I am a survivor of domestic abuse. The poem you read on the index page was based on an actual event in my life with my abuser. He never got the lesson I was trying to teach, but I hope you did.

It is my hope that the things I share here will teach you what actions and traits constitute abuse so that you can help yourself or someone else who is under the control of an abuser. If you are lucky enough not to have experienced abuse, perhaps it will inspire you to volunteer time on a crisis hotline to help those who feel they have no hope.

Maybe it is also therapy for me, to put down in words what I have experienced so that I can gain perspective on how it still affects my life today. As with most traumatic experiences, even when the outside marks have long since faded away, the soul still remembers the pain. Sometimes real healing comes with facing the pain and working through it.

So as you read, listen with your heart and know that understanding and recognizing the signs of abuse is the first step to avoiding it in your own life or helping others. Nothing I can say could explain the humiliation and fear I suffered. I carried it with me wherever I went. I still carry it with me, in smaller doses, to this day. It is my wish that there come a day when no one should have to experience the horror of domestic violence.

The telling of my story has been a long time coming. A long road of broken hearts, broken dreams, broken promises. I know my abuser would deny everything written here. It used to be important to me that he owed up to the things he did to me. I even wished for a long time that he would just apologize, show some remorse. That will probably never happen in our lifetimes. It's no longer as important to me, because I am slowly healing, thanks to a supportive husband and a new self awareness that lets me know I am a good person, who never deserved to be abused. Bottom line, it doesn't matter if he ever confesses or apologizes. It also no longer matters if anyone who didn't believe me or who persecuted me for the choices I made to protect myself feels remorse for forcing me to stay in the way of harm. God and I know the truth and that's all that matters.

But I do need to WARN YOU!

In order to tell the story accurately and with full effect, there are some instances of obscene language. I apologize for this but I hope you will take it in context and understand that it is a crucial element in getting the message across.

There are so many people out there who need to know, not just the cold hard facts and figures, but the personal side of domestic abuse. So often a victim of domestic abuse feels like they are all alone, that no one else understands what they're experiencing. The hopelessness can pull you down like quicksand. But there is hope, you can survive. Hopefully by reading my personal account, you can recognize signs that might point you to your own life, or the life of someone you care about, and give you strength to fight back and get out.
 

IT BEGINS:
My abuser and I met when I was 14 and he was 20. Having been a child of divorce and with no real father figure, I was looking for male attention and he provided it. I look back now and think, "I should have seen the warning signs while we were dating." Hindsight, as you well know, always being 20/20.

Because of our age difference, he was ashamed to be seen with me, preferring to take me to dead end roads rather than to dinner and a movie or to a friend's house. Of course, dinner and a movie would have cost him money, heaven forbid. He used me for sex, claiming that he loved me and this was proof that he cared, but in reality he was committing a crime and he knew it. He was aware that I was underage and that it was illegal for him to have sex with me, so he would force me to go to great lengths to keep his "secret". He restricted me from seeing my own friends, especially male ones. All of these habits set the stage for future emotional, economical, sexual and isolational forms of abuse that I would endure at the hands of this man.

Sure, it takes two, and I was not a totally innocent party. But I was faithful to him during those years, which is more than he can say. And I really thought he was the man I was going to be with forever. If it wasn't dead end roads, it was an occasional motel or his parents house, when they were away. I hated the sneaking around, I hated that he was ashamed of me. I got into a lot of trouble with family for lying about my whereabouts. He'd complain that he couldn't handle the "high school bulls****" he had to put up with. He wanted out. We all have our moments in life we wish we could go back to and do something different. This was mine. I wish I would have let him go. I'd like to think my life would have taken a much healthier turn. But instead, I begged him not to walk away, even though I knew he was seeing other women. Co-dependence can be a frightening thing when seen with the eyes of the future.

When he got his own house, I thought our relationship of several years would go to the next level. But the deception continued. He often would make me take a cab, or ride my moped or bike to come and see him, even though he had a car and lived less than 5 miles away. Typically, once he had his way with me, would make me take a cab home or take my own transportation home so no one would know I had been there. When I got my own car, he would make me go home, even very late at night or in bad weather, so no one would see my car in his driveway all night long. After I complained, he insisted that he had to "protect himself", and he had me type a letter to my mother asking "permission" for me to stay with him, so just in case he got caught there he would not be prosecuted. The whole thing was very humiliating and degrading. These are prime examples of Sexual and Emotional abuse.

This type of humiliation and control was the norm. He cheated on me constantly, yet questioned me about who I was with, what I was doing, who my friends were, especially my male friends. His alcohol and drug use were at a dangerous level, and he tried to get me into the scene but luckily I didn't fall into it with him. He got very angry when things did not go his way, especially after he'd been drinking. I was afraid of him at times. He was suspicious, paranoid and controlling. But somehow, he always managed to find a way to make me feel like it was my fault. And somehow I always forgave him.

But I thought I was in love with him, that my life couldn't go on without him in it, so I overlooked it all, hoping in time it would change. I couldn't see how dangerous and harmful that his treatment of me was. I didn't acknowledge the trouble it caused me at home and in school. Emotionally, I was very weak. It was that same weak spirit that allowed him to abuse me in the future. His abuse during this time was more emotional and sexual than physical. Too often we think of abuse as black eyes and fat lips, but forget that the rest of our body, including the mind, is also subject to attack. I wonder if I had seen the physical side earlier if I would have gotten out, I don't know. I grew up witnessing abuse, so perhaps I was desensitized to it rather than aware of it.

We had been dating about four years when we unexpectedly got pregnant. I say "we" instead of "I" because, after all, it does take two. I was in college on scholarships and had many opportunities awaiting me, this was a devastating blow. However, even in light of that, he still found a way to accuse me of purposely getting pregnant. When he found out, we refused to have anything to do with me. He avoided me, would not return my phone calls. He pressured me to give the child up for adoption, explaining that if I did keep the child he would not acknowledge it or help me with it. He called me a whore and suggested the child was not his. I would lay awake at night and cry until there were no tears left. I wanted the child, but I was so convinced that I could not live without his father. So I made arrangements for the child to be adopted.

I was abandoned by the father during this time. He wouldn't return my phone calls, he didn't want to be seen with me. Because I was on welfare, and had no reliable transportation, I spent the last few weeks of my pregnancy at a special "home" for pregnant single mothers. Every attempt to contact the father went unanswered. I felt so alone and isolated and rejected and abandoned. I was going past my due date, so they decided to induce labor. I didn't allow my mom or anyone to be with me during labor, because I didn't want them getting attached to the child. I still can't believe I was prepared to give up this child for a man who didn't even have enough respect for me to help me, either emotionally or financially during this time. Laying there in that hospital bed, without anyone to comfort me or help me, I was so frightened and I felt so alone. I remember thinking that the pain of labor was not nearly as acute as the pain of rejection I was feeling, or the pain of knowing I would go through all this just to go home empty handed. When our son was born, I called the father from the recovery room to let him know. I told him, "We have a son." He simply replied, "No, YOU have a son." Then he hung up on me.

Surprisingly, the hospital let me take care of the baby when I was there, feed him and hold him. I looked at his precious face and felt so much love for him, but I felt I could not take care of him myself, and it was obvious that his father wanted nothing to do with him. I figured he'd have a better life with a whole family, I didn't want him to know the kind of life I'd had, with a single mom struggling so hard to make ends meet. So I left him at the hospital. On the way home, my mom begged me to go back for him. She had me at a very young age, and I was not to know my real father until I was a teenager. I think she felt if she could keep me, I could keep my son somehow.

My family pulled together and offered to help. You were given three days to change your mind about the adoption. I called and asked if it was too late. They said, "No it's not too late, you can still change your mind." I felt bad for the parents who thought they were getting a new baby, but I was relieved that I wasn't facing a lifetime of never knowing my son. So the same day, we went right back to the hospital and got him. I still wonder to this day if it was the right thing to do. I have never regretting having him in my life, but I have often wondered if perhaps he would have had a better life with his adoptive parents, rather than growing up in an abusive household.

It took three days for me to get enough courage to go to the fathers' house and tell him. Not once did he call to see how I was during that time. I look back and ask myself, "Why didn't you just walk away from this man? Obviously he cared about no one but himself." I don't know why, I still was so co-dependent on him, even after all that he had put me through for the sake of his own selfish desires. Somehow, through all my begging and pleading, I persuaded him to keep the child.

We moved in with him, and over the next few months the patterns of abuse that I was to endure for the next 12 years began to emerge even greater than before. Again, the question looms, "Why did I stay? I still don't have the answer to that one. He would go to the bar after work and stayed out until all hours, with other women, while I was home taking care of the baby. I guess he was trying to get his fooling around in before he was "tied down".

Our son had an intolerance to his formula, and would often vomit after feedings. He would cry a lot because of hunger and colic that came with it. I tried to explain to his father that he needed special formula, but he wouldn't pay the extra amount. He tried to get me to feed the baby powered milk, which was very inexpensive, but of course that made it worse. He would get very angry when the baby cried, and would shut him in his room in the dark and let him cry himself to sleep. He would block the stairs so I could not go up to him.

Once I tried to sneak up while he was in the bathroom, but he caught me and took the baby from me, threw him back into the crib, shut the door and dragged me downstairs by the hair. He warned me never to defy him again. I was afraid he'd hurt the baby just to get back at me. I would sit on the couch and cry, listening to the baby cry until he'd cried himself to sleep. I knew he must be scared and hungry and it killed me to listen to his pitiful sounds. His father just sat there with a stoic look, drank his beer and watched TV like nothing was happening.

After a few weeks of watching my poor baby go through this, I finally went out and just bought a case of the formula. I was feeding it to the baby when his father came home from work. I told him that it was working much better than the other formula. When he realized I had bought the more expensive formula without his permission, he took the bottle from me and threw it across the room. It hit the television and burst open. Then he grabbed my hand and took the engagement ring off my finger (we hadn't gotten married yet at this time) I thought he was going to break my finger trying to get it off. He told me to pack my things and the baby’s and get out. I was in shock. I left and went to my grandmothers for a few days. Then he called and said he was sorry, and I went back. Oh, if only I had enough sense to stay away. If only my family had pressed me harder not to go back. But we can't live by "if only"s.

This scene was to be only the first of many, many examples of physical, emotional and economic abuse that were to follow. When I look back, I can see that the first few months of being with him, his anger was more obvious than ever, perhaps because I was around him more, but for some reason it never sunk in that this is what everyday life was going to be like. The clues were there, but somehow I didn't see them. Don't ever tell a woman that she "should have gotten out". We know that already. But our abusers singled us out because they knew we were weak and we could be controlled. After a while, it isn't about getting out, it's only about surviving.

It doesn't help when it's not only the victim that succumbs, but the family who enables because they feel powerless to help - or because they also blame the victim rather than the abuser. This is typically the case when the abuser's family gets involved. One instance stands out, a sign that I wish I would have seen more clearly. We had gone to visit his sister in Virginia shortly after our son was born. My fiancee and I, his mother, and sister and brother-in-law were all playing a game. As usual, he had been drinking. He "ordered" me to get him a beer. We had been joking around, so I thought he was kidding. I replied, "Get it yourself, I'm not your maid." Suddenly he got very angry. He called me a 'bitch', right in front of his whole family. I can still feel the burning sensation on my face and in my stomach from the embarrassment.

Now that I look back, I wonder why they didn't say something to him, or come to my defense. I know they didn't like me much, especially his mom. She thought I got pregnant on purpose, or that it wasn't his. But I am still a human being and just because it was her son doesn't excuse his behavior. Bad enough that no one questioned his outrageous outburst, but later that night, when we went to bed, I was crying and asked him why he talked that way to me in front of everyone. As long as I live, I'll never forget his words. He said, "Listen, if you want to fuck, fine, otherwise, leave me alone." That was a lifetime ago, but I will never forget the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I felt so trapped. He managed to convince me, as always, that it was my fault and that I deserved it. So I let it slide. It was the beginning of a pattern of enabling by both his family and by myself that would take me 12 years to get out of.

We were married shortly after this incident. He worked the night before the wedding, then went out to the bars until about an hour and half before the ceremony. He was of course stone cold drunk at our wedding and our pictures show it. He refused to spend money on a church wedding, he insisted on a court house ceremony. He was also too cheap to take me on a real honeymoon, we stayed one night at a local hotel. Those two factors, the alcohol and the obsession with money, were to be the two most damaging problems in our marriage.

About a month after we were married, it was so bad already that I was calling lawyers, asking if I qualified for an annulment. Of course, I was stuck and I knew I had made a big mistake. I was a Christian but had fallen away, and I turned to the church for solace. It offered some, but would also turn out to be a place that guilt tripped me into staying in this relationship far longer than I should have. My friends knew, my family especially knew, but no one seemed able to help me. Eventually I would have to choose to help myself.

The patterns that emerged in this four year period of dating set the stage for the 12 years of hell I endured during out marriage. If you are in a dating situation, no matter how old you are, and you see that your boyfriend/girlfriend is exhibiting any of the traits you will read about in this section or by looking at the Abuse Wheel, confront the person with the facts and ask them to go to counseling with you. If they see their behavior is out of line and are willing to change, wonderful. But if they refuse to get help and especially if they deny they have a problem, get out of that relationship now before it destroys you. They can't change if they don't acknowledge they have a problem. My abuser has never acknowledged the things he has said or done, and continues to try to manipulate me to this day.

It would take volumes to tell the whole story of my exodus in detail. I don't want the lesson to be lost in the telling. Instead I will pick just a few instances from my past abusive relationship that exemplify how I was exposed to each of these aspects of abuse. Each link below corresponds with a heading on the Wheel of Abuse included in the table of contents. I do this so that those who scoff at the idea that abuse occurred in my situation can see firsthand that the profile does fit the situation.

Try not to hold on to bitterness and anger, forgive your abuser. But don't let them control your life. And don't believe the lie that it's better to stay in the relationship "for the sake of the children". It is NOT in their best interests to witness abuse. Please see my article on "The Affects of Abuse on Children" found in the links section. If you are in an abusive relationship, get out and get help. Call your local Domestic Abuse Hotline. It's free and confidential. I'm living proof that if you believe in yourself, you can do it!
 

Emotional abuse is the worst kind in my mind, because it's the hardest to see and prove. I remember seeing the movie, "The Burning Bed", with Farrah Fawcett. It was a true story of a woman who had been savagely abused by her husband until one day in desperation she set fire to the house as he lay passed out in a drunken stupor. After hearing her testimony, she was found not guilty, by reason of temporary insanity. I really related to that movie. Not that I ever thought of taking it that far, but I often thought it would come to that, one of us having to die before it would stop. Many times I wished he would just get it over with and kill me, just so the pain would finally end.I feel Emotional Abuse is the most harmful type of abuse, other than life threatening physical abuse. It is the most likely to go undetected and unreported because the scars are hidden. It is much more socially acceptable to call names and manipulate than to hit someone, it's easier to get away with. I suffered primarily emotional abuse during our courtship, which is probably why I didn't leave him. It was hard to prove he was doing it, so it was hard to get any support. Pretty soon it became easier to just explain it away and enable it to continue. My abuser had complete control of my emotions and it affected my relationships with others and my decision making.

I found it hard to work, to enjoy activities. I felt I was always hiding behind this mask, pretending everything was fine when I was screaming inside. He played on my low self-esteem, telling me that no one else would want me. The more depressed I became, the more my physical appearance deteriorated and the less motivated I was to do the simplest everyday tasks. I got to the point where I could barely function. This just made him lash out at me harder. I was called every name in the book. His most popular phrase was to tell me I was a "worthless, lazy, good for nothing bitch". He would belittle me as a wife and mother. He would do everything to convince me I was the one at fault.After hearing these things, you begin to believe them yourself. That is how an abuser controls you. Anything I cared about, whether it was people, things, possessions, he would destroy just to hurt me. He would say hateful things about my friends and family. It took a long time to realize I was playing right into his hand, allowing him to keep me a weak and broken spirit so he could continue to control me.As the years went by and the emotional abuse took it's toll, I would get hysterical and angry during his attacks. He would use that against me. He would become calm, so as to make me look like the one out of control, and then criticize me for it. One instance is chronicled in the poem on the index page. During one of his attacks, I lost it and smashed the teacup I was holding on the fireplace hearth. I picked up the bigger pieces and handed it to him. "This is how you make me feel, " I said. "I am fragile. When you say these things, you break me into pieces." I then wiped up a few of the smallest slivers still left on the hearth. "Every time you break me, some pieces are too shattered to put back together. So now, this teacup is beyond repair. That's how I feel now, like pieces of me are missing and can't be put back." Instead of seeing the connection, he proceeded to tell me that I needed "professional help", that I was "looney". This seems ironic to me now, under the circumstances.I needed help? He purposely tormented and hurt the person he had vowed to love and cherish. He criticized, blamed and shamed me every chance he got. Not only is emotional abuse the hardest to detect, it is the hardest to recover from. Still, to this day, I have problems dealing with some situations and I react to things based on these ghosts from the past. The scars are always there, the memories. Things people say and do, people who have no idea what happened in the past, can trigger an emotional response based on a surpressed memory from this time in my life.It makes me angry to know that I will never be rid of these memories, that my relationships will forever be affected by the cruel and hateful things my abuser did to me in the past. It's not something you can control even after the fact, only something that you can try to recognize and work through when it happens. But what angers me the most is that I let him get away with it. He's free to go sit in a church pew each week and pretend to be a quiet, humble man. His conscience (if he has one) does not appear to bother him. He can dismiss me as the "crazy ex-wife", and who's the wiser? All the while I struggle to keep my children from self-destructing under the weight of the legacy he has left to them.Thankfully, my current husband is loving and understanding and caring when he sees I am reacting to a situation based on the past. With his help I hope to learn how to keep the past from cropping up in our future. Meanwhile, our relationship is strained trying to deal with the same pattern of emotional abuse I suffered throughout my marriage, only this time it is from my children's mouths that the hateful words come. Don't ever believe it when they say that it's better to stay in a marriage "for the sake of the children". I didn't do them any favors by staying in an abusive relationship. They wear their father's poor example of anger management on their own sleeve now. Protect yourself and your children.

Using the children is the tactic of many abusers to keep their partner in line. Especially since the majority of victims are women, as a mother there is nothing worse than someone threatening her child. It's tragic when the threats come from the other parent who is supposed to equally love and protect the children. Never stay in an abusive relationship because you feel the child needs two parents or you can't do it alone. You will do far more damage to the child exposing him/her to the abuse. I can see that true in my own life, not only for what my kids went through but what I witnessed myself as a child. Not only do kids become desensitized and indifferent to anger and violence, they often either become violent themselves or inevitably find partners who are the same way. I have a lot of problems now with my children as they approach their adult years with little or no anger management skills. Especially my son, who has taken on the notion that his father taught him - you must control the person rather than love them. He doesn't ask, he orders and shows a complete lack of respect for me. People give me a hard time about why I don't discipline my children more. They don't understand that the time for teaching them discipline came and went back in the years where the abuse was most prevalent. Not only did witnessing the abuse scar them, but because my husband had such a violent temper and a short fuse, I would always jump in any time he tried to discipline because I feared he would harm them the way he did me. This brought about two destructive patterns.

My son sees anger as the way to solve a conflict, and my daughter saw that being passive and allowing it was the way to avoid it. As children, they learned they could do whatever they wanted because I would step in and stop the discipline before it started, and I was too weak emotionally and physically to do it myself. There were times when I felt guilty for exposing them to the abuse, but I felt trapped. No one understands that unless they've been there. Often after hours or days of verbal and/or emotional attacks from my husband, any misbehavior by the children would cause me to snap and I would get angry and yell at them. He would herd them up like he was protecting them, and tell them, "Don't worry. Mom's just being a bitch right now, I won't let her hurt you." It was maddening the way he could turn the tables on me and make me out to always be the bad guy. I left several times, but always came back because he pleaded that he couldn't be away from his "family" even though he ignored the kids and treated me bad most of the time. He told me I was a "pathetic excuse for a parent" because I separated them from their father. He would refuse to financially support us and force us on welfare until I had to come back. One time I moved out and refused to return, and he asked if he could just see our son for a few minutes. (He didn't ask to see our daughter, but then she was only a year old and needed more care) He met me at my grandmother's house and before I knew it, he had run to his car with our son and sped away. He didn't even have a car seat for him. I called the sheriff and was escorted out to the house to find the locks had been changed. When he finally let us in, he reeked of alcohol. I pleaded with the sheriff that he shouldn't have our son in his condition, but I was told that he had every right to him because their was no legal custody division. It was so hard to leave him there with his father. He let me take some clothes and things for our daughter, but refused to hand over our son even though he was screaming for his mommy. He called later and said that "this was just the beginning" and if I didn't come back he would "take him away where I'd never find him." What choice did I have? No child should have to live in fear of themselves or their siblings or parent being abused. They should not have to take on a "protector" role when they are themselves in need of protection. They should live free from anger, hate, violence and should never be placed in a position to be used as pawns in a parent's sick game to control their spouse. Read more detail about the effect that witnessing abuse has had on my children.

Making threats is a way to control someone without having to touch them. It's your word against theirs. The abusers uses their past aggression to back up those threats. The victim feels trapped, waiting for the abuser to follow through with the threat. The victim does anything and sacrifices anything to keep the abuser from following through. I received more threats than actual punishment, especially once I learned how to back off as soon as the threats were made. But you carry the emotional burden around with you. Your mind begins to dwell on what might happen if the abuser goes through with the threat. It's a very insidious form of control. Being threatened became a way of life. Even while we were dating, there were constant threats of abandonment if I didn't let him do things his way. When he found out I was pregnant, he threatened to never speak to me again if I didn't give the child up for adoption. I don't recall of him physically threatening me, I think because the emotional threats worked so well. But when we decided to get married, things changed for the worse. Many times, usually when he was drunk, if we were fighting in the car he would either pull over and threaten to leave me there to walk home or swerve the car and threaten to kill us both. He threatened suicide many times, saying I was making his life "unbearable". Once he drank a bottle of Jack Daniels and tried to cut his wrists. He threatened to take the children away from me or take me "out of the picture". He threatened any family or friend who tried to help with physical violence. The bad thing about this form of abuse is that it's hard to make a case to get out based on threats. It's like a lot of things, you have to wait until something bad happens before the threat is taken seriously. We only need to recall the many news clips we've seen or read about men who break through restraining orders and kill their girlfriends or spouses because the previous threats are ignored or taken lightly. Never take a threat lightly or dismiss it.

THREATS

The purpose of threatening someone is to make them fearful of harm for not complying. A spouse or husband/girlfriend, if they truly loved you, would not be trying to scare you. It's another form of emotional abuse, because the pain is in your mind and they use it to control you. Don't think that just because they "say that all the time" that they don't really mean it. It is against the law to utter threats to anyone, because the law knows that the kind of people who threaten others, especially their "loved ones" are the same people who are already lack the self-control to keep from following through on those threats. Remember, you don't have to actually hit someone for it to be assault. Picking up a weapon, even if it's a shoe or a belt, and threatening you with it is considered assault. Holding a gun to you is just as much a crime as pulling the trigger.

If you are in a relationship where your partner threatens you in any way, don't stand for it. Don't think it will stop at mere words, because it rarely does. Just because their fist hits the wall or door and not you does not mean that you won't be the target next time. When you love someone, you should not have to use threats to get their cooperation. Threatening someone is a sign that the person does not love you, they are trying to control you. Don't wait until they follow through with the threat and then it's too late. If nothing else, make sure there is a record of the person threatening you so that you can prove a pattern.
 

Using male privilege is a control tactic that stems from society and cultural standards from the beginning of time. In many societies, women are considered the "weaker sex", without the same freedoms and rights as men. Even in biblical references, it refers to the man as the "head". But men who don't treat their wives with respect and dignity are misusing this as an excuse to control and manipulate. If a man uses honesty, decency and self-control there should be no problem with him being the head of the household. If he uses wise judgment, a wife will appreciate that he takes care of the finances or makes decisions. It is when the man abuses that privilege that the problem occurs. With responsibility comes accountability. My abuser felt it was his right to dictate what went on in the household financially and felt it was also his right to punish me if I didn't follow his wishes. You can't expect respect for your position as head if you get there by threats, intimidation, shaming or blaming.

I am the farthest thing from a feminist, I never wanted to be in total charge of things or make all the decisions. It's exhausting. But if you can't trust your partner to look after your own best interests or that of the children, you have to step in and take over. I got a lot of flack for that, especially after my abuser started attending church and researching every passage about headship he could find so he could excuse his tyrannical behavior. Sometimes it's just that they are emulating what they grew up with. I know that was the case in my abuser's life. His poor mother couldn't even put change in the parking meter without the father wanting a record of it. It's sad that so many men misuse the bible to spiritually abuse their wives in this aspect. For all the hours he spent pouring over his bible and commentaries, my husband never learned that after "wives submit" the adjoining passage is "husbands love". He somehow always skipped that part. Unfortunately, I found out personally that clergy are not often taught to deal with this and often support the man in these cases. Even after I showed up on my pastor's doorstep with fresh strangle marks on my neck, he still insisted that I stop "trying to usurp my husband's headship" and "stop doing whatever it was that was making him mad". That sorry case of spiritual ignorance cost me many more years of pain at the hands of my abuser. No one should have to grovel for food, money, medical attention or any of the basics of life just so the man can feel like the "lord of the castle". You should not have to live in fear of retribution cloaked by a misguided sense of headship. Rather than insist on control, a husband should earn the respect and trust of his wife that his decisions will reflect the family's best interests. Don't ever let a man tell you that "a woman's place is in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant" or that you must work so he can put away money, all the while keeping it from you. Don't let a man tell you he has the "right" to make all the decisions just because he's the man. Don't let a man make you his cook, maid, cleaning lady, sex slave or any other servant based on the fact that his anatomy happens to be different than yours. Find a man worthy of respect who loves you and treats you equally and you will find it easy to allow him to lead you. Find a man who uses honesty and fairness in his decisions and you will find it easy to stand back and let him make the important ones. Don't let a man or a church tell you that because he is the man and you are the woman that he is "lord" over you and that you don't have the right to be treated like a human being. That is spiritual ignorance. God made woman out of Adam's rib, from his side. Not from his head to be over him, but most importantly not from his feet to be trodden under him either.

Intimidation is using words or actions to strike fear into someone. Much like threats, intimidation is used to control the actions and emotions of someone. We all have felt at some point that burning sensation in our face or stomach when someone tried to bully us. It's one thing when it is the boy or girl down the block who just wants your lunch money. It's a whole other thing when it is the person who is supposed to care for you and put you above all else. Intimidation can be carried out in more ways than just looks or words. Often when my abuser wanted to "make his point" he would destroy property of mine. He reduced a dining room table and chairs to splinters in one angry outburst. Once he took our wedding picture, broke the glass, burned my side of the picture, and left it out for me to see, as if to say that he would "exterminate" me if I didn't cooperate. He would throw anything at me he could get his hands on, even if I was holding one of the children. If I had a picture or plaque with a bible verse or poem on it, he would scribble out the words and write his own "version". He would destroy or hide pictures of the kids or my family. But most often it is words and gestures that an abuser will use to intimidate their partner. We have become so desensitized to obscene language and gestures in today's society that we often don't think it's such a big deal if a husband calls his wife a "bitch" or tells her to "fuck off". In a moment of anger, sometimes we say things we don't mean. But someone who uses intimidation to control their victim means every word they say.
They want to reduce their victim to a level where they are beneath them, to verbally violate them so that shame and humiliation renders them helpless. Even if you can come right back with an equally obscene reply, the intimidating thing about it is that the person is angry enough to be out of control. Words lead to actions. I can't begin to count the number of times I was told I was useless, lazy, fat, ugly, good-for-nothing, a bad wife and mother, or called names like bitch, whore, slut, etc... The children picked up on these phrases, much to my public embarrassment.

When my son was five, I got him a Mr. Microphone for his birthday. He loved it. One day, we were walking past my son's room and heard him saying, "Fuck you, bitch" into the mike. After the initial shock wore off, I turned to my husband and said something like, "I hope you're happy!" I knew that my son had picked that phrase up from you the countless times his father had said it to me in front of him. It was an innocent parroting to my son, but his father went berserk. He went and got a hammer and went into my son's room. Before I could stop him, he had smashed my son's beloved tape recorder into pieces before his eyes, ignoring my poor son's pleas for him to stop. He claims he was trying to teach the five year old "a lesson", but I don't think that was it. The poor kid didn't know any better and he knew it. He was trying to intimidate me - to never blame him or speak out against him like that again. He wouldn't let me replace the toy. It was a sickening display of hypocrisy, one that I believe scarred my son, and certainly it was not to be the last.

The use of the "F" word or any derivative of it became an effective weapon to my abuser. To me, it was the most demeaning term anyone could use toward someone and he knew it. It felt like a knife in the back. That's the very reason my abuser made sure he used it at every chance, knowing how much it hurt me. This went on until the day I left, even after years of going to church and reading the bible through. Apparently all the verses about not using the tongue to wound or to not let any defamation or unholy talk come out of a believer's mouth somehow slipped by him. When these verbal attacks took place, the most intimidating thing to me was that he had an evil tone to his voice, almost like he was possessed or something, that would send chills up my spine. He didn't need to strike me physically when these things were just as effective.

The term "if looks could kill" was very applicable. There were times when he would toss me down on the bed and hold my arms and just look at me with a crazed, wild look. That's all it took to strike fear in me. He never pulled a weapon on me, but he made sure I knew he kept a shotgun in the bedroom closet and the ammo close beside it. I often wondered if I would awaken some night with a muzzle in my face, or not waken at all. Besides, who needed weapons when all he had to do is raise his hand to me and I'd cower.

Unfortunately, our son now repeats these same patterns to me every time he doesn't get his way about things. Even my sweet daughter sometimes turns into someone I don't recognize. I can't help but be hurt and angry that after all the years I taught them bible stories and songs they would eventually replace that with their father's hateful words and attitudes. Let that be a lesson to anyone who thinks that witnessing abuse has no effect on a child and staying in an abusive relationship is best. After witnessing this for so long, they have learned that all they have to do is demand and threaten to get their way. They destroy my property, they use obscene language and name calling. Their father blames me for not being able to handle them. Ironic that this accusation should come from the very person who taught them how to curse, to intimidate me and show a complete lack of respect for me.

If someone is calling you names, belittles you, threatens you, destroys your possessions or uses any other form of intimidation toward you, you are in an unhealthy relationship and you need to get out before the intimidation goes one step further. Document the intimidation as best you can.

Isolation is how an abuser keeps their victim under control by keeping them away from anyone who might learn of the truth about what is happening in the relationship. By forcing the victim to stay away from family, friends and from seeing people socially, the abuser lessens the chance that something in the victim's physical or emotional behavior will trigger a response from someone and they will start asking questions. You often see this crop up right away when you begin dating someone. They will get possessive of your time, pick your friends and generally get very angry if you try to do anything socially without them. This happened in my relationship too, but I explained it away that we were so far apart in age and we had different friends. But when I look back, it was ok for him to be with his friends without me but not the other way around. I had male friends who I was accused of having sex with when all along he was with other women himself. It's very one sided. The worst was the isolation from my family. When they started to realize what he was doing to me physically and emotionally, they tried to step in and help. He ordered me to stay away from them, or if I insisted on seeing them that my son was not allowed to go with me. It was probably six months before I got the nerve to go against that. When he found out I was doing it, that's when he broke my dining room furniture. But his family, who were always hateful to me and resented the child were never kept from him.
He got on the phone with my grandparents and said horrible things to them, even to my poor grandmother who just wanted to see her grandson. He tried to goad my uncle and grandfather into coming over then loaded his shotgun and waited for them to show up. I called to warn them and he yanked the phone out of the wall and hit me with it. But I got through in time to keep them from coming. The isolation continued for a while, but eventually I got a job and my grandmother watched the kids for free, so he lifted his ban on them.

When I started to get out in the world and make friends and work, I noticed he got very paranoid about anything I did that involved other people. Even though he protested and made things hard, I tried to keep up with my dance classes, aerobics and theater. But he just made it too hard after a while and I gave up all of them. As I was meeting people, especially other males, I noticed that they didn't treat me or their wives/girlfriends the way he treated me. I absorbed any positive responses from male acquaintances. I never had a sexual affair, but I longed to be swept away from my horror and to be treated like a woman should be. I was honest about these feelings, and looking back, I actually I think that I was hoping he'd get jealous and/or realize he might lose me and treat me better. Instead, I was called a whore and a slut and accused of having affairs. I was kept from anyone who questioned what was happening to me in my marriage, male or female.

The one thing I refused to give up was my church activities - choir and Awanas. But I got a constant barrage of criticism that I was "selfish" because I spent time serving the church. Soon he decided he'd join too, under the cloak that he had "seen the light" and wanted to be a better person. Looking back, I think he was just making alliances and putting up a facade in case I ever told anyone about the abuse. When I showed up one night with bruises on my face, or came to the pastor with fresh strangle marks on my neck, sure enough people found it hard to believe that the mild mannered man who quoted bible verses in Sunday school became a sadistic man who used the bible to hurt me instead of love me as soon as we were outside those walls. To this day, he still relies on the fact that people don't have a clue to what really happened because he kept me at arms length from anyone who would listen to me.
If your spouse or girl/boyfriend tries to control your friends, your activities or your time with your family, they are trying to isolate you so they can control you. Don't allow it or it will escalate and you will be without support when you need it.

Spiritual Abuse is often used as a way to make a victim feel bad about themselves. For some reason, those who made up the abuse wheel didn't give it a special classification, instead they put a few examples under Emotional Abuse. But personally, I think it deserves its own category.

God always intended marriages to have three parties - the husband, the wife and God to be their guide and strength. I firmly believe that the reason there are so many broken marriages and divorces today is because we lost that spiritual connection. There was a day when the adage "The family that prays together, stays together" was very much in force.
 
But times have changed, and once the bible and prayer was removed from schools it then began to be removed from homes until we have a spiritually bankrupt society.

I grew up in the church, my relatives made sure I went, but we didn't practice at home. During my dating relationship with my abuser, I began attending with some friends from High School, but I found it hard to balance my spiritual awakening with the relationship. I felt pretty guilty on Sunday morning at church after having slept with him Saturday night. I made the wrong choice and chose the relationship. A year into the marriage, when things were at their worst and I realized I had made a mistake, I went searching again and found that God had not forgotten me. It was such a source of peace and strength to know that God would never turn his back on me when I needed him most.

There came a day a few years later when I decided I had had enough of the abuse and was going to leave. My husband begged me not to, and said he "wanted what I had". I was overjoyed that he was finally going to get some spiritual guidance. My hopes were high that finally our marriage could be what God intended it to be. But instead, what I thought was going to be my salvation along with his, turned into my nightmare.

I thought that reading passages about how to treat your spouse would make him realize that he needed to be loving and kind instead of hateful. Instead, he skipped those passages and went to anything he could find to "prove" that God gave ultimate power to the man to rule over his wife. He misconstrued passages about "husbands rule" and used it as an excuse to continue dictating the rules of the house. He slanted passages about "wives don't deny your husband" to mean that whenever he wanted sex, no matter if I felt like it or not, I was to give in.

He had a heyday with the Proverbs, especially Proverbs 31 about the Wife of Noble Character. The passage is meant to represent womanhood in general, what traits make up a good woman. There are not enough hours in the day for one woman to do all the things this passage infers to, but he made sure to let me know how short I fell of the "ideal" every chance he got. If I couldn't be wife, mother, cook, maid, cleaning lady, worker, shopper and banker each and every day to his standards then I was lazy and worthless. Any negative passage about women he attributed to me. If I complained about being treated badly, I was the "quarrelsome wife who is like a constant dripping on a rainy day".

Of course, any passages I tried to bring to his attention about how husbands should love and cherish their wives, how anger and foolishness would destroy our home, were greeted with contempt and denial. We tried to do a home study about Christian marriage, but when I tried to point out from the materials where his attitude towards me went against Christian principles, I was told that I was "ignorant" and that I was "forgetting my place". I pleaded with him to consider that the constant criticism and anger were spiritually damaging to our relationship, but he replied that it was me who was not being the wife I should be and that if I would only change he wouldn't have to resort to such measures. In disgust, I threw the book down and said, "I guess this is what the passage means - don't throw your pearls before swine!" His answered, "You'd know about that, wouldn't you, fat pig!", and he made pig noises as I ran away crying.

He began attending church with me and began to make alliances. He was good at putting up a facade to people, he'd long since mastered that. He would sit quietly in Sunday School class, offering an occasional word of wisdom. He played on the softball team. Everyone thought he was quiet and unassuming. Little did they know the monster that lurked beneath. So many countless Sundays I'd sit there next to him, on the verge of crying, envying all those other women who had husbands who loved and cherished them. My mind would drift to the past week and the images would come back to haunt me, the pain and the rejection very real. But I had to keep up the act. He made sure to always remind me that God hates divorce and therefore he'd hate me too if I got one. Besides, the only biblical excuse was if he was committing adultery, but he denied that so I was stuck.

I thought the church would be my refuge, but instead it was my prison. I learned how to excuse any bruises or explain away the sadness in my eyes as just being tired. They wouldn't understand, so I thought, they have no idea what I've been through. They won't believe me. One day, as chronicled in the Physical Abuse section, I was attacked and strangled by my husband. I felt my pastor needed to know. I went to his house to show him the proof. I thought, "Finally, he will have to believe me!" But to my dismay, not only did he not believe me, he blamed me for it, saying that I needed to be "more submissive" and "clue in to what causes his anger and then - don't do it." I was in shock. This man was supposed to protect me, and instead his spiritual ignorance forced me back into the battle zone. Of course he confided in my husband, and I paid the price.

As the years passed, I confided in people who I thought were my friends, but as it turned out, many of them used my problems as gossip fodder. When I separated from my husband, I was the one removed from choir and not allowed to do solos because I was "in sin" for leaving my husband. No one cared to ask what my reasons were or offered any help. He used that as an opportunity to rake in sympathy from those who sided with him. We changed pastors in the meantime, and he got in thick with the new one and formed an alliance there as well. I felt defeated and helpless. On my last separation before the divorce, I got barraged with phone calls telling me I needed to "repent". My pleas for help went unheard and ignored. He had managed to convince them that I was lying and that he wasn't capable of the things I charged him with. I ended a lot of friendships over this, another victory for my abuser.

When I finally managed to divorce him, there was great dissension  in the church as to what to do with me and people like me. The new pastor was much more understanding about the issue of abuse and actually listened to me. He never told me I should get a divorce, that decision I had to make on my own. But he at least believed in me and confronted my abuser. When attempts to have me removed from all duties and ostracized from the church failed, my abuser left the church. He realized finally that he could not fool everyone. But the damage to my character and to relationships within the church was already done. To this day there are still people who look down their pious noses at me and think I'm the worst sinner imaginable. Some just continue to ignore me. Some realized that I was telling the truth and apologized to me.

I urge all pastors, deacons or anyone in leadership in the church to take courses to learn about spiritual abuse and domestic abuse. Being ignorant about this subject will cause other women like myself to stay in harmful relationships. God never intended that a man should use any kind of force or harm his spouse in any way. God commands us to love one another, be patient and kind and unselfish. There is nothing more contrary to God's word about marriage than the aspect of domestic abuse. Unfortunately, there are no clear cut passages about it. You have to study and learn what God says that a marriage should be, and then you see clearly that abuse has no place in the Christian marriage.

When I finally got the nerve to tell my husband I was getting a divorce, he never missed an opportunity to pull out his bible and follow me around, reading passages about "wives submit" "God hates divorce".... Still to this day he uses his "Christianity" as a cloak to hide under, pretending to be the quiet, unassuming man while portraying me as the crazy, godless ex-wife. Those whom he's fooled don't know that behind the scenes between his bible reading he continues to lie, manipulate, scheme and use every opportunity to be hateful to me. He still deceives himself (and others) that because he cleans up good and shows up on Sunday that he is the Christian and I am the fallen sinner. As the graphic above says, God sees the heart. I know the truth about what happened and so does God. His opinion is the only one that matters.

Don't let anyone tell you that you must stay in an abusive relationship because "God hates divorce". If you've given the relationship every chance and your abuser refuses to acknowledge their actions, even if they are the highest elder in the church it does not excuse them. Those whose marriages are on solid ground might not understand what you're going through, and you will experience broken friendships and probably have to find a new church. As I sit in my new church with my new husband, who treats me as a Christian man should treat his wife, I realize that God is with me even if the world is not. The friends I've made in my current church don't know my past and they don't care. They see that I am someone who loves God and wants to serve him. God has forgiven me for what I had to do and has blessed me.

If you are a Christian who is in an abusive relationship, don't let anyone force you to stay because of their spiritual ignorance. There is forgiveness and hope through Christ. Remember that it never was and never will be God's will for a man to harm his wife or that a woman should stay married to an abusive partner at all costs. Get some spiritual guidance for the difficulties you will surely face from everyone. But first and foremost, protect yourself and your children from abuse. God Bless
 

Angie Horvath 2000
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