Imagine it's Thanksgiving. Christmas is right around the corner. You have 3 kids, two girls and a boy. The girls are ages 15 and 6. The boy is 12. You have been married for 5 years to their father, but with him for 16 years. You got pregnant with your 15 year old when you were 16, had her when you were 17 and then got married shortly after. Because the responsibility of raising a daughter and being a wife was too stressful, you dropped out of school. Other than some odds and ends and some temp work, you have little work history on top of no GED. Any time you've ever tried to get your GED and/or work, he sabotaged it. He wouldn't watch the kids, was too drunk to watch the kids, he had a crisis and you had to drop everything to tend to his needs. And there was the time he got drunk and broke your nose and gave you a black eye. So you were too ashamed to go to GED classes or work. Plus, he told you that you weren't the sharpest knife in the drawer on several occasions and you were assured you didn't need to work because he brought home the bread.
Now, you're 33. What's the point of trying to work or get your GED. Something always happens and you can't do it anyway, even if you were smart enough. You realize your marriage at this point is loveless. You often sleep on the couch. The only time you don't is when you're pestered by him to have sex. If you don't have sex with him, it's a fight and you're just so tired of fighting. You lay awake most nights thinking about how hopeless things are and how you should have never married him but again, he guilted you into it. "If you loved me, you'd marry me," he would say. Plus, you hoped things would get better. After a huge fight, things were better. You would do things as a family. He wouldn't drink much. He would clean the house, make dinner. It wasn't always bad. But things didn't get better. Those periods of relative calm slowly got smaller and smaller. Now, you are walking on egg shells constantly. You've tried to be overly nurturing, avoid him and even just pick a fight with him to get it over with, but each approach has its consequences. Now you just go numb.
You can't leave because you have nowhere to go. Your only friend is your neighbor. You can't go there. You haven't talked to your family in 4 years because they wanted you to leave but didn't have financial means to help you. They didn't want you living with them because they know how your husband could be and didn't want that drama at their home. You have no money. He controls the money. You can't get a job in this economy with no GED or work history. No job, no place to live. Your car is in his name and he has threatened to take the car from you the few times leaving has been a topic of discussion. Your stuck.
Your kids have suffered. Your 15 year old daughter acts just like your husband and has started treating you badly. She's having problems in school and is dating a guy who's 21 and you're not sure about. Your 12 year old son is mamma's boy and very quiet. He often gets picked on at school. Your six-year old daughter is a sweetheart but has started asking questions about why daddy is so mean and tells you she doesn't like daddy.
And now the holidays are approaching. You are expected to cook a feast for the family on Thanksgiving. Even though its stressful and you have little help, you have looked forward to the holidays because this is the time of year when your husband actually is the man you fell in love with. However, you've begun to realize its more of an act for his mom and step dad, who are great people. He doesn't want them to know what a controlling jerk he is.
Two days before Thanksgiving, you and your husband get into another argument about your 15 year old and it ended with your neighbor calling the police after hearing screaming and a loud thud. He wasn't arrested because he knew what to say to the police and there were no marks from him slamming you up against a wall. You were too afraid to say anything because he threatened to kill you if you did.
The next day, your neighbor then tells you about a domestic violence shelter. You know you want out, but it's the holidays. You don't want to put your kids through that. You don't know what to expect. You have seen homeless shelters on TV and it terrifies you to think you and your kids would have to spend the holidays with strangers sleeping on cots. You know your husband won't buy any Christmas gifts for the kids. His family will look down upon you and you don't want to do that because they're the only family you have. How would you feed your kids, get them to school and take care of what you need to without a car? You would have to leave everything.
So if this were your situation, what would you do? If things were reversed and you're a male, how would you handle the situation?
No comments:
Post a Comment