by Meagan Spain

Created on: November 14, 2008

Life is happily ever after. You are living the life that you planned, a year or so after the relationship started. Granted, there have been some up and downs, there always are in any relationship, but you wouldn't necessarily change anything that has happened in the last year.

You know what abuse is. You have been in those relationships in which you were hit for everything that went wrong, your children were threatened, your house was destroyed, and you situated yourself to live a life that existed when he was asleep (minus those few brief minutes of everyday in which you knew a battle would occur). You saved yourself and your children from that relationship and that situation. Six months later you entered into another relationship with the supposed prince charming. All your friends said he was great. He had money, he had looks, he had the means to meet all your needs, and he was always so nice, sweet, and so willing to always be there. Why not?

Two months later, your phone never stops ringing. The house phone has ten calls in five minutes so you unplug it. Uh oh, your cell phone is vibrating: 50 missed calls in the next 2 hours. Alright, you decide to let that go. A little while later you check your voice-mails and you have 30 messages in which he is screaming at you, not because you have done anything wrong but because he doesn't know where you are or what you are doing. Never mind the fact that one of the kids may have a doctors appointment, you may be at the play ground with the kids, you may be grocery shopping, you may be in the shower, you may be doing laundry, or heck, your phone just may not have service.

A month later it progresses, he's waiting for you when you pull into work. He follows you, he watches all that you do, he talks to those that you talk to, and he is always around. Suddenly one night he runs you off the road because you didn't do something he wanted. He shows up at your house in the middle of the night, beating on the door and demanding that he talk to you. He can fix it, he can make it right. He doesn't see that he did anything wrong but he can make it right. You say what you need to in order for him to go away.

A few weeks later, you escape. You take your kids and move away. Start another life. You make your explanations to the kids, you ensure that life is great for them, and you try to start over. Constantly looking over your shoulder. Jumping at the slightest noise. Lonely but not wanting to take any chances.

A month or so later you decide to take the next step with a friend. A few weeks later you and your kids are living with him. A year later it all suddenly looks familiar. He comes in one night and starts screaming because his supper was still cooking. You say the wrong thing and suddenly he is in your face screaming. You slightly slap him across the face because he just said you were screwing around. For the next ten minutes you don't say a word but you are slammed into the kitchen counter, slammed into walls, shoved across rooms, and eventually you are standing in a closet while he still screams at you because supposedly you have moved.

No matter what the circumstances are that lead into it, the ending is always the same. You feel small, unimportant, meaningless, lost, and confused. Granted there may be body parts that hurt but we are all left with the same question, where do you turn next? Imagine being stuck somewhere that you ran to in order to escape an abusive situation but still end up stuck with one. There won't be a sorry tomorrow, he probably won't remember any of it and even if he does it will all be my fault. If only the cards that life dealt would fall a different direction.

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