Question? Were there any signs like pushing, isolating or controlling behaviors before you got married that might have indicated an abusive personality?

Answer: There were sign of mean, inconsiderate behavior but I didn't recognize them at the time as "abusive behavior". No, he never pushed me. He would yell and tell me what I could or could not do. He was very jealous and controlling.

Question? How long were you in the relationship?

Answer: We dated exclusively for 2 years and were married for 6.

Question? Can you share some of your experience with me?

Answer: He was a hard liquor drinker (outside the home) during the week and an occasional beer drinker on the weekend. When he would drink his temper was more volatile and this is when he would usually become verbally and emotionally abusive. But then again, he could also be that way even when he wasn't drinking. He always seemed to be angry and/or mad, except when he was with his friends then he was fine and didn't treat me as badly.

Question? What made you decide to leave? Or stay?

Answer: I was unhappy from day one and woke up one day and realized that this was the way he was going to be. I didn't want to wake up 30 years later and still be unhappy!

Question? What happened then?

Answer: I went to a lawyer just to get information. As I was so afraid to tell him that I went to a lawyer because I was unhappy, I stupidly asked a good friend to �break' it to him. He confronted me, surprisingly not like a maniac and I told him how I felt. Things were strained for awhile and then were forgotten until a year later when I finally got up enough nerve to leave after another episode.

Question? What advice would you give to someone considering leaving an abusive partner?

Answer: My problem was that I was young & inexperienced about relationships, naive and had very low self-esteem. That enabled the person I married to control me to the point that I had absolutely no self-esteem or self worth when I finally did have the courage to leave.

So my advice: Just do it, leave, don't wait! Yes, I know it is scary, but the sooner you leave the sooner you can start to rebuild your self-esteem and become a stronger person. Once you accomplish that, you will never let anyone treat you that way again!

Interviewer: You once told me your father used to hurt your mother. Was it at certain times, or did something trigger him to do this?

Survivor: Well, it's because he's an alcoholic, that's why. He used to always go out, stop at a bar on the way home, stuff like that. He would come home with too much to drink and little things would set him off, stuff like that. I can't remember specifics really, right now. It could be anything as stupid as the house not being cleaned right, to I don't know, a bill not being paid, or something really dumb that he could get pissed off about. Something little. I don't know.

Interviewer: Well, was it more physical or was it more verbal?

Survivor: It was more verbal than anything. It was mostly the yelling and the name calling and my mother would always yell back. I think that's what made it get worse and worse was the confrontation. In the beginning she wouldn't fight back, but defend herself verbally. She was always a stupid bitch or a slob. Most of it was directed at the house not being clean. If me and my sister had a bad grade, he would get pissed off, but that wouldn't push him to that point. I think it was mostly my mom that pushed him to that point. I think it was because of the arguing and the yelling back. I mean he would say stuff to us, I was called names all my life. I mean, I wasn't physically abused by him, but I was a slob and I was always stupid. Nothing I did was right as far as he was concerned. I could get better grades than that, I could always clean better than that. Nothing was ever good enough.

Interviewer: What about your sister?

Survivor: Well, my sister was sheltered from a lot of it. He would get pissed off at her, but I made a point of making sure that she was sheltered. I would keep her in the room and shut the door behind me. She could visualize a lot of stuff that went on, but I always made sure that she didn't see.

Interviewer: Did your mom ever try to leave?

Survivor: The first time she left, she went to a shelter and then back to my dad. The second time, I was still in grade school, I remember coming off the school bus and there was a man sitting in front of the house and me and my sister went inside and it was one of the only times I saw my dad crying. My mom said we were leaving and we were gonna go stay with this other man. This was one of the worst incidents. We went to my mom's best friends house and my dad must have been out drinking all night, I remember we were just staying there for a few nights and my dad showed up. I remember the yelling and the screaming. And my dad constantly yelling "You're not taking my kids! You're not taking my kids!" And I remember the woman's son and I remember my father on the floor wrestling with this woman's son. It was the only time I ever got physical with my father. I remember I jumped on him and kept telling him "Stop!" For some reason I jumped in when he was fighting with this guy, but I didn't jump in when he was fighting with my mom. I don't understand. We stayed there that night and then my mom ended up going back to my father. I don't think my mom had any sexual encounters with this man, I think it was just an outlet. I think he was nice to her. I asked her and she said she didn't sleep with him. But then my dad was fine for a long time after that. There'd be fights, but nothing ever physical. It was a rarity that he would get physical with my mother after that. Before that I didn't have friends, I was very shy and very withdrawn. Alot of it was that I was constantly told that I was stupid and worthless. A part of it was that I always wondered that my father would come home pissed off, because he wouldn't care if I had a friend over. I have a special connection with one friend because she's seen it, she was there at certain times when the whole thing happened. Buy those were the only times that my mom left. She'd stay over night at my aunt's house. She always brought us with her.

Interviewer: Did your mom ever fight back physically?

Survivor: Yeah, my mom always fought back. Always! Back at the worst, my father is a big guy, there were holes punched in the wall, my mother never had good stuff, because he'd break it. My sister was put in the room, and I would stand there and sometimes I'd yell at my father to stop and sometimes I'd wait till he was done. My mom would yell back and for a while when I was younger, this is horrible, I would think to myself 'Why does she yell at him, why does she make him do this?' I always blamed my mom, for pushing him to that point. In the beginning, I always thought it was my mom's fault, because she yelled. If she didn't yell back him, he wouldn't get so mad that he would break something or hit her. He never came home and physically hit her. It always progressed from an argument, so in the beginning I blamed her.

Interviewer: Do you ever think she thought, 'Well, if I just didn't yell back?'

Survivor: Oh yeah, after a while she felt like that. Eventually, for a time period, she blamed herself. That's how she justified what happened. There were times when she would throw things at him. She always had a bruise here and there, never on her face. There were a couple of times we were in the hospital. One time he broke her leg, I don't remember how that occured. I remembered one of the worst things was when she was taking a bath and they were yelling at each other and he threw her out in the front yard naked and locked the door behind him. I was trying to get the door opened. That was devastating, my mom was outside with no clothes on. But after two minutes, he walked away and I opened the door. That was one of the worst things for me. My sister was always in the room crying, but I kept the door shut. I'm sure she saw some of it, but I tried not to let her see how bad it was. I was always the one to comfort my mother, comfort my sister.

And I didn't hate my father though. I didn't hate him. My dad would get in these rages and then the next day we would do family stuff, have pizza, play games. It wasn't until I got older that it started to click and that was when I started not to like my father. I loved him, but I didn't like the person he was.

My mom did snap a couple of times. One of the worst times, he didn't do anything physical, but they were yelling, he was lying on the couch calling her names and she just snapped, went into the kitchen, grabbed a knife, and held it by his throat. She started calling him every name in the book. She said, 'You think it's funny now, you'll see how funny it is when I slit your throat.' I yelled at her to stop. She yelled at me to call the police, call the hospital, call somebody, 'Because I'm gonna cut your father's throat.' Finally, she realized what she was doing and stopped.

Now, I haven't heard an incident of anything. Maybe once in the last ten years did my father lay a hand on my mother and it was just maybe a shove.

Interviewer: So, one day your dad just stopped?

Survivor: No, it progressed slowly. After the time he got taken away by the police, he got a wake up call. Then it was more verbal.

But my mother over the years, got trained to lie to my father to keep the peace. If something was done wrong, she'd blame me or my sister, so my father wouldn't get as upset. And that used to really make me mad. Even to this day, she can't tell the truth, she'll lie. Now when my father gets mad at my mother his way of dealing with it, is he just won't talk. He won't speak to her. I think that's his way of controlling himself. He tells her 'I don't want to talk to you.'

There was no good excuse for it, but my father didn't have a very good childhood. I don't think he had the love he should have had. I don't think my grandmother ever said that she loved him. That's no excuse, but I think it's hard for my father to show emotions. I think my sister got a lot of that anger too, because she's a very angry person now.

Interviewer: Your sister didn't deal with it well? I know she has problems right now.

Survivor: My sister is very angry and abusive with her language. When she was a teenager she was verbally abusive to my mother. She never spoke up to my father, never talked back to my father. I think it was hard for my sister, because she was so little when it was so bad. She didn't really understand, she never talked to anybody about it. When, I quit school, my parents' sent me to a psychiatrist and I was able to talk about it. But my sister never talked about it. She wouldn't talk to me, she wouldn't talk to my mother. We were never really close. I think she's a lot like my father when it comes to showing emotion.

Interviewer: Do you think that's why she is the way she is now?

Survivor: I think a lot of it has to do with that. She won't talk to my father still to this day. It's like she's afraid of him. I'm not very open with my father, but I will eventually say what's on my mind. When my father tried to help her when she was in jail, she talked to him, but when she did something wrong, I think she felt guilty. Now I think she justifies not seeing her son as 'Dad took him away, Dad doesn't want me there.' And I think she's in an abusive relationship now. I think her husband physically and verbally abuses her. I mean I don't have proof. She keeps going back to him and he is a total dirtbag. She has a lot of emotional problems.

Interviewer: How do you think your upbringing affected you?

Survivor: I rebelled totally. I mean, I did a lot of typical teenage stuff. When I screwed up, my father didn't talk to me about it. At that point, I couldn't stand him. When I messed up he always threw me out of the house. I had a problem with any guy that treated me like crap, that was the guy I wanted to be with. If he was a nice guy, I didn't want to be with him. Even my son's father was a jerk in the beginning. I think that's what attracted me to him.

But I scared myself, because I felt my anger getting out of control. When I'd get mad, I'd hit Mike (name changed). I didn't throw things, but when I got mad, I just wanted to release my anger in a physical way. I realized when Mike hit me back, he proved to me that I was getting out of hand and it scared me a lot, because I didn't want to end up like my father.

Now, when I get upset, I don't physically do anything. I vent my anger through tears, I cry and yell. Very rarely do I find myself wanting to get physical. I think I came to terms with a lot of the stuff growing up. I don't dislike my father anymore. I have respect for the man now. He still drinks and can be verbally abusive, but he's found an outlet for his anger. I mean, I can't say it's never gonna happen again. And I think that's in the back of my mother's head too.

Interviewer: Well, all due credit to your father for controlling his physical temper, but from what you've told me, I would say it's still an abusive relationship.

Survivor: Oh yeah. He has a controlling factor that has a lot to do with it. My mom is mentally messed up right now from the 25 years of what she went through. She's not independent at all. If anything, were to happen to my father I don't know what she'd do. Now they have their grandson living with them and everything is different. I think if she were alone, things might be different, but I can't see it. My dad's never talked to anybody, never worked through these issues. Maybe he did and we never knew it. Maybe that's what helped him work through this, I don't know. It's not like it was, but it's still not like it should be. I think my mom loves my father, but I think she just knows no other way of life. I don't think she would choose to leave. I hope my nephew doesn't have to go through what me and my sister went through, but he will hear yelling. A lot will be expected of him.

I have a lot of issues with men that I've worked on a lot. It's hard for me to accept a man to tell me what to do. In a relationship that's gonna happen every once in a while, it should be mutual, doing things for each other. But I always thought if Mike asked me to do something, it's why 'Because I'm a woman.' But I was always told that growing up, 'If I was a boy, I wouldn't expect a clean room. If I was a boy I wouldn't expect this.' For a while there I wished I was a boy so I wouldn't have all these limitations put on me. That messed me up a lot too, because I wasn't able to be generous to somebody. A lot of times when I thought my dad was really gonna flip, and he didn't. When I got in trouble with the cops or when I got pregnant, he welcomed me in his house, he wanted me there. I think I'm in constant search for my father's approval. I mean I know my father's proud of me, but I like to hear it. I don't like him to know when I fail. I'm 28 years old, and my father should accept me. He should be proud of me, I'm taking care of my son and I have a good job. My sister is doing always in trouble and living on Main Street. I know that bothers him, and part of it is his fault. Some people are stronger than others. I know a lot of people go back, but any man that laid a hand on me that's it. I wouldn't ever go back.

Interviewer: Is there anything you want to say to the survivors or people trying to become survivors that might be seeing this?

Survivor: Women have to realize that they don't have to be dependent. Hopefully, as time goes by, women will realize they have more outlets. In the 70's there were places to go, but it wasn't as public. Women also have to realize that they have to raise their sons with respect. If their in a situation where their not being respected with a man, their son is not going to respect them. And no matter how much you love somebody, love doesn't hurt. Not like that.