20
Making the Break

As my daughter and I climbed into the car to run an errand, Joel began to verbally abuse me—right in front of her. I tried desperately to appease him, but nothing worked.

As we drove away, my daughter asked, “Why are you shaking?” I don’t remember how I answered, but that’s when I realized a significant fact: I could never be happy with Joel. Not ever. Something I did or said always upset him. Besides that, I felt he never celebrated anything I did; rather, he used my achievements to put me down.

Why do I continue to put up with it?

About two weeks later, I volunteered to co-lead a weeklong summer camp trip for middle schoolers. My daughter went to the camp with me.

When my co-leader and I were alone, she confessed she was in an abusive marriage. After we talked about it, she said, “You’ve opened my eyes. I can’t believe how naïve I’ve been.” She was barely in her twenties and her husband was significantly older. She was afraid to leave him.

I started advising her, and at the end of the camping time I felt stronger. Helping another survivor of abuse helped me. I’ve since learned that helping and encouraging others in similar situations makes survivors grow stronger.

My relationship with my husband continued to deteriorate, and I knew it would never get better. By then I had received a lot of information about sexual abuse from Women in Distress. The most significant thing I learned is that if a wife says no only one time and her husband forces her to have sex, the law says that is rape.

Sometimes I was sick or simply didn’t feel like having sex. Many times after fighting during the day, Joel would awaken me in the middle of the night to have sex. I couldn’t understand how he could be verbally abusive and only hours later expect me to want to have sex with him.

One morning I told him, “That was abuse last night. And we need to deal with it.” I started telling him about the materials and the information I had gotten from the domestic violence center.

Despite his attitude, I made him listen to the truth and showed him pamphlets from Women in Distress. As I should have known, that made him even angrier.

Getting up from the table, he started pacing back and forth. Then he stopped, turned, and stared at me. As he came forward, I knew he was going to hit me. His face flushed and he raised his fist to strike me in the face. I ducked away and said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I brought it up; it’s not so bad. I don’t know what I was thinking.” I acted purely on instinct.

“Please, Joel. The kids need to get up and I don’t want them to see us fight,” I pleaded with him. As a mother, I thought first of the children.

He calmed down and didn’t hit me.

Despite my education, appeasing him—taking the blame on myself—seemed to be the only way to bring peace. I had tried to reason with him, which didn’t work. I thought of specific instances where God had used people to tell me that it was time to make changes or leave. I held back, denying it was abuse and excusing his behavior.

That morning in 2008 was Diana’s first day at a new Christian school.

Although I didn’t know it, my daughter had heard the whole fight. After she got to school, she went to her counselor and told her. That same morning the counselor called me. “Your daughter told me that you’re an abused wife,” the woman said.

“Yes, I am,” I said quietly, reluctant to admit it, and the shame overwhelmed me.

“What are you going to do about it?”

“I know I have to do something.”

We talked for several minutes and I thanked her for calling. That phone call—my next warning—awakened me once again to the reality: I am in an abusive situation. I knew then that God was using my daughter (who I thought was asleep that morning) and her guidance counselor.

That phone call motivated me to take action. I have to get out of this relationship before he kills me. I had to figure out how to make the break, but I finally knew I would leave.

I didn’t know when or how, but I would leave. That much was settled.

For weeks, however, I held back because I didn’t have any money—Joel controlled the finances. Then, the day before I left, I received a check from a credit card company. I had inadvertently overpaid, and they sent me a refund for $2,000. Instead of cashing it, I opened a checking account in my name only.

I had to be careful because Joel kept track of my car mileage. He knew I went to the gym, but I decided not to go that day. A few days earlier my gym trainer, Matt, had suggested a good neighborhood for me to check out. “Go to Coral Springs and look for an apartment.”

I was scared but knew I had to take action. I got off at the second highway exit to Coral Springs. Almost immediately, I saw an apartment building with vacancy signs. I went inside and met the manager, was approved, and put down a deposit of $500.

On my first visit to the neighborhood, I was so frightened, I pleaded with God almost constantly to encourage me. That day, I met a woman who lived in the next building. We started talking and I unintentionally opened up to her about my abusive marriage.

“I was in an abusive marriage too,” she said. Her two children were the same ages as mine. “I made it. You can make it too.”

God used that stranger to give me courage and make me realize that he was at work in my life. I was anxious and worried, and just before we parted I said, “I’ve never lived alone.”

“You’ll find a way to survive. And one day you will be happy. You’ll see.”

I needed to hear those words as well—from someone in the flesh who was not only surviving but thriving.

Not only had I never lived alone, I’d never even had my own bed or bedroom. I was terrified as I moved into an apartment and a strange new world. I didn’t have anything, not even a job. I rarely did any work for my realty company, so there was no income from that. Right then I couldn’t focus on my lack of money. Instead, I had to trust God and take it one step at a time.

The same day I rented the apartment, I took out a restraining order. Joel’s receipt of the restraining order was the beginning of a nightmare for me.

I moved into the apartment with nothing more than my clothes and a few personal items. I had little furniture, and God intervened again. I was able to use a credit card I had received a long time ago but never used. It was such a wonderful experience to buy things that I liked.

A man who worked there asked if he could help me, and in our conversation he said he attended Church by the Glades. That morning I had noticed the church, which was across the street from my new apartment. I had asked God to reveal to me if that was to be my new church home.

I thanked God, believing that it was another answer to prayer and an act of grace.

Even with the restraining order, things got worse between us. Joel agreed to let me take clothes and my daughter’s furniture from the house. He kept his word but not without a fight. He went to the babysitter and picked up our daughter. I believed he was deliberately being obstinate, as he wouldn’t return Diana to me for several days. The restraining order meant that both of us had to appear in court two weeks later.