What a Fool I Was-

I am a 40 year old mother of a 15 year old. I thought that my husband loved me more than anything else when we got married but it turned out that he really did not.

The abuse started so soon after we were married that I almost can not remember a time that he was not sexually, mentally or physically abusing me. It started out with a slap here and there and turned into a punch now and then. By the time we had been married a year he was always doing something to me. He held a loaded and cocked pistol to my head and told me that he was going to blow my head off in front of my son that was five at the time.

About a week later he held a knife to my neck and started cutting I thought that I was a dead women then. He loved to play head games with me all the time always telling me that I was a fat cow, or a beached whale when I was in the bath tub. The night that he stood over the bath tub with a blowdrier that was plugged in and threatend to throw it in with me I was scared out of mind. It got to where he would hit me over the head with the alarm clock or anything else he could find to taking his fist and punching me.

I walked in one day after work and started hauling his things out to his jeep and throwing them in. He did leave, but my parents started in telling me that I could not raise my son by myself so I took him back. When I did things went from bad to worse. We moved because of my job and that was when it got to the point that I was truly scared for my sons life and mine. He cut me off from my family and friends and it was almost like I was a prisoner in my house I could leave to go to work and take and pick my son up from school and that was just about it.

He began terrorizing me with bull whips, knives that were to long. He started digging holes out in my flower garden telling me he was going to bury my son and me in them. He also would take a knife and try and chop my fingers off or hold it to my sons neck. What was bad was when he started punching on my son. I would step in and end up getting beat but it did save my little boy. He began comming in to the bed room and standing over me with a kife threating to kill me.

Then he started with telling me that I had to have certain things when I came home. This meant writing hot checks just to keep him from beating my son and me or killing us both. I did do it but ended up getting arrested for hot checks and spending one night in jail. I was sentenced to two years probation, but it ruined any chance I had of getting a good job.

I had finally had enough and convinced him to go and see his mom, and my son and I would come down over the weekend and we would just enjoy being around family he did go. On the way back I stopped and picked up boxes and started packing. I managed to get every thing I wanted out of the house. I got eveything moved into a storage building with the help of a friend and my family. We went and spent a night with my parents and then I went into town and call my husband and told him that I was leaving then I took my son and went into a shelter. When school was out I moved back to my home town.

Since then I have managed to pay off the hot checks and I have gone back to school to get my degree in Social Work. I still sometimes wake up at night thinking my ex is here but he is not. With a lot of councelling I have managed to get better. The whole thing as made me a stronger person.

After two and half years of him trying to keep me from getting a divorce I was granted one. We moved back to my home town. Unable to get a job and after a lot of councelling and help I have gone back to school to get my degree in Social Work. I am hoping to be able to go to work in abused womens shelters because if it had not been for the women that worked in the one we were in I would not have made it.

I will not say that things have been easy because they are not it has taken three years to put my life back together. Things are getting easier but not great. I do know that if it was not for God and people that cared I would not be alive to tell this story so that it might help someone else. I still have to remind myself to keep my head held high and don't let the problems of the past get me down. Fool, yes I was. I stayed and went back because of the way I was raised. Do things get better yes with time and lots of work. -What a Fool I Was...
Melanie

COMMENT: I was a fool also. Your story has a chilling similarity to my story. My ex-husband put guns to my head, pulled a rifle on my father, and like you, I left several times but kept coming back because he threatened to kill my parents and sister. Then he started telling me he would kill me, cut me up in a thousand pieces, and bury me where nobody would ever find me. The police dpt. stopped coming and when they did they would say they have more important things to do than come to our house again. Now I have a wonderful husband but I am going to lose him if I don't get a grip on things and stop being insecure and jealous. How have you been?
Eva

http://www.womensselfesteem.com

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