My Verbally Abusive Marriage

This month, so far, I’ve received three stories from brave women. Two of them speak to financial abuse also, and Sarah has a blog.

These are their stories:

Rose Felt Worthless, Stuck, and Crazy

Laura Felt Devastated, Frustrated, and Shocked

Sarah Felt Betrayed, Sorrow, Brokenhearted (Sarah’s Blog: Sarah Found Her Voice)

Not too tired to care
The pain in my chest comes and goes
The pain in my heart is always there
But I’m just too tired to cry

The days turn into weeks
The weeks turn into months
The months turn into years
And still, I’m too tired to cry

Exhausted from the fear
Worry that never sleeps
Haunting memories
I’m too tired to cry

Sorrow, like a knife
It reaches deep within me
Death, whispers my name
I weep

~Anonymous

Anonymous suffered domestic abuse up until she left her abuser a few years ago, yet she wrote this poem only days ago.

The effects of domestic abuse embed themselves into our hearts and can carry far into our futures.

Please pray for current and previous abuse victims that their unseen wounds heal and they find the power to detach from abuse and the memories of it.

Unfortunately, the stories of abuse keep pouring in. Whereas I like to see them because I know these courageous women’s stories will help someone else, I don’t like them because they’re happening, right now. What would our world be like if there was no abuse? We’ll have to wait awhile to find out.

In the meantime, please read and share these stories. See if you see yourself or someone you know because recognizing or identifying abuse is the first step to ending it.

Here are the stories of abuse and the words the abuse sufferers use to describe their experience:

• Susan – Fear, Sadness, Disgust
• Angela – Pain, Dazed, SHOCK
• Jan – Anger, Sadness, Unfairness
• Karen – Despair, Sadness, Anxiety
• Christy – Worthless, Alone, Suicidal
• Sheri – Trapped, Misunderstood, Alone
• Leah – Confusion, Anxiety, and Panic

———–

A reminder: Contact me if you would like me to mentor you in your quest to overcome abuse and/or the effects of prior abuse.

This past summer’s testimonials came from several brave people who reached out to share their experiences. Doing so was good for them and good for us. Those of us still in abusive relationships can find validation in their experience, to know we’re not alone. Those of us out of abusive relationships can remember why we left and reflect on the chaos we once called our lives compared to the serenity and empowerment we now feel.

My heartfelt wishes of peace are with all of you. Thank you for sharing your stories of abuse.

• Steve - Sad, angry and confused
• Linda - Sadness, frustration, sense of unreality
• Courtney – Sadness, failure, frustration
• Kacy – Depression, guilt, failure
• Marla – Crazy, insane, useless
• Gina – Confusion, despair, hurt
• Alyssa – Anger, numbness, despair
• Ann – Shame, guilt, fear

Well, I’ve finally learned my lesson. Amy must leave my home; she is a detriment to my son’s recovery.

Amy’s sweet demeanor helps me to love her. Her abusive past, her uncaring (unfit) parents, her drug addiction and codependent behavior make me want to help her grow strong and healthy.

I want to fix her. I want my codependent nature to work for someone for a change. It is time for me to realize that anytime I try to fix someone or their situation, I only hurt myself and all the other people I love.

I do not think my relationship to Amy was codependent-related in the beginning. I saw a young woman, desperate for a chance to prove herself, begging for an opportunity to flourish. I knew that she could do that in my home, and despite the odds, I gave her that chance. Continue reading

Writing the post on anger yesterday brought up some bad memories. My ex-husband once terrorized my mind with his wrath. (What will he be like tonight? Is it a good time to ask him now? What do I need to do before I run these errands so he’s not angry when I return?)

Punishment for not reading his mind correctly could be severe. His anger intimidated me. It put me in my place – firmly beneath his heel.. He’d turn beet red, hazel eyes turned to green, brows knitted under his deeply lined forehead, lips alternating between a sneer and a scowl.

Continue reading

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

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

I’ve been flipping through the web looking at pro-ana (pro-anorexia) sites for school. Sigh. I’ve seen tips on how to binge and purge, how to diet by taking in -1200 net calories for the day, and images of stretched out super-thin and bony women who the photographer seems to idolize.

I’m a firm believer in what you allow into your thoughts comes out into the “real world” eventually. I like the idea of creating our own realities – it’s powerful stuff. I mention that because I really do think that if I looked at these pictures and read these stories for long enough, I could come to empathize with these women and want what they want. They seem to look at not eating as a competition sport, which is kind of how I felt about eating at one time.

When I left Will, I dropped 50 pounds in 4 months from stress alone. I didn’t even notice. One day, none of my “real” clothes fit. I just didn’t eat – wasn’t hungry, didn’t think about food, etc. When I came out of that severe state and looked in the mirror, I truly didn’t recognize myself. My friend and my sister both told me that I looked unhealthy – all I saw was a thin person who other people seemed to admire (the ones who didn’t know me).

I figured I’d continue not eating. Sometimes still, I’ll be hungry and not eat in order to make up for the three tablespoons of sugar I’ve consumed with my morning coffee. I’m not going to look at those sites anymore. They make me nervous.

I know anorexia is unhealthy, but I see how it can begin so innocuously. Rising to a challenge, even an unhealthy one, can help me to stop thinking about the REAL issues in my life. I worry about those women I’ve seen online. I worry about me. I’m not going to put that junk in my head anymore.

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