by Ceinna Childers

Created on: July 01, 2007   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

We met in high school. A friend introduced us. She told me both his parents had passed away. How sad. I felt bad for him and thought he was cute. I don't remember how long we dated before we were going steady, but it wasn't long. Not more than a couple weeks. I don't remember how long after that we first had sex, but that wasn't long either. All I really do remember is that we started dating in early September and before New Year's Day I was pregnant. I was three months shy of my 17th birthday and he'd just turned 18 when we got married and moved into my parent's house.

The truth is I didn't want to marry him. Not yet, anyway. But we'd gotten along well. We'd had a good time together. We'd never had any problems with each other. I just didn't feel right about getting married yet. I was too young. He couldn't afford to support a wife and child. We had no place to go. My parents gave me the choices they would support whatever I wanted to do abortion, adoption, keep the baby live with them and stay single and I said I wanted to keep the baby and get married. Why? When I really wanted to keep the baby and go on living with them, why would I say I wanted to get married? I overhead my parents talking one day about the hardships of the pregnancy on them and how it would be so difficult for my dad at work because his insurance wouldn't cover my pregnancy. I understood nothing of insurance, but I knew it was going to cause him trouble and so I thought by getting married I was sparing him that. So, I got married.

Almost immediately I noticed my new husband lost his temper in his car school, which he had never done before. He'd slam doors and hit things and spin his wheels making rocks fly all over people and their cars. Then he started getting violent with me. It started with slapping and pulling hair and pushing and shoving. There would be some name calling which he had never done before either and things like twisting my arm or slapping me across the face or grabbing me by my hair and pulling me around or shoving me into things. He wasn't beating me up. He was just doing little things here and there not all of these things at once. Always quick to rationalize or apologize, telling me I was overreacting because I was pregnant then promising never to do it again - I didn't say anything to anyone.

We moved in with my sister after a very short time with my parents. She made us go get on welfare to help with the groceries and he wasn't happy about that. She gave us our own

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