Where I've Been

I left my Husband at 1:38pm on a Sunday. Sunday November 25th, 2012. We had been married 5 Months, 10 days. In that time I had been beaten up 9 times, in the 10 years we had been together I was hit for 6 of them. Lies poured out of my mouth, l I fell off treadmills, got in car accidents, spilled down stairs, I believe once I got in a bar fight, I can't recall.

But at 1:38pm my best friend Kay and my mother walked into my apartment, put clothes on me, packed my blue duffel bag and put me in Kay’s car, as I sobbed uncontrollably. It was over.

I am not the kind of girl you expect to have been through this. We were not the couple you would have even believed could be capable of having this story.

My husband and I were highschool sweethearts. We found eachother at sixteen and besides one brief breakup in 2009 were never apart. I loved him and he loved me, and that is why no matter how many times I caked on concealer or lied to my co-workers and friends I never left.

I am a smart girl. I've heard it over and over again. Like I said, you would never expect this story.

Like everyone else one of my best friends found out when I came to work with bruises I couldn't hide. He still tells me he doesn't get it, I am a smart girl.

My eye was black, my neck bruised from my Husband's hand grasping it tightly two nights before. I have never felt anything as terrifying as not being able to breathe. Days later I could still feel it, a lump in my throat, the purple finger imprints stained my skin.
I walked like I was recovering from surgery, dozens of black bruises hid below the long sleeved tops I bought at the local Walmart, because that was what was open at 10pm. My knee was swollen from the impact of my iPhone smashing against it; I limped and struggled to get into my pants.
My head throbbed and the world spun, I couldn't tell if it was injury or anxiety but I spent some of Monday throwing up in the company washroom.

I can't remember the day or the month that he first hit me, I remember thinking it was bad, but isolated. I didn't think it would get worse, I didn't think that in six years time the fights would become struggles where I feared for my life, moments where I worried the man I loved, the person I married would take my life.

For six years I didn't tell a soul. Not my best friends, not my family, no one. Sometimes I almost did, sometimes I wondered if it was just time to get it out, hope for help, start again. But I wanted to save my Husband, I wanted him to get better. If I had told anyone, he would become the bad guy, I would become the victim, and no one would be able to help him. Little did I know that I couldn't have helped him.

This blog will encapsulate the story of how I lived 10 years, more than half my life with a man I loved but couldn't help. How healing is harder than surviving and what happens when the world you know collapses and makes way for the person I have always wanted to be.