My Story by Anonymous

My first memory of abuse was around three years old. A male relative, who was babysitting me, asked me if I wanted to do “grown up things” like my mommy and daddy. The abuse continued for several years until I confided in a Sunday School teacher what was happening. I remember being told that if I was lying, a doctor would be able to tell. My mother told our pastor and I overheard her on the phone conveying to a friend that the pastor had told her that this kind of thing wasn’t unusual and happened in most families.

The abuse was never reported and I never received any type of therapy. I was sent the message that abuse was normal. There was a popular worship song at that time that said “He (God) was there all the time…” I remember thinking if God was there all the time, and He saw what happened to me, and did nothing, why would I ever want anything to do with Him?

As I grew older, my view of God and Christianity became more and more skewed. Even though we attended church, it was more cult like in it’s beliefs and practices and I quickly began to understand that in that culture, women were less important than men. Education was discouraged for girls and early, arranged marriages were the norm. Many of my friends were married in their teens to foreign men who needed Visas to stay in America. I myself got engaged at 15 years old when the pastor told my mother that getting married was the best thing for me if they wanted to keep me out of trouble. Fortunately my father, who did not attend the church, intervened and the wedding was called off. Even so, it was ingrained in me that a woman’s only purpose was to be a wife and mother, and at the age of 19, I married a boy I had only been dating for 6 months.

Our marriage started out like most young couples. We struggled financially and had lots of arguments. After a year or so, I thought a baby would make everything better. I had this vision of this little human that would love me unconditionally, and I would do the same in return. Once I was pregnant, the arguments got worse. He would disappear with his friends and I would wait up until he came home and angrily confront him. It was one of those times that I told him that I’d rather raise our baby alone than have him as my child’s father. That was the first time he physically abused me. He put his hands around my throat, held me against the wall and growled at me to never say that to him again. I ran from our apartment and got in my car and blindly drove through hysterical tears until I found a payphone to call my mother. That began the cycle of me leaving, him apologizing, me going back, him love-bombing me and then things going downhill again.

Around the time of my second pregnancy, we began working together in youth ministry. My husband was outgoing, charismatic and a great musician. Everyone loved him. Behind the scenes, I supported him by planning all the youth activities, finding material for his messages, and picking the songs for the worship services. I never even saw him open a Bible. Eventually, he was given the position of worship pastor. I was put on total bed rest at 20 weeks and our second child was born 4 weeks premature. While our baby was in NICU, my husband exchanged phone numbers with a nurse there whom he had dated in high school. That began an on again, off again affair between them that lasted the next 16 years, but I wouldn’t learn about for some time.

We went on to have our 3rd, and last child. That pregnancy was also high risk and I suffered terrible post-partum depression afterwards. I hated my body and I remember finding bikini pictures from a woman at the gym my husband worked out at on his phone. I remember him screaming at me that he couldn’t be married to someone crazy and jealous. I went to our pastor and asked him for recommendations for a marriage counselor. He told me to save my money and just have more sex. He said men who are kept happy by their wives don’t stray. I felt like a failure as a wife and began to do unhealthy things to try make myself look and feel better. Every time my husband would be caught in another inappropriate relationship, he would swear it was just emotional, and that had he felt supported by me, he would have never needed to talk with these women. Sometimes the churches he worked for would do nothing, and other times they would ask him to step down. He would simply find another church, charm them, get hired and uproot the kids and me.

As we approached our twentieth anniversary, I began to suspect he was in a relationship with his high school girlfriend. By that time, I knew they had reconnected years earlier at the hospital, but he assured me they had only talked and never seen each other again in person. Through a series of events, it came out that they had not only been seeing each other, but he had been having me book hotel rooms for them, telling me they were work trips. That was probably one of the worst fights we ever had, ending with him shoving me to the ground in our laundry room and punching dents in the washing machine inches from my head. I told him I wanted a divorce. I remember him leaving and my laying on the floor with my face in the carpet, crying out to God to please help me stop loving him. A few days later, on Mother’s Day, he begged for forgiveness and told he wanted to buy me a new house and get matching tattoos to show me he was committed to our marriage. I again took him back, but the toll it took on my mental and physical health was excruciating. I was suicidal and on multiple medications to manage my depression and anxiety. I had no one to talk to because everyone at our church thought he was great and I was crazy. Every time I would find something suspicious and struggle to trust him, he would ask me how long I was going to hold the past over his head, and if I was truly a Christian, I would forgive and forget. I stayed 5 more years, for a total of just shy of 25.

The last straw was the high school girlfriend calling and confessing that the affair had never truly ended, just paused and restarted over the last 16 years. I remember finally feeling like God released me from the marriage. I knew I had fought and honored Him by trying to do the right thing and save my marriage, but to stay was going to kill me. During the 25 years, my husband had only been physically abusive three times. He didn’t have to hit me because I was so mentally and emotionally controlled by him. When he finally realized I was serious about leaving, things got really frightening. I was afraid to get a TPO because he convinced me that people thought I was crazy and I would lose my kids. Those months leading up to and following my divorce were some of the scariest I’ve known. I learned that our family court system doesn’t care about domestic violence as long as the children aren’t being abused.

I’m so thankful that during that time, I had a wonderful, trauma certified therapist who recognized the effects years of abuse had taken on me mentally, physically, emotionally and even spiritually. I had to relearn who God was, and who I was to God. Most importantly, I had to learn to truly believe He wasn’t angry or disappointed in me for leaving my marriage. I was fortunate to find a domestic violence ministry online that dispelled the falsehoods about abuse and divorce and I learned that many of my beliefs stemmed from verses being twisted and taken out of context to keep women trapped in abusive marriages. Leaving was one of the hardest things I have ever done. I’ve learned that healing isn’t linear and even all these years later, I still have setbacks. Staying so long caused me to have Complex PTSD (C-PTSD) and that is something I have to work to manage the rest of my life. Learning to trust again was hard, but God blessed me with the most amazing man who is a wonderful husband and stepfather.

I wish my story was unique, but sadly it’s one of thousands just like it. My prayer is that my story can bring hope to anyone who is in a similar situation. Maybe you struggle like I did to believe you are worthy of love or think that being treated poorly is just your punishment for picking the wrong partner. I would say to you that abuse is never God’s plan for you and He doesn’t expect or require you to stick it out. Find a trusted, licensed therapist to help you create a safety plan, go to law enforcement if you are in immediate danger of find a local domestic violence center. Know that there is help, and hope, for you. You have a beautiful future ahead of you.