My marriage went from light to dark overnight. I say I didn't know this guy…but I did. I knew him very well. Just like my mom, I had married an abuser, a broken man who was just like my broken father.
As my marriage continued over the years, the abuse continued with intensified infidelity that resulted in an innocent baby girl from one woman and an innocent baby boy from another. So now I'm a step mom? This wasn't a marriage, this was a familiar place. I was back in Hell once again.
I realized that I was walking in my mom's shoes. I finally understood her pain. I didn't know how much she had gone through with my dad. My abuse started within the first year of the marriage. After the first incident, I stayed with him for five years before separating. Why five years? Because you don't think it's abuse. You think everything but that; you make excuses to why it's happening and your emotions are all over the place because this is someone you love…and if you've seen this behavior as a child, it is a familiar place and it is the norm. If you have self esteem issues, self hate issues and have never been loved, in your mind you think this love is better than no love at all and I'll take it.
You ask why does the woman stay? That's a good question. Although her mind is not in a healthy place, she can still leave. Domestic Violence is a choice. Both parties are responsible. He is responsible for getting help and she is responsible for not allowing it to continue.
There were several attempts of trying to leave. He was the bread winner. He paid all the bills and I had nothing because I had made him my world. My protector had become my enemy. Life became unbearable with him. I had no friends, wasn't close to my family from the start and now I was facing the dilemma of possibly being a single mom. I couldn't understand how he could fight me like another man and use those very same hands to hold me and say he loved me. He was the same man I loved that abused my mom. He was my Uncle Jim, whom I trusted which in turn betrayed me. Ironically, I had become my mom and my daughters had become me. I now had to live up to what I expected my mom to do. I was the mom and I needed to take my girls away.
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