TW: SA, Spiritual abuse, emotional abuse,
I’ve been going back and forth on whether or not to tell my story with domestic abuse I experienced during the years 2019-2020. In light of domestic awareness month and the release of Maid on Netflix, I want to bring emotional, mental, sexual and spiritual abuse to the forefront of this conversation.
In early 2019, I got out of a year long relationship with someone who was struggling with mental illness and wasn’t using the best coping mechanisms. I left that relationship tapped out on love. A few weeks later, I met my abuser at church. He gave me everything my ex couldn’t in the realms of attention, time, showered me with compliments, it was a whirl wind, otherwise known as Love Bombing. And within a month, we were engaged.
The narcissist and emotional abusive tendencies started small. We both had a passion of going to the gym. One time at the gym, he approached me to tell me something and I had my headphones in. I placed them on pause and looked up at him. He had an outburst, rose his voice at me telling me that he hated that I wore headphones cause I ignored him when I did. I informed him that they were paused whenever I spoke to him. He told me he didn’t want me wearing them any longer when we were working out together. Even if we were in different areas of the gym.
Another time, we were running late to meet friends. He left me waiting on him for roughly 20min. I told him he had bad time management skills and laughed. He gave me the silent treatment all day, even in front of our friends. He wouldn’t speak to me, give me eye contact, wouldn’t sit next to me, nothing. When we got home, I asked him what was wrong and -while in the same room-texted me answering the question saying I hurt him so badly with my time management comment that he couldn’t look me in the eye and he didn’t want to be in the same room with me.
When planning our wedding, I wanted to wait a year to get married since we were still getting to know each other. At the time, he was planning on returning to school, but lived in Springfield with his mother. His job didn’t offer him health insurance, which was needed in order to be a student. He insisted we get married at the start of the school year (3 months after our engagement). My job was salaried, I had health benefits that could help him with school. He insisted we’d never see each other if we waited a year cause Springfield was so far away from Dayton, but if we got married then we could live together and not be living in sin. He also had terrible credit, while mine was good. Again, at his insistence, if we were married he could be added to my credit cards and bank account to help build his credit while he was in school and eventually pay off his $50k+ student loan from previous college programs he didn’t complete. Cause his debt would be our debt. After numerous talks of him laying out how he’d financially benefit from us getting married sooner, I obliged.
As I mentioned before, we met at church. In the beginning of our relationship we decided to be celibate. He told me that if we crossed that threshold before we were married, he’d break up with me-even if he initiated it. He didn’t want us to break our promise to God. At the time, I thought, “Wow, what an amazing man of God who loved me so much that he’s putting Christ first.” One night, we were getting hot and heavy in the sheets. He took off his pants and proceeded to take off mine. I told him we should stop. We had made it that far, we could wait a month more to have sex. He whined, stating we were so close. I reminded him that we promised to stay celibate and we should stop. He then whispered in my ear, “well let me give you a little taste” and thrust himself inside me.
I was shocked. For the next day, I couldn’t comprehend that I had been raped by my fiancé. I focused more on the fact that we had broken our promise to God to stay celibate. I approached him that night and told him how disappointed I was that we didn’t save sex for marriage and that I had told him we should’ve stopped. He looked me in the eyes and said, “It’s okay. God knows we’re getting married and in the Bible, marriage occurred at the bedding ceremony where the couple would consummate the marriage and people would watch them to make sure they were married. God watched us last night, so we’re married in His eyes”. This coming from the guy who threatened to end our relationship if that line was ever crossed.
A few weeks later, my ex who I had dated for a year before I met my fiancé, had committed suicide. I took it hard. Heavy with guilt for not sticking it out with him, not forcing him to go to therapy, for all the arguments we had where I might’ve made him feel less then, etc. all those memories and ‘should haves’ washed over me. I assured my fiancé that I loved him and I was hurt at the future my ex had lost.
A couple days after my ex had passed, I posted a picture of him and I at work on social media with the caption, “Rest Easy”. In the picture, my ex and I had our arms around each other. My fiancé came over after work that day infuriated with me that I would post a picture of myself with another guy when we were getting married the following week cause, “People are going to think you’re marrying him, and not me. You need to get over it.” Two days ago, someone I had loved, I had cried over, fought with, spent holidays and family functions with, someone I gave my all to to help him in every way I could for a year-lost his battle to mental illness. That’s not something I could “get over” in two days. I reminded him that I had my reasons for breaking up with him and that he was dead. No one that we know is going to think I’m marrying a dead guy. He responded with, “Get a therapist cause I don’t want to hear you grieving over another guy”. In that moment, I lost my safe space with him.
We went through with our wedding and I continued grieving alone. From there, the emotional, mental and sexual abuse continued. After a month of being married, he stated he wanted to start to try to have kids. Before we got married, we had agreed to post pone having a child until his school loan was paid off. He began complaining about my birth control saying it bothered him and caused him pain (it was the ring m). He would cry and yell at me about me getting off of it. I told him if I got off birth control, then he would have to use condoms because I didn’t want to get pregnant. That’s when he began pretending to put condoms on (which is classified as statutory rape in some states).
My depression had grown during this time. I was unfulfilled at my job and was still grieving alone. I stopped showing physical affection to him when I was at my lowest. His response to the lessening physical affection escalated from conversations to throwing things at me, pushing me or bumping into me intentionally when he was angry. If he was speaking to me
and I was doing another task while listening to him or if he felt I was ignoring him, he would slam cabinets or throwing our trash bin across the room to get my attention.
We would argue every day about anything and everything. I was constantly reminded that I wasn’t the woman he wanted to marry and I had tricked him into marrying him. (when in actuality, I was depressed). To even escalating to him telling me twice that I was the reason he wanted to kill himself every day because living with me was hell for him. That cut deep.
We were even in a young married couples group that acted as our group therapy second to our couples counseling we had weekly. The group had a rule: you would talk to your spouse first about what you want and didn’t want to be shared with the group. I would list things I didn’t want to be shared, but he made sure to always speak before me in group. He would tell our young married couples group about how he was depressed and felt unloved by me due to me not speaking his love language well, to watching too much TV, to not talking to him enough. I was constantly caught off guard in front of this group. I felt if I spoke after him about my grief or his verbal abuse or how he’d throw things, slam things, scream in my face, that it wouldn’t matter. He painted a beautiful picture of how I was an unsupportive wife who was selfish and apathetic. I remember a wife’s response to his comment one times distinctly. She said, “I could never treat my husband that way, especially if I knew he was hurting.” As soon as she said that, he turned to me and smirked. I stopped speaking up and sharing in group. Something I once found respite in where I felt that I could be understood became something I no longer looked forward to.
In March of 2020, I told him that I wanted to separate and spend 2 weeks with my friend. We had been arguing every day. I had lost my job, which was our primary source of income. I was applying to roughly 10 jobs a day, trying to find something. I was stressed. He said no and that I was disobeying God for even thinking of separation. He said he’s rather be roommates in a disappointing marriage for the rest of his life than disobey God. I told him if we didn’t separate now, we will be divorced by the end of the year. He still refused to let me go to my friends.
Through more manipulation, verbal and mental abuse, we hit our peak. I had had enough and told him I wanted a divorce. He left our home and began telling some of the husbands in our young married group that I was the abusive one. That I gaslit him and had a bad temper. He even went as far to say that my best friend was a bad influence on me and the divorce was my friends idea. In a group message with our young married couples, he informed them that I was the one breaking our covenant to God, not him. That since he wasn’t initiating the divorce, and I quote, “I will remain faithful to Aly and the vow I made to her. I look forward to when we will be reunited in heaven as husband and wife. As the gospel says, come, Jesus, come!”
Even after our divorce, when family asked what happened, I never told the worst of it. I told people the emotional and verbal abuse, how we fought all the time. It wasn’t until Feb. of 2021 when I met my step mom for lunch and I decided to tell her the full truth and as I was telling her the situations I found myself in with him did I realize that I actually experienced rape and sexual assault in my marriage.
Even to this day, not a lot of people know the details of the trauma I experienced. A lot of it was due to me processing it all and doing my best to be a better person. Better at communicating, better at speaking love languages for myself, my future partner and my friends. To be better at noticing triggers and getting to the root of them. Better at setting standards for my dating life and what I wanted to bring to the table. Better at apologizing and taking accountability both in my personal and professional life, instead of making excuses. Better at noticing if I was responsible for gaslighting or selfish tendencies and finding ways to work through them without placing blame on the other party.
Emotional, mental, verbal, spiritual and sexual abuse can be experienced at any capacity. All are damaging like physical abuse is. If you find yourself resonating with my story, you aren’t alone. There are resources out there to help you get out of whatever situation you’re in. You aren’t who your abusers say you are or make you out to be.
