Words on Wednesday ...

This Writing Challenge was started by Delores a long time ago. Computer issues led her to bow out for a while, and now Words for/on Wednesday is provided by a number of people around the world and has become a movable feast, with [Elephant's Child in Australia] acting both as moderator, and this month providing the prompts.

Essentially the aim is to encourage us to write. Each Tuesday or Wednesday (depending on time zones and hemispheres) we are given a choice of prompts: which can be words, phrases, music, or an image. What we do with those prompts is up to us: a short story, prose, a song, a poem, or ignoring them. We can use some or all of the prompts.

October is Domestic Violence Awareness month and my Words on Wednesday this month will center around that theme since I have twice now been married to men who were abusers in very different ways.  DV is not always visible, and often the unseen bruises and scars are the deepest.  I hope to empower other women with my words this month.

If you or someone you love is experiencing any type of domestic violence, there is help.  Please visit the [National Coalition Against Domestic Violence resources page].

~*~*~

On the surface, he never seemed like her family would find him unsuitable when they were still dating.  In truth, even after they married they never did dislike him for any reason.  He knew all the right words to make the ladies trust him, and all the men like him.  All of which made it harder, twelve years later when she finally left him for good.  They didn't believe her when she told them about the verbal, emotional, psychological, and sometimes sexual abuse.  It had started so slowly, so subtly that she wasn't even aware that she had lost control of her life until it was too late to make an easy end of their life together.

That's how narcissists and manipulators work.  They trick you into thinking they have your best interests at heart.  They make you feel crazy for even thinking that they would ever say or do anything to hurt you.  They tell you that whatever they did do that hurt you physically or emotionally was because of something YOU did.  It was your fault.  You made them, because if you hadn't done this or done that, they never, ever would have done it.  And you believe them.

That's called gaslighting.

Oh, he cried big crocodile tears when she ran.  Told everyone how much he loved her, missed her, and wanted her to come back home.  He would go out to her job, or her new apartment, and leave cards on her windshield telling her how much he needed her.

But never once did he say he was sorry.  Never once did he apologize for the things he had called her, or the ways he had belittled and demeaned her.  He never believed there was anything wrong with the times he had woken her in the middle of the night by forcing himself on her, essentially raping her since she had woken to the act in progress.   She would close her eyes, face the wall, and pray that God would just let her die right then and there.

She was "his" wife: a possession to be taken, used, abused, or treated however he chose.  He believed that where the Bible stated "and two shall become one" meant that she ceased to exist as an individual.  Her life was to become a mirror image of his own.  She was not allowed to have separate interests, hobbies, and likes or dislikes.

On the surface, their life together appeared to be perfect.  They had his friends.  They had his family.  They even occasionally went to see her cousins that lived in the same state, and once even they both went to Scotland to see her mother and sister.  But she was never allowed to have friends he didn't know about, especially men friends.  If she ever mentioned a male co-worker, even casually, he would become angry and jealous.  She wasn't allowed to have phone conversations with her family away from where he could listen to what she was telling them.  She couldn't have her own bank account or credit card.

Her voice had been silenced for a very long time.

The final straw came after he had "allowed" her to go to her 20-year high school reunion without him.  For the first time in ten years, she spoke and people listened.  They respected and admired her and told her things about herself that she had forgotten.  They didn't know or need to know, all of her truth.  But they had given her back something she had lost.

Self-respect.

~*~

Leaving him had been scary, and hard because she had to walk away with only what she brought into the relationship in order to avoid an ugly court fight.  But she knew that if she fought for what she deserved, all she would get would have been killed.  

Once when he had made a side comment once that if she ever tried to leave him, and if they'd had kids at the time, he would kill her rather than argue over custody, it was a comment she knew had more truth in it than not.  She made sure to never miss one of her birth control pills and when she knew there was a chance of her ovulating and getting pregnant while on the pills, she would say or do something to make him angry enough to give her the silent, cold shoulder treatment.  Even if it lasted months, his silence was golden.

Stepping out onto the serenity deck she created at her new townhome, she eased into a hammock chair and kicked off her slippers, rocking back and forth as she watched the sun come up over the bay.

Life was good, and getting better every day.