Married at 19, I was young, trusting, unworldly, inexperienced, unsuspecting, and now, also, I was abused.
The first time it happened, being accused of cheating on him, I went straight to my Mom. My Dad may have walked out of my life, but my Mother was there for me. She immediately called my husband and told him that if he didn't learn how to trust me, he was gonna' lose me. What a Mom! Go, Mom!
When I got home, however, he grabbed my arm hard, put me up against the wall, held my face/chin, throat and painfully explained that whatever happened in our home stayed in our home.
I very much believed him.
And the abuse cycle, pattern, behaviors, etc. start in another home. With another intelligent woman.
I didn't tell anyone about it for over ten years.
When I did it was of course to my Mother, again.
She was horrified. She was terribly sad that this had been happening, all these years, all this time and I'd not told her.
My poor Mother. I so apologize to you. How do you take such pain away from your Mother?
But in finally telling my Mother the flood waters opened and now I saw that the injustice, the fear and panic was real. The weight of what I'd been carrying all this time was now in appropriate focus, no longer skewed.
I was living with a monster, and the monster was doing all of this for all of this time in Christian love.
Mr. Christian Man's delusions had finally escalated so far off the bizarre scale, he gave me an ultimatum. Either I submit to taking a lie detector test about my supposed infidelities or, he would divorce me. I refused to take the test. Frankly, it scared me. I was so in shock and fear, I thought my nervousness would make me fail the test. I didn't know.
The daily torture had driven me into a corner. I would not participate in this newest horrifying, embarrassing request. I had snapped and finally found the courage to go to my Mother, after ten years of abuse.
Mr. Christian Man teamed up with a high profile divorce lawyer, had divorce and child custody papers served on me because I refused to take a lie detector test. He was petitioning the Court for full custody of our daughter, because I was an unfit Mother, a whore and a slut.
I was living in hell. I didn't leave. I never left.
He filed for divorce. It was obviously the best thing that could have happened to me. But because I never left, frankly I don't know how long I would have stayed with him, in these frighteningly abusive circumstances, otherwise. I never left.
Women stay, women are staying, today!
For years afterwards I wondered . . how do women leave marriages. How do they leave? How do they do that? How in the hell do they do that.
It seemed to me to require strength beyond human capability.
The first time it happened, being accused of cheating on him, I went straight to my Mom. My Dad may have walked out of my life, but my Mother was there for me. She immediately called my husband and told him that if he didn't learn how to trust me, he was gonna' lose me. What a Mom! Go, Mom!
When I got home, however, he grabbed my arm hard, put me up against the wall, held my face/chin, throat and painfully explained that whatever happened in our home stayed in our home.
I very much believed him.
And the abuse cycle, pattern, behaviors, etc. start in another home. With another intelligent woman.I didn't tell anyone about it for over ten years.
When I did it was of course to my Mother, again.
She was horrified. She was terribly sad that this had been happening, all these years, all this time and I'd not told her.
My poor Mother. I so apologize to you. How do you take such pain away from your Mother?
But in finally telling my Mother the flood waters opened and now I saw that the injustice, the fear and panic was real. The weight of what I'd been carrying all this time was now in appropriate focus, no longer skewed.
I was living with a monster, and the monster was doing all of this for all of this time in Christian love.
Mr. Christian Man's delusions had finally escalated so far off the bizarre scale, he gave me an ultimatum. Either I submit to taking a lie detector test about my supposed infidelities or, he would divorce me. I refused to take the test. Frankly, it scared me. I was so in shock and fear, I thought my nervousness would make me fail the test. I didn't know.
The daily torture had driven me into a corner. I would not participate in this newest horrifying, embarrassing request. I had snapped and finally found the courage to go to my Mother, after ten years of abuse.
Mr. Christian Man teamed up with a high profile divorce lawyer, had divorce and child custody papers served on me because I refused to take a lie detector test. He was petitioning the Court for full custody of our daughter, because I was an unfit Mother, a whore and a slut.
I was living in hell. I didn't leave. I never left.
He filed for divorce. It was obviously the best thing that could have happened to me. But because I never left, frankly I don't know how long I would have stayed with him, in these frighteningly abusive circumstances, otherwise. I never left.
Women stay, women are staying, today!
For years afterwards I wondered . . how do women leave marriages. How do they leave? How do they do that? How in the hell do they do that.
It seemed to me to require strength beyond human capability.
No comments :
Post a Comment