My name is Elizabeth and this is my story of survival.
My abuser was my second husband. We started going out when I was divorcing my first husband. He was always very polite and soft spoken. He was in the Air Force.He was good to me at the beginning. I got pregnant with our first child right away. I’ve always wondered if we would have got married if I hadn’t got pregnant.
The first time he hit me we had friends over. The guys kept saying mean things to us during a game of cards. I was irritated and told my husband to stop teasing us. I went to hand him a beer and out of the blue he slapped me so hard it knocked me into the kitchen. I hit the stove and slid down to the floor. That was the first time, but there were many more after that. Of course he apologized and swore he wouldn’t do it again. Of course he did it again, and somehow it was always my fault. During the time I was with him he would hit me if I said something he didn’t want to hear, he would call me fat ( even though I weighed 103) and stupid and ugly and would say I didn’t do anything right. He called me a whore and a slut and accused me of sleeping around. I had never been unfaithful to him. If I didn’t answer the phone in three rings he’d want to know who was there. If I didn’t want to have sex he would just rape me. I was too scared to call the police on him because I knew when he got out of jail he’d kill me. He tricked me into signing a document giving up my parental rights during the divorce. He told me later if I had tried to fight it he had a guy lined up to kill me for him. He even told me the guy was going to kill me for $1500. He threatened to kill me several times. I knew he meant it.
He stalked me for several years, during and after the divorce.
When I left I knew it was leave or die. I had no family to go to and I had never worked a day in my life. I hadn’t even graduated from high school. By Gods grace and strength I found the courage to leave him.
That was many years ago. I eventually remarried to a good man who never lifted a finger to me. We had a daughter together and were married for 28 years.
When I think about that time in my life I still get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I still can’t watch a movie with domestic violence in it. I was in therapy half my life healing the damage he did to me. However I rarely think of it today, my life is not perfect but I’m happy and have accomplished a few things I’m proud of. I’ve written and published three books and I’m working on another one.
