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Health & Fitness

Guns and Bruises

Spilling Secrets
  It is a painful thing to admit that you have been playing make believe, a little bit of dreaming in an ever wakeful world. I had ignored the signs. I refused to be woken, I am stubborn and I would not give in, until I had no choice.

  The first time he got violent his sister had cancer and she was slipping away. The second, she had just died, he was so stressed from work. I was the first one to take the blame. He would apologize, I would be lulled back to my sleep.

  I went to bed when he told me to and got up when he said I should. I made him breakfast in bed and he got up after his second cup of coffee. I did not mind really, I was tired, it was true but I was fine. If I took a nap, he would wake me up. Not because he needed anything, he would just holler out his nickname for me until I answered. It was just easier to stay up. He did not like me working and I loved traveling with him, so it was perfect.... I thought. Every thing has a price

 He called me ho and other things that were not nice. I would say it hurt my feelings and he would say they were funny. I finally gave up, thinking he would stop, he didn't. If something went wrong, anything, he would yell at me. If I tried to reason with him, get drawn into his words, well it would only get worse. There was no middle ground. Usually, we were fine. We would go for months without a cross word between us. We worked on many projects and I believed every word he told me about all the details of his life, I had no reason not to.

 We had both been married before. He told me a story about his ex wife accusing him of cutting her hand on glass from a picture frame, that she was drunk and that she did it to herself and blamed him. He was usually so mellow, in the beginning. That was a long time ago. Passions run wild when there is drinking involved. You can substitute any excuse you want, I made them for him. I did. Because I wanted to believe that he was who I had made him out to be. He is not overly tall, he is not hulking or intimidating in stature. He seems geeky and mild, not at all the kind of guy you would think of as controlling.

 I met him through one of his friends at a gun range.  I sold my future husband his house, never knowing that he would ever be anything more than a business relationship. I had no idea that he was not supposed to have guns. I was there when his friend, who works for a national firearms company sold him guns. I sat at dinner in this man's house while he tried to talk my now husband into buying a new shotgun from him. We joined the gun range together. I had no idea the danger I was in or that these men were committing felonies. I would learn that almost too late.

  I started getting sick, unwell, I had no energy. Some days I could not get out of bed. I started gaining a large amount of weight in a short amount of time. I either could not sleep or could not stay awake. I visited doctors and was plied with one pill after another. My body would ache and then be numb. I could not track my thoughts somedays. All the while my husband was gone more often. Strange things were happening. He took over all the bills, said I should not have to worry about them. Told me not to answer the house phone, it was his fax line anyway. Finally he just unplugged it. He started using my debit card, saying he had misplaced his. We would take friends or family to dinner and when the bill came he would tell me to pick it up and he would go to the restroom. I would later find out, he stopped paying all my medical bills six months ago. The answering machine in his office is full of messages for me from medical billing services. 

  He started accusing me of not doing things that he would say he told me to do. I would insist that he said nothing to me. He would say I was crazy, that he didn't trust me, that I was unreliable. I felt smaller and smaller. I was diagnosed with first Emphysema and then an immune disorder. I fell into despair. I felt as if my life was spiraling away and there was nothing I could do. I would listen to my husband talk about me to his colleagues on the phone, is was so....nauseating. He would say how worried he was...how scared he was and accept their kind words and then he would get off the phone and tell me I was lazy and fat, stupid and he was tired of me. He started hiding his phone. Not answering it in front of me. Taking calls outside and getting up late at night. He was hardly home and when he was he was in his home office. We did not speak. I found the text messages...they broke my heart. It was a co-worker. He had a new life without me. New bank accounts, new job (on contract to supplement what he is already making) and a brand new love interests and I was in the way. He had made plans.

 I did not find it all at once..it has been piece by bitter piece. I confronted him and he attacked me, threatened my life and those of my family's. He left a few hours  later on a scheduled business trip and I reported it, The Deputy told me to go to the Community Center Kiosk in Gig Harbor and file a TRO. I went in scared to death. I knew it was permanent what I was doing. That there could be no going back. I did not want to get him in trouble, I just wanted him to leave me alone. The staff helped me, it took me three tries to get it done I was shaking so much.

 After it was done I started calling people. Letting it all out, everything that I had been holding in for seven long years in a flood of tears and pain and once I started talking I just could not stop. I had a false sense of safety. I did not realize that sides were being taken. You see when you sit quietly, when you can no longer put on that mask like everything is okay, people judge you. They blame you. They do not realize he is actually taunting you in front of them. It is an inside joke. They feel sorry for your poor husband, he is so kind and nice, it is so unfair. I know, I have done it myself.

 So, people I thought were friends, they tipped my hand. They let my husband know what I was doing. He cut off the bank accounts first, my son stepped in and helped me. I found a copy of my husband's arrest record. He plead no contest to punching his then wife in the face and ribs multiple times and there in big bold letters it said he was never to have a fire arm. On my birthday the man who introduced this convicted spousal abuser, the one who sold him the guns that he threatened to kill me with, knocked on my front door. My front door is glass and my son would not let him in. He could see the papers he had in his jacket. I asked what he wanted, he said he came to get some of my husband's things, I said no and then there he was, me greatest fear, my husband. I called 911 and so did he. He was yelling that my son was brandishing a gun, my son was holding a yellow flashlight. I was yelling down the phone line that my husband was lying, while a vision of my son shot dead ran through my brain I could not breathe. The Deputies came deep. I have no idea how many at least six. We were ordered out with our hands up. It is like the movies, only much scarier. They had the tactical gear out and guns drawn. I came wheezing out, coughing and sputtering. The Deputies were wonderful. They helped me back in the house, made sure the house was secure and sent in the medics. I gave them the guns that were my husband's, I asked if he was going to get into trouble for them and was told that it was "vague, that that was a federal matter"  I think they gave them back to the man who sold them to my husband, who will just give them back to my husband. So, I am writing this here.

 So that there is a record, if anything happens you will know and maybe next time you see a wife who is jittery, quiet, withdrawn...maybe ask yourself why. I hated being around people with my husband, he would be so sweet and pleasant and, not himself. I just could not do it anymore. And for that I was found guilty, in the eyes of others and they sold me out to my abuser, because he is such a good guy....to them...he never hit them...

I know what you are thinking, if you are so afraid, why do you not leave? And go where? With what? He has taken everything. I gave up my career, my friends, my own money, my life, I am not giving him one more inch willingly, not one more inch. 
 
I have come too far no more. 
 
I will update this as I go hopefully once a day. It is a way to keep myself and my family safe. 

 

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