As part of Domestic Violence Awareness Month and our It Takes A Friend campaign, one of Between Friends’ clients has submitted the following account of their experience.
I don’t know how many times I started over writing this. So many old memories came back that I buried in the back of my mind that it made me physically and mentally sick. It took me back to a dark place that I don’t care to relive.
I was with my abuser “K” for almost 20 years. We have three beautiful children together. I have a total of four children. K was my high school crush. I had the same lunch period with him and I always laughed at his corny jokes.
I ignored the signs of him having a temper. I didn’t think he was abusive. I thought he was a “bad boy” like I saw in the movies and I liked that. To me, K was exciting, cute, and funny. I believed I fell in love with someone that I didn’t know. I was living a fairytale in my mind but in reality, I began to get mentally, physically, and emotionally abused.
After we started having children together, I wanted to keep my little family together so I put up with his disrespect and the abuse. I wanted my children to have the two-parent home that I didn’t have, along with everything else that I wanted growing up. I kept forgiving the cheating, the lying, the physical and verbal abuse, the fact that he refused to work and help out etc… because I was hoping that one day he would open his eyes and see that I loved him, and that he would change for the better. But staying with him only made him disrespect me more.
I lost my true self, loving a person more than I loved myself. But I never loved him more than I loved my kids (or that’s what I kept telling myself). I’m saying that because I didn’t believe what he was doing to me would affect my kids in a negative way because they were young.
One day he came to visit our kids while we were broken up. The second he stepped in the door it felt like the energy in the room shifted from us being happy and laughing to us being upset, angry, my children fighting out of nowhere, and me fussing. We became miserable no matter how much we tried to fake it.
K would use our children’s love for him to ease his way back into our lives when he would need a place to rest his head for a little while because he wore out his welcome wherever he was staying at the time. I would come home from work and he would be there hiding in my children’s room or in their closet. When I would catch him and tell him he needed to leave my children would cry for him to stay. Then he would say “See, you upset the kids. I’m sorry mommy is making you all cry. She doesn’t love you.” That would upset me and I would allow him to stay. I believed if I did everything he wanted me to do that he would change and be the man/father that myself and my children deserved. I kept asking myself “What am I doing wrong?” It took almost 20 years for me to realize that the only thing that I did wrong was to not leave him the first time he hit me or verbally abused me, and to try to love someone that wasn’t worthy of my love.
I am so grateful for Between Friends. My court advocate and her supervisor have been by my side through this last incident. I honestly don’t know where I would be without them. I wish I knew about this program years ago.
Between Friends offers support and resources that victims of DV need. I was so scared and stressed out that I was ready to back down and I wasn’t going to go through with my Order of Protection. I felt like I wasn’t going to get justice for the abuse that I suffered. So many negative emotions were going through my mind that I became sick. When I got done speaking with my team from Between Friends I knew everything was going to be ok. That positive phone call gave me the courage that I needed to keep going. Between Friends is one of the best things that ever happened to me.
Today I am a STRONG woman that not only knows her worth and value as a person, but I have learned to stop giving people the opportunity to hurt me. I cut off any and everybody who tries to disturb my peace. I know I deserve better. I know my children deserve better. I don’t want my children growing up going through anything that I went through.
I have learned to LOVE me. I am teaching my children to LOVE themselves so they don’t depend on anybody else’s LOVE. We don’t deserve to be mistreated or abused in any way. If WE don’t learn to value and respect ourselves, we can’t get mad if the next person doesn’t.
I am spending my time growing as a person. I have set positive goals for myself and I am accomplishing them one by one. I am enjoying my children more than ever and we are moving forward with our lives. I can’t rewind the hands of time to undo what happened but I can make the best of this present moment and our future. I don’t talk about my past and I’m not sure if that’s healthy for me or not. But I know as of right now burying what happened to me helps me move forward. I have learned to pray and let go. My past does not define who I am. Tell someone that can help you get out of that situation and NEVER look back. If someone loves you, they won’t hurt you.
Sincerely,
There Is Hope
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