Breaking Free

I'm no virgin, been around the block at least once. I'm not really ashamed of my sexual past, but over the space of 18 years I've learned what I want and what I was looking for.

I'm 34 and have been married 3 times, divorced twice, and that makes me feel ashamed.

But in hindsight and looking back on all the stupid things I have done and deadend abusive relationships I have found myself in, one thing remains the same and it was what I had to change about myself.

I was a sucker for the bad boys, the lost souls, the ones who needed me but didn't want me. I was the strong one, the one who could keep things going and stay standing when falling seemed like the best option.

I've been beaten physically, emotionally and mentally broken too. Tormented by jealous family too. I've had others try and force their views and lifestyles on me too, but then one thing that always got in the way was my rebellious side. It was my rebellion that saved me, and kept me who I am.

I can pick out an abusive prick from a mile away and I can spot someone who is living trapped in their own emotions and scared to take a stand from even further. Why? Because I survived every kind of abuse imaginable and I got out, and sadly I knew I was being abused the whole time, but once I figured out what was going on, it was hard to break away, the hardest thing I have ever had to do was leave behind an abusive spouse, and it wasn't because I loved him, it was because I was scared. I didn't know how to survive anymore, I had, had the one thing that saved me so many times in the past beaten out of me... my independence was stolen from me, my rebellion squashed. I was trapped, no way out and no one who could get in. Then one day something inside me snapped and I made my escape. I waited for my ex husband to go to work at 2pm... one of my good friends worked at the same place he did, and she messaged me and told me the ex was there and clocked in. I called my buddy up and he told me to be ready in an hour. I flew through the hotel room and grabbed everything I could and had it outside waiting when BR showed up.

The two of us went and picked my daughter up from my brothers and he moved us 3 hours away to my mom's. I made my escape.... I thought...

I was at my mom's for about 6 months, had found a job, and was working on getting my ducks in a row, when my ex husband showed up outside my work, middle of the day. He had evidently taken time off of work to hunt me down and when he realized that I had changed my number and deactivated my Facebook and other social media pages and had basically disappeared. He started hunting me...

My nightmare was only beginning...

He never came into my place of employment, he just sat outside in his car watching me while I worked. Watching to see how I got home and how got to work. I called the police more than once and they said there was nothing that they could do because I was legally married to the man and unless he physically acted, he was ok... and wasn't breaking any laws. He threatened to blow up my mom's house and cut her brake lines and all kinds of things if I didn't go back to him.

I was petrified, terrified to go anywhere or do anything, because for over a week he followed me. Then one day he was gone.

I took advantage of the fact he obviously was nowhere around and I bolted again. Packed up my daughter, traded my car in, had a friend put it in his name, along with my apartment, and the utilities too. I pulled my daughter from school and homeschooled her. All of my mail went to my mom's house, and once a week my mom would put all of it in a big envelope and mail it to my buddy to give to me. I filed for divorce as soon as I had the money and put a restraining order on my ex husband. My mom filed a restraining order on him too.

My divorce was nasty. And took almost a year to get because my ex husband kept dodging the people serving him the papers.

For almost 2 years I hid. But it was in that two years that I met this amazing man who literally stole my heart. He stepped up and took care of my daughter and I, he was everything and is still everything that I wasn't and am not yet used too. My daughter adores him. He asked me to marry him in November of 2017, and we got married within a couple of weeks. My parents adore him, my siblings like him, and most importantly my daughter approves of him. I love him with every beat of my heart.

The kinds of abuse that I suffered for so ling, have made me scared of many things. I still don't like going anywhere on my own, because of my ex. Has he found me again, I don't know. But I have on occasion gotten these unshakable feelings that I'm being watched and I swear that at times I have seen him lurking around.

My husband now, doesn't care if I work or not, all though I prefer working. But he never holds it over my head. He knows my reasons for being like I am and he has accepted them.

Escaping from an abusive relationship is not easy. Sometimes you don't realize that you are being abused if it is subtle. What my ex did was subtle abuse, he was sneaky about it until after he knew he had broken my spirit. By the time I figured it out, I was so dependent on him for everything that I doubted my own ability to be able to take care of myself.

Breaking that cycle and finding the way out is the hardest part, the second hardest part is staying out and not letting them back in, because they've gotten so deeply into your head and destroyed so much of who you are, leaving is hard but staying gone is harder.