Written By: Anonymous

Lord, if you help me to survive this, I promise that I will do whatever you ask of me. I prayed in my head while my husband sat over me with his hands wrapped tightly around my neck. After hiding my cell phone and taking the house phone from me and throwing it against the wall, he pushed our bedroom T.V. on my back. As I laid on the floor, he sat on top of me and began to choke me. He told me all of the things that he hated about me. He told me that he "wished he had never married me." Of everything I had gone through with him, this, him attacking me all over our apartment, was what I finally considered abuse.

We had only been married for a year. It had been the most miserable year of my life. I was only nineteen, he was twenty. I had convinced myself that "this was how marriage worked" and "what I had signed up for." In my eyes, none of the things he did to me was real abuse so I had to suck it up. After all, our vows did say, "until death do us part."

One night, after returning to our apartment after leaving the gym. He threw me up against the wall the moment I walked through the door. While squeezing my face firmly in his hands, he told me that I was dressed "like a ho." He then told me that I wasn't allowed to go to the gym anymore because I had embarrassed him in front of his friends. I told myself. "That's not abuse." To me, my husband was trying to look out for me.

When he forgot my birthday, my friends took me out to celebrate. I had the time of my life! The moment I got home later that night, he was so angry he began to physically fight me. He pushed me, he shoved me, he tried to punch me, but missed and hit my closet door. Once again, he accused me of being dressed like a "slut." He also accused me of, "sleeping with somebody else" because I had been out so late. He pulled my ring off of my finger and threw it across our apartment, then he stomped on my left hand and told me that I didn't deserve to be married.

He told me that I wasn't allowed to hang out with my friends anymore. I still told myself. "That's not abuse." I had hurt him by going out and he was just expressing his disappointment.

While running errands with a friend once, we ran into him on an actual date with another woman. She was prettier than me and had no idea who I was. We had fights about other women before, but this was the first time I had ever been face-to-face with him and anybody else. To actually see the betrayal with my own eyes crushed me to my core. I went home with all intentions of leaving the marriage for good. He surprisingly rushed home to stop me. He even dropped to his knees and begged me to stay. He convinced me that the reason he was on a date with somebody else, was because I wasn't taking care of him as a wife. I wasn't as pretty as I was when we first got married and I also wasn't giving him enough sex. I convinced myself even then. "That's not abuse." If I had been a better wife, he wouldn't have to cheat one me.

In another incident, while his friends were hanging out at our apartment, he got mad at me for speaking to one of them. The friend came inside of the kitchen to ask me if he could have some of the chicken I was cooking. I told him yes and a few minutes later, I was being literally dragged to our master bedroom by my husband. asked me a question. The moment he slammed the door shut, he ran up on me and began to repeatedly hit my head against the wall. He told me that I needed to stop acting like a "ho" and start acting like a wife or he would leave me. He told me that I was an embarrassment to him and then he ordered me to stay in the room for the rest of the night, until his friend's left. I was starving because I didn't even get a chance to eat the dinner that I had cooked. Once they left, he came back into the room. He took off all of my clothes and had sex with me.

The entire time I cried because I thought about all of the awful things that he had said to me earlier. I felt stuck in a nightmare and hated my life. "That's not abuse." I told myself again. I was thankful that my husband was home and having sex with me! I had friends whose husbands didn't come home at all some nights.

As if things couldn't get any worse, the engine to my used car broke down. I couldn't afford to get it fixed by myself. When I asked him to help me get it fixed, he convinced me that we didn't need two cars and that his almost new car was enough for the both of us. That one car arrangement made matters in our marriage even worse. There were times he would forget to pick me up from work and I had to catch rides with co-workers. He once let me drive his car to a night class, by the time I got out of the class the car was gone. When I called to tell him that his car was stolen, he told me that he took the car back because a friend of his told him that he saw me talking to a guy during one of my breaks. I had to have a classmate drive me home and he didn't come home that entire night. I stayed up crying and feeling miserable. "That's not abuse."

One day my supervisor along with a few of my co-workers cornered me and asked me if I was on drugs. I told them "no" and was actually offended by the question. They pointed out that since I had gotten married that I had lost forty pounds and that my face was starting to sink in. I told them that I was stressed out from working two jobs and taking night classes. Then they asked me if I was being abused, that question offended me even more than the first! I told them "no." Yes, my husband would push me, shove me, had stomped on my hand, banged my head on the wall, and other similar things but he never abused me. To me domestic abuse was what I saw on T.V. Women with busted lips, bruises, and broken bones. He had done none of those things to me, so I wasn't in an abusive relationship.

I believed that we were just having a rough first marriage.

The turning point came when I showed up to work one day to find out that one of my friends and co-workers had been beaten up by her husband. I was surprised because our husbands knew each other and were similar in many ways. I couldn't imagine her husband beating her, let alone beating her with a thick leather belt which is what she told me he had done.

I actually had the nerve to ask her, "What did you do?"

She to me that after playing basketball at the gym, she jammed her finger and had to take off her wedding ring. When she got home, her husband didn't believe her and went on to spend the night beating her with his leather belt. She had marks all over her entire body. While sitting with her male supervisor, she explained that he had never done anything like that before but then proceeded to tell us other little things that sounded familiar to my own experiences. Her supervisor told us both then that no man should ever put his hands on us for any reason. I was surprised he directed that answer to both of us, because I had never told anyone that my husband had touched me. It was as if her supervisor knew and felt he had to say something.

Later that same day, still terrified by everything my friend had told me, I went to lunch with my best friend and finally opened up to her about what I had been going through with my husband. She immediately started crying and begged me to leave him before the same thing happened to me. I finally had my own car again and decided that it was finally time to leave.

After work, I decided to break the news to my husband over the phone with my best friend by my side for support. I told him that I no longer wanted to be married and I offered to move out of our apartment. He was surprisingly okay with getting a divorce and he encouraged me to keep the apartment, telling me that he would pick up his things that next morning. I was shocked and a little hurt that he was taking my decision so easily, it was as if he was unhappier in the marriage than me.

When that following morning came, I didn't ask my friend to stay because I didn't feel threatened. When my husband entered our apartment to get his things, I regretted not having anyone else there with me. I don't even remember what was said between us to start the fight. I only remember screaming, kicking, punching, and doing anything to get him off of me. The rage I saw in his eyes was like nothing I had ever seen before. It was as if I wasn't dealing with him anymore but some type of demon that didn't know me. I tried everything to calm him down but nothing seemed to click. I was terrified because I truly believed that I was about to die. I couldn't understand what I did to him to make him so angry. It was like he wanted to hurt me, no he wanted to kill me! He actually even said the words as he choked me. I know in my heart that I wouldn't have gotten out of that apartment if it wasn't for my neighbor knocking on the door.

Our neighbor knocked on the door and announced to us that he had just called the police. My husband got off of me and I was shocked that let me answer the door. Rather than explain anything to my neighbor, with my body in pain, I grabbed my keys and ran down the stairs to my car. I just wanted to get away.

I drove to my best friend's apartment and stayed there for the rest of the night. I didn't want to make a big deal of the situation and I was anxious to put everything behind me. I never even thought to call the police to report what had happened because I was close to his parents and his sister and I didn't want to hurt them by getting him in trouble with the law. My hope was that he was packing his things and leaving and we cold both move on with our lives.

That next day, I went back to my apartment with my friend. We didn't see his car and felt it was safe to enter the apartment. Upon entering I gasped. He had slashed all of the furniture, broke all of the glass tables and mirrors, and almost everything in the house. It was then that my friend called the police.

What happened next could only be described as a nightmare. When the police arrived, I was a mess as I told them what happened. It was a male and female cop taking down my statement. I was surprised by how compassionate the male was with me while the female cop didn't seem to believe me. After I finished my statement, it was then that she let me know that she was the cop who had answered to the call the day before. And since I had left the scene, my husband told her that I had abused him and that I had destroyed the apartment out of retaliation of him telling me that he wanted a divorce. I couldn't believe it he flipped the story.

I broke down crying as my best friend began to explain to them what she knew happened. I showed them the marks and bruises and it was then that the officer asked me why I never reported him if he hurt me that bad. I told her I didn't want him to get in trouble. The male officer pulled me to the side and began to give me instructions. He told me to file a restraining order immediately and to report any other abuse that happens from then on out.

I did as he told, me but navigating the legal system after I had never filed a report of the other abuse was difficult. I filed for divorce a few weeks later and had to wait the one year waiting period before it would be granted. The judge granted me a restraining order thanks to witnesses and it took months for them to finally serve him. In that time, various friends and co-workers had to follow me anywhere I went because I kept receiving threats from him and he would somehow pop up in different places, even once coming to my job on the military base. My base commander issued a restraining order to prevent him from ever coming to the base again.

If it wasn't for my concerned co-workers and friends caring, I would still do this day be in that marriage accepting all of the abuse that I now know was abuse all along. I was willing to accept all of the "little" things because my definition of domestic abuse was something more serious. It took years of counseling for me to understand why I felt as if the things he did and said to me were "love" but retrospectively looking back, I understand now that I was so desperate to be loved that I was willing to accept whatever love was given to me...even when that love was abuse.

"That's Not Abuse" By DL