WARNING-WARNING-WARNING

PLEASE BE CAREFUL OF USING A COMPUTER IN WHICH YOUR ABUSER HAS ACCESS. YOU DON'T WANT THEM TO KNOW THAT YOU ARE SEEKING HELP FROM OTHERS!!!!!

The Full Story

My Journey
Growing up through my elementary, junior high and first two years of high school I came from a relatively small community and went to school with the same group of kids the entire time. Therefore, I really didn’t have to worry about making friends. In my junior year after we had moved, I had one boyfriend that lasted maybe 2 months. Then all of a sudden, I was in a brand new high school where I didn’t know any of the other students. They were already formed in their cliques and showed absolutely zero interest in allowing me to be their friend.
Therefore, for the last two years of high school I was very isolated and to this day can’t remember being friends with a single friend that I had from my junior or senior year. Therefore, by the time that I got to college I wanted to feel like I was part of the 'in' crowd. When I was shown the slightest bit of attention from a man, I forgot all about what I had been taught about who I was from my parents as a young woman. The first two years of college, I do have to say that I made friends with both men and women, but still only had one so called relationship which ended in an attempted gang rape.
At the time that I met who would become my abuser, I was home during summer break in between my junior and senior year of college. Although I had minimum amount of experience about what it meant to be in a relationship I was convinced that I knew all there was to know about a man. Before Jesus became my Lord and Savior, I allowed others define who I was meant to be as a woman. Before long, I soon became his prey not knowing of his extensive past with numerous other women.
I can remember this like it was yesterday. I was going to the gym and kept noticing this guy checking me out every time he saw me. I didn’t know who he was and really wasn’t that interested in another relationship because I was trying to heal from the attempted gang rape. Then out of no where, he asked me to go dinner. I gave him my parents’ address and he picked me up.
From that moment, we started a relationship which let me tell it at the time was absolutely perfect for the summer. Looking back there were signs that I was naïve to due to my inexperience and having blinded eyes. Then I was supposed to leaving back to school within the next week.

Mistake # 1. One night after going to the club and too much to drink I said, "Why don't you just follow me down to school?" Of course, he agreed without hesitation.

Then came Mistake #2, I had to lie to my parents for the first time in my life about something big.

They were totally against men and women shacking up without being married. When it came time for me to move into my apartment, my mom asked him to come so that he could help carry the heavy boxes up three flights of stairs. He returned to our home town with my mom and had her drop him off at a friend's house. The following weekend, he packed and moved into my apartment. We continued to lie to my parent's about our living situation for the first two years of our relationship.
Then one night we out to the club, that ended up being the first time that he threw me up against the wall, punched, kicked, and choked me because of a innocent dance with someone that I had known since my freshman year. Due to my insecurities, I allowed him to apologize. He then proceeded to convince me that it would never happen again. For a while, it didn't happen and things seemed good between us. Little did I know that was only the first of many beatings. Then the truths started to come out.

Mistake #3. I found out that he was still legally married to another woman and he was a Federal felon and I still stayed.

Once again, I believed him when he said that they were legally separated and divorce proceedings had already started. Once again, I believed his lies. The verbal abuse became constant and more intense with the physical abuse.

Mistake #4 came next. I believed his lies about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Once more I gave him my love and support.

Then another truth came out. He had been previously incarcerated for a Federal crack cocaine charge and was fresh out of the halfway house and on parole in our hometown. When he left to move into my apartment, he did not notify the authorities. They had found out about the move and our relationship. I was being followed on a regular basis to see if I was involved with selling crack cocaine. He continued to tell me more lies to make me think that he was innocent and that he actually took the case for someone else.

Then during the last term of my senior year, the US Marshals showed up at my door. I was wearing a bra and panties and had to expose myself to the agents to show that I was not hiding anything. After he was arrested again, I was stupid enough to go visit him on the weekends. I would lie to my friends and tell them that I was going home to visit when I was really making the 2 hour drive the opposite direction to stay overnight next to a Federal prison so that I could visit Saturday and Sunday.
While he was incarcerated, there would be weekends that I couldn't go because he was meeting with his wife to supposedly discuss their divorce. He continued to verbally convince me that his heart was with me and only me.

Mistake #5, even though the beatings included being punched with a closed fist, hit in the chest, face, body slammed, put in the trunk of a car, beat with a ironing board, choked, slammed into the wall just to name a few. I still accepted in apologies and kept going back to him.

Then his ex wife became pregnant. For the first 8 months of her pregnancy he denied that the baby was his child, and then he showed up one day and said that he wanted to introduce me to his son. She was getting evicted from her apartment, but couldn't get another apartment because of her credit and the fact that she couldn't pass a background check because she had a warrant for embezzlement.

Mistake #6 He moved his ex-wife into my house with what turned out to be also his child. I continued to pay all household bills, food, etc. I was the only one in the house working.

Mistake #7, even though he claimed to want to be with me only, he still acted as if he was with her as well. His ex-wife then had another baby, by supposedly another man. He then proceeded to claim both of him as his children. In short, that meant even though by this time we had been together for 6 years, he had two children under age 6 with another woman.
I began seeing a psychologist on a regular basis who diagnosed me with clinical depression and prescribed medication. By this point, I felt so low about myself that my prayer was for him to beat me so badly that I would not wake up. I felt that death was better than what I was living on a day to day basis. I honestly have to say that I believed him when he would verbally abuse me and tell me the lies of how I was worthless and didn’t deserve life. He had me convinced that nothing was worth more than me.
I continued to take care of the children as if they were my own. The children didn’t ask to be here and I could not hold anything against them because of their parents. I taught them how to walk, eat, count, etc. I loved and treated them as if they were my own. They kept me going. The love of my parents kept me going, but for a lot of it I kept them in the dark. They knew that I was in a bad situation, but they didn’t know the details. As usual the verbal abuse and beatings continued on an even more frequent basis with the children in the next room. The ex-wife witnessed much of the abuse and did absolutely nothing.

Mistake #8, I continued to allow him to destroy my relationship with my parents by allowing him to turn me against my parents.

I allowed him to use money that was for the mortgage for the house that my dad bought me for his own personal usage whether it was because he wanted to buy the whole club a round of drinks or get his jewelry out of the pawn shop. Once the house that my dad gave me the down payment for went into foreclosure proceedings, my dad had to purchase the house back from me. Not once, but twice then my dad said no more. My dad told me that I could no longer live in the house and that I had to move. I moved into an apartment across town and took them all with me.

Mistake #9, I allowed him to convince me to move to an apartment in another state.

The ex-wife, two children, and he moved with me. The abuse continued along with numerous affairs. He would continuously bring his other girlfriends over to the apartment and expect me to be friends with them as if absolutely nothing was wrong with the situation and everything was completely normal. I continued to take care of the children. Both the ex-wife and I worked, while he did absolutely nothing.

Mistake #10, I got another house thanks to my dad. I got the ex-wife an apartment for her and the two children. I continued to drive them around everywhere necessary.

If I didn’t drive then they drove the car as if it was their own. At the time, my father owned a car dealership and the insurance was under the umbrella policy for the entire dealership. He was constantly drunk driving. If he ever got pulled over, that would mean that the premiums would be affected for the entire dealership if not cancelled. The beatings and verbal abuse continued on a regular basis.
Then I found Jesus, it still took me two years, but Jesus got me away. I thank God for all of it. If my story of pain and abuse can help a single person then it was all worth it.