Like turning on a light switch, he immediately began to physically and sexually abuse me.
I married my high school sweetheart at the tender age of 19. Like a turning on a light switch, he immediately began to physically and sexually abuse me. I quickly left feeling it necessary to leave the state to protect myself. I headed West with fantasies in my mind about a strong man that could finally make me feel safe. I met and became good friends with a police officer. If anyone could keep me safe it was a cop. So I thought.
We began to date and he said he loved me; but refused to let go of his ex. It was a red flag, but one I did not heed. He would even tell her he loved her in front of me. I could never figure out why I tolerated this and ignored this in-your-face red flag. So I ended the relationship. Two weeks later I found out that I was pregnant!
He insisted that I abort the baby. What did I expect? When I refused he got ugly and began to spread it around that there was no way that the baby was his. Then this guy who had had another wife, now gone, told me that I would marry him or he would take my child. I was young and stupid; so I married him. The abuse continued and progressed. Again, what did I expect?
He began playing horrible mind games with me.
At first he was just a neglectful jerk. But as the years progressed he would attack me daily in a barrage of put-downs and things designed to make me doubt and loath myself. In his words: my opinions were wrong; I didn't know how to think right; I couldn't communicate; I didn't feel things correctly... I was just a worthless piece of crap. He then started a game: raising his fist at my face and laugh at me for flinching. After all he would remind me that he was a cop that was trained not to hit someone even when he wanted to. Towards the end he began to threaten severe physical harm. His game-playing was so sick. When I was eight months pregnant with our daughter, he told me that he had figured out the perfect way to dispose of my body. Elaborating, my husband then proceeded to tell me in detail that he would get a 50 gallon drum put me inside, cover it with concrete, then after it dried send me down the river. It was to be the perfect crime. And since he was a police officer he knew all the stupid mistakes not to make... Just another missing person.
The saddest thing about that threat is that it was just another day for me, nothing out of the ordinary. I thought that all husbands behaved this way. I was told that all wives fear their husbands. I finally got up the nerve to ask him to leave after the baby was born. That was 2 years ago...
Even with him gone the abuse continues...
And I am still trying to figure out how to get the abuse to stop. He is constantly trying to get at me to control me from any angle he can. We are divorced and he is living with another... But they live in her house and are un-married. He is building a house for them to live in as a happy couple. I am hoping and praying that this will help him feel in control again and the abuse on me will lessen... But sadly I know when my abuse lessens, she will start to experience it. I have since learned that cops are about four times as likely to abuse their partners than the general population of men. I thought that just because he was willing to keep the public safe meant that he would keep me safe... Little did I know that he would do more harm to my life than my first husband that knocked me around and raped me... That was easy to recover from. I still struggle with this recovery every day two years later.