He was arrested at 9:14 am on May 21, 2003. It was a sunny, blue sky morning. The birds were fluttering and twittering in the trees. The river flowed lazily by, meandering through the forest, dappled with sunlight, sparkling, clear.
We were in hiding. Had been since February 26 when we’d fled the city we lived in 1,000 miles away, heading west, heading to the US, he’d said. “I’ve got money there,” he insisted. “I’ll just leave this mess to my lawyers to fix. No sense hanging around waiting for them to get it cleared up. I’ll let you go once I’m out of the country,” he promised.
Like all his promises, like everything he’d ever said and done, it was all a lie.
On that morning in May, the lies fell apart and he was exposed. Two police officers walked in and took him away. “Are you on drugs?” one of them asked me as I sat, rocking back and forth, back and forth in a chair watching the scene unfold, a quiet, low keen seeping from my mouth. I was catatonic. I was not on drugs.
They took him away and I sat surveying the mess around me, trying to make sense of the mess of my life.
I hadn’t heard of No Contact with the abuser, but I knew after months of no contact with family and friends, I had to make contact with someone beyond the narrow confines of my world with him. He was gone. I had to reach out for help.
I called my sister who lived an hour away from where we had been in hiding. She didn’t ask questions. She didn’t yell or scream at me. She came and got me.
No Contact was the only possibility. He didn’t have my sister’s number and it was unlisted. He did keep calling the couple who owned the cabin where we’d been staying. They called my sister, she advised them not to give him my number. He called my mother. She hung up on him, even though she felt it was rude. “He’s the man who almost killed your daughter,” I told her. “It is not rude to hang up on him. It’s vital to my well-being.”
I didn’t want to think about him but at times, my mind betrayed me. I’d be walking down a street and hear a cell phone ringing and it would be his ring. My mind would leap to thoughts of him. What was he doing? What was he saying? What was he telling people about me?
I posted No Trespassing signs in my mind. When thoughts of him intruded, I’d mentally hold up a sign and send the thoughts back to where they’d come from, my fear, my shame, my guilt.
I knew that one day I’d have to go through the thoughts of him and examine them, but for now, I had to give myself time to grow stronger. For now, it didn’t matter that I had to rid myself of his presence in my mind. That would come later. At first, what mattered most was that I build emotional strength so that I could eventually deal with thinking about him without making myself sick.
In those first minutes and hours and days weeks and months away from him I focused my thinking on me. On what had happened inside of me. On what I had to do to become healthy again.
The police asked me for a statement about anything I knew about his illegal activities. I had to do the right thing to show myself, remind myself; I was capable of doing ”˜the right thing’.
I wrote it down. It hurt. I was scared. What would he do when he found out I had ”˜told’ on him?
I couldn’t let my mind go there. The monster of him in my head was bigger than the reality of him, out there. Out there he was in jail. I had to escape the prison of my mind trapped in thinking of him. I held up my No Trespassing sign.
Focus on doing the right thing, I told myself.
I kept writing.
To remind myself that I was so much more than that five year relationship, that my life was made up of so many other important things than just ”˜him’, I made a list of things I’d done in my life that I was proud of. Being a mother topped my list. “What kind of mother are you really”, the voice of self-denigration whispered. “You deserted your children.”
I posted STOP signs in my head. Whenever self-doubt, negative self-talk invaded, I held up my STOP sign and consciously reframed the negative into more loving words. “I am a courageous woman. Yes, I did something I never imagined I would ever do as a mother. I was very, very sick. And now, the poison is gone and I am healing. I can make amends. I am reclaiming my life. I am courageous and growing stronger every day.”
I kept adding to my list of things I’d done that I was proud of. In Grade five I raised $122.00 for a charity by walking 21 miles. I was an honor student. Got a scholarship. I ran the marathon. Wrote a play with a group of street teens and produced it.
My list reminded me that I was capable of living in the world beyond the narrow corridor of his abuse. It reminded me that I was a competent, caring human being.
At first, I wanted to cry and cry and cry. At first, I did. And then I knew I had to build emotional muscle, to build my willpower. I gave myself a time limit for crying. It began with ten minutes on the hour, every hour. That was when I let myself cry. The other fifty minutes I had to do at least one constructive thing (Work on my resume. Phone about a job interview. Take a walk.) to take me one step further on my healing path. The ten minutes every hour became eight and then five and then only every two, then three, then four hours. Eventually, as I kept doing more and more things to take me on the healing path, I forgot to cry.
At first, I wanted to tell everyone my story. Talk about what he had done. How hurt I’d been. How confused and scared and lonely. At first, I thought everyone knew what I’d been through just by looking at me. Couldn’t they see the scars? Couldn’t they see my pain? I couldn’t understand how the world could be so normal. I needed to embrace its normalcy. I enforced No Contact in my speech. I could not talk of him. I could not tell the story again and again. The only time I had permission to talk about him and what had happened was when I went to an Alanon or Co-Dependents Anonymous meeting. There, with the safety of the 12-steps empowering me, I could speak up and give voice to my pain, my fear and my hope.
The greatest danger wasn’t contacting him. He was in jail. My greatest danger lay in thinking about him. In remembering those gentle moments where I had felt his ”˜love’ embrace me.
“It was never love,” I reminded myself. “Love doesn’t almost kill you.”
I kept working at No Contact in my mind. Good times or bad, thinking of him wasn’t healthy for me. I kept my No Trespassing signs posted. My STOP sign handy. Over time, it became easier. A cell phone ring wouldn’t startle me. My body wouldn’t jerk suddenly at the sound of a car backfiring, or a door slamming. I wouldn’t cry at every turn. Sit in silence immersed in sadness. Thoughts of suicide were arrested before they even saw the STOP sign in my mind. I was building my will to survive. My will to rejoice in living life fully every day.
In time, it became easier to live without the fear I would always be the abused woman I had become. In time, it became easier to live with the possibility of life beyond his abuse, beyond the lies he’d told me about who I was, what I could do, where I could go and who I could never be. It became easier to believe in me. It became easier to talk, about him, about what had happened, about what I’d done to betray myself and those I loved without falling into despair. It became easier to love myself, not as an abused woman, but as a woman who had the courage to face her fears, to turn up for herself and love herself, exactly the way she was. A woman capable and confident enough to let go of abuse and claim her right to live freely in her own skin.
I was an abused woman. Today, I continue to grow and heal, to love myself for all I’m worth and to give myself the space and time to let feelings flow through me without having to stop them.
Today, I give myself the grace of loving myself enough to know, I am okay. The things I did that hurt those I love, and me, are nothing compared to the things I do today to create a beautiful life all around me. I am not measured against what happened back then, my value is in what I do today to make a difference, in my life and the world around me.
Today, he was just a moment in time, a small segment of my life. He has no value in my life today. My value is in how I live, what I do, say, how I think and look at the world through eyes of love. Today, my value is in me.
let me add that i saw him drive by the house last nite. i heard the motorcycle just after i turned off the lights. had he been hanging around for a little while or had he just stopped by on the way to/from his latest screw. (this man lives to see what pussy he can find and conquest…sorry to be so crast (sp?))
I will verify the status of the injunction for sure. I can’t believe the court system never notified me of the date. I knew it was coming, but when the injunction started i got mail every other day. there has been nothing!!!!
the only thing for me to put on the curb is the vibrator and porn tape. That would really piss him off. But i would laugh my axx off. (thank god i find some humor in this)
i have no interest in talking with him. i just want him to go away………
i’m calling the domestic violence advocate now. not happy.
just learned that this county i live in does not contact victims when the injunction expires.
the help line’s DV advocate stressed – NO CONTACT! she knows the drill with these guys. she’s been thru it, and has heard it numerous times before. she said that based on what he does for a living – nurse in the jail – he is a real predator/psychopath. She has seen this once before with a male nurse. Con man in a con man’s world.
she stressed for me to keep safe, maintain control and keep the upper hand.
witsend,
I was wondering if you had guilt over the way your husband killed himself when your son was with him. Perhaps he picked up on your guilt feelings and interpreted them to mean that you ARE guilty rather than FEELING guilty. so now he blames you for the suicide?
your son sounds so much like my XP. Even the mothering relationship sounds the same. It’s like my xP is going through the same thing you son is going through. I’m not saying that he didn’t already experience it as a teenager, I’m just saying it’s like he’s stuck in a vicious cycle repeating the same experiences and emotions of resentment, abandonment, and grief over and over every decade or so. But every cycle makes him uglier and uglier.
And I just watch. not knowing what to do to break him out of it.
Ouch! OXY stop it. I was speaking metaphorically. you didn’t have to boink so hard.
🙂 Someone take her skillet away, she’s got too much control.
So anyway, My XP is such an ugly person who revels in being as evil as possible. This came about because his will power is so strong and when you add it to the infantile delusional emotions, it just turns into a horrific, determined evil.
There is one more thing that you might think about. I know that my XP had many gay friends. But he always made derogatory gay comments and it’s like he was ashamed of those friends and he cut them out of his life when he started being with me. I also noticed how many young blonde men he befriends. Also, the only friendship of mine that he didn’t sabotage was my friendship with one (closet) gay man. He didn’t like me to have girlfriends. I don’t actually believe that my XP is gay. I think that there is some confusion about his sexuality. His hatred for women may have made him prefer men. Or his narcissism makes him prefer young blonde men who remind him of himself. Or he just wants to have sex with everyone and everything. Anyway I’m pretty sure there is a component here, but I’m not sure if it is the root or just a side effect.
I know your son won’t open up to you, but you are still affecting his growth and development every single day that you live with him. He sees you and thinks thoughts about you and it becomes a part of him. You can’t influence him when you try to because he has a resisting attitude toward you. So the only opening you have is to influence him subconsciously whenever you can.
Use your inner-P. You know all the tricks because we write about them all the time on LF. Nothing else works on a P. They will always do the opposite of what you want, so use reverse psychology. But be really really good at it or he will see right through it. Don’t put so much effort into it that it stresses you. Just be opportunisitic. Sit still, watch and wait, like a cat does.
I wish I could sweep down and save you from all your problems. hugs to you.
Witsend, make no mistake, your EX is NOT confused about his sexuality or any thing else in life. He uses every one … of any race, any sex, any nationality to get what he wants. Period. He’s an equal opportunity exploiter. When he opens his mouth and professes too much, you need to step back and hear what he is really saying. Read through his lies … the only reason he liked you to hang out with gay men is so that he had easy access to using and abusing them as well as you. That’s what they do, use and abuse others to get what they want, any time they want it, whenever they want. I’m coming to the conclusion that there really aren’t that many gay people in the world. The predators switch sides whenever it’s convenient for them.
Like I’ve written before, there are only 2 types of people in the world. Givers and Takers. You can never make a giver, take and vice versa, you can never make a taker, give.
Peace.
P.S. to that last post. Oh, users will give … it’s just with other people’s money that they give out. Never their own that they (coughed) worked hard for.
Peace.
Dear Sky,
I’ll tell you like I used to tell my kids “If you aren’t guilty for what ever I’m beating you for now, there is something you did that I didn’t catch you at that you deserve it!” LOL ROTFLMAAO
My oldest son and youngest were talking a few days ago and oldest son C actually said “I never got a spanking I didn’t deserve” LOL So I guess I did all right! He is/was the hyper active one and wasn’t a bad kid at all, didn’t deliberately disobey, but keeping him from killing himself climbing trees etc was the worst part of him growing up! Once I got him to about 12 he was better about that kind of thing, but when he was little I really had to stay on top of him cause he was always in motion, up one tree or another. LOL
That’s why God gives little kids to YOUNG women! ((hugs))))
Wini: FYI–Witsend’s problem is her nearly 17 year old SON! she has the same problems I had though hers is not criminal, but she is quite afarid of him now, as he HATES her with a “purple passion.”
Oxy, I am sorry to hear that. Is her son her only child? If not, how many siblings does he have? My theory is that they start their selfish paths at an early age (4 or 5 years of age) … manipulating the immediate family first. They learn they have power in lying and manipulating, so they continue this through life inside and outside the immediate family instead of taking the righteous paths in life to learn God’s lessons in life. Only God’s wisdom gives us strength and spiritual character. Living in one’s ego … which means ERASE GOD OUT is the lazy way to live life.
Sounds like he’s just another selfish kid that hasn’t a clue what it took to feed, sit up all night and rock them to their every whine and whimper and allow them to grow up. She should have that smile on her face while he spouts off to her, knowing she could have taken this kid out at any time in his early life and no one would have been the wiser (SMILE) except DCF (LOL). Oh, we can still dream can’t we?
Wini,
she didn’t notice any strange behavior in him until he was in his teens. But it ISN’T normal teen rebelliousness. It’s horrible, like my XP. Her story has everyone here at LF at our “witsend” because there doesn’t seem to be anyway to avoid or fix this dangerous person. NC is not an option for her. she has tried everything a rational person would try. That’s why I keep coming up with ideas that an IRRATIONAL person would try. I can’t think of what else to do.
As far as my gay friend, I only had one and though we were friends for 15 years, my XP only met him one time. But my XP made a point of investigating and spying on, anyone whom I had contact with. So I know something was up. In the end, my friend turned out to be a P too. He just liked hanging out with me because it made him look good to be seen with a pretty girl. (I’m considered reasonably attractive by most people) Everyone who knew my friend also knew he was in the closet. The only one who didn’t know that everyone knew, was my friend. The whole thing was so weird.
One day, after XP and my friend, K, met, K mentioned my XP by his first, middle and last name. I NEVER TOLD HIM HIS MIDDLE NAME! So how did he know it and more importantly, WHY? I pretended not to notice and never asked him. Now I wish I had confronted him.
Sklar, everything goes with the likes of selfish people. There are no rules … only if we break one and it happens to not be in their favor (SMILE).
I doubt if her son just changed this way … sounds more like he’s getting used to his power and decided to come out of the closet to stretch his wings with his mom.
I’m glad you didn’t confront your gay friend with learning how he obtained your EX’s middle name. You have a lot on your plate you need to dump into the garbage. No use adding more insult to injury.
Peace,