The Taser Incident Inspired Me to Leave My Marriage

I was shocked — literally.

“Honey, do we have a flashlight anywhere?” I asked my husband one evening. “I need to look down my throat and see if something crazy is going on.”

A flashlight down the throat isn’t a typical request from your spouse, but I was recovering from a tonsillectomy to help with my snoring and sleep apnea. The procedure completely took care of both problems, by the way, but the recovery process for an adult is a roller-coaster of pain, starvation, and strong pain medication.

I was about ten days post-op when what I now dub “the taser incident” occurred. As long as I spoke a little more softly than usual, talking didn’t hurt — the hydrocodone prescription made sure of that. But the meds didn’t touch the fire I felt when eating or drinking. Swallowing the softest foods or even just water felt like a thousand hot, tiny knives tearing their way down my throat.

A surgeon did recently stick a white-hot poker in the back of my mouth to cauterize the open wounds left behind after ripping out my oversized throat organs, so it’s not surprising that the healing would be intense. But eating and drinking were getting worse, not better. And being close to two weeks into recovery, I wanted to see if something had ripped or maybe was infected.

“I think I have one in the basement,” my husband said. He went downstairs, rummaged around, and returned in a flash (no pun intended). He handed me a small metal flashlight that felt heavier than it looked.

After thanking him, I went to the bathroom, clicked on the flashlight, and went about the awkward process of shining a light deep in my mouth while trying to leave enough space to examine the crusty, healing wounds in the mirror’s reflection.

The results were inconclusive according to my non-expert medical opinion. Things looked less gross than before, but still pretty gross. The white scabs were coming off, and I saw that one side of my throat was more red and angry than the other. Maybe infection, maybe just the normal healing process. But the fire hindering my eating and drinking was an issue, so I decided to make an appointment with my doc before my scheduled post-op, just to be safe.

Zapped Over the Phone

As I finished up in the bathroom, I heard my phone ring. Flashlight still in hand, I retreated to the cozy bed where I’d been trapped for a week — blankets and pillows and pill bottles and cups of tea strewn everywhere. And my ringing phone on the dresser. I smiled when I saw it was my other partner.

At the time, my husband and I were about 7 months into our journey exploring polyamory. It was something we hadn’t entered into lightly, having talked about it for over two years, doing lots of research (led by me), and also going through couples therapy to work out some serious issues that had happened before opening up.

I answered the phone and chatted with my partner. We talked for a while, laughing and enjoying getting to know one another better. My poly partner and my husband got along well. In fact, my husband suggested having a key made for my partner so he could check in on me during the day.

It was a strange new world, but also fulfilling and wonderful. Despite the painful recovery, I was the happiest I’d been in a long time. I sat on the bed, playfully fidgeting with the flashlight and clicking it on and off as I talked, flirting on the phone with someone who was a remarkable conversationalist.

We were chatting away like high school kids when a sudden, horrible shock traveled from my fingers and up my entire arm and shoulder. At the same time, a loud, violent ZAP hit my ears.

I let go of the flashlight instantly, faintly aware of my entire body vibrating.

Things were a little fuzzy for me in the moment, but my partner later told me he’d heard an awful buzzing sound, a loud gasp, and then crying.

I dropped the phone, vaguely aware that he’d been repeating my name several times, his voice heavy with confusion and concern. I took a moment to get my hands on the phone and get myself together enough to tell him I needed to call him back.

The panic attack was already happening when I walked out to the living room. My body trembled — my stupid anxiety brain trying to convince me that whatever damage that flashlight had done would probably kill me in a few minutes.

That’s the thing about generalized anxiety disorder and panic attacks. Your mind is bombarded with wildly unrealistic and unfounded intrusive thoughts. For me, it’s often triggered by something physical, like recovering from surgery. Or being on new pain meds that I’m not used to. Or, apparently, being fucking tased by a flashlight that — SURPRISE! — was actually, secretly, a stealth stun gun.

A Cathartic Bathroom Breakdown

That’s what my husband told me when I asked him, visibly upset, about the flashlight he’d handed me minutes before to stick halfway down my throat. Was it broken and had somehow shocked me due to a weird malfunction?

No, he told me. It was actually a tactical flashlight with a hidden stun gun feature. Surprise!

“I told you not to press that button…” he said, his voice trailing off. His immediate response as my husband wasn’t something like, “Oh my god, are you okay?” Or, “I’m so sorry I completely forgot!”

No. His first response was to blame me for forgetting something he actually never told me. It felt oddly similar to what would occur during most of our disagreements throughout the relationship.

It’s very likely that he thought he had warned me, or that he’d told me about the flashlight years ago and I’d forgotten. But I was pretty sure he didn’t give me this necessary bit of info before handing it to me prior to the incident. And if he did, I didn’t hear it in my unfocused pain/hydrocodone high state.

I was pretty damn sure I’d remember if I’d heard someone say, “Hey, before you put this anywhere near your mouth and your wounds that the doctor warned us could actually hemorrhage if you aren’t careful, just know that this is also a stun gun, and if you happen to touch the light and press the on-button at the same time, it will electrocute you.”

In fact, I fully believe my reaction to something like that would be, “Hey, how about I look down my wounded throat with a flashlight that’s NOT also a stun gun, honey? Just to be safe.”

When I called my partner back to tell him what happened — and that I was okay and sorry for scaring him — he understood it was an accident, but had a good amount of anger toward my husband for letting such a slip-up happen.

I admit I felt the same way. I know my husband had no intention of indirectly tasing me, but I wish he’d been on his game enough to protect me from the situation entirely. Like, how about not giving me a stealth flashlight stun gun at all?

My husband, now my ex, loves guns and weapons with a passion. He even bragged to his emotional affair partner once that he had an AR-15 stashed somewhere that “Holly knows nothing about.” That was something I never got into when it came to couple's activities. Guns. I could admire the craft of his sword collection, sure. And I guess he had other tactical gear and weapons (besides secret guns) that I wasn’t even aware that he purchased.

All these facts culminated together into one single straw that broke the camel’s back. I retreated to the bathroom, locked the door, and completely fell apart for a half hour or so. I tried to calm down, to hold back the waterfall for fear that my sobs would bring on the searing pain in my throat, but the crying didn’t hurt that badly. Physically.

Mentally, I was crushed — even though I don’t fully blame my husband for handing me something potentially dangerous without my knowledge. He’d had a stress-induced seizure seven months prior, and he sometimes struggled with memory issues. But he still had the mental wherewithal to work, drive, and function in daily life.

He didn’t mean to hurt me, and I considered and tried to understand his side of things during my mini-breakdown sitting hunched over on the edge of the tub. But damn, did it still hurt. It hurt so badly that I couldn’t handle the marriage anymore. It was the moment I forgave myself for deciding I don’t have to honor my commitment and remain in a marriage that I was unhappy in.

Lightbulb Moments

Do you know those stories of women who have decided to leave their husbands? I’ve seen a lot of those online lately — both in text and video form. On blogs, TikTok, and Facebook. You name it, they’re there.

These women decide to finally end their relationship after months or even years of feeling unhappy and unfulfilled. Some have been downright miserable or have become victims of abuse, sharing their personal experiences in hopes that it will help others who are struggling with a similar situation.

I love those.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not over here secretly yearning for every woman to leave their marriage and cheering when they do. I’m not particularly anti-marriage, I’m just an anti-incompatible partner. And I hate a system that pressures us to remain with said incompatible (or even abusive) partner because we exchanged marriage vows and signed some papers.

I hate to see a good marriage crumble. But I love learning about that one particular moment — that inspiring and illuminating lightbulb moment — where a woman learns she can no longer stay in a toxic situation. Where she decides to give herself the chance to find happiness — whether that means searching for another partner or remaining happily single.

Sometimes that lightbulb shines suddenly, blazingly bright, and completely unexpected. Like when a wife discovers her husband has a second family eight states away or he’s leading a sex cult or he’s secretly laundering money for a local drug ring. She decides quite quickly that she’s going to get the hell out of Dodge, as scary as heading into an uncertain future may be.

Still other times, and probably more typically, the lightbulb is far less dazzling. Dim at first, and slowly glowing brighter and brighter until she finally notices that the path she’s on isn’t as dark as it once was.

It could be the result of one minor indiscretion after another, culminating in years of unmet needs that slowly chip away at what’s supposed to be a collaborative partnership between two people who love each other.

Maybe he never folds laundry or rinses his dishes. Or maybe he leaves wet towels hanging on the doorknob of her closet, day after day after day, and she can’t possibly take one more instance of a wet towel impeding her ability to get dressed for work.

So she leaves in order to 1) avoid going to jail for murder and 2) also because she can no longer be condemned to doing more than her fair share of housework while balancing the pressures of being the breadwinner while also not having any of her needs addressed in return.

Not that I’d know anything about that…

Okay, so I know exactly about that. But when it came to the defining moment when I decided to stop feeling guilty about breaking a 15-year commitment, I’d say my stun gun lightbulb moment is somewhere between the extreme and the mundane, putting off roughly the same brightness as a flashlight.

I left my first husband, and now I’ve done it again with my second. I’d leave a third too if I had to because I’m no longer so scared of religion and society telling me I have to stay, even if the marriage is an unhappy and unhealthy one.

Women are learning. I think maybe we’re less afraid of leaving a marriage or long-term partnership than ever. I think we’re less afraid to take charge of our lives and give ourselves at least a chance at happiness. And at most, the room to breathe and love ourselves again.

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