I Was Absolutely Afraid of My Husband During My Long Abusive Divorce

But some stupid people thought I was asking them to choose sides.

I’ve finally gotten the nerve to initiate a divorce. My husband refuses to move out of the house or give me money for groceries and school supplies. I am fearful but I am a momma too.

I need to feed my children.

He’s sitting at our dining room table looking at his computer.

“You have to give me money to buy food and school supplies,” I say.

With those words, my husband rises up out of his chair and toward me. There’s a rage within him I have yet to witness. It causes me to shake. I ran back into the kitchen and called my brother.

“Please come,” I say. “I’m scared.”

“Colleen,” says my brother. “It’s a holiday weekend and I’m more than an hour away from you without traffic. You need to call the police.”

I dial 911.

It seems surreal.

This can’t be my life.

How did I get to this point? How am I so afraid of a man, let alone my husband that I continue shaking for the next thirty minutes even while speaking with the police officers?

My entire body is trembling.

They make my husband leave the house for the day.

This is the beginning of a fear-filled cycle of a long and abusive divorce.

I’m out one day and run into my friend. Not just any friend. This is a close friend. I’ve been talking, aka, venting about my husband because I can’t get away from him.

He won’t divorce me and he won’t stop doing all of these bad things.

“We don’t want to take sides,” she says.

I’m outraged.

But she doesn’t know it. I simply say my goodbyes and walk toward my car. I’m so mad that once in the car, I literally speak out loud to myself, “There aren’t sides in divorce,” I say. There are children.”

I mean literally the stupidity of some people.

They think I’m ‘talking about’ my husband.

They think I want people to choose sides.

Do I need to be beaten in public for society to understand abuse?

When a strong woman is undeniably and shockingly reduced to a shell of her former self people need to listen. Worse, who believes there are actual sides to be taken when a man is abusively, aggressively, and severely bullying a woman and children?

I knew exactly why this friend had spoken those words.

It was two-fold. Her husband was a friend of my husband’s. Also, in the years leading up to my divorce, I had done everything I could to keep my marriage, family, and home together. Despite my husband’s unpredictable and frightening drinking.

I was no longer the smiling, fun life of the party.

But my husband still was.

He played out well in public.

I was being judged and I absolutely knew it.

Incredibly, the judgment of a few prohibited them from seeing my actual abusive reality. A few stupid people were blind to it. Why?

Because in reality…

The person who said they didn’t want to take sides.

Had already chosen a side.

If not, those words would never have come out of her mouth. She would have said I’m your friend. My husband is his friend. I will be there for you. He can be there for your husband. I believe what you are telling me because you are my friend. I’m worried for you and your children. What he is doing is abusive and divorce is not an excuse for abuse.

The problem is disrespectful communicators often think the worst of you.

They don’t see you for who you really are because they are judging you.

I was begging for help.

I was pleading with people to help me protect my children.

Middle-aged suburbia is worse than high school.

If I had broken up with someone as a teenager, not one friend would have abandoned me. Not one of my girlfriends would have told me she didn’t want to choose sides. Not one of my girlfriends would have reduced me to tears.

There’s an absurdity to how grown adults deal with divorce.

Fortunately, I had far more people who never put me in that position.

I always say, “Some will surprise you and others will disappoint you.”

That was the problem.

A few of the people who made me feel abandoned were not the ones I thought they would be. I didn’t think I would ever have to explain myself or feel lonelier in divorce due to them.

In their defense, if there is any…

When my husband first began drinking uncharacteristically they all surrounded me. Men and women alike. But I chose to stay and tolerate what my husband was doing. I kept giving him more chances. It changed me and they didn’t like it.

The happy funny girl became a miserable overtalking girl.

That’s where I lost those couple of friends.

I didn’t lose the majority of people close to me because they didn’t judge me for a few years in my life. They saw me for who I truly am. They realized I cared too much to give up on a man I loved and it took me down.

They picked up every emotional crumb that was left of me.

They were outraged by my husband’s abuse.

I look back and I want all the stupid people to know one thing.

When a strong confident woman is afraid of a man you need to listen.

You need to throw out your antiquated and biased opinions about divorce. It’s not a venue to choose sides. It’s a brutal grief-filled journey for the average person.

For others like me, it’s a frightening abusive trauma.

One that feels as if no one can help you. One that places you in the fight of your life to protect your children from their other parent. One that makes you feel like you are no match for a terrifying abusive bully.

While a few stupid people didn’t want to choose sides.

I was so scared I couldn’t sleep or think straight.

They shrugged his abuse aside. They said things like, “Some men do this in divorce.” Or “He’s just mad.”

They were wrong.

Good men don’t mistreat women and say they deserve it, abusive men do.

I still don’t sleep well.

I can still feel overwhelming anxiety if something unpredictable happens. I still can’t push fear away entirely. It invades my thoughts because I lived with it for a five-year overly abusive divorce.

There’s a reason they believe some who leave narcissists have PTSD.

I don’t have it.

But I know I have some remnant of it.

The sense that that abusive bully could still upend my life has not left me. Divorce didn’t completely rid me of a man like this. He instilled a pattern of behavior while punishing me for leaving him.

He haunts me because he made me incredibly fearful.

I was absolutely afraid of my husband during my long abusive divorce.

People, society, and the family law system need to get this.

Some stupid people need to stop choosing sides.