Kellie Jo’s website was one of the first things I found the day after I left my husband on January 20, 2012. We’d only been married since June 11, 2011.  I gave up my home in NY, most of my furniture and much more to be with him. We’d only met online 3 months before we married. But I was convinced he was the one. That “he’s the one” nonsense can be deadly. The fantasy mixed with hidden truths lead to a horrible marriage of 7 months and then 4 months of separation and finally divorce.

Mostly I had done so much research on NPD – narcissistic personality disorder – before I left that I knew it would be hard to leave and for him to be honest about what happened with us.

Dead tree, splits – Tender wood. Copyright protected. kdg January 24, 2012

 My former husband is a notable author and he’s hiding many skeletons in his closets as an ordained minister.

He tried to make himself look like a victim of my abuse after I left. He never apologized for his jealous and emotional rages that actually led me to bolt back in January. But I secretly, though very seldom, wrote about the experience. First on an anonymous blog within the Experience Project (great resource for writing anonymously about life). Then I found Kellie Jo on Facebook and then went to her site.

With this first post of mine, I want to share what I first shared on her blog and when I began to see when I first left at the beginning of the year.

I had posted too much identifying info on her blog at the time. Then I foolishly posted a link to my FB wall and of course my then-husband’s FB “sheeple” told him I’d posted that he was mentally ill on a site. He’s an author and a former pastor with lots of female followers who adore him–he’s a hunk and a real charmer though he’s always complaining about himself and his life.  We women do love to fix men, don’t we (until they fix us in their grip of abuse).

I sent this to friends after asking Kellie Jo to take down my comment. I think it’s pretty explanatory. What I will say before you read it is that I have a Ph.D. I am an older black woman who waited a long time to get married. I thought I was smart. I teach gender studies course. I thought nothing like this would have EVER happened to me. I was too smart. But that’s exactly how I got caught up in it. Denial. Then suppression.Then wishful thinking that it would change when the writing was all over the wall before and after we married. Love can be blind. But now I am starting to see again. My vision and my voice are restoring themselves to accurate thinking and planning for a future I love.

A LETTER TO FRIENDS:

I am out of TN and attending a conference on educational tech in Philly. How refreshing to be in a context for learning again. It’s almost been a week since I left without a coat and just the bare minimum essentials. I had two police escorts to insure I was safe when getting the rest of the essentials from my apartment. Thank god I convinced him I needed my own key though we went everywhere together practically. I unfriended and unfollowed him. He changed his mobile number. This is not looking good for getting an annulment [he lied to me and hid that he'd had a vascetomy]. But I am out, alive and I’ll make it happen.

This morning I’ve been searching the web for some new ground to stand on regarding the emotional and psychological abuse I’ve been through.

Found this great post by a former abused woman named Kellie Jo titled How to Deal with Abuse in Relationships

Here’s my fav passage from Kellie Jo’s blog post dated Jan 25, 2012:

“Hope is pointless. Hope is worry backwards. Hope implies an action from God or some other person will free you from the abuse. It doesn’t work that way. You free yourself from abuse in your own way, and eventually look back and see that God and the strength you needed were there all along. Sitting around hoping that things will change does not work. You must change yourself first.”

Here is the anonymous comment I left as “Recently Left”

Thank you!! I left my husband 6 days ago after, thank god, only 7 months of marriage. It was my first marriage at 49. I am a professor. I’ve won accolades for social innovation and teaching. I am a strong, black woman. My husband happened to be white (the issues of interracial marriage was inconsequential to the emotional and psychological abuse except he tried to make himself out to be the victim in race matters). I finally realized he had some kind of undiagnosed personality disorder that seemed to stem from extreme insecurities from mother-child abuse incl. her begging him as a child to help kill her [or so he claimed] and two failed marriages that were ten years each (he claimed he was a loyalist). [I learned after I left that he'd been married to the last wife for over 15 years and had cheated on her with a woman he met on FB. That woman called his wife and apologized when their tryst ended].

It Wasn’t Easy To Leave

I almost didn’t get out. He manipulated me into complete social exclusion from family and friends and I was a “connector” on and off line before we married. I couldn’t travel anymore (and that was my livelihood). He insisted and coerced me into thinking I was single-minded and was resisting being committed to our marriage when we asked me to end a 3 year creative relationship that produced my most remarkable singing ever.

I basically became a traditional housewife with no life other than him. All in 7 months. Amazing.I don’t know how people live like that for so many years on one hand, but since this has happened, I can appreciate how denial keeps you there. “This can’t be happening to me. He’s gonna realize how crazy this is and it’ll get better.” Time passes and before you know it …you don’t recognize yourself and embarrassment keeps you from sharing.

I intend to write about my experience. I have the greatest empathy for his past but imposing it on our marriage and on denying me being me, well… no one is worth giving up who you know yourself to be.

It’ll be a while before i restore my trust in myself but I will not be one of those women who says I’ll never trust a man again. I just won’t trust him… inside a spousal relationship for the time being. [I left a backdoor open cuz I thought I could save our marriage. I tried to go back several times. My PMS seemed to trigger the need to return LOL].

No generalizations for me but as a scholar of gender studies I thought this could never happen to me. So there’s part of this that is SO not personal to him or me. The discourse about being “wife” needs to be unpacked and reinterpreted or maybe just put to bed. I was and still am looking for a partner to share my life’s joys and sorrows with. For a while it was my first husband. Now I am taking back my voice, my intentions to fulfill my dreams and my freedom. Hmm. I should definitely blog about this. {{cut-and-pasting for future}} [It took me 4 months to post this here again]

TO KELLIE JO: Thank you for this great post !! I am only days gone and not fully out of the woods so I needed to find and read this today! Thank you!!

GOT MY DIVORCE PAPERS LAST WEEK

It was an uncontested divorce. He had to move on to find someone else to take care of him. He’s broke ..again!

I’m four months out of those woods and happy and getting healthy.

I lost over $16,000 to him. I lost my cat a month before i left. I had no money and had to stay with a friends family for 4 months. I had no money for rent or even food. No income. I left all ties to possible networks of income and friendships when I moved to TN.

I still weigh 20-30 pounds more than I did before I married (somehow for we women we make our body weight carry such a heavy load of regret when it might actually be a source of protection for a while — moving slower, resting, etc.]

I still have that little voice from time to time telling me I broke my vows. I promised him I’d never leave but it was often inside of his insecurities that I was trying to convince him. I never believed I loved him. He didn’t love himself.

I can finally sleep at night. No more insomnia, which I had never had in 48 years. I can now be with friends, talk on the phone when I wish for as long as I want, I can have the future I always dreamed of with no limitation and there are no more compromises to have another trust that I love them. I am free. Again!

From The Invitation
It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can disappoint another
to be true to yourself.

If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
And still stand on the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

“Yes.”

Thanks Kellie Jo for this opportunity to share.

Would love to hear any feedback or questions. I wonder how many women of color are voicing their triumph over such abuse and I appreciate all who share here too.