I didn’t leave after this incident. It had been 2 years since the last time we separated and he had moved me further away from my support system and had been isolating me from my family and friends in the name of “protecting our marriage from people that didn’t support us”. My own parents didn’t learn about this incident until months later because I knew how it would make them feel about my husband. I desperately needed my family to like him or I didn’t know how our marriage could survive. I needed my people if I was going to stay in my marriage. So I needed my people to not know how bad it had gotten. His parents knew, and his dad was just wanting to get us through school before we divorced (his recommendation to divorce).

I remember laying there, still, praying he would go to sleep (or pass out) so I could call someone – someone “safe”, someone who wouldn’t tell me to leave him. I tried calling two of his buddies, but no answer at that time of night. So I just laid there. Prayed I would make it through the night. Prayed my boys wouldn’t come into our room in the night and find the gun in the nightstand.

I didn’t call the police. Not the first time I made that decision… certainly not the last.

Instead, we went to counseling. We would spend months going round in circles with him fighting our counselor’s assessment of him being abusive, manipulative, controlling, and narcissistic. After all, it wasn’t abuse because he never pointed the gun at me.

She later told my mom that she has never feared for a client’s life the way she feared for mine – that she lay awake at night, worried. Because I stayed.

Eventually we stopped going to her. Add her to the list of people unqualified in his eyes to help us with our marriage because they dared suggest he was abusive.

Abuse doesn’t always look like hitting or fearing for your life. But the things surrounding the abuse tend to be the same – isolating you from your support system, convincing you “they” are harmful to your relationship, unable to take criticism or advice and work on making necessary changes for healing, unable to admit they did anything wrong, convincing you it was your fault, making you question your reality (gaslighting)… the list goes on and on.

My friend, you don’t have to go through it alone. I believe you. You are not crazy or imagining things. You are worthy of being loved.

At the same time, marriages CAN be healed. People CAN change. I believe it with all my heart. I just now believe there need to be certain safety measures in place before getting to the place of determining whether a relationship *should* be reconciled or saved. And the most important part in all of it is that you don’t do it alone. Find people who are trained and experienced in domestic abuse. Have your spiritual mentors/church leaders/etc in place but PLEASE do not rely on them to be responsible for what needs to happen in your relationship. Chances are, they aren’t equipped to handle domestic abuse, and it’s not fair to put such a heavy responsibility on them. You will need professional help. Please get it. Find your local women’s shelter. Find a counselor – ideally one with domestic abuse experience.

Don’t suffer alone.

Marriages ARE worth fighting for.

But they aren’t worth dying over. We were not called to be martyrs for our marriage. Please get help before it’s too late. Your life AND your soul are too precious to lose at the hands (words) of someone that doesn’t value your very being.

#talkaboutit #enddomesticabuse