Anonymous Story: 20 years Ago

As I am going through my process of trying to heal I realize I may have a story to tell. It begins almost 20 years ago in December of 1999. I was 16 years old and a local business owners soon asked me out on a date. At this point of my life I was a troubled teen being raised by a single mother with the only father figure I had ever really known passing a few years before. Our first date consisted of a quick dinner and movie. Afterwards we agreed to meet again but by mid January I had not heard from him and decided to call. We made plans to meet again and from there a relationship blossomed. I learned somewhere along the way he was fourteen years older then me but I finally felt like I had someone to lean on. We discussed our future, talked about marriage, and made plans. By the spring of my senior year things changed quickly. I learned I was pregnant about three months before high school graduation. I had my mind set that I was going to keep the pregnancy. As the months progressed I started pushing him away even though he had other plans. I thought it was just false hope and he would eventually leave like every other man seemed to do in my life. It was in November of 2001 when I delivered a perfect baby boy after hours of laboring unmedicated. I tried to no avail to reach the father but decided if I had to I would raise him on my own. He eventually would show up a few days later. We discussed the future and how we should raise this baby. Within four months we were married. From the beginning things never were quite right but I went with the flow because to me that’s what a wife was supposed to do. Five children were born into this relationship. Four years into it I realized he was having online relationships because I wasn’t available to him. I was raising children, going to college, and working. I never felt like I could leave. He would tell me that he would have me 302, take my kids because by myself I didn’t have the resources to care for them. Eventually I thought I found my way out in 2007 when a coworker and I had an affair. Once the truth was revealed to my then husband I saw a side of him I never seen. He was eventually arrested and released on bail. Without proper counseling and support and my own unwise decision I agreed to marriage counseling and family reunification. I took on a few more years of emotional and verbal abuse. Escaping by working long hours and going to bed early. Finally in the fall of 2016 I came home from work to him having made plans for kids to stay with their Grandmother so he could make things better by inviting another female into our relations. This was the final straw he knew I was ready and making plans to leave. He refused me access to the car I bought and constantly was taking my phone to gain information. In February of 2017 after several attempts he had the local police escort me to the hospital to be committed. Upon evaluation I was released and never returned.
These two years have been the roughest for me. Since I walked out without anything and no place to live he was granted the custodial guardian of our children. His abuse would continue but now in the form of financial. Taking me for child support even though when I had the kids or they would call for something I would get. I am fortunately at a place in my life now where I am starting to heal. I was receiving counseling and learned things I didn’t know like martial rape and being diagnosed with PTSD from the verbal and emotional abuse. I am in a new relationship to a man that is completely different but it is hard to erase certain things. Learning to trust again, the nightmares that awake you from a deep sleep are not so much anymore, and concentrating on myself. Of course in this time I worry about the children and try my best to spend every moment I can with them. I moved a distance away because the stares and comments I would get in the community because of the stories he tells and the act of him not being in the wrong. In the end I may look the mother who walked out but until they walk a day in my shoes and experience the reality of the situation there should be no judging.
That is the purpose of me sharing this story…. for the young girls out there who are at a lose and are given the hopes of a promising future with an older man seek a responsible adult and weigh the options.