The Cycle of Violence- My story

This is the cycle of Violence, similar to one that my therapist at the Women’s Advocates center showed me. It woke me up in a way that I realized I was not alone in what I was feeling. It’s always helpful in my opinion to know that you aren’t alone, you’re not the only one who has felt the feelings you have felt when going through really bad relationship issues with violence in them. Although my violent man wasn’t as physically abusive to me as he was to my oldest child, my son, he was very emotionally abusive to us all (me & my three children, one of which was his).

It never failed though as he would seriously violate our relationship by beating on my son leaving bruises and people questioning what was going on, he would always come back with gifts and promises to get help and get rid of his anger and I was stupid enough to forgive him and make excuses for him allowing him to do it again and again. He would even threaten me and tell me that I would lose my children to DFS/CPS if I didn’t get a handle on my son and send him away to Juevy for help – when he was the problem, not my son by any means. My son only tried to protect his mother, he would stand up to the abuser and the abuser would not have a child stand up to him and tell him what to do or where to go! I just wished I had stood up for my son more than I did as he always did for me, with consequences.

The abuser treated my son like a dog, actually worse than a dog and if you seen the way he treated dogs that wasn’t much better. His current dog, he prides himself on the fact that all he has to do is grab a belt, make it jingle and the dog literally pisses itself while it frantically tried to crawl and hide under the furniture to get away from him. He says he has to be mean to this dog so it knows whose boss because it is part wolf.

The abuser would deny my son food, grab him by the throat, give him fat lips, black eye’s, call him a “faggot”, call him all sorts of mean and degrading names. I think that the fact he wasn’t his and very closely resembled my son’s father was part of his fuel the other part was that he was a threat, a competition for mommy’s affection and he didn’t like to have to compete for my attention, my son came first in my life and he simply did NOT like that fact.

On top of all that, he made my son call him dad and sir. He was and is NOT his father, yet he still to this day calls him “his son”. He says he will always think of him as his son and my daughter as his daughter, Um, excuse me, but my children have their own father, he may not be the best father but he is still their father and they sure as hell don’t need this man in their lives. I’m actually glad that I did get out when I did, i wished I found some way to do it much sooner…way sooner!

What finally broke the camels back was when he nearly choked to death my son and gave him a black eye by punching him in the face. We were separated at the time and he was at my house helping me move, we were working on working things out, seeing a marriage counselor. My son and I were playing around as we always do and he thought my son was going to hit me, he said he reacted and punched him in the face!

At a marriage counseling session I felt the courage to tell him that I did not love him and didn’t think it was going to work, he stood up and yelled at me and walked out of our session. AND that was it? Yeah right, after this he began to stalk me, he was watching me every where I went he knew, every one I was with, he knew. Until one day, I was at a job interview and came home where the sitter told me he was there and took our baby girl.

He took her for what was supposed to be just a weekend visit and disappeared for two weeks before I had any idea where my little girl was.

From that day over three years ago, my life hasn’t been the same with custody battles and many tears. If I had it to do all over again, I would have made sure to document and seek help all the violent episodes that went on in my house when I was with him and found a way out much sooner!! But I don’t have that option and things have been very hard, he still has control over my life through the child we share.

The reason I did not do what I now wished I had done, is because he had control over my whole world, i allowed him control. He controlled me through my fear of losing my children. Which don’t make sence because now I know and probably did even then that staying with him, I could have lost my children, if not by CPS, by his own hands.

When someone like that gains control over your life it makes the victim feel powerless, very depressed and out of control of their own lives.

I hope that anyone in a violent relationship can recognize it as being violent and get out. I hope that they find someone to help them get out and just do it, if there are children involved it makes it even more important. If only I had left sooner and not have fallen for his schemes, he would have never knew where I went when I left him, I would have kept that restraining order and divorced him quickly before he had a chance to steal our baby and run to another state and file divorce before me so he could gain control once again!!!