True Colors Revealed

I married my ex husband in 2013. First few months were great, and then he revealed his true colors. It started with emotional abuse – I never looked good enough, didn’t say or do things the way he wanted them. He first hit me 6 months into our marriage – a punch to the side of the head because I didn’t wake up with him to his alarm to pull his clothes out of the dryer.

The abuse got worse and worse over the next few months. Punches, kicks, head slamming into the fridge. But he made everything better because he would buy me stuff the day after he hurt me. Fast forward to 2016 – I found out I was pregnant. Although we were married, the sex was not consensual. I was raped by my own husband – beaten til unconscious and then he raped me.

A week before I “escaped”, I tried to leave and he jumped through the windshield of my car and repeatedly kicked it until the windshield shattered. I ran upstairs to our apartment but he was right behind me. He beat me to a pulp with the worst injury being a broken sternum in three places.

The cops let me down repeatedly. He was military and we lived off post so they refused to arrest him – kept saying I need to go through military police and his chain of command. So I went to leadership and they let me down too. I ended up in the hospital for my sternum and he was with me the entire time and convinced the doctors I was attacked by our husky which jumped on my chest and broke my sternum. I had no family in the country, and no friends because he had total control of everything – money, my work etc. He made me alienate my friends and family so nobody knew what was going on. I was his rag doll to do whatever with.

The day before I escaped he tried to drown me in the bathtub and said “I will kill you and this bastard baby”. There was NOTHING behind his eyes. No pleasure, no anger, nothing. Just cold. I was saved by our neighbor banging on the door because he heard me yelling. The next day I drove myself to the airport with nothing but the clothes on my back and a suitcase full of my clothes and I escaped.

I flew back home and I stayed there and had the hardest time bonding with my child – my parents are now raising him as their own because the trauma is too much and I knew I couldn’t give my child the love and the life he deserved. I am in a safe, happy relationship now, but the trauma still remains just as strong as ever. I don’t know if I will ever heal, or ever be at peace, but knowing my child is safe in a place my ex husband will never find him, in a sense makes it ok. My child is alive and I am alive too.

Time does not heal all wounds, we just learn to live with the weight we carry. I am slowly learning to love myself. It’s an incredibly long, hard road. But I am on it. I got out, you can too.