Category Archives: Collateral Damage

Learn from me

Collateral Damage, domestic abuse, Fear

It’s been 2 years since I officially told him I wanted a divorce.

When I asked him to leave after he destroyed my house, the initial arrangement was just that he would be staying at a buddy’s house. It took me 4 days to work up the nerve to give him the message (through the buddy, as I didn’t want contact with him at the time) that the separation needed to be made permanent.  The result of that Thursday night conversation left me, yet again, wondering if this would be the time he would finally kill us all.

I texted the buddy in the morning, after barely sleeping that night. I look back on all of this and just shake my head at my foolishness. I knew exactly what he was planning, and I allowed myself to be talked off a ledge and “let this play out”.

He asked to come over to get some things in order, and with his buddy close enough to step in if needed, I allowed it. While he was at my house, he asked if I wanted to be the one to disappear forever, or if I wanted him to. If I wanted to be the one to raise the kids, or if I would let him. I kept telling him it didn’t have to be this way. We could divorce like normal people divorce. It doesn’t have to be this dramatic. Nobody had to die. I wasn’t asking him to die, and I certainly didn’t want to die.

This wasn’t the first time he’d suggested ending a life at the suggestion of separating (and not the first time he talked suicide, but would always end it with “but I could never do that to my kids”). I found a text from a couple years before this incident two years ago where I was relaying a conversation to a friend:

“oh, also, he kept saying something about there are two easy ways out. Divorce, or suicide by either one of us. The first time he said it I was really confused that suicide would even be any sort of option. But then he said it a couple more times and I had to make him clarify as to whether or not he thought that I would actually commit suicide? Or if he was thinking about it? Especially because he keeps insisting that I am clinically depressed. He says he is not going to, but that it was just one of two ways out.  I assured him that it was not an option for me.”

The rest of the conversation in my dining room that day two years ago was him telling me that he had changed the life insurance policy. He told me that there would be people from the ATF that would come and “take care” of everything he left behind with his gun business. He asked me to give him three hours and he would disappear forever.

I left that day.  Spent the afternoon crying till the tears ran out.

But I didn’t call the police.

He got as far as putting his loaded ARs, magazines, and handguns in the trunk of his car, but thankfully his buddy convinced him to bring them back inside and lock them back up in his gun room before going back to the friend’s house, taking a bunch of meds, and passing out.

I have said it before, listed at the top of my regrets is the MANY times I should have called the police, but I didn’t. Sometimes I didn’t tell anyone.  Sometimes I called his friends. Sometimes I called our pastor.  But I didn’t call the police.

My fear when speaking out about my experience is that people will read it and think I am trying to drag his name through the mud, or air my dirty laundry.  PLEASE hear my heart when I say that this is not my intention. With every fiber of my being, my goal in speaking up and speaking out is so that other people will learn from me.  What not to do.  What to do.  I did a lot of things wrong in my marriage, and not reaching out for the appropriate kind of professional help could have cost me my (or his) life on more than one occasion.

If you are EVER afraid for your life or safety, or if someone you know is threatening to harm themselves, PLEASE call someone.  Call the police, call the domestic abuse hotline 1-800-799-SAFE (7233), call the suicide hotline 1-800-273-8255.  Call a trained professional.

There are so many things I hope people can learn from me, but this might be the one about which I speak the loudest: CALL FOR HELP.

The Aftermath

Collateral Damage

I needed a bubble mailer today.  I knew it was down there, amongst the debris.  I had only looked down there, I hadn’t ventured to begin cleaning it up yet.  My friend and I had spent hours sorting, cleaning, and organizing, and all of our hard work had been carefully stacked neatly behind the couch.  All of those hours were destroyed in minutes of his rage.  We all know the keys he was looking for wouldn’t have been back there.  No, this was personal.  All because I wouldn’t come home and help him look.  I carefully stepped over the turned over boxes and retrieved my bubble mailer and went back upstairs.  I’m not ready to clean this mess up just yet.

*text message* “Are you almost here I’m not doing OK” (after I had already set my healthy boundary and told him I wasn’t coming home.  I had already arrived at church, unloaded all of the kids in the rain, and was late to worship team practice.)

*text message* “I’m throwing up from anxiety where the fuck are you” (after relentless calls that I stopped answering when he wouldn’t take no for an answer.)

It’s hard reading his texts because usually the abusive ones will be right before the completely normal and healthy conversation.  The dichotomy of his words will always be hard for me to wrap my head around, it’s what’s kept me feeling like I was going crazy for a decade.

My room was actually the first place where I saw his destruction.

Rewind, back to when I was still at church. When he was calling, I finally decided to have my pastor answer.  He helped me sort things out and we had arranged for a mutual friend to meet me at the house so I could help him find the keys.  I was scared to go there alone, knowing his state of mind.  He must have found the keys before I got there, because I drove past him on the road.  I went home anyway, since I was close and I needed to go to the bathroom.  So I saw my room.  I’m embarrassed to say I was surprised.  I shouldn’t have been, I was expecting a tornado.  It’s what always happens when he gets like this, tearing through the house, dumping boxes, shoving piles of paperwork onto the floor, no regard for anything he destroys in the process.  All left for me to clean up, of course.

But I was still surprised.

Again, we all know the keys weren’t under my nightstand, so knocking it over (and everything on top getting thrown across the room) was a direct attack.  This is how he abuses me.  Never fist to face, though I’ll admit I’ve lost track of the times I’ve said “I wish he would just hit me”.  The mental torment is so much harder to sort through when he’s in a good mood again.

Back down in the basement was another example of how he was clearly sending a message.  The keys he was looking for would not have been in or under that couch (and if they might have been, clearly there are better ways to search for them).  He had the keys when he got home the night before and he spent his time in the kitchen, down in his workspace, and in our bedroom.  Turning over the couch was sheer rage and nothing more, aside from possible desperation.

That afternoon he wasn’t thrilled when I asked his buddy to help me figure out how to ask him to sleep elsewhere that night.  He made that perfectly clear when he came home to get some clothes so he could sleep at our friends’ house.  He spent his time banging around, brought up some dishes (breaking them as he threw them on the bench as he walked by), throwing laundry around, and knocking over a trash can near where I was working on sorting through a mess in our basement.

It wasn’t pretty.

He wasn’t happy.

Tonight will be the 3rd night he’s been away, and each day it sinks in more and more just how much I’m DONE.  I have spent too much time being angry at these types of episodes, growing more and more bitter each time I clean up the mess.  Now, I’m just sad.  And tired.  So very tired.  And my feet are oh so sore from walking on eggshells all these years, not to mention what it does to my heart to try and protect my kids from their own father.  I’m done.  I’ve reached my limit.  Sadly, the battle has just begun.  I’m not sure how much more strength I have in me, but thankfully I’ve got the most amazing village to come alongside me on this crappy journey.  And hopefully he does too.  He’ll need the support just as much as I will.

*sigh*