Marriages Can Break Easily
His name was James and at first everything was fine. We fell in love and got married. His family caused us many problems, but we were fine in the beginning of our marriage. Then, a month after we got married came the first physical altercation.
I had gone into the bedroom to read and I must have fallen asleep. The next thing that I knew was James yelling, holding me down, and trying to hit me I screamed and he stopped trying to hit me. Then, he explained that he had held me down because he thought that I was ignoring him. The next day I told him that he would have to get some therapy or we would be getting a divorce.
The next week I foolishly believed that things were fine because he told me that he would never hit me again. Throughout the next ten months, the physical and emotional abuse was off and on. Then, he tried to hit me again and I left him for a month. However, I returned and a week later we went camping with his family. He tried to choke me while we were swimming. However, I didn’t leave him then because his family told me that he agreed to get help.
At this point, I was married to James for about three years. In the middle of the third year, I told James that I was going to the library to read so that he could write a computer program. He didn’t want me to leave so he started yelling and chasing me around the house. He chased me outside until I fell down a set of stairs that lead to the library. I scraped my body badly, however, all he said was that I ruined the day; and then, he went home. I went out to dinner that night with him because I was scared of what would happen to me if I didn’t go out with him. I didn’t leave him at this point because I was afraid that I would get hurt if I didn’t stay. But all of that was about to change.
We had now been married for over four years. It was Labor Day weekend of 1998. James and I were talking and I thought we had finished, so I decided to go to the bathroom and take a shower. I told James what I was doing and I guess that he didn’t like what I said. This is because I had just turned on the shower when the shower door opened and James yelled at me and wouldn’t shut the door or just leave. When he was satisfied that I knew how angry he was at me, he slammed the door. He slammed it so hard that the door shattered into a million pieces. I put my hands across my body to try to protect myself and I got out of the shower. I stepped carefully over the glass and tried to get to the bedroom. However, James blocked the entrance to the bedroom for a while, When he let me into the bedroom, he tried to grab my clothes off my body. When I got my clothes on, I called my best friend to come pick me up.
James tried to block the front door so that I couldn’t leave the house. He almost broke two of my fingers when he was trying to shut the door that I had partially opened. Finally, I got out of the house and in to my best friend’s car and left. A month later I filed for divorce. At last, my nightmare was over. Also, I truly believe that my best friend saved my life that day.
The one piece of advice that I would give to others is, “Once an abuser, always an abuser. Also, I would tell other people that being married isn’t worth your self esteem or your dignity.
