Our "Blissful" Wedding Night

I was lying in bed, watching a movie, he was sitting at the computer browsing the Internet, it was our first night as a ‘wedded couple’ and though blissful and wonderful as your wedding night should be, it was nowhere near that.  He began asking for the password to my email and social networking sites, I obliged thinking I had nothing to hide from him, and relationships are built upon trust, right?  Well, he took it to the extreme, reading all of my past messages, checking out all of my ‘guy friends’ and began turning jealous and angry.  He began drilling me about boys I had spoken to, boys I had hung out with before, who were all these boys I was ‘friends’ with?   He began accusing me of not being honest about past relationships, boys who I had met and been friends with.  Every boy I had ever spoken to, every guy friend I had had in high school suddenly became ‘suspected lovers’ and I became the disgusting Whore.  We had not known each other for more than a month or two, I had not really had opportunity to tell him everything about my past, and didn’t think it mattered; he had a past as well, doesn’t everyone?  But to him, because I had not divulged every gory detail of my life before I had met him, I was a liar, and a deceiver, a slut, a despicable low life unworthy of his love and affection.  I sat there in that bed crying, wondering what in the world I had gotten myself into.  If our first married night was like this, what did that say about the future of our marriage?  In that moment I wanted out, listening to him yell at me, scream at me, call me every ugly horrible name in the book should have been enough to make me walk out the door that instant, but I didn’t.

I don’t know what kept me there that night, maybe it was fear and shame, (What will I tell my parents? Where am I going to go now?) maybe part of it was my own stubborn pride, (I didn’t want to admit to anyone I had made such a horrible and stupid decision) and maybe part of it was me holding onto some hope that this was a fluke incident….maybe he had the right to be angry with me…they always tell you that marriage takes work, right?  I didn’t want people looking at me and whispering under their breath, “you see that stupid girl; she married someone she barely knew, and her marriage lasted only one night.”  I was determined to make it work, I had made vows after all, I was going to be true to my word and show everyone (including myself) that I could do it.

Thanks for stopping by, check back later for more of my story...

The Beginning of My Nightmare

Five years ago I was living in a hellish nightmare.  Any sane person would have run away screaming long before now, and maybe, partially, it was insanity keeping me there, but unless you have experienced this situation yourself, you can never truly understand the range of emotion, the fear, the hope, and the rage of personal conflict boiling underneath the surface.   To the outside world, perhaps, I appeared normal, but underneath the façade, was a festering, gangrenous sore eating away at my soul.

I was 19 years old, young, stupid, and naïve.  My self-esteem, which had never been optimal, had hit rock bottom.  I had just come out of the second of two “serious” relationships, dumped again by a man I thought I was in love with, a man I thought I would possibly marry, but instead I was brushed away like an unwanted piece of trash, left to be trodden on and blown away aimlessly in the wind.  I began to question my self-worth.  What was so wrong with me that no one wanted me?  I was never good enough, smart enough, pretty enough.  Why didn’t anyone desire me?  What was I doing wrong?  I spiraled into an endless black pit of depression and self-loathing, reaching and grasping at anyone, anything that would show me some sort of love and affection.

Then like a shining beacon out of the dust, a knight in shining armor arose to rescue me.  He not only sympathized with my broken, damaged heart, but he empathized with me, he had been in my shoes, he had been hurt, and trampled, and thrown away too.  He knew the words that I so desperately wanted to hear, had the comforting warm shoulder to cry on, the arms to embrace my empty shell of a body with.  Here he was, the man who would truly love me! Here was the answer to all my problems, my other half!  We spent hours talking about those who had hurt us, our hopes and dreams, what we wanted and didn’t want out of life.  It seemed we were perfect for each other, we had both been through so much hurt, and together we could rise above it all. 

As if on a dare, we decided to prove our love to each other by running off and getting married.  We wouldn’t tell anyone, they would just try to tear us apart; we kept it a secret, only allowing one little witness to our vows to each other, his 3 year old daughter.

I was so excited at first, my whole life I had wanted to be a mother and a wife, I was thrilled to find someone I had so much in common with, and the best part was, (I thought) he had two beautiful children and was a wonderful father!  Little did I know that his whole attitude, every horrendous story he told me about his son’s and daughter’s mothers, the little show he put on for me, was just that, a show…and I was about to find out the truth.  Find out about the wolf that was hiding so expertly in sheep’s clothing.

It was if a switch had been pulled somewhere.  We went home, told his family the “good news”, had cake and celebrated, we couldn’t be happier, but that night everything changed.

I am publishing these blog posts in sections when I have time to write more of my story down, there is more to come....stay tuned....

Introduction

Who am I? I am the invisible woman, I am one voice out of thousands of women with stories similar to, and even worse than mine.  Women who are prisoners in their own home, women who are battered emotionally and physically by the ones who they love the most.  I prefer to keep my true identity anonymous to protect myself as well as my children, but everything I write on this blog is the truth, and the experiences are my own, personally.  I wanted to share my story with the world in the hopes that it might help strengthen and give courage to someone, somewhere out there.  Even if my story only touches one person, it will be well worth it to me.  This blog is the story of my two and a half year nightmare, the story of my first marriage to an emotionally, physically, and verbally abusive boy.  (I use the word boy here because man seems quite unfitting)

To those of you who are in current abusive situations, I urge you to seek the help that you need to remove yourself (and your children if you have them) from these situations.  Do not allow yourselves to be invisible, make your voice heard, and your own story known.  There are always resources out there, and no matter how impossible a way out may seem....there is ALWAYS a way out.  Do not allow yourself to feel as though you are worthless and undeserving, do not believe the lies you have been fed.  Every woman is a beautiful creation, a divine daughter of a Heavenly Father.  No one deserves to live a life imprisoned in an abusive relationship.

For the National Abuse Hot line, please call: 1-888-3737-888