Liz's Lesson Learned: Compiled from A Woman’s Words

Lessons learned come in many forms.  Most of the lessons on my site tell of lessons that I have learned as I go about life.  This month, as we focus on the untenable sin of Domestic Violence, I ask that you hear the words of one of too many who knows firsthand what it means to have lived in a domestically violent environment that should have been a lovingly safe haven for her and her children. And after reading it, maybe you will acknowledge that you feel as I do – I don’t want there to be any more victims or survivors of Domestic Violence.  What I want is for Domestic Violence to stop!!

Read her words and then do something…

“I would like to say something.  Can I say something?”

That was how she began to bring us into the world she knew for so many years.  It was a Wednesday and those in attendance were making comments about what had been preached.  As the sounds of the mingling voices hushed, she continued…

“I didn’t tell anyone about this then.  I haven’t told many people since.  But I want to tell you about my story.  Indeed, we don’t talk about it much.  And it is so very true that we need to. 

But as for me, I didn’t talk about it because it was embarrassing, and I didn’t have anyone really to talk to about what was going on. 

But I lived in a home with a partner who was abusive.  I was hit and yelled at and demeaned.  IT happened over and over again, and I stayed.  I stayed because, at the time, I didn’t feel like I had any place to go.  I had two children to raise.  I went from my parents’ home to live in an apartment with him.  When we were in public he appeared the perfect person.  My children didn’t want for anything.   I put on a face that didn’t show any signs of being abused.  On the surface things looked fine.

But at home, I was getting beaten.  He wanted to control everything.  He wanted to tell me what to do. He wanted “keep me in my place.”

When it began, I packed all my things and my son, and I went home to my parents’ home.  But he followed me there and he sat at the kitchen table with my mother, and he swore to her that he would never do anything like that again.  He promised, and she believed him, and hoping that his promise was true, I went back. 

And it began again.  Over and over again.  And I stayed.  I didn’t feel like I had anywhere to go.  I didn’t want to go home.  In my battered mind, I told myself that I couldn’t go back there and hear her say I told you so.  I stayed and I stayed. If I told anyone, they wouldn’t believe it because he didn’t look like an abuser to others.  For 13 years, I just stayed and so my children could be cared for.  I stayed because I didn’t think I could take care of myself, let alone two children, without his help.  I didn’t know who or how to ask for help.   In real life, I didn’t see or hear about this happening to anyone else. You know, I never knew how to fight.  I didn’t have to fight when I was growing up.  So, I didn’t know how. 

Having to fight my partner.  I was embarrassed. I had two children to take care of.  I thought I was alone.  I couldn’t talk about it then.  I just kept it to myself.  AND I STAYED!

At one point, it got so bad that I told my partner’s sister what he was doing. She said, “Let’s get him on a three-way call and you be quiet while I ask him and see what he says.  Let’s see if he will admit what he has done.”  She believed me but I’m not sure that she was able to help me.  At least not in my mind.

Of course he denied it, and the violence continued.  He didn’t hear no or stop or leave me alone.  He just kept on doing harm!

After 13 years of being battered physically and emotionally, I began thinking about getting out.  It would take another two years of planning and making arrangements before I would leave for good.  But one thing occurred that firmed up my decision to get out.  He put his hands on my son.

Yes, I had begun trying to leave.  But my efforts increased once he put his hands on my son.  I always said that I could take care of myself.  But my children could not.  So, when he grabbed my son by the scruff of his collar and lifted him into the air and pushed him hard into the wall, that was it.  He touched my son because my son (in my partner’s warped mind) tried to protect me.  And it was then that I knew without a doubt that it was time to go.  And shortly after that, I left for good. 

The thing is that even when I got out, he didn’t stop trying to get at me.  He tried repeatedly to turn our children against me.  He would tell others about how I did this, or I was that.  Even as his health declined and he’s now in a nursing home alone, he still tries. 

It is crazy.  But at one point, after my son was grown, his father needed to get a paternity test because he never believed he was his son.  This, although our son looks just like him.  Neither my son nor my daughter would fall for it because they were witnesses to his years of flip-flopping, from giving us stuff to being irrationally cruel. 

When people ask, ‘Why did you stay?’  I didn’t think they understood my situation.  When someone asks today, I still don’t believe they understand.  But I do believe we need to talk about it.  We need to find a way to create spaces where people can talk about what is happening.  We need to talk to our boys and our girls and tell them that no means no, and if someone says leave me alone, then leave them alone.”

Hear her!  Feel her! Act!