Stripped

    Someone from the outside would have said that I walked away from a good life. That I walked away from a hard working husband, a home, financial security and broke apart my family and took my children from their father. Those that know me know that I escaped hell. That I escaped from a hard handed husband, a prison, and unimaginable control and secured my children’s future happiness.

    After six years, two months and seven days of marriage I left. It was a Friday. I got up like any other day, took my children to daycare and instead of going to work, with my heart in my throat I went back to my house and room by room packed me and my children’s personal belongings into boxes and garbage bags and loaded them into my minivan. Ironically, the minivan that was bought with the 401k loan that I had originally took to leave him three months before but he found the check and changed my plans. That day was surreal, there were times that I was empowered, I was strong, there were times that my heart pounded in fear that though he had left for work, he would come back home. Then there were times that I was emotionless, I just moved things into boxes and bags as if I were in a strangers home. There was one feeling that day that I didn’t feel and that is hesitation. After I moved all I could, making three trips, I went to the daycare, picked up my children and brought them to our new home. A safe happy home filled with love and not fears. The execution of leaving had been planned months before but the decision to leave had taken me years to anchor in my heart and my head.

    You see, my mother died when I was 7, my father died when I was 11. I was put into a foster home when I was 13, separated from my brother and sister, the only family I had left. I went out on my own when I was 16 years old and by 17 I was 85 pounds soaking wet because I was so poor and the only thing I could afford was Ramen Noodles and even that was a luxury. I quit school and went to work. I have worked full time since I was 17. By the age of 21 I had been in a number of failed relationships and dare I say a number of one night stands. I was a young naïve girl looking for anyone to love me. 

    At 21 a few months before my 22nd birthday, I met my ex-husband. By then I was so tired of doing everything on my own and the need for someone to love me was unbearable. He came over and shoveled the snow, he took out the trash, he fixed my leaky sink, he wanted to spend every waking minute with me. After a short four months of dating he moved in with me. For a short while everything was roses. My sister lived in the apartment next to mine, he and I both worked and our rent was cheap. I had basic luxuries that I hadn’t had since moving out on my own five years before. Phone, cable and even internet, I was on top of the world.

    I thought I had finally gotten my perfect life and found the perfect guy until one day, a few months after he moved in, I was on the phone with a friend, he called and I didn't click over to the other line. I was on the phone with a male friend that was calling me from Canada, it was long distance and I thought I could call my ex-husband back (though we weren't married at that point). Boy did I have the wrong answer and he let me know it. But because it was a male friend and I told him it was a male friend, I thought his anger was because he was hurt and his hurt was justified but I didn't want him to be hurt so I allowed his anger to be justified. I allowed myself to be hurt so he wouldn't be. I opened the door to the abuse, not that I think I deserved it but my incessant need to not be the reason someone else is hurt or sad allowed it. My incessant need to feel loved at all costs allowed it.

    In the beginning the reasons for his hurt from time to time were justified. There were times I spent a few hours with my sister instead of him and he felt abandoned. There were times that I didn't cook dinner after he worked all day and he felt unappreciated. There were times I missed his phone calls and he felt ignored. All of those things were justifiable reasons to feel hurt. He didn't know how to feel hurt though, if he was hurt he got angry and again I would absorb that hurt for him. Because I allowed it (and I say I allowed it because I didn't leave him then) his reasons for being angry with me became more trivial and anytime he had a bad day or if someone else hurt him or made him angry he took it out on me.

    Allowing the abuse due to my incessant need to be loved transformed into enduring it for fear I would lose my life if I tried to leave. He was 20 times stronger than me; he was manipulative, calculating and deceptive. He was scary. I cannot begin to tell you the evil I would see in his eyes when he would get angry, it was paralyzing. I dreaded nightfall; he was always the worst when it was dark. So many times I cooked big heavy meals so he would easily fall asleep while I was cleaning the kitchen after putting the kids to bed. I would tiptoe as quiet as a church mouse into the bedroom to go to bed with my heart pounding out of my chest at the slightest little sound I made. Many, many times he would wake up at 12 or 1am and the abuse would continue. It would continue in the most despicable and terrifying way imaginable. He would often keep me up until 3 or 4am and I would need to get up at 5:30 to get the kids ready and go to work. The sleep deprivation took its toll on me. So many times I would cry and cry on my way to work because I was just so exhausted and felt there was no way out. So many times I would wish I would get into a car accident so I could be in the hospital and get some rest.

    It was getting an email from an old friend that knew me before I had met my ex-husband that opened my eyes to what my life had become. This friend had known the strong independent me. This old friend in the days of our friendship had always given me encouragement and would remind me of my strength when life was hard. The email itself was an innocent and simple “Hey how have you been?” but it had hit me like a bolt of lightning. It was my epiphany. It sucked me out of my current world and took me back to who I was before I had allowed my soul to be captured and crushed. It was time to change.

    It took almost seven years, leaving him once and three children later to finally get the courage to leave for good. No one will ever understand what it was to live with a man like that unless they have been through it themselves and God be with the women that are still in the same situation I was, my heart breaks for them.

    It's been a little over two years since I left and the memories of the things he did to me are still there but they are not the forefront of my thinking anymore, that is until moments like this. The memories in moments like this, while still difficult to think about, give me a sense of strength. I escaped, I survived and I continue to grow. I will never forget what he’s done to me but I have forgiven him. To not forgive him would be to still be under his control. He may have temporarily stripped away my dignity, my strength and my identity but now when it’s all said and done I have stripped away his power. I pity him and I pray for him.