Have you ever told yourself, if I knew then what I know now, I would have done things differently? A lot of situations come to mind when I think of that sentence. Of course I would have done things differently. Hindsight is always 20/20, right? I wouldn’t think I’d be ready to write about a subject like this one for some time. Wounds are still open, but they’re the type of cuts that with just one tap they start oozing pus. Yeah, I would say they’re infected, but I’m constantly layering them with antibiotics and they’re on the mend. In a couple of days, it’ll be nine months since I started living this new life of mine. Nine months since I made the biggest decision of my life. People have told me it’s the best decision I’ve ever made, but no one knows what it’s been like to walk in my shoes. Of course, everyone might have an idea, but they’ll never really understand the difficulties or the heartbreak. Here it goes:
Nine months ago, I was still married. Nine months ago, I was still the better half to someone else. I was still living with my husband of five years. Now, to be technical about it all, we were never legally married but I didn’t need to have that piece of paper to tell me that my life was intertwined with someone else’s. My husband was a huge part of my life.
Since the very beginning, it was a whirlwind romance. It was sweet, exciting, and innocent. Keep in mind, this was all from my perspective. If I knew then what I know now, I would have seen the tell-tale signs of trouble. I was oblivious and willingly made myself blind to all the imperfections I saw in him. To be completely honest, and I know I’m looking pathetic, I had never had a relationship before him. All through my school years not once had I ever been in a relationship. I had always been surrounded by guy friends because it was easier for me to build friendships with them, but that’s all it had ever turned out into: just friends. Even in college, I would go out with guys, hang out with guys, talk to guys, but it never crossed the line from friends. So when he came out from left field, well I thought I was lucky to FINALLY meet a guy that saw me for more than just a friend. He actually wanted to be in a relationship with me….ME! I basically jumped from my high perch of solitude…it was more like a freakin’ base jump except I had forgotten my parachute somewhere along the way. I fell hard for him. He wasn’t handsome, he wasn’t rich, he wasn’t the smartest guy, he wasn’t the hardest working guy, he wasn’t the most loyal guy, he wasn’t the most loving guy, but he was interested in being with me. I put on my blinders and walked towards a life with him. I later found out that he was still married, that instead of the one child he had told me he had, he actually had three and that he wasn’t working with one of the main construction companied in the Valley. Still, I stubbornly marched on towards a future with him. I really thought he was the one for me. The first week I moved in with him, it was absolute bliss. Never before had I ever lived with someone and here I was, finally living in a house with the man I thought was going to be mine forever. We cooked together, cleaned together, watched TV together, visited his family together, went out to the stores together…we did everything together. As soon as that week ended, reality slapped me in the face and I found out just what pit of hell I had jumped into.
It started with him being psychologically and emotionally abusive. He would say some comments here and there. He would critique everything about me. I learned really fast that there were some things I just couldn’t tell him about me. I even learned that a lot of my opinions had to be censored. I quickly realized that quieting who I really was would benefit me more than if I let myself be who I was. Communication was there but it was tailored to how he wanted it to be. There were things that he would do that he wouldn’t tell me. He’d leave me alone at the house for hours on end. I was living in a city that was three hours away from my family; I had no relatives or friends nearby. I was completely and utterly alone. He was an expert manipulator and I was too ‘in love’ to really understand and see what he was doing. It wasn’t before long that he started being aggressive and physically abusive towards me.
Like I said before, I had learned to quiet the real me with him around but there were some ‘bad habits’ I just wasn’t able to shake. One of these being that I wouldn’t keep my mouth shut when we would argue. What he wanted me to do was just listen to what he told me and not say anything back. Let him have the last word. I just couldn’t for the life of me manage to do that. I couldn’t, wouldn’t, let him have the last word. Those are the times when he would either slap, push, or beat me until I just let go out of the fight. After I’d stop crying and clean up my wounds he’d always say why I just wouldn’t listen to him in the first place. It wouldn’t have gotten to the point it had. Then he’d apologize and life would go on; him with his pride and me with my bruised body. Through the course of our relationship, there were numerous times when he hit me and I could honestly relay every single time he did it because those are situations you just don’t forget about. If it were up to me, I’d recount every single beating, not because I enjoyed them but because I think it would bring about inner peace for me. I won’t though, because I don’t think I’d be able to manage the heartbreak of reliving every single moment of when he made me feel less than a human being. Believe me when I say there were countless times when I tasted blood, when my eyes were blackened, when bruises marked my body, when head hurt when I would shampoo my hair, and when I felt like I was drowning in my own abyss. All these times, I questioned myself why I continued to hold on. I argued with myself as to whether he could ever actually change. I screamed at myself as to why the hell I continued to exist in a situation that was the worst thing in the world for me. There were nights, when he would lock me outside and make me sleep on the porch, and I would beg God to take me away from that life. I thought, in my heart of hearts, that I was done; that my life from then on would be filled with pain and hatred. In a way, I was wrong.
Nine months ago, I decided that enough was more than enough. I was done having hope, I was done lying to myself, and more importantly I was done making my daughter live a life that she didn’t deserve. I ask myself sometimes, only sometimes, if things would have been differently if my daughter wasn’t in the picture. I wonder whether I would have continued to be with him or would I have left him a long time ago. Honestly, the answer should be clear but I’m not too sure which one I would have chosen. Thankfully, my daughter was lent to me and so I made the decision that had to be done. I was scared and worried but beyond that, I was disappointed. I had failed at my marriage. I had failed at keeping my family together. I was now going to be jumping to the role of single parent and I wasn’t too sure as to how I was going to manage. When he found out that I was leaving him, he begged and cried and told me that things would change. He was going to change, he was going to be better, he was going to give my daughter and me the best life ever…all this I had heard countless times and not once had he ever accomplished anyone of his statements. With a heavy heart, I told him there was no changing my mind, I was set to move back home and start my new life there. The rest, as the saying goes, is history.
I look at that part of my life like a person who looks into the window of another person’s house: it’s not yours, you’re just peeking in. I haven’t been able to make myself feel anything but a sense of reminiscing…like when you tell others about your past. That’s all it is, just a distant memory in your life. In reality, I haven’t dealt with any of it. I’m not complete, I’m not whole, I haven’t healed, and I haven’t learned. I can’t even get myself to cry about any of this because it’s really surreal to me that I lived through that. It’s unimaginable to me that I was the one that was beaten, bruised, slapped, kicked, sent to the hospital, made to sleep outside, constantly raped, spit upon, make to kneel and face the wall, had things thrown at, insulted, taken advantage of….I can’t make myself believe that this was all done to me. People constantly comment on how cold, how defensive, how sarcastic, how mean, how unemotional, how detached I am and I really don’t give a shit. I’m broken and I haven’t been able to fit the pieces back together. I’m a puzzle of a million pieces and I haven’t been able to find the way to start connecting the pieces together. I started with the main one, which was to leave his ass in the first place…I guess you could say that’s a start.
So, in the end, if I knew then what I know now, I would have told myself to open up my eyes. I would have pushed myself to expect better. I would have allowed myself the courage to say that I honestly deserved better. I can’t change the past, and don’t ask me if I would if given the chance, but what I do know is that I’m here now. Living in a home where, although it isn’t mine, I’m not constantly walking on egg shells. My daughter is being brought up by individuals who I know are better role models than the ones that occupied her life before. I’m existing in a world that makes sense to me and although I’m not myself now, I know the possibility of reconnecting with me is there. It’s safe to say that my heartache and pain was not experienced in vain: I realized that although mixed up and jumbled, within me lies strength and the knowledge that in life you fall down a lot but as long as you’re willing to get up and dust yourself off, that’s all you need to allow the opportunity to continue on each new day.
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