I’m 5 feet even, 130 pounds.
My baby’s father, is almost 6 foot 7, 330 pounds.
Our fights were epic, legendary, and sometimes downright brutal. He had no mercy. I cried, pleaded with him to get help, made him look at our sleeping son, prayed with him and over him, thoroughly and very colorfully tried to love him through it, none of it worked, none of it mattered. He looked at me with his empty eyes, with a blank stare. He wanted such control over me that when it was clear that I was not going to obey, he quite literally lost his mind as he tried to force my submission.
He took my keys from my hand with such force, that he actually bent two of the keys on the key ring; my car key, and a house key. He dislocated my pinkie finger, which I still cannot feel completely. I was in a finger cast for 6 months, and my finger still isn’t completely straight. This is particularly a nightmare for me, because I’m a writer and teacher, my hands are my life.
I was walking away, at 7 o’clock in the morning, after being up the entire night fighting with him. He walked alongside me, threatening me and saying horrible things as I tried to walk faster to my car. Suddenly, he grabbed me by the arm, and turned me back in the direction of the house we lived in together. As I was walking, he pushed me from the middle of my back, down onto all fours. I was just shy of four months pregnant. I fell onto the cement and skinned my palms and both knees. He didn’t help me up, and he did it in front of his across-the-way neighbor.
He pushed me down into the closet when I was five months pregnant. I somehow grabbed the clothes on the hangers, so I was tangled up in the hangers and clothes, trying to get up while he stood over me, and watched.
He pushed me down onto the bed when I was six months pregnant. We had just moved, so the bed was on the floor without a bed frame. He pushed me near my collar bone, and I fell straight down, all the way to the floor. I had recorded audio of this particular fight, and the calmer I spoke, the more agitated he got. I was trying to reason with him, and he just pushed me down, mid-sentence, as I calmly explained why I no longer wanted to continue our relationship, pregnant or not.
I was attempting to leave him, once again, and he pushed me down so hard against his bedroom door, that I skinned my elbow, and had to be helped up by his sister-in-law. I began having contractions two and a half minutes apart, and was taken by ambulance to the emergency room to stop my labor, as I was only seven months pregnant at the time.
He strong-arm shoved me down the stairs when I was nine months pregnant, and proceeded to kick my feet out of the way so he could close the door. He only helped me up because I began shouting at him and heaven forbid the neighbors hear what he was really like.
He got on top of me, in the dark, in the middle of the night. He held both my wrists as he lay his body weight on top of my six month pregnant belly. He was yelling at me, saying hateful and hurtful lies, he then leaned down, and bit my face, as I lay there screaming. I still have nightmares about this particular fight. It was utterly frightening.
We were fighting for the umpteenth time about me wanting to leave him. I told him I didn’t love him any more, and I no longer wanted a life with him. He was again on top of me, holding me down by both wrists. He spit on my face as he held me down, pregnant and helpless. I went absolutely crazy, headbutted him, got up, and spit right back in his face. I shoved him as much as I could, towards the door repeatedly, shove after shove, and finally, he left, but not for long.
I had to get my bag off of the floor that he threw down, and he taunted me by saying “get it dog”. I had to bend my legs in a certain way to even reach the floor by this point. Again, he stood over me and watched. He didn’t move, or speak, he just watched.
He would constantly rough-house me, bruising my arms and legs so much, that I often wore long sleeve shirts in the sweltering summer heat, concealing the evidence of my home life from my students and colleagues.
He blocked my car in with his truck so I couldn’t leave. He got out, and deliberately scratched my driver side door. He damaged my front fender, my driver side door, and my trunk, because I left, to get away from him and to diffuse the fights.
He was calling me a whore and a tramp while I was in labor. I was obviously making noises from painful discomfort, and he told me to shut up, that it was embarrassing. Literally three minutes after our son was born, he said to me, ” when are we making another one, you didn’t tear, so we’re good”. My epidural was delayed two hours because he kept leaving the hospital. When they finally did administer my epidural, they gave me so much medicine, that I blacked out, and only came to when it was time to push. I hated him so much by this point that I didn’t even look at his face to see his reaction at the sight of his only child coming into the world. He then left me in the hospital, with a newborn, alone, using the excuse that I was getting loud with him. Of course I was, he was already a deadbeat dad, and the baby had only just arrived. He had to keep going wherever he went to smoke crystal meth, and that took precedence over his only child being born.
He screwed the doors shut with long screws so I could not open them, and leave. He also drilled the bedroom screen door shut so that “his friends couldn’t come in and out without him knowing”.
He was once again going in the bathroom to do drugs. He was verbally antagonizing me, and smashing me in the bathroom doorway, he was trying to push me out forcefully. He wanted to do his drugs in the bathroom, alone, like he always did. He took his lit cigarette, pressed it against my skin, and burned me on my hand. I came unglued, and took his cigarette and pressed it and held it near his wrist. He had no reaction, he sat there, stone-faced. He made no movement, and I held that cigarette there I believe until it went out, because I don’t remember the cigarette burning after. This was another fight I lost only due to the difference in our size, although I didn’t lose by much.
He slapped me across the face, and gave me a bloody nose. I walked into the living room, and his mom asked what happened to me. I replied, “oh, he just slapped me across the fuckin’ face”. No reaction, much like her son.
He pulled me by my hair countless times.
He choked me well over 25 times; during and after my pregnancy.
He punched me in the thigh so hard while I was cuddling with the baby, who was only a few weeks old at the time, that it made my leg sore for days, and I walked with a limp until the muscle and bruise healed, two weeks later.
Three months after I had our son, we were fighting, yet again. I was walking over to him to retrieve my phone, and before I got to him, he punched me so hard in the sternum, that it sent me across the bathroom, and it knocked the wind out of me. That was the only time I ever experienced not being able to breathe. It hurt so badly, I was crying and struggling to breathe. He stood over me, laughing and mocking me with the sounds I was making, struggling for air, doubled-over, hanging onto the bathroom counter, trying to catch my breath. He just stood there, once again, towering over me.
He gave me a fat lip, on several different occasions.
He threw his phone so hard at my face through my car window which was barely open, that it gave me a bleeding cut in between my eyebrows at the top of my nose. I began having extreme discomfort, so I went to the emergency room. The nurse tried to find the baby’s heartbeat, and couldn’t. She had another nurse come in to try to locate his heartbeat. She, too, was unable to find a heartbeat. I had to wait an hour for an ultrasound, thinking my baby’s tiny, precious spirit had flown away into God’s arms. Finally, the machine came, detected his heartbeat, and he was surprisingly fine. The nurse made a comment that he “tucked himself away in mommy’s belly”. I knew why, she didn’t.
He would (almost) always get on top of me and hold me down while we were fighting, and on separate occasions, his mother, and my daughter, had to pull him off me. It was awful always arguing, with him literally on top of me, yelling and screaming as if we were across the room from each other, but our faces were so close, they were not only touching, but were smashed against each other.
He essentially forced me to have sex with him, in the middle of, or just after violent brawls. And he expected nothing less than a porn-star experience. He acted as though the fight didn’t even happen, everything was great, and I had better let him know that I still desired him sexually. I better still perform, and act like it was the best I ever had. If I didn’t, he would literally just get off me, and start yelling at me, and we were back in the fight.
He fought with me so much about my being a whore because I just had a baby, and did not want sex. He yelled and complained at me so much, that I had to have sex with him, just FOUR DAYS after giving birth. He said that if I didn’t, it meant I was having sex with someone else, forget the fact I had literally just given birth, I was to open my legs for what he wanted. There was no, saying no. If I dare refuse, the fight would continue all night and into the morning, which meant neither of us slept. People get tired after a fight which lasts minutes, our fights lasted hours, and hours, days, it was draining and exhausting. And it pissed me off to the point where I felt faint.
He began name-calling, fighting, and abusing me, before I even got out of bed in the morning. It would be five or six in the morning, and it had already begun, the day would be ruined before the sun even came up, before my feet even hit the floor. There was never a sweet kiss goodbye to me, or my belly as I lay in bed while he got ready for work. Each morning when he left, the door certainly slammed, and I heard the loose gravel and dirt being stirred up as he inconsiderately drove away blasting music and making a scene in the small housing community we lived in. It was embarrassing, each and every time.
He seemed to be angrily jealous of my five year old students, (crazy as it sounds) and every time I came home with a little gift of appreciation, or flowers, or drawings and cards from them, he would act so sour, and act like it was nothing special. During teacher appreciation week, I came home with armfuls of flower bouquets, he went outside, and picked flowers and brought them in to me, as if to steal my student’s thunder. The tokens of love I was so grateful to receive, were mixed in with flowers given to me by a grown man who had to remain in the spotlight. I do believe I just rolled my eyes when he handed them to me.
He hated that in public, I stood out, and was always noticed, and approached, by men and women, adults and children alike, so he would deliberately start saying rude things, to embarrass me, and to make it out to be that I was nothing special, but merely a nuisance who didn’t deserve kindness and attention. He made it appear as if he were such a “nice guy” and I was so lucky to be with him. He acted flattered when a man or woman complimented me, but he was obviously fuming and jealous on the inside, and that’s the side that came the minute we got into the car, and continued at home.
I slept over 30 nights in my car, just to get away from him. I was heavily pregnant, and maneuvering in my backseat was a huge challenge. Even more of an annoyance, was having to find somewhere to constantly use the restroom. As awful as that was, it was better than staying home with him. I had to change clothes in my backseat, and get ready for work in whichever public restroom was closest to where I slept.
He would deliberately make things up, and create his “evidence” so I was constantly defending myself against fabricated lies. Often times his claims were so ridiculous, that I believed he was just kidding and just trying to get under my skin, but he was not kidding. He was serious about his over-the-top accusations, and he fully anticipated my admissions of guilt, so he just never stopped. The comments and questions came day and night, he was set on getting a confession. He never got anything because there was never anything to tell, and I would not admit to something I was not doing. I stood my ground, no matter what he said or did.
When he went to work, unbeknownst to me, he hid a sound recorder in hopes he would “bust me”. All he heard was me letting the cat out, and then silence from me taking a nap. He proceeded to harass me when he got home, about how I was having an affair with his married brother, and he “heard it all” and he was going to his sister-in-law to tell her about what his brother and I were doing. He had no reservations about made-up-lies possibly ending his brother and sister-in-law’s marriage. He had no regard for the magnitude of the accusations he was throwing around, or the dire consequences it could have on his brother and his family, and least of all, me.
He made fun of my body immediately after giving birth to his son. Our baby was one ounce shy of eight pounds, and 20 inches long. My labor was induced because of the stress I was under, it was affecting the baby in utero, so he was born two weeks early. My giving him a healthy baby boy did not stop him from being insensitive and hurtful, mean, and neglectful.
He would mock me and imitate me as I cried.
While I was in the hospital having his son, he kept leaving to have a cigarette, and to go on a dope run, so he just popped in and out. I was so enraged about the father’s lack of help, support, and compassion, that I threw the hospital water pitcher at him. We had our son at 3:29 pm, and by 10:00 am the next morning, I told him since he had better things to do, he could just go. He put up no objections, and left me alone in the hospital with a newborn baby from 10:00 in the morning, until 11 o’clock at night when he finally returned. When he did arrive back at the hospital, he was all drugged out. I was laying in the bed, nursing our son, and he forcefully pulled our brand new baby away from my breast, and put him under the one light that was on, trying to wake him up to play in the middle of the night. I was trying to get the baby out of his arms. I panicked, and opened the door and made up an excuse for the nurse to check his circumcision before we went to sleep, just to get them in the room. I took the baby peacefully from his arms and I was then able to continue cuddling and feeding my baby. The moment the nurses left the room, he said “you’re a fuckin’ cunt”. He then laid on the sofa sleeper, and just went to sleep without a care. He got up at five in the morning, left, and was on his way.
I was told throughout my pregnancy, that the baby “probably isn’t even mine” so I was subjected to rude and heartless comments as often as he would open his mouth. It started to really take a toll on my health. He stormed out and refused to sign the baby’s birth certificate, so two weeks after our son was born, we had to go to the social services agency to have him added to it. His mother paid for a paternity test, and our son was 99.999% proven to be his. He accused me of tampering with the test, and still continues to only claim our son when it’s convenient, even though our son could pass for his little twin.
He would always provoke a reaction from me by taunting and terrorizing me with childhood and adulthood traumas. Things I never felt comfortable discussing, or things which were only told in extreme confidence, I was now forced to talk about, and yell about, and relive the anger and sadness, and various forms of abuse which I had been subjected to in my life, because my biggest hurts, were his primary topics. It was blatantly obvious he enjoyed it when I was an emotional mess. Chaos is what’s normal and comfortable to him.
He was so mad at me for not wanting to get back together with him and move back with him. I repeatedly said no, very clearly, stating a lot of my reasons, why I was choosing to leave him and stay gone. He said without hesitation, “no wonder you got raped”. He expressed no remorse. He always expressed how much he wanted to give me “painful” sex.
I worked up until I was nine months pregnant. He kept me up nightly until 4 or 5am, I would only sleep until 7am, and then got up to get ready for work. I had barely rested. I was physically uncomfortable, and mentally, I was being pulled in conflicting directions of love and hate, breaking up and being forced to make up, stuck between certainty and confusion. He was up all night, so he wanted me up all night. Even though I begged and begged for sleep, specifically because I was with-child, I never got it. I had to take naps in my car during my lunch hour, or in my classroom which was under construction. I hated not sleeping well regularly. I hated when I fell asleep, and woke up, and he wasn’t in bed with me. And sometimes, he wasn’t even there. I hated getting up in the night, and he was God knows where, wide awake, up to no-good. Hardly ever were we sleeping in bed like a loving couple. I hated him so much and the energy was so bad between us, that we went from being tangled up soft and naked and in-love, to sleeping apart, separated by my obvious animosity, backs to each other. I was fully clothed, and if he attempted to touch me to reconcile, I pushed his hand forcefully away.
I hated that he always brought up the past. Each day was talking about days long ago, negative stories about life, never the here and now. The future was something he could not see, could not imagine. He could then not fathom beyond today, and today’s fix.
He presented a completely different person than he really was when we met. Literally on day two, I asked him “what kind of drugs do you do” and “do you have any bitch-baggage” and ” what’s your relationship with your mom like”? He replied that he hardly drank, he smoked cigarettes, and he smoked cannabis and cannabis wax. I asked him if he had a regular job, he said yes. He was a certified HVAC specialist, so he did residential and commercial heating and air conditioning. I asked him these specific questions, because those were my deal breakers, and I didn’t want to waste our time. I did not want to get involved with anything with drugs because drugs ruin everything, and from experience, I know I wasn’t good at dealing with addicts. I had past experiences with family, friends, and a lover or two, and I was unwilling to get involved in that kind of relationship. Also, it was disturbing to me because of my family, and what I saw, and how drugs only left destruction behind. I was adamant about steering clear of addicts. Well, he lied, about each and every detail. I was secure enough to address immediately what I wanted and didn’t want, and he simply presented a gold-plated, Facebook-Fake version of himself and his life. So he turned out to be a heroin and meth addict, a narcissist, and bully. He had the ugliest, old, drug addict “girlfriend” who he would still always go to her house because that’s where the drugs were and the house is open anytime, to anyone. And I’m not usually one to tease about looks, but she is literally 50 years old, 16 years his senior, no education, never had a career, a meth and heroin addict, and from the years of her drug abuse, she has aged like an old-suitcase left outside in the weather. She looks like a junkie, doesn’t take care of her hygiene and appearance, is an absentee mom, and says things like she hopes a woman has a stillborn. She acts ugly. She acts desperate. She literally grosses me out. I asked him how he could be with that and he said he was lost on drugs and not thinking clearly, and after seeing her, I would hope so. He said he was never with her like that, to need to be faithful to her. He didn’t have a steady job. He was doing side work with a couple of guys he knew. And finally, after the initial show that he was so close and caring to his mother, I found out it was nothing like that. He fights with her, yells at her, says really mean things to her, is constantly making static, and is making her whole house full of dumpster stuff that he collects and has everywhere. So, he presented himself as someone I would desire, and it all turned out like I got punked. I was shown his shiny side, and when that costume came off, it was devastating. Relationship requirements, all became relationship fails.
He stays gaslighting me, and denying he’s doing it. We spent so much time, fighting about non-existent issues purposely turned into problems, that I started just leaving or hanging up the very moment he tried to aim at that topic. Projection, blame-shifting, all the classic narcissistic behaviours and secrets started coming to light, just like the Bible says they do.
He just has this ugliness about him. After all is said and done, when I look at him, or talk to him, or think about him, I can only picture all the awful things he said, and all the inappropriate actions and gestures he made behind my back and blatantly in front of my face.
These are only SOME of the reasons I left, and took our baby son with me. I could go on and on, hence why I began writing about it. It is really a challenge getting it out, because as I tell it, I relive it, and that is enough to make me feel nauseous. I gave him chance after chance, and he just kept getting worse and worse. I had no choice, but to walk out, for the safety and well-being of myself, and especially our infant son. I’m not willing to chance that innocent little boy’s heart being broken, or altered.
The most bothersome thing about all this, is that I didn’t leave when the red flags began appearing everywhere. I guess, I just didn’t want to believe this was actually happening to me, and our unborn son. It got worse each time I tried to leave, I was always forced back with threats and violence, and various forms of blackmail. The more effort I made to get out, the harder everything became. I promised myself that when we did get out, I would find a way to reclaim my voice, and finally, I am able to speak, freely, and truthfully, and with each bit of release, I am having less nightmares. I no longer have to “shut the fuck up”, and that makes me free, grateful to belong to God, and that’s making me whole again.
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I was so brokenhearted as I read through this piece of writing, knowing this isn’t even 25% of why I left him. At the same time, I have never experienced such joy and happiness, calmness and serenity, now that I KNOW that I never, ever, have to go back.
The relationship and the ride is over, and that’s my very favourite part of this true, and often unbelievable story ….
PTSDDiaryPartII 