My Verbally Abusive Marriage

My brain hit the ground running this morning. I tried unsuccessfully to feel the warmth of Max beside me, the soft wind from the fan and the cozy-soft microfiber sheets. But my brain wouldn’t have it. It was like while sleeping, it discovered all the answers and couldn’t wait to put me into action.

Unfortunately, those answers got lost in transitioning from sleeping to waking, and I found myself bombarded with noisy kids, messy house, and the other signs that I wasn’t in control of much at all.

I want to have my peaceful home back, the one that I miraculously found in May of 2010 that enabled me to think to myself without interruption. I miss my safe, silent, cocoon. Continue reading

Steve submitted a testimonial of  his abusive experience. His emotions include anger, sadness and confusion. Steve mentions that he is in the “personal responsibility” stage as it pertains to his abusive marriage.

The responsibility for abusing falls directly on the shoulders of the perpetrator, not the victim. Yet so many victims (me too!) want to somehow make the abuse “our fault”. I think that I wanted to accept responsibility for the abuse because if I caused it, then I could end it.

Sadly, accepting responsibility for things we’re not responsible for doesn’t fix any problem.

I didn’t cause him to be abusive. I can’t make him change. When I took the responsibility for his actions, then he was able to act that way consequence free.

Despite what the abuser says, you cannot make them abuse you. You cannot make them act any certain way. The abuser is responsible for the abuse.

• Steve’s Abuse Testimonial
• All Abuse Testimonials

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. Continue reading

Amanda – A college class started looking into how abuse impacts a life. I related to a lot of the results of abuse and started doing my own research into verbal abuse.

See all abuse testimonials

Melissa – My abuser has a high income and we have a beautiful home, although nothing is in my name. Everything he has is new and nice, I have 6 year old glasses, a dilapidated mattress to sleep on, and no adequate clothing. I haven’t had a winter coat in 4 years. You’d never know this if you came to my home.

See all abuse testimonials

Emilie - I’m still not sure. I’m 18, it still feels like I’m too much of a child to be in this mess.

*I am impressed with Emilie’s maturity and clear headed-ness. She “knows” but isn’t ready to say the abuse is not in her imagination.

See all abuse testimonials

Once upon a time, there was a young woman who wanted more than anything to find her poet, her love. She imagined long afternoons with him, sitting under shady trees and dining from picnic baskets filled with grapes and sandwiches. When he looked at her, she could see the twinkle in his eyes and knew that he, in return, could see her love for him radiating from her soul.

She imagined him in romantic fantasy and tried to find him in the young men she dated. Sometimes she found signs of him in her beaus; but the young men also held signs contrary to her imagined poet, and the relationships didn’t last long.

Along the way, two of the young men she courted revealed themselves as snakes and injected their poison into her arteries. She made excuses for the snakes and allowed their poison to remain in her system, thinking that eventually it would make its way out if she ignored its potency and effect on her mind and heart. She remained quiet about both of these young men, taking on their poison as her own and allowing it to create a dark spot within her.

That dark spot eventually took on a life of its own. It began to writhe and turn and hiss lies to her. She began doubting her ability to find her poet and to succeed in the world. She feared facing herself in the mirror and felt that what she needed was a knight, not a poet. A knight to protect her at all costs and keep her from further harm.

The dark spot writhing inside of her suggested a man who would intertwine with her heart, who understood her dark, sinful soul, who knew more than she did about identifying the evils of the world. The dark spot’s lies made sense. She sacrificed her desire to see the love-twinkle in her poet’s eye and instead, looked for someone the others would fear.

The Knight

She found her knight and he quickly made her his own. He performed the task she’d set for him admirably; he whisked her away and quickly isolated her from the other poets and knights of this world. He built her a castle far away, allowing her to come and go as she wished at first. Eventually, her freedoms were curtailed as her knight seemed to see her as the dark plague upon his world. He thought that she purposely attracted the others, and said that the dark spot in her soul was evil and uncontrollable. He told her that if she wanted to be happy, he would have to let him protect her in his way.

She believed him. The dark spot in her soul crept into her consciousness. She did not remember that the dark spot inside of her was merely the poison from the others residing inside of her. She came to believe that she created the evil within her by being who she was, and thought that her knight was wise to warn her of her evil nature. She fell deeper into fear and begged her knight to tell her more about her evil nature so she could be free of it. As her knight identified the evil, the dark spot grew large, fed by the knights opinions and thoughts.

Her knight told her she had loose morals and that everyone knew she was a whore. He told her that she lacked common sense and couldn’t see the truth. He told her that the world was black and white and the shades of gray she saw were figments of her imagination, falsely ideal versions of an evil world.

He told her that motherhood would elevate her to a higher plane in his eyes. He told her that by raising his children and staying in the castle that she could learn the truth about the world as he shared his exploits into it.

The Contract

She agreed. She remained in the castle, hidden from the world, and raised children who adored her. The knight, who was constantly out in the world having adventures, would return home and feel jealous of the bond between the young woman and his children.

He told her that he didn’t trust her as a mother. He said that her children were weaker men because of her. He said that she must be like him when disciplining and speaking to her children. He criticized her ability to love his children and told her that if she didn’t understand his way by now then she was forever hopeless. The dark spot within her grew larger as she accepted the knight’s words.

A Death

The day came when she looked at herself in the mirror and didn’t recognize the countenance staring back at her. The dark spot within her hissed an evil laugh. She looked into her past and realized that, once upon a time, she was vibrant and lovable; she longed for that young woman to return. The dark spot laughed again, but this time, she took a hair pick and stabbed it deeply into her center, bright blood spilling onto the floor followed by black bile that writhed and twisted itself into a snake on the floor.

It hissed, “You worthless whore of a mother! You think that by ridding yourself of me that you can live freely? You don’t know what it takes to make it in the world, sheltered as you’ve been!” It tried to slither back into her belly, but she was too quick for it.

She raised her foot and stomped on the snake’s head, crushing its bones beneath her heel and grinding them into mush on the floor. The snake flopped futily for a little while as it realized it’s control over her was ended.

She felt empty and wondered what would replace the dark spot. But she didn’t have to wonder for long. Hearing the commotion, her children ran to her and their love and innocence and courage filled the hole, mending the wound, stopping the bleeding, and fusing life into her soul.

She knew the love they gave her was borrowed; eventually she would have to develop her own way of loving and being. But for now, she could borrow their courage until forging her own. She left the castle prepared to battle with the shadow of the snake she’d killed and vowed to never allow another person’s poison to fill her soul again.

When I met him, we moved very fast. My first red flag that I can’t believe didn’t make me run as fast as I could: He was about to go to jail for violating probation – probation for ASSAULT WITH BODILY INJURY. What was I thinking back then? We were young, 18 years old. The night before he went to jail, he told me he loved me and begged me to “wait for him”. I ended up bailing him out after two weeks, instead of waiting for his court date. We had only been dating two weeks prior to that. When he got out, we moved into his mother’s house together.

From the beginning, I had feelings of wanting to leave, and threatened to many times. Something wasn’t right and I didn’t like it, but he would cry and beg me not to go. Eventually I became the cruel one for threatening to leave “all the time”. The fights were loud, and I can’t even remember what would go on during them now, but one of his friends actually asked me once if he had ever hit me. I got pregnant, and we were thrilled, I thought I loved him and he loved me and life would be so perfect.

The fights got worse, and two kids and 6 years later, I’m still dealing with it. I’m just now putting together an escape plan. We’ve broken up, with him moving out, two times. The first time, he got involved with a younger girl and I was pregnant with baby #2, and he eventually went to jail because he took my phone (he was upset that he thought I was in contact with another guy–LOL! He had been sleeping with some girl while I was pregnant! How could he be upset??) and his aunt called the cops when he took off with the phone.

I ended up convincing his father to bail him out, again. And when I picked him up from jail, he actually wanted me to drop him off with his new girlfriend! After he had begged me to come home, bail him out, he admitted it was all an act to get me to bail him out. He came back home eventually, and I took him back. The second time we broke up, he harassed me, broke into the house (“our” house, even though I’ve paid all our bills from day one), destroyed property, threatened to tell my family my “secrets” (past drug abuse that HE talked me into doing so he wouldn’t feel guilty about it).

The abuse included:

• Punching my legs and arms, always to where clothes could cover it. Excuse me, I didn’t mean “punching”, I meant “frogging”, the term he would use for it. Because that’s so much better.
• Hard finger thumps on my forehead or arms, hard enough to sting but not leave a bruise.
• Pouring water, lotion, shampoo/body wash, hot sauce, rotting food, urine, sodas on me during arguments
• Spitting on me
• Grabbing me by the hair to move me around During arguments while I should have been sleeping, if I was in bed he’d pull the covers off me and take my pillow, and turn on all the lights, making noise, laughing at me and saying “yeah, try to get some sleep NOW, B—-! lazy B—-!”
• Always mocked me while I cried, never cared that he made me cry. Always accused me of faking it, “forcing tears”, he was really irritated by my voice when I cried. Always yelled “booo—HOOOO!” in a high pitched voice while I cried because of his abuse.
• Accused me of being a bad mother because I work nights to support us and slept during the day.
• Resentful that I slept during the day. I work 11pm-7am, stay up until 1pm at home, then sleep until 9pm.
• Would create arguments or crises to prevent me from falling asleep, like trips to the ER for minor “injuries” magically appearing around my bedtime, and then I’d have to watch the kids while he was gone and only have 2-3 hours of sleep before work.
• Forced me to call into work a handful of times by threatening to abandon the kids if I left for work, one time I went to work anyway and he posted a status on facebook saying “emergency with my daughter, no phone, please call jennifer at this number (my work number, I’m a unit secretary at a hospital so I’m not the only one that uses that phone)” and I was berated with phone calls from strangers about the “emergency”,  forcing me to leave work as soon as I had gotten there.
• Saying “I guess…”as an answer if I asked him to do something he didn’t want to, then later not doing it and even getting mad that I had asked in the first place. “I guess” must have been a cloudy answer in his mind that he could try to say didn’t mean “yes”.
• Always promising to do the things like look for a job, clean the house, etc. but never would, if he did he would get frustrated and angry easily. And also become irate if I “nagged” him about doing these things.
• Speaking of cleaning the house, if he did it once, in his perception he was the one that “always” did it, and every day for the next month was “my turn”–even if I was working and he was the stay at home parent. Or if he  was cleaning, I couldn’t go to sleep until I had helped him clean the house from top to bottom.
• Never held down a job, never had motivation to look for a job, liked to spend money excessively, but always made me feel like a bad mother for working.
• I am “selfish” for picking up extra hours at work to make up for the bill money he had spent.
• The arguments never ended! He could argue for HOURS, practically by himself, as long as I was there to hear it.
• Always told me what I was REALLY thinking, what my REAL intentions were. My “intentions” were always a big source of arguments.
• My past wrongs were always magnified and brought up in arguments, but his could never be brought up again–they were “in the past”.
• Always interrupted, even if I was answering a question that he DEMANDED an answer to. I’d start my answer and three words in I’d be cut off by him on another rant.
• Destroyed property, punching holes in the walls and throwing things.
• Drug addict, currently in recovery (that I know of, but I have my suspicions).
• Makes me live below my means so he can play with the money I earned. Money withdrawals that he claims wasn’t him, never answers to it and gets angry if I press him for answers. I’m always going broke and living paycheck to paycheck when I wouldn’t have to if only he’d live by my budget.
• He always says it’s always about ME, when in reality it’s always about HIM.

There’s so much more, but this is getting long. Re-reading this makes me want to cry. How could I have stayed? Why didn’t I stay at my mother’s while we were broken up last time instead of going back to him? I’m so embarrassed and I feel like such an idiot. It’s not always like this, but I know it will always return to this behavior sooner or later.

How Jennifer Found Out She Was Being Abused

I first knew the first time he laid his hands on me, but always excused it – I always blamed myself for saying/doing something wrong, otherwise it wouldn’t have happened. The emotional/mental abuse took longer for me to figure out, but I knew something wasn’t right, the way he treated me was wrong. Eventually, during a too-short breakup, I labeled him as having a personality disorder…it wasn’t until in the last few weeks I’ve been researching mental abuse and recognizing the patterns.

Words Jennifer Chose to Describe Her Abusive Experience

Trapped, Ashamed, Helpless

I posted more verbal abuse testimonials to my website today. You are not alone.

Pam: Fear, Guilt, Shame

Rey: Bitter, Alcohol, Controlling

Mallory: Hurt, Confusion, Fear

Donna: Sadness, Sick to My Stomach, Total Confusion

All Abuse Testimonials

February 1st last year was on Monday. Will and I had gone to court the Thursday before, and I had told the judge I agreed that he could see the boys. That first weekend, he wouldn’t take them because he hadn’t received his paperwork and was afraid that I would call the law on him after he picked up the boys.

His thinking didn’t make any sense to me, but whatever. I was left to tell the boys that they wouldn’t see their father that weekend because of paperwork.

Life was hell for me at that time. I was scared that Will would come back. I bought pepper spray and changed all the locks on the house. I didn’t know what he was capable of doing. He told me that I betrayed him – the worst offense he could imagine.

Let’s think about that for a moment. I betrayed him.

In therapy three days before he put his hands on me, I’d flat out told him that if it happened again, I would press charges. Seemed pretty clear to me when I said it. There must have been a gap in our communication.

Nevertheless, this time last year I was in deep mourning. I cried almost always. The boys probably thought I was losing it. I thought I was going to die. I didn’t see a future to be happy about.

Now, a year later, I am feeling residual effects of that week. I am anxious and nervous. I am tearful and scared. But I know why.

It will pass, but I hope you’ll say a little prayer for me. I’ve got things to do, and I’m not about to let these anniversary anxieties overcome me. But it’s hard. Like last year, I’ll post a little here and there to remind myself that I am going to be all right.