"When we started dating, I was young and impressionable and he was
cool and charming. He seemed so sweet. I hadn’t been looking for a relationship
when I met him but he was so crazy about me and he made me feel really good
about myself. He told me that I was beautiful and that he had never felt that
way about anyone before. He wanted to be with me all the time. We became
inseparable. It wasn’t long before he told me that he was in love with me. I
didn’t feel ready to say it back, but I did. I still don’t know why. I did grow
to love him though. He became my whole world. I didn’t mind when he asked me
questions all the time; I thought it was because he was worried about me and it
made me feel loved. After a few months though, the questions turned to
interrogations. Then he started telling me that I couldn’t go certain places or
hang out with certain people. I tried to be understanding about it; I wanted to
make him happy. But the “off-limit” list just kept growing. I found that I was
blowing my friends off all the time, not because I didn’t want to see them, but
because I wanted to avoid a fight. I hated fighting with him. He was so mean
when we fought. I knew all those horrible things he said about me weren’t true,
but it hurt so bad hearing them from the mouth of the man I loved. I just
wanted to keep him happy. After we had been dating for a few months, I got
pregnant. When he found out, he wanted to marry me. I wasn’t sure what I
wanted; he was so controlling. I missed the little things that came with
freedom. I felt stuck; trapped. But I said yes. I wanted to be a family. Things
changed after that though. We fought all the time. It seemed like I was always
the enemy, always the one to blame.
"And then it happened. I was four months pregnant at the time. He
came home in the middle of the night, drunk. He had been in a fight. I don’t
remember what I said to make him mad but he hit me, hard, across the face. I
was in shock. Crying, I started to leave. That infuriated him and he pushed me
against the wall. I was afraid to move. I just wanted to leave but he had the car keys in his pocket. I tried to calm
him. I told him I just wanted to go, that he would hurt the baby if he pushed
me, but he kept pushing me and throwing me around. At some
point, he finally stopped. He went to bed with the keys still in his pocket. I curled up on the couch and
cried throughout the night. I thought about calling someone to pick me up but
something stopped me. I was so ashamed, so confused. I have never felt so alone in my life.
"The next morning, I told him I was leaving him. He just kept
saying that he was so sorry, so ashamed. He explained that he had taken some
pills that night; that he had blacked out and hadn’t known what he was doing.
He even cried, saying he would never, ever hurt me again. He promised he’d do
anything if I stayed. Feeling as though I had nowhere to go and just wanting to
forget the whole thing ever happened, I told him that I would stay if he would
take anger management classes and go to Narcotics Anonymous so he could finally
kick his habit of taking pills. He promised he would. That night he bought me
dinner and left roses in a vase on the table next to an “I’m sorry” card.
"Over the next several months, our relationship was rocky and we
fought all the time. He never did take anger management or go to drug rehab. He
kept taking pills and they kept making him angry and unpredictable. I got used
to being insulted and put down every day. I stayed though, because the baby was
coming and he promised that once our son was here, he would stop taking pills.
I believed him that he would stop, and figured that when he did, the verbal
abuse would stop too.
"After our son was born, he was out drinking and taking pills more
than ever before. I was angry and bitter because I was always left alone with
our baby; because he never helped me with him, he didn’t seem to care that I
was exhausted or that I needed him. When our son was only a few months old, it
happened again. I had stayed the night at my mom’s place so she could help me
with my son and I could get some sleep. He had been gone for most of the
weekend anyways. When he got home in the morning, he called me and demanded
that I came home. When I got there, he slapped me. He was so mad that I had
gone to my mom’s. He hadn’t known where I was, he said, he had been worried
sick. Why couldn’t I take care of my own son? He wasn’t enough help? Was I even
at my mom’s or was I out “whoring” around? I told him that no, he wasn’t enough
help. That’s when he punched me, again and again and again. He was yelling and
screaming the whole time and so was I. I don’t know who called the cops, but
when they came, he told me to hide in the closet. He said that if I came out
and said anything, they would call CPS and they would take my son away from me.
I couldn’t lose my son, and I was scared, so I got in the closet. I heard him
telling the cops that we had gotten into a screaming argument and that I had
driven away but that everything was O.K. They believed him and they left. This
time, he apologized but there were no flowers, no dinner, no promises to
change.
"Back then, he only hit me every few months, but as the months went
by, he starting hitting me harder, and more often. He made excuses a lot, usually blaming the
pills, the alcohol, and his troubled childhood. And he apologized after hurting
me, most of the time. Every now and then, he would promise to go to rehab and
stop taking pills and drinking so much. Sometimes he’d tell me he would stop
hitting me, but after another year, I stopped believing it. I stayed anyways
though because I had a daughter on the way. I wanted my children to have a dad.
I still wanted to be a family.
"After my daughter was born, we started fighting a lot again. I was
walking on eggshells all the time. I was a nervous wreck, exhausted, and I
never knew what to expect from him. One night last month, he came home drunk. I
hadn’t known where he was but I could tell he had taken some pills and been
drinking. When I refused to have sex with him, he pushed me off the bed. I woke
up a few hours later. My head was bleeding and throbbing. I had hit it on the
bedside table. My babies were crying and he was gone. I felt like I was dying.
I was dizzy and in a daze. I couldn’t see straight and my head hurt too bad to
stand up. I called my friend and she came to get me. She dropped the kids off
at her mom’s house and she drove me to the hospital. I didn’t want to go but
she wouldn’t take no for an answer. When I got there, all I could do was cry. I
didn’t tell anyone what had happened but they knew. A social worker came to
speak with me. I didn’t tell her either, but she knew. She told me there was a
place I could go for free where they would help me get my own place and where
they would keep me safe. I could leave whenever I wanted. He never had to know I was there. No one
had to know. I was so scared of him, so I agreed to go, just to try it out."
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