I wrote this in my journal two weeks after separating from Will, my abusive ex-husband. I know at least one of you recently left your abuser, so when I read this today, I thought of you and the turmoil you may feel.

February 9, 2010

Spent the last few days obsessing and sad. No real clarity at this point.

I am angry that part of me want to pretend this [physical violence/separation] never happened. Part of me wants him home. Part of me wants to be sorry and sad and compliant.

I know part of him wants to come home. (I am guessing though I say I know.)

If he does want to come home, the romantic version of me pictures it something like this: He’s sorry. He’s been living in the trailer with plenty of time to think. He wants help because in his heart of hearts he knows I’m doing what I need to do to feel safe.

He knows he’s been more than a “bad husband” – he’s been a frightening one. He is apologetic and shamed. He wants to make it right for the rest of his life.

But I know that, even if he is telling himself those things, underneath it, he wants to win. This is his house, his family, his wife, his boys, his property, his money, his his his and he hates that I “took” it from him.

It would only be a matter of time before he let me know he came back for the money that was his. The boys who are his. Not for me, not for love, not for change.

He would go about the dismantling of me the best he could. Financially, mentally and emotionally. And the next time he put his hand on me it would be shaped like a fist. And it wouldn’t stop.

He’d be good until the changes fell away, then the tiny snide remarks would begin.

Then he’d be silent,…then explosive.

Anger. Denial. Are those the first two steps in the grieving process? I think I’m in denial, shifting back to anger, then denial again. How else would I explain these romantic notions that I cry over, the fiction I long to live?

I heard a man in Staples the other day answer his phone, “Hello my love, my life, my wife.” I was torn between wishing my husband would talk to me that way and thinking that the man was hiding his abusive nature behind public words.

I don’t know if I will ever trust a man again. As soon as I love him, will he show his true colors?