Abuse takes on many forms.

Emotional, physical, verbal, sexual, mental... how much abuse is too much abuse before it's time to get out of a bad relationship.

She married a thirty-one year old man when she was just nineteen, having known him for only three months. Her father had died six months earlier. Believe me, she had not connected the two events until years later when a therapist told her that she was looking for someone to replace her father...

A month after she and the man were married, he slapped her across her face while arguing over some honeymoon pictures that he did not want included in their wedding album!

Then, she found a seven inch jagged hunter's knife underneath his pillow!!

One night while high on cocaine, he locked himself in the bathroom with a loaded gun, threatening to kill himself!!

That young bride was me.

I was hysterical! I cried outside that bathroom door, begging him to please come out. I wanted to flee the frightening scene and at the same time I wanted to try to protect this man from himself.

All of this abuse was too much for me. I didn't need it and I sure didn't want it!!

The day that he trashed our apartment was the day that I left him. We were married for six weeks!

I drove to my mother's house in the middle of the night and told her that my husband was an abuser and I could
not and would not stay married to him no matter what anyone said.

He came to my mother's home in a crazed state and tossed bricks through her front window! He returned an hour later and asked to speak to his wife.

When my mother opened the front door to tell him no, he rudely brushed past my mother and stormed up the stairs towards the room that I was in. I managed to run past him and down the stairs into the kitchen area.

All the while, my husband was verbally abusing me and attempting to grab me to "shake sense into me to come
back home", as he later told the police.

Hmmm... I shouted at him, "you are not my father! My father never beat me and I won't allow you to!!"

He continued to plead with me and by now I knew that there was no going back.

I yelled, "I want a divorce. Just leave me alone. Take your wedding rings back!"

I threw the rings at him and what happened next is why he almost got arrested that night.

He put his huge hands on my throat and began choking me, bending my back over the kitchen sink, with my head in the sink basin!

My mother and my oldest sister carrying her three month old baby, ran into the kitchen hitting him and trying to get him off of me. My sister called the police, who thankfully, arrived in less than two minutes witnessing the attack while it was still happening.

He was handcuffed and led to the front of the house while my mother consoled me. The police asked if I wanted to press charges and I said, "no. I just want my freedom."

We were divorced four months later.

How much abuse is too much?

 
Where in the marriage vows does it say "for better or for worse, to take abuse in any form, to risk death and only then do we part?"

Nowhere!!


As human beings, we must first learn to love ourselves before we can give love to another.

Victims of abuse, verbal, emotional, sexual, mental or physical, do not have to be victims!

Sometimes I think of how my life may have been very different had I stayed for decades in that horrible and painful union! At age nineteen, I got out of an abusive marriage very early on and for that I am grateful to be alive.



If you or someone you know is suffering at the hands of an abuser, please, do whatever it takes to get help for yourself or help the person to get the help.

It is out there.

There are beautiful people with huge hearts and loving spirits who are dedicated to helping the abused.

These are courageous men and women who provide safe havens for the one who is being abused and protection for the children.


© 2007 M.L.J. as EroticPoet™. All rights reserved.
No republication of this material, in any form or medium,
is permitted without express permission of the author.


~ Keep Hope Alive ~