by Barb's voice heard

Created on: July 08, 2008

I used to be a victim of domestic abuse. Then I was surviving. Now I am a survivor but still
on the road to recovery. My husband was abused a a child and carried it through to his adult life. I was not abused as a child, but being 47 you can only imagine that the dominant figure in my household I always thought to be the man, the husband.

I learned near my Father's end year that he was more than likely autistic with intermittant explosive disorder; so that is where I accepted being yelled at by my spouse. The constant put downs eventually turned into emotional, monetary and then to physical abuse. Not the pictures you see on TV. Pushing and shoving eventually turned into a slap or a kick.

Ten years into the marriage I experienced my first beating by him. Threatened to leave, but the verbal assault and tape that played in my head of not having any money or car in my name
and threatening to keep one child, my son was what made me stay. Then nothing like that happend for years.

Then came the stress of money. As I started to be an advocate for my child to put a name to what the matter with her, high end autistic spectrum, and caring for my Mom who had cancer now. My attention was not on him and he resented it. I was beaten over a car accident I had
and didn't leave. The verbal and mental abuse became daily, even getting the kids to chime in. I was no longer allowwed to do certain things, like go on a computer, go in the files,
had a time limit to how long I was gone, constant phone calls.
One day it turned into where he choked me. It was then I started to try to stop it but I didn't yet know how.
One night the light bulb came on because I heard the words, I deserved it when he put me up against the wall because after he smacked me I said Does that make you a man? He had been yelling at me and telling me how pathetic I was for an hour before that. When I heard those words, I knew I was being abused.
I told someone I trusted who could help me get help. I started to go to counseling and it took me awhile to tell of the phsyical battering incidents. Before I convinced my husband to go to couseling for himself, not with me. Things started to change but it seemed for the worse. He stopped the physical and constant verbal abuse with threats to hit.
I finally demanded he to go to counseling or we were thru with our 23 years together.
He went for a year and 1/2. So did I .
I learned it was not all my fault. I didn't deserve it and started to untangle the web of lies and deceit and

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