Are You Abused? (part two)

The kids started boxing up their videos and I started packing my clothes in a couple plastic bags. My new friend came over to help us move what stuff we were taking to her ex-husband's house which was right behind our own place, not even 50 feet away. This was where we were when my husband got home.

We got all our stuff over there and then we waited for the fireworks. His grandparents must have stayed at their daughter's, my mother in-law's, after breakfast because they didn't come back before my husband. At six o'clock that night the show began.

He got home from work and went into the house and it didn't take long to figure out what was going on before he came flying out of the house and headed straight for the only person I knew. Later she told me how he showed up at her place screaming and forced his way into the house saying, "I know she's here, you can't hide her from me!" After searching the closets and under the beds her husband told him to get out or he was calling the cops.

As I watched from the window, he showed up back in the driveway and punched the windshield of his car and broke it. He then pulled out his phone and made a call, I realized to who when his mom and grandparents pulled into the drive. After some thirty minutes they left and my husband started to clean the house like a maniac. It took me a while before I realized what he was doing. He was trying to find his stash of dope because he thought I was going to turn him in. I don't know if he ever found it and I really don't really care.

That night we bunked down where we were and when my husband left for work the next day my friend came over to take us to the domestic violence shelter. We only took the bare essentials with us and left most our stuff at her ex's house until we could come back for it.

The shelter wasn't to bad but it is hard to adjust when you have to share space with a hundred other people. The rules were tough too. We had to be together at all times which made our shower that night rather difficult. We also had to go to bed at eight o'clock, which wasn't to bad, because we were exhausted.

I called my mom that first night and told her part of what happened and where I was. I knew everything was going to be okay then because my mom was on her way. She arrived the second night, real late. We got out of there pretty quick but we still had to go back to my friend's ex's house to get the rest of our stuff.

It was about midnight when we got to his house and I went to get out of the car and my mom stopped me and told me to let her and her husband handle it. Her husband went to the door and knocked and the guy opened the door and the two of them had a few words. They both looked my way and they seemed satisfied. The two of them started loading things into the car. When we left we drove right by my house. My husband was outside and totally oblivious of me in the back seat as we drove past him. We had done it, we had escaped!


Right now you are probably thinking that was the end of it but you would be wrong. About seven weeks later I went back. I have said that it was because it was easier to see what was coming if it was right in front of me, then trying to protect the kids and I while looking over my shoulder.

The truth, I don't know why I went back, but it's helps knowing that most abused women leave an average of seven times before it finally sticks. It only took me three! The third time I got therapy and that made all the difference.