I was married for 12.5 years. The emotional abuse started within the first couple of years (we were both military and he deployed a few months after we got married).  He was offered his first alcoholic drink when he was in Iraq, and by the time he came home, he settled into a routine of polishing off a case of beer with a buddy in one night.  This happened frequently.  I wasn’t able to identify the emotional abuse until after we moved back home (year 3-4 of marriage) and even when I did, it was usually brushed off as PTSD.

He punched me in 2007 (followed by holding me to the ground in a headlock).  It became a joke in years to come – a joke that I learned not to hit him because he hits back. His response to that incident was that “he learned how to neutralize the enemy while he was in the army.” So that’s all he was doing.  He was doing what he was trained.

For some reason, that didn’t comfort me.  It only reminded me that he was trained to kill.

Over the years there was VERY little physical abuse. There were a few times where he would hold me tight in bed and not let me go (not in a romantic or playful way).  Other than that, I don’t really think there were any other actual physical encounters.  It’s like he got smart.  He knew that when he hit, I left.  He learned he couldn’t hit, there would be consequences*.

*why I didn’t leave immediately when he stood at the foot of my bed with a loaded gun is beyond me….

I am going to be VERY real with you, and it’s not going to be pretty: I get jealous of the women that have been knocked around by their men.  I have said for YEARS that I wished he would just hit me.  People understand physical abuse.  They are terribly offended when a man lays a hand on his lady.  Leave a mark?  Leave your man! Oh how I’ve wished I had external markings on my body to show my abuse.  I’ve desperately wished he’d beat me to a bloody pulp.  Now that’s something I can take a picture of.  That’s proof of his abuse. That would get people saying “You can’t stay!  He hurts you! What if he turns on your kids?!”

But no.  Sadly, nobody can see how he hurt me.  In fact, over the past 3 months I have felt re-victimized as I hear him telling his stories and as I hear people actually believing him (without feeling the need to get my side of the story).  I’ve had my credibility questioned, my reputation trashed, my character scrutinized.  I wish I could show you the damage he did to my brain.  The bruises on my heart. I wish there had been video cameras for all the times I left a conversation with him lost in the gaslighting fog and confusion. Thankfully I have some amazing friends that have been by my side through it ALL and can bear witness to the many many times I’ve come to them saying “what the heck just happened?”

My counselor has said she believes I have PTSD from my marriage. THAT’S crazy. But I believe it.

I feel morbid wishing he had beat me up, but it’s how I feel.  I’ve spent a decade being emotionally/mentally beat up, and now I feel like I have to have notarized documents proving it all.  It would have been so much easier to tell people “he hit me”, and here’s the bruise to prove it.

By the way, bruises on the heart take a really really really long time to heal…  just FYI.