PART THREE:

I am ravaged by the death of my freedom. My every waking moment controlled by his emotions. My every moment decided by his will. Yet, I cannot find my way out. I am so terribly fearful of the unknown, of the freedom I have never knew. The fear of my own death is no match for the fear of him leaving me.

He is so much like my father, but I do not see it. My past is so very evident in my present, yet I replay all the same scenarios over and over again. Father was abusive. He tormented mom, he terrorized me. Mom made excuses for his behaviors. She apologized endlessly for her faults as he described them.

Mom died before he did. My father cried the first tears I had ever seen. He sobbed for hours days later. It wasn’t until the end of his life that he began to understand his actions. I sat at his funeral empty. I had no future, only that past.

I was lost in nightmares of the past. I was falling into a deep abyss of loneliness. The he appeared. A knight in shining armor. My savior, my soul. Our courtship appeared to be a fairytale. His attentiveness and thoughtfulness filled my heart with joy. But I did not see the red flags.

He was cold and distant with his family. He was usually rude and demanding of waitstaff if his order was just not right. One day we were walking into a store, and he didn’t hold the door for me. We seldom held hands anymore. I just dismissed this as him being a highly focused and demanding person.

The first time he raised his voice at me I cowered. It was an innocent moment of forgetfulness on my part. I attempted to apologize, but he continued to scream at me. As tears fell, he looked away in disgust and walked out of the room. This was but the beginning. It was years and years of relentless anger.

It wasn’t until I began speaking to a counselor that I began piecing together my childhood with my current relationship. I finally felt understood. I finally felt. Returning home after the first session, I had an understanding of his behaviors and the reasons why. I began attempting to reason with him during our arguments. To my surprise it didn’t work. He became more rageful and slapped me across my face.

I felt the full force of his inner demons for the first time. It really wasn’t the first time. That slap brought back terrible memories of witnessing my mom being hit by my father. Now the terror was distinctly mine. I felt so very alone, again.

Sitting in my bedroom, tears falling. I felt trapped. Leaving meant being alone. Alone held no substance. I could not wrap my brain around what it actually meant. I endured several years of his abuse. I never hated him, I felt a supreme sorrow for his own hell. During subsequent sessions with my counselor I began to understand why I held such fear of leaving him, of what I was really looking for in him.

It truly wasn’t about him completely. As my counselor had described, in finding and marrying this man, this abusive soul, I was attempting to reconcile my abusive childhood by attempting to fix this man and therefore giving my past a happy ending. As this rarely comes true, I was left with the terror of abuse or the crippling fear of being alone.

It was during a lunch with a close friend that I heard my own words for the first time. She asked what I never left him, why I chose to endure such abuse. I lowered my eyes, and in almost a whisper I stated: ‘I’d rather be beaten, than be alone.’

(That last statement was once said to me by a close friend who had been in a terribly abusive relationship. It was his attempt at killing her and her defending herself that finally brought her to seek and more importantly, accept help.)