-induced anxiety attacks.
In public, my husband was the perfect husband and father. Behind closed doors, life was hell. Those precious few moments where I saw a glimmer of my pre-married life kept me hoping that things would change and I’d have the man I married back. I have since discovered that people only change who are willing to admit that there is a problem.
After a year in hiding, I am now divorced, have a great job and love being a mom. My son is my life, the sun in my universe and the reason I get out of bed every morning. As a survivor, I am special and I can now live every moment knowing that as a fact! My goal is to encourage victims and survivors to do the same!
Kristi
He paced up and down the hall with a sledgehammer slung over his shoulder, marching with a drunken sway from the kitchen on one end of the house to the children’s bedroom door at the other. It was well past midnight and he had just gotten home from another late evening with his buddies. He reeked of rum and sweat. His hair was standing up in damp clumps and his eyes bulged out from behind his glasses. My three girls lay asleep in their beds behind the closed bedroom door. They were 7,6, and 4 years old, so young and innocent, and I desperately wanted them to sleep through this nightmare.
“I’m going to smash all the windows out of your van,” he bellowed at me with drops of foamy spit falling onto the floor between us. “I’m going to break something of yours, you fucking psycho bitch.”
He swung the sledgehammer down into the carpet and it made a thudding sound that I hoped was not enough to wake up the girls. Clenched in his other fist was a piece of paper I had not noticed when he came flying in the front door. He only swung the sledgehammer hard enough to terrify me, not hard enough enough to damage anything. He appeared out of control, but really was completely in control of himself and the sledgehammer.
I didn’t care about myself or the house or my van. I was only concerned with standing between him and that bedroom door.
“Yes, I checked the mail box and look what I found!” He threw the crumpled letter at me and swung the sledgehammer back up over his head, holding it over me. I hurriedly grabbed the crumpled paper off the floor and smoothed out part of it. The handwriting was that of my good friend Abrah, who lived 2600 miles away in Vermont. She was my roommate in college, my fellow traveler, and one of very few people he had not driven away. We stayed in touch through the years and I had called her a couple of weeks before, looking for some encouragement. Things were becoming increasingly difficult after eight years of escalating rages. She didn’t know enough to not write me letters. Most husbands don’t check every piece of mail, the caller ID every day, every person I ever talked to and every place I’d been.
“Don’t bother reading it,” he slurred at me. “I’ll tell you what it says. I’ve got it memorized.” Then he began to screech at me in a made up Abrah voice. “Dear Kristi, I was sad to hear things weren’t going well for you. Someday you’ll get your chance to get away from that man and if there’s anything I can do . . .” he paused to catch his breath.
Then his tone switched back to bellowing beast. “What did you tell her? What did you say about me? I own all of this. I put this roof over your head. Then you tell your friends how awful I am. Where’s the proof? You made it all up. Lies. Lies. You’re a liar. I’ll take it all away from you, you fucking bitch!”
His eyes were popping out of their sockets. Part of me watched this scene from the outside and laughed at how bizarre he looked. It felt like a freak show at the circus. Look at the scary angry man, angrier than any human ought to be. With his free hand he pulled on his hair, causing it to stand straight up in the air. I had been frozen in front of the girls’ bedroom door, more worried about them seeing this than for my own safety, but as his behavior was becoming more erratic by the moment I began to run through safety plans in my head.
I couldn’t leave the house while the girls were still trapped here with him. He knew I loved them and that I couldn’t live without them. I would stand in his way no matter how hideous he became. I couldn’t call the police. I had tried that before but they said all they could do was to escort me and whatever I could carry out of the house and we could stay in a safe house for three days. There was no place to put my cats and dog and no plan after the three days were over. He would kill the pets and I would be on the streets with the girls.
I had stayed home with them for the most part and had no resume, no paycheck, and he kept a careful eye on every penny so I couldn’t stash any away. I was broke. I was isolated from anyone who could help me. I was embarrassed by his behavior. I was backed into a corner, trapped like an animal. I looked at him with all the calmness I could pull from deep in my soul. He would not see my fear. My calm was the only thing I had left to fight with.
He turned to march back toward the kitchen. The phone was in the living room, through a doorway on the left, half way to the kitchen. If I was fast enough I could grab it and run back. If I was too slow he would be between me and the children, able to drive me from the house, lock me out and then . . . well then I’m not really sure what he’d do. I took a chance and ran into the living room, grabbed the phone which was lying on the coffee table and ran back to my place in the hall while speed dialing the closest person I knew who might be able to help me. He answered on the second ring as my husband was turning at the end of his path to the kitchen.
“Jason,” I half-whispered into the phone. “He’s got a sledgehammer and he’s walking around the house with it.”
“Do you want me to come over and talk to him?” he asked.
“Yes, please. But be careful. He’s drunk and he’s on a rampage.”
He was coming back toward me, eyes glaring at me, bloodshot from behind his thick glasses, pulling on his hair with one hand and holding the sledgehammer tightly with the other. A pause in his step showed me that he’d seen the phone in my hand and I let him grab it from my hand and throw it on the floor. We stood staring each other down. White flecks of spit clung to the corners of his mouth.
I concentrated on making it from one breath to the next.
It took Jason less than five minutes to show up at the front door. He didn’t knock. He just walked right in with a quiet courage I couldn’t help but admire. Joe quickly stashed the sledgehammer in the closet just off the living room and stopped pacing. He stood in the middle of the kitchen floor ranting to himself under his breath. It was getting more and more difficult for him to pretend everything was okay in front of other people. He couldn’t turn on that charm and tell everyone I’d made it all up anymore.
“I’m going to drive him around for a little while until he calms down,” Jason said, and he led Joe to the door.
Hours later I woke to the front door closing. Joe was laying on the couch, passed out. Feeling came rushing back to me out of the numbness that had filled my head the second I had seen him with the sledgehammer. Now I was angry. More than angry, murderous. How dare he! How was it my fault that I was unhappy in this and trying to get out of it? Was I to be punished for even thinking about it?Looking at him lying there all nice and peaceful now that the night was over I also knew that he was becoming more and more dangerous. He would get up in the morning and pretend nothing had happened and he’d play with the kids and cook everyone breakfast. He knew enough to never cross the line into something I could take to the police. He never said he was going to kill me. But it would only take a second for all that to change and for him to hit me with a sledgehammer.
This was the night I decided to start planning my escape. It would have to be an escape. There was no way to do it out in the open. He would kill me if he knew.
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The following post was written about a scene that occurred nine years ago. Kristi says, “I did leave after a lot of careful planning and having to ask people for help. Although it was hard at times, I worked hard and earned a master’s degree and now I work as a therapist helping other people through difficult things. It’s now nine years later and while he still bothers me sometimes I’m doing just fine!” Today she writes over here.
Melody
He said, “This is going to go according to my plan. You only decide how sore you are going to be in the morning.” I said, “No, I don’t want to do that.” Apparently, that was the wrong answer.
He said, “If you had been here, like you said you would, I wouldn’t have to do this.” I said, “The party was more fun than I thought it would be.”
He said, “Did I tell you you could move?” I said, “I’m cold.” Still not the right answer.
He said, “Are you going to be able to keep from screaming?” I said, “I don’t know, but I’ll try.”
He said, “Are you going to be still, or are you going to make me chase you?” I said, “I’ll be still.” Still not good enough.
He said, “You look almost scared enough. You bite that pillow or whatever you need to do, but if you scream…” And I said, “I won’t, I promise, I won’t scream, I won’t.”
He said, “I really don’t understand why you made me do that to you.” I said, “I’m sorry.”
And I realized there was not ever going to be a right answer.
He said, “This isn’t bad yet, is it? It takes a lot more than that to make you cry. And I know you know better than to scream here. You don’t want me to really hurt you. This is just fun.”
He said, “You’re going to play along like a good girl, or I’m going to shatter your ankle with a baseball bat. Do you want to see the bat?”
He said, “I wonder what would happen if I broke that inside you? I suppose I’d just cut myself when I fucked you.”
I said nothing at all. For five years after he finally left, I said nothing at all. There was no answer, nothing I could say. There was silence and pain.
And then I said, “Something happened to me.”
I said, “I can’t make the memories stop.”
I said, “I’m afraid I deserved it.”
I said, “I don’t have to be scared anymore.”
I said, “No one has ever had the right to treat me like that.”
I said, “I am not what he made me.”
And today, I said, “This is my story. Because it is mine, there are no wrong answers. I refuse to be silent.”
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Chibi Jeebs
Note: This post was originally written in January 2010 and appeared on Chibi’s personal blog.
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Jenn of Princess Prose has been writing a very educational and thought-provoking series on relationships. Part 4 hit particularly close to home because it involves trust. Recently I wrote about wondering if I’m good enough, and how trusting myself is a struggle. I know that a lot of my issues (or a large portion of my issues) could be chalked up to childhood, growing up, what have you; however, there is one piece of the puzzle that overrides everything.
When I was 18, I met a guy named Matt who was younger than I, but his… “extracurricular activities” made him experienced far beyond his years. He had brilliant blue eyes that flashed devilishly, and a dimple deep enough to fall into when he’d turn his disarming smile your way. He was trouble, all right. A whole lot of trouble.
The relationship was bad from the start. Right from go, we hid it from friends and family because of the age difference (as well, there was no way I could tell my family that I was involved with someone with the “pastimes” he participated in). He had a violently explosive temper that was quick to ignite; I was never afraid of him, but I was scared by his angry outbursts – I stood frozen in his doorway one night as he raged around his bedroom, yanking the phone out of the wall before chucking it out the window, and ripping the closet door off its hinges before launching it down the hall. He would be a heaving mass of adrenalin-driven fury one minute, and a sobbing puddle of remorse the next. I was always uncomfortably on edge around him, never knowing which version of Dr. Jekyll I would be spending time with.
He was my first. The first guy I was in a relationship with that lasted more than a month and a half. The first guy I slept with. The first guy I said “I love you” to. He fucked me up so badly, some times I’m amazed I’m able to participate in a healthy relationship today.
You see, he had another girlfriend. That’s right: the entire year and a half we were together, he was still seeing (and screwing) his “ex.” At first, he’d play the game where he’d pick a fight with me to give him an excuse to not speak to me for a few days; during this time, he’d go back to her. I’m not sure if the crawling back routine (which was more a grudging, pissy phone call on his part than a tail-between-the-legs apology) was because he missed me, or if he was just tired of his other plaything. That went on for quite some time until he either got sloppy or just couldn’t be bothered to hide it anymore: I discovered that he was still sleeping with her by spotting the hickies all over his body – I’m sure she was sending me a message, too. He messed around with a number of other girls during his tenure, as well, all girls who apparently knew he had a girlfriend (whichever one of us was “lucky” enough to bear the title at the time); he wore his philandering like a badge of honour.
Even though I confronted him quite loudly, he laughed in my face, at that point basically opting to have two girlfriends at the same time. I would threaten to leave him; he would challenge me, telling me to go ahead and try: I’d be back because no one else would want me anyhow. At 18 years old, I believed that I was worthless, useless, ugly, and unlovable, all at the hand of someone who claimed to love me. In the meantime, I was competing with a girl who was hell-bent on stealing “my” man (who, in retrospect, obviously considered him HER man).
Self-esteem issues? Check. Trust issues? Check. Major suspicion, distrust, and fear of any female to show the slightest bit of attention to “my” man? Check, check, check.
It’s been hard for me to trust: myself, my partner, people I don’t know well. In the beginning, it took a conscious effort on my part to trust Chebbar; I don’t know that we ever would have gotten to where we are today were it not for his unwavering, amazing patience and understanding. I still struggle with trusting “new” people, though, particularly those of the female persuasion – the above wasn’t the first time (nor, sadly, was it the last) I was burned by the “fairer” sex. And because in all of my infinite teen-aged wisdom I never thought I’d ever be one of those girls who ended up blinded by a quasi-abusive relationship, I still struggle with trusting myself: are my suspicions correct? should I even be suspicious? am I right to trust him? to trust her? can I even possibly rely on my own instincts and judgment?
I’ve known all along that my first “real” relationship was a bad one. Hell, deep down, I knew it was bad while I was in it. I’ve stood tall and been proud, asserting that it was a learning experience that allowed me to figure out what I would and wouldn’t put up with going forward. I’ve fooled myself into thinking that, because it’s over and I feel I’ve moved on, it doesn’t affect me anymore.
With some of the events of the last little while, I’ve realized I couldn’t be farther from the truth – that my past does still play a large role in who I am and how I react today.
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Chibi writes at Chibi Jeebs & the Neurotic Struggle.
