joyful2beeblogs

I finally awakened to the fact that I was a victim of spousal abuse and violence. My purpose in sharing these experiences is to hopefully help and encourage someone else to recognize that they are in an abusive relationship. There are emotional triggers in this post that might upset some. 

I am sharing some difficult situations here. I am not trying to make my husband look bad nor take revenge on him. I am trying to show that my life was at times very difficult but I came through it! I want to help other people in similar situations.

After his graduation with the Doctorate of Theology, we moved to his parent’s house while waiting for him to be hired as a professor or minister. All of our belongings, except necessities were stored downstairs. A hospital hired me easily since there were always openings for a nurse.

We had wanted to have a baby after my husband graduated with his doctorate. Soon I was pregnant with our long awaited baby. We had fewer arguments for a while, as we became a team trying to preserve our privacy.

After a year of his sending out applications and resumes, he was hired as a pastor in a small church. We had to move away about a half hour’s distance from his parent’s and my family’s homes.

I continued to work until our son was born and afterwards. Soon the old behaviors set in again.

When I realized that our relationship was not what it should have been, I didn’t know what to do. Taking our young son away from his father didn’t seem fair to either of them, since I knew they loved each other. Hank was a loving father of our son while he was a baby and toddler. But when our son started having problems with homework, my husband took on a more forceful role. As our son became a teenager, tensions built between them.

My First Marital Stand

About 14 years after the birth of our son, my husband had a teaching position. One day my husband and I were arguing fiercely over something. While I was sitting sideways at the kitchen counter and having an argument with him, he walked up to me and put his hands around my neck. I don’t recall that he squeezed, but his hands around my neck was definitely not appropriate! Somehow, I bit his arm hard in defense; he was shocked! This was the third time he had done this, and I had been gaining more awareness and inner strength

I stood up and screamed at him that if he ever did that again, I would leave him! He reminded me that he had found a confused friend in hiding, without a cell phone, in New Orleans once, and reminded me he could also find me wherever I went. (I knew his story was true.)  

I knew him well enough to not read any threats of danger into his words. But he was letting me know that escaping would be futile. After all, in my mind he was still much “smarter” than I was.

I chose my battles

Finally I began to “draw the line in the sand.” I chose my responses to my husband’s accusations of not doing some chores  “correctly” more times and found ways to get things done the way I believed to be better.

My husband’s  problems

For years, I tried to excuse his behavior because of several severe health problems he was dealing with. When our son was about five years old, my husband was helping move a piano on a dolly. The piano slipped off and my husband tried to catch it. Suddenly, he had excruciating pain in his lower back. I helped get him into our van and drove him  (while he laid across the back seat in pain), to the emergency room where the doctor examined him and drew bloodwork.

After viewing the lab work, the wise doctor diagnosed that my husband had poorly controlled diabetes. He stated clearly, “Your glucose level is 800! With that high glucose level, you should have been in a coma or you have been diabetic for ten years or more!”

The high blood sugars, high blood pressure readings, and anger episodes did untold damage to his body and brain. No matter how sick he was, I DID NOT DESERVE TO BE ABUSED!! (I found out later that his mother and sister had diabetes.)

So he was put on a diabetic diet. He converted to sugar free soft drinks. I tried to cook diabetic meals for awhile but he ended up wanting to eat what he wanted to eat!

His vision became affected by diabetic retinopathy from the elevated blood sugars, and even after laser surgery, he had trouble seeing the tiny lines on the insulin syringes. So I drew up his insulin doses for him every time. He had always loved to read, but had a wavy line across the pages when he tried to read. He could hardly read small prints.

In 2003 he had a major stroke that affected his ability to stand and talk at first. The MRI showed something else: white patches on his brain’s cerebrum, which indicated small strokes! How long had they been happening? When did they begin?

He regained his ability to speak but it took four to six months of grueling physical therapy before he could regain his balance and walk with a cane for any distance. He thanked me many times for caring for his needs, fixing his medicines, drawing up his insulin doses, and encouraging him to heal. 

Now, I knew I could not leave him. I did defend myself verbally or, when possible, didn’t respond to his temper flares. On one occasion, when he was angry, I physically defended myself by staying out of reach because his mobility was still weak after the stroke. This gave me more confidence but I could not leave him while he was sick.

I knew that my thinking abilities were probably clearer than his at this point. My ability to move was faster than his, and my strength was now at least as good as his. This gave me more confidence, but I could not leave him while he was sick.

I felt sad for him. For years I tried to figure out what had caused his personality changes in the past to make him so easily upset and obsessive compulsive. I should have been trying to see what his behavior was doing to me. It was so weird, how he could be pleasant to be with and share memories about how his day went. But something could set him off and the happy times were gone!  

We had both changed so much since our seven years of dating. He changed from the affectionate, loving, kind person he used to be. I missed that husband. I held hope that he would be like he had been someday. But that never happened.