13-Domestic Violence SURVIVOR: An Anonymous Submission

Hi, warriors, you are listening to 1-3 and I'm your host, ingrid. Today I have another anonymous submission for you. Please note. In addition to the usual trigger warnings, this individual also details different forms of abuse, including animal cruelty and inappropriate behavior with a child. This story will be told from a first person point of view. Looking back, i don't know what I was thinking. There were so many warning signs that I ignored. He was initially so intrigued with me because he knew by my profession. We were both into art. However, after looking at my work portfolio, which contained some award-winning advertising campaigns, he said you're not a real artist. I was stunned by what I felt was an insult and in spite of it, i still kept seeing him. I had told him I had always wanted to learn tennis. He played tennis, so he said he would teach me. Those tennis lessons brought out his abusive side. He would yell insults at me and yell how awful I was at tennis. This would induce me to tears, which would enrage him more. He would start hitting balls at me so they would intentionally hit me. One lesson, a guy who was playing in another court came over and yelled at him. A lot of angry words were exchanged, but no fighting. The guy who came over to rescue me left but looked at me and told me that I didn't need to put up with that treatment. But I still didn't listen to those warning signs. A few months later he moved in with me and my beloved cats. My cat was not used to having a male around and was skittish around him and sometimes hissed at him. Instead of trying to be reassuring to my cat, he took the hissing as an insult. This led him to physically abusing my cat. He started grabbing my cat and would throw him into walls or across the floor. When the cat would run and hide under a crawl space or under a table, he would crawl after him, pull him out and throw him again. It tore me apart and I begged for him to stop, but it didn't matter. The cat started it and it wasn't his fault. A few months after I started seeing him, i became pregnant. He was excited by that and he immediately wanted to get married. I agreed, even though a voice inside kept telling me I shouldn't. So we ended up getting married out of town while he was working on a business trip. We married in a judge's office. Not even 15 minutes after we were married. He was taking a bus back to our hotel room. He started talking about how he wanted to strangle my cat and described how he would do it. When we returned home, i made the hard decision to give my cat to a friend. It broke my heart, but I was so afraid he would end up being killed. I told my coworkers that I was giving him away and they were astounded. They knew how much I loved that cat and asked why. I told them that my new husband was not a fan of cats. I remember one of my friends saying you're seriously giving up your cat for the sky. That comment hurt so much I felt horrible that I let my cat down. As we made plans for the arrival of our baby, my sister came to visit along with my niece and nephew. She had a lot, lots of baby stuff she wanted to give us and she wanted to meet her new brother-in-law. He completely ignored her and her children while she was there. From the moment they walked into the door He didn't even acknowledge them. When I introduced them to him, he just turned his back and went into the other room. It was so rude. Years later my sister, who is usually very outspoken, said it took all she had not to yell at him and wanted to tell me to leave him. We moved into a larger townhouse so we would have room for our baby. He was very into decorating our new place and that included purchasing a brand new Italian leather sofa. However, i was not allowed to sit on that sofa because he was afraid my water would break and ruin the sofa. As I mentioned before, he also liked art and was actually a very good artist. He wanted to hang one of his paintings above our bed. That wouldn't usually be such a bad idea, except that the painting was of his nude high school girlfriend. After our daughter was born, he was a loving father. It was clear that our daughter was going to be a daddy's girl. Around the same time, his sister, who raised pugs, gave us two puppies. They were so sweet and cute, but it didn't take long before those puppies were the victims of his abuse. If they had any potty mishaps, both of the puppies would get thrown around into the backyard, and if they shied away from him, that would make him even more angry and they would get punched and thrown around more. He said that punishing them would teach them not to reject him. I was surprised no one ever called the cops after hearing those poor puppies yelping in pain night after night. A year after my daughter was born he got a promotion at his job and we moved to another state. We were also much closer, in proximity to his family. My ex wanted to have his mother and his sister over to our house after we moved for dinner and wanted me to cook. He loved my cooking and wanted to show me off to his family. On the day of the dinner his sister had an argument with her husband and showed up to our house five hours early and very drunk. She convinced me to go out to a bar with her. In spite of my protests that I had a lot of stuff to do to prepare for dinner and in spite of my husband saying I could not go At the bar. His sister proceeded to tell me the most horrible stuff about the men in their family. It was as if she was trying to warn me away from their family. She told me that when she was a preteen, one of her uncles forced her to perform oral sex on him. When I mentioned this story to my ex, all he had to say was what she didn't tell you was that our uncle is only three years older than she is, as if the closeness and age made it okay. My ex-husband's brother got married in another state one summer. We couldn't take my daughter to the wedding plus we couldn't afford all the airfare so he and I agreed that he would just go himself, especially since he was in the wedding. A couple of weeks after the wedding we received a letter addressed to my ex on some company letterhead. Since I handled the bills, i assumed it was a bill and opened it up. Inside were photos of a girl in a bikini and a letter addressed to him. She said she had a great time at the wedding and thought he might like some photos of her modeling her new bikini. I confronted him with a letter. He said that she was the wife of his brother's best man. He said that she was really drunk and just kept hitting on every guy at the wedding, including the groom. He pointed to her pictures and said I wouldn't fuck that She's ugly, look at her nose. We kept calling her Jimmy Durante all night. It was true She was kind of unattractive, so I believed him throughout the letter and pictures and just thought she was desperate for attention. However, months later my ex left his email open and I discovered emails between the two of them. One was from him to her, where he described a fantasy of her showing up to his hotel room after he had just showered and claimed she was lost. Then she dropped something and bent over to reveal she wasn't wearing underwear. And that wasn't it. There were more emails between him and other women. One email was from someone who apparently didn't realize he was married and had a child Apparently. She called one night and I answered. She hung up and tried again and I guess he ran to get the phone before I could answer. She was upset because she could hear our daughter in the background calling for daddy. Then there were more incidents. The wife of one of his high school friends claimed that he kept calling her from an unknown phone number and saying obscene things. He said it couldn't be me, she's really unattractive. And then he was charged with sexual harassment at his job and fired. He said the girl was lying, he would never try hitting on her because she was really ugly. Also, he had porn hidden all over the house, videotapes and really graphic magazines. But yet when I wanted to be intimate he was not interested His back, her or he was too tired were always his excuses. At the same time, i felt he was forcing me to cut off contact with my family and friends. He insulted anything I enjoyed doing During the time I was married to him. I never even watched my favorite football team because it made him so angry When his favorite team lost he would lose his temper, breaking things and punching holes and walls. He hated my team because they beat his team. One time He smashed a mug with my team logo on it, which was a gift from my mom, so I just stopped watching them and stopped watching football all together, especially with him. He also made me throw out and or give away some childhood mementos that have been gifts from my family. He insulted me for keeping that garbage around. I started feeling alone. I couldn't be myself anymore and I couldn't talk to the people who would support me the most. He didn't resort to physical abuse often, but when he did, it seemed like it was over small things. He pushed me downstairs one time because of some song I liked. At the time He was upset because I thought the guitar player in the song was better than him. I also kept finding things that he was continuing to have contact with this woman from the other state. I asked his brother's wife about her. She acknowledged she was known for her slutty behavior. But she also told me you're such a great person You don't deserve to be with someone like him. I think it was her words that started to give me the courage to leave and take back my life. His sister and his own mother even encouraged me. His parents had been divorced for years. His mother said to me one time I don't know what to say to you, only that he is exactly like his father. He had found out somehow that his mom and sister were on my side and he stopped talking to them. After that I found a wonderful supportive divorce lawyer to find out my options. She was immediately concerned for my safety. She was also concerned about his odd behavior with my daughter, such as bathing with her. She wanted me to leave as soon as possible and get a restraining order for both me and my daughter. I confess I really didn't think he could be abusing my daughter, but my lawyer was pretty insistent and maybe she was trying to be aggressive. To this day my daughter says she never remembers any kind of abuse. Later in life. She did end up with a falling out with him and has not spoken to him in years. He's a very sour subject for both of us and we kind of have an unspoken agreement to never talk about him. However, he found out I was seeing a divorce lawyer and got very angry. Unfortunately, this happened close to Christmas. On Christmas Day he woke me up from my daughter's room where I had been sleeping. He dragged me out of the house and into the snow, then locked the door behind me. He said I wasn't fit to celebrate Christmas with my daughter. I ended up having to walk barefoot in the snow to a neighbor's house to ask if they would call the police for me. While waiting for the police, he ended up coming over to say he was sorry. The police came and he told the police that he was just upset because I was ruining Christmas and was sneaking around planning a divorce. He even told the cops that he felt that maybe it was because I was sleeping around. My lawyer wanted me out immediately. She got paperwork together and sent me to family court to get a restraining order. My babysitter, who knew everything going on, offered to let me and my daughter stay at her home until I found a place to live. The problem was that my ex had my daughter, so that night, in the middle of a snowstorm, i waited at my sitter's house until the police went to get my daughter and bring her there. I felt so awful that this had to be so traumatic for my daughter. When she finally arrived, we held each other and cried and cried. I had been slowly moving some of my stuff out and into a storage facility. However, since I ended up leaving in a hurry, i wasn't able to get some of my belongings and my daughter's clothes. I had to schedule a police escort to go back to the house to get our stuff. He wasn't supposed to be there, but he was both begging me to stop and yelling insults at me at the same time. The police had to physically remove him to the outside while I packed up some things. However, when I went into my daughter's room, all her clothes were gone. The policeman with me asked my ex where her clothes were. He responded that he didn't know, that I probably took them with me and that I was lying. Also missing were some of my shoes, my makeup and a box of Christmas decorations that had been mined before I had even met him. There are many Christmas decorations of sentimental value that have been gifts and others that were actually ornaments that had used to belong to my grandparents. I had no idea what he did with those and they're gone forever. However, after a few visits with him, my daughter began coming home with some of those missing clothes. After the divorce he ended up moving, supposedly to be closer to his brother. I don't know if he continued not seeing that woman he had been emailing. I found out earlier this year he did end up remarrying to his former high school girlfriend Yes, the one whose nude portrait hung above our bed. I used to have nightmares after I left him. Fortunately, i'm at a really great guy and the nightmares eventually went away When I met him. I was reluctant to be in another relationship. I had been seeing a therapist after leaving and told her about my reluctance. She told me that it was okay. I had actually been alone in the three years that I was with my ex. I figured that it was probably a rebound relationship. Plus, he lived a whole other time zone away, so I figured I wouldn't be pressured into anything serious. But my rebound relationship ended up being my soulmate. He's sweet and funny and, yeah, a bit of a smartass. He makes me laugh and I can be myself again, as horrible of a life it was with my ex. I feel like I learned what the important things are in a relationship, such as patience and never taking your spouse for granted. Don't stress out over little things like when they leave the toilet seat up or leave their dirty dishes in the sink instead of putting them in the empty dishwasher right next to it. All of that is nothing compared to emotional and physical abuse that some women unfortunately have to deal with. This story is a good example of warning signs and red flags of an unhealthy relationship. Thankfully, the author recognized what was happening and was able to get herself and her daughter safely out of the situation. Not only did she do that, but she was also able to find love and happiness after such a dark time in her life. Next week, i will have another story for you. Until then, remember it isn't your fault. There is hope and you are not alone. 1-3 is a.5 Pinoy production music written and performed by Tim Crow.