Amber T

My name is Amber Termine. I was with my abuser for 8 and a half years. It started amazing he was great my daughter from a previous relationship was 5 months old at the time. He would buy diapers bring me flowers whenever he got the chance. He also had a daughter from a previous relationship, and she never liked me or my daughter because of the bad mouthing from her mother, he never corrected the behavior or anything. He blamed me.

I got pregnant with my son about a year and a half into the relationship and then everything changed he would tell me it’s not his baby and he was going to push me down the stairs and he would not give me money to buy the proper necessities after I had moved out of my parents house into the home that he bought, and he would always bring up that it was his house, not my house.

He was just allowing us (my daughter and I) to live there. When my son was born, he refused to help at all buy diapers, clothes, baby food, supplies, anything and everything my family had to pay for all that because I was not working. And Daycare was too expensive so when I did get a job, I paid for daycare for my two young children (two under two) he would come home very intoxicated, and start throwing things saying that I did not make dinner right he would throw his plate that I made him at me.

He would punch the wall next to my head he would threaten to kill me or himself if I left him anything would set him off like I didn’t fold laundry right as soon as it was done drying, I didn’t make dinner properly, or pack his lunch properly or have dinner, hot and ready whenever he decided to show up at the house or that his dinner was cold when he got home at midnight or later he would wake me up in the middle of the night yelling and screaming, throwing my phone or anything that he could get his hands on.

Or if I brought up something that bothered me, he would choke me until I could not breathe or pass out. He would also spank my son to the point where he would have handprints on his bottom with a diaper on, and he would yell at my daughter, and tell her to go her room, because she was crying she was two this point. And one point I was working two jobs, paying for childcare and I would have to come home cook clean and he would take my entire check for me. And when he got drunk like most nights. He would come upstairs I was sleeping in point he loaded hunting rifle at my head or anywhere on my body till I was on the floor, crying and begging for him not to he did that repeatedly on top of other physical things he did, take my car keys and leave me for hours to figure my way to kid’s doctors appointment, be without food in the house. (My parents would buy me and the kid’s groceries and their needs)

In May 2021 he had told me that he wanted a girlfriend and he was going to get one and he did. We were living separately (same house he lived upstairs I lived downstairs) my daughter was sharing a room with me.  In September 2021 he had been drinking all night at 1:35am he woke me up standing over me and started to yell I told him to get out of my room he took my phone and I told him I don’t care take it and leave that made him mad he drug me out of my bed and on the stairs where he pulled a handgun out of his jeans and held it to my head and cocked it. I pushed him and ran back down stairs to wake my daughter (8 at the time) up to call 911 and she did. I ran back upstairs to check on my son by that time he had locked himself in the bedroom with my son (6 years old at the time) I knocked on the door and asked if I can have my son he told me to “get the f out of the house” I went back downstairs and got on the phone with 911 operator. The police showed up to the house and they arrested him.