In honour of International Women's Day, I'm posting my abuse story. That may seem odd, but I want to help women to be safe emotionally, spiritually, financially, and physically. Maybe my story can help someone else face their truth.
My abuse story is unique,
just like they all are; but as always, we find similarities in the details. If
I were to describe how I became involved in an abusive relationship, I would
say it was because of undue care and attention.
I met and married my
first husband in the span of one year at the age of 20. By the end of my twenty
second year, I had a child and a one-year old marriage. I was pregnant before
the wedding which was doubly problematic due to my faith. As a couple, we never
had a chance to learn to be together without the distraction, stress, and responsibility
of family. I didn’t go into my marriage thinking it was perfect or even that my
ex-husband was perfect; I knew he wasn’t, I knew I wasn’t. I knew that we had
some huge challenges and that we had much work ahead of us. I was also young
and confident, thinking that I could conquer any challenge in front of me. However,
I believed we were both thinking and managing ourselves under the same set of
values and assumptions. It took me about a decade to realize we weren’t, and
another eight years to finally understand what was happening to me and my
children.
Abusive personalities
have completely different reference points from those who are not abusive. I
was trying to find connection, ways to work together, to help and support, and
to find common ground with my ex-husband. He, however, saw all my efforts as a
threat. As I sought to connect, he responded with suspicion thinking I wanted something
in return. As I tried to work with him, he saw me trying to take over and
control. As I sought to help and support him, he competed with me to be better
and to win. And as I searched for common ground, he argued his point wanting to
be right. Any move to improve my education level, work experience, knowledge,
and social connections was met with anger, resentment, and a negative
competitiveness that endeavoured to push me down. Our arguments were explosive
and instead of things getting better over time, they eroded further and further.
I came into the marriage thinking that all our flaws would improve; that age
and maturity would take over. I thought that that was how people work; we grow
and mature and our imperfections become less abrasive. My faith in Jesus also
pointed to that way of thinking. Growing and maturing in Christ meant that my
sinful nature would become less evident and my behaviour would reflect Jesus
more and more. But it’s not that simple. I didn’t realize that an abusive
person’s reference point is themselves; not Jesus and certainly not others. I
don’t think my ex-husband even understands himself in this way. Growing and
maturing is actually a choice and requires work, acknowledging your
shortcomings, repenting, changing bad behaviours, and seeking to show love even
when you don’t feel like it. It doesn’t just happen because you get older.
The slow progression
of abuse covered almost all facets. Emotional, mental, and verbal abuse were a
common every day experience. My ex-husband was an emotional abuser who was willing
to use any avenue to maintain control and get what he wanted. Physical violence
or threats; verbal attacks; sexual abuse through withholding, porn use, and
eventually affairs; financial carelessness and blame; cultural excuses; and
even spiritual attacks and abuses. When I look back, I ignored red flags prior
to the marriage because I didn’t recognize them as such. I had also made myself
complicit in the problem. Where I see the most evidence of this is in the
physical abuse. I was a very confident and somewhat arrogant young lady. I
could get angry and use force just as much as my ex-husband, which made it easy
for him to blame me for arguments that got out of control. If he used physical
force early in our relationship (even before the marriage), I defended myself and
it became a physical fight. I did not shy away from this for the first 8 years
of the marriage. Because of this, he was able to shift blame on me. I was
confused, thinking that if I had not reacted, he wouldn’t have choked me or
held me down. It’s so ridiculous when I think about it now. The physical
violence also only erupted once or twice a year. And it was often expressed
through inanimate objects; sometimes he threw things at walls, punched holes in
doors, or just yelled threats, coming into my personal space, or barring me
from leaving a room without actually touching me. It was easy for him to
justify all this and I convinced myself that I could handle it and was partly
to blame. As time went on, anger was a scary emotion. I couldn’t express it,
the kids couldn’t express it, and no one could respond to his anger as it was
dangerous ground; there was no telling what action would be taken. After an
angry reaction to my crying eight-month-old daughter while I was at work, left
a hole in her bedroom door, I left for the first time. My return ten days later
was not a good idea, I see that now. But I thought I was doing the right thing.
Coming clean before my family and church, I figured we had the support we
needed. It wasn’t enough, and it wasn’t taken seriously enough by anyone,
including me.
It was after the birth
of my third child that I realized how dangerous my ex-husband had become. An
emergency C-section saw our son come into the world six weeks early. A partial
placenta abruption placed me and my unborn child in a life or death situation, and
our family was thrown into turmoil. The stress of the birth of a new baby is a
lot for any family and couple; add a near death experience, a two-week hospital
stay, and an unstable abusive marriage relationship, and you’ve got a full on
disaster. My ex-husband went on full attack mode. He saw all my crazy mother-bear
responses to restore my family to normal as an attack on him. My attempts to
get to the hospital and see my son as often as possible were met with violent
refusals and accusations that I was keeping him from seeing his child. He physically
and emotionally came at me when I was weak and unable to respond and defend
myself. After this period, I never physically defended myself again. I changed
how I responded to his yelling, threats, and name calling. I got very quiet. I
rose up a few times and did try to remain myself, but I retreated and tried to
appease more than anything else. There were ebbs and flows in the cycle of
abuse over the years after. There are good memories in there and I found
happiness in caring for my family. The tension increased, and the violence was
never completely gone, but I handled it differently. There were times that I
thought it was gone for good and that it wasn’t a part of us anymore, but then
I would be side swiped by an incident that came out of nowhere. It was never
the same thing either; every type of abuse was coming at me and I was just
underneath it all, increasingly confused by my relationship. I didn’t understand
the cycle at the time. My ex-husband and I were in counselling for thirteen
years or more and abuse was never addressed until the end. It wasn’t until my
youngest was seven years old that I began to understand and make moves to
change my situation. And it wasn’t until he was twelve that I was finally fully
awakened, understanding what was happening, and then able to leave.
Be patient with those
who are in relationships that are abusive. It takes time to see what is
happening and to have the courage to act and to believe that you can do
something about it. Abuse in my story was insidious. The longer you live with
it, the more normal it becomes. I had normalized it and taken pains to hide it
from even my closest friends and family. I’m thankful for those in my life who
patiently supported me through it all. What kept me invested in the marriage
was threefold; my faith, my sexual attraction to my ex, and fear. I loved my
ex-husband and it was hard to face that I was afraid of him and that he was intentionally
hurting me. I was afraid of a lot of things; losing my children, financial
disaster, embarrassment from divorce, and everyone knowing what I had allowed
to happen to me.
As my children got older,
maintaining the perfect environment to keep the abuse cycle under my control
(like that’s possible!) became increasingly difficult. The abuse that I had
thought I could contain, was not contained and what I thought was not affecting
my children, was affecting them. There were a few times that Social Services
got involved which I carefully handled. I worried that their involvement would
only complicate my life. My ex would often talk about how others getting
involved would cause us to lose our children for no good reason. Our home was
never even investigated beyond a phone call interview (and only once with my
ex), as I was seen as a ‘protective parent’. As my children got older, I became
restless as well. I didn’t want to stay home anymore; working with my
ex-husband in his business was intolerable and exacerbated the abuse. I didn’t
want to return to working evenings as that would see me completely unable to be
involved in my children’s activities. I saw a need to work and grow in my life.
It was this pressure that started to move me out of my complacency about my
marriage. What followed from my restlessness and the growth of the children
were a few of the worst years ever. I went back to school and he saw this as a
threat to our life, fearing I was preparing to escape. He wouldn’t pay for my
education, even though I had been at home with our children for eight years and
helped him with his own business for a decade. He was violent and unpredictable.
In the last semester of my one-year
course, he beat up our eldest son while I was away with an outdoor education
course. I came home and told him he had to leave, or I was calling the police. We
separated for restorative purposes with the support of counselors, our Bible
study group, our Pastor, families, friends, and an anger management course. I
thought we had set up a good support system and felt convinced it would all
work this time. After forty days, I asked him to come home. But again, it
wasn’t enough. Within six months of his return, we both knew it was a mistake.
He threatened me and said he would never leave our home again.
It was this period
that led to the end. Three years later, we would separate for good. Interestingly,
the last three years were not as bad as so many before that. I had decided that
I just wanted to get along. I knew I was in an abusive relationship. I knew
that being in counselling with him was dangerous for me emotionally and maybe
even physically, so I refused to go with him anymore. In many ways, I was
managing the abuse cycle the best I ever had. I went to some counselling on my
own to learn how to deal with his anger and our conflicts. I started to
cognitively disassociate myself from him, emotionally disconnect, create
greater spiritual independence, and physically and sexually I set boundaries to
protect myself. As I closed down the avenues for my ex-husband to abuse me, he
began to spiral. He tried to get my attention by creating conflict every where
he could, but I barely responded. The marriage lasted twenty years and seven
months. In the last two months, I discovered that he was having an affair. I
waited for the right moment and enough evidence, and then I confronted him with
what I knew. He was caught and later owned up to one other affair, although I
believe there may have been at least one other. He blamed me for his indiscretions;
I was cold and didn’t love him. That was true, I was cold, and I didn’t love
him, but that only explained the last affair. I remember when I would pray for Jesus
to give me the love and understanding I needed to be his wife, and for many
years I believe He did. But God had slowly taken all that love away. After all
I had experienced, I could not love him in my own strength. God used my hard,
cold, calculating heart to bring an end to my abuse. There were difficulties to
follow; which included getting him out of the house a week later with the help
of the police, and a legal battle that left me feeling abused and in debt. It
took over two years to finalize my divorce.
In the five years
since this all began a lot has changed. I have healed, remarried a wonderful
man, and my children are beginning to come to terms with their past. I
sometimes look back and wish I could change how I did some things. I struggled
to forgive my ex during the legal battle as it seemed that it was a constant
open wound. With the divorce final, I have been able to stand on solid
forgiveness ground. Reconciliation with his family was something I once thought
I wanted, but have realized through this process, that it is not necessary nor
advised in my situation. There are still
scars in my psyche that haunt me at times, but God is good, and I have found a
new life and a new love. He will restore to me the years that the locust has
eaten.
When I consider that I
became involved in an abusive relationship because of undue care and attention,
it is important to warn against that in other women. We are so accommodating.
We want to give men every opportunity to do the right thing, to correct the
mistake, to rise to the occasion, and to be the wonderful man we think we see
deep inside them. This compassionate way of dealing with others is not wrong,
nor should we squelch it. Woman need to recognize when that very nature is
being used against them. We don’t have to be so accommodating to people that
hurt us. You don’t have to be perfect and pure as the driven snow to be treated
properly. Yes, you’ve made mistakes and sinned greatly at times, but don’t let
anyone, including yourself, use that to say you deserve abuse. If a friend, or my
daughter, or any other woman, shares with me about a troubling incident between
her and a man she loves, it is important to listen for what is not being said. Are
they trying to normalize bad behaviour? Is there fear hidden in the story? Are
there details conveniently being covered up or added to try and fit a stereotype
of men? Are they blaming themselves for his actions? Another thing to remember
is that most likely, when a woman shares incidents of this nature, it isn’t the
first time something like it has occurred within that relationship. I have
often said to my daughter, ‘that isn’t going away’. When she shares about the
way a boy is acting or something he did that bothers her, and then she explains
that he argues or justifies his behaviour, I just say, ‘that isn’t going away’.
Those things are red flags and they will not go away. You know what they
are when you experience them, so take care and pay attention. Unfortunately,
what I’ve learned is that people don’t change, and abusive people really don’t
change. If they change to please you, it will only be temporary. Motivation to
change must come from within and from Jesus. I believe it takes Holy Spirit, supernatural
power to change people. We must decide that if we don’t like something someone
is doing around us or to us, we don’t have to put up with it. If we explain
that it bothers us, and that person doesn’t care enough to change or doesn’t
think they’re doing something wrong, then don’t emotionally attach yourself to
that person. This is hard, but if it’s done right away at the beginning, if we
take care and pay attention, then we don’t have to become intertwined with
someone who hurts us. Remember, it’s never too late to leave an abusive
relationship. Don’t blame yourself for where you’ve ended up. Find some support
and create a plan to remove yourself from harm so that you can make good
decisions about the future in an emotionally and physically safe place.
I don’t know much
about men, but what I do know is men need to take care of themselves. Even if
you treat women well, if you have emotional demons, anxiety, anger, spiritual
troubles, even mental or physical health issues, take care of them. Seek to do
what you can to be healthy in all ways so that you can be free to treat others
well. Relationships are there to give us someone to depend on and support in a
mutual way. This is good and healthy. But an unhealthy man who expects a
compassionate woman to carry all his baggage, will exhaust and use her until
she has nothing left. This amounts to abuse in my opinion. And you can say the
same for an unhealthy woman who dumps all her baggage on a man. Jesus is the
only ‘person’ that can carry all your baggage, so give it to him.
This is my story, and
when I tell it, I have to tell about Jesus. There is hope that never let go of
me. He loved me through it, in it, and out of it. There is victory over the
enemy in my life, in more ways than I can count. He gave me freedom from my sin
and from my abuser. Praise his wonderful name! JESUS!
