My Survivor Story

My story:
I spent half my life with my abuser. We met in middle school and started a relationship our sophomore year of high school. Everyone called us high school sweethearts and thought we had a great love story. Image was everything to him and no one knew the darkness behind our doors. We married after 4 years together, even after he had affairs and mentally abused me throughout the relationship. After marriage, the affairs and abuse only got worse. There were at least 6 affairs that I confirmed throughout our 12 year marriage and 16 year relationship. After each affair, I wanted to leave, I wanted to get out, but he always convinced me that it was my fault that he cheated and I needed to be a better wife to him. It was a complete mind freak because I would roll over backwards trying to please him and give him everything in life that he wanted to avoid conflict. But none of it was ever good enough. The abuse turned physical, as they typically do but after each “incident” he was sorry and claimed he would never do it again. That’s when the love bombing would occur. Our relationship had extreme highs after an affair or abusive incident which made me question my reality and if things were as bad as I thought. The true reality was he was trauma bonding me to him, making me believe that it was love. But love doesn’t hurt. After the highs, the relationship would hit rock bottom where he’d have another affair or begin abusing me again. In 2018 when our daughter was born, and he had at least two affairs, he held a job where he carried a firearm and was so enraged when I told him I was leaving him due to the affair, that he discharged his weapon in public. He was caught on camera and fired. In 2021 he was fired again due to misconduct at another job. We mutually decided to separate due to another affair but he wouldn’t truly let me go. In his mind he owned me. He continued the affair and holding onto me and our daughter, refusing to let us out. This is when the abuse turned a dark corner. I was frantically trying to make a plan to get out with our lives without him knowing. During one abuse incident he choked me and slammed me to the floor gouging my real eyelashes completely out. I remember the darkness in his eyes, my fear and sharp pain in my eye but not knowing what had happened. Our daughter witnessed more abuse than I ever want to admit. We weren’t safe. If he couldn’t control her, at the time she was 3-4 years old, he would turn his dark anger on her. A icy cold night in February he put her outside in the cold to control her and wouldn’t let her inside. Another night in late April his rage went black and I didn’t think I would survive the night. While our daughter was in the car to witness everything, he chocked me and dragged me out of the car, and beat me for close to an hour. He would scream at me, shake me like a rag doll, slam me against the car several times for our daughter to see. He got on top of me and slammed my head into the ground over and over. While I begged for my life, he was spitting in my face telling me he was going to kill me. I shouted for help, but at the time we lived in a wooded area and no one heard my cries. I also attempted to pull my phone out and ask Siri to call for help but he grabbed my phone from me and threw it into the front yard. We survived the night. I should have called the authorities but he took my phone & car keys and the entire next day followed me around everywhere I went to ensure I wouldn’t tell anyone. He monitored my calls and texts and deleted any photo evidence I would attempt to keep. His biggest fear was people finding out what a monster he was. I continued to work on my silent plan to get out and my daughter and I finally got out in June 2022 when my family was present for his blackout rage and called the police on him. They were terrified he was going to kill me. He spent 9 months in jail before posting bail and is currently pending trial for felony domestic violence aggravated assault. He has been out of our lives for a year now and we are happy and healing. Our daughter is thriving and it is amazing to see her coming out of her shell. We are praying for the trial to bring us justice and to continue to protect us from his dark rage. My only regret is I should have spoken up sooner and gotten out. I shouldn’t have kept the abuse a secret. Abusers don’t stop abusing, they just get darker and better at hiding it. It wasn’t until I was out and free that I realized just how bad the abuse was.