A year ago you took my hand
and vowed to love me forever
To cherish me for better or worse
and always be together.
I had so many dreams of love
that I thought we'd share
But it all changed so quickly
and I was not prepared.

Slap!  A hand across my face
for talking back to you
With many words of disrespect
ending our honeymoon.
This marriage of silent abuse
that no one else can hear
Reminds me I'll be bound to you
for the rest of my years.

Tears fall softly as I weep
remembering your hand
And power of your ruthless tongue ~
I did not understand.
The promises of love I made
on our wedding day
To you I gave my heart and soul
it was meant to be that way.

So I listen as you put me down
and make me feel like dirt
Reducing me to tears each time,
you wanted it to hurt!
Your accusations of the affairs
you have in your mind
But your thoughts of my betrayal were just
the imaginative kind.

But there are times you're so loving
you show me that you care
And your love is so abundant in
the happy times we share.
You make me smile and fall in love
with you all over again
As I forget about those times
you bring me so much pain.

We share a common interest
of music of the past
And times when we were growing up
and wished that it would last.
The drives into the country
we leave the memories behind
Enjoying the man that I had married
of our happy loving times.

But they seem to end so quickly
as we come back home again
While the monster of our marriage
returns inflicting some more pain.
You throw more accusations
that I was eyeing every man
As you deal another punishment
with the palm of your hand.

Smack! A fist in my chest
as you slap me in the head
I'm screaming cries that no one hears
as you drag me into bed.
You tear the clothes from my body
as you lay by my side
You force me to make love to you
while I could only cry.

Then after you have gone to sleep
I tiptoe from our bed
I want to escape this volatile love
but I just shower instead.
My tears of pain and confusion
I just don't know what to do
For no matter what you do to me
I'm still in love with you.

So I wonder if it'll ever change
or will it stay the same?
This love we share so volatile
just brings too much pain.
I want to reach out and touch you
yet I want to smash your face
So you can know the pain I feel
in your masked embrace.

The memory of our wedding day
now seems so long ago
With promises of love we made
this life we came to know
My tears now a reflection
of the emptiness inside ~
That day I became a battered wife
and not a blushing bride!

©  Christina
25th January, 1996
 

"I have only recently found this poem that I wrote just three days before our first anniversary.  It was still on scribbled on the paper that I had written it on....   Here I am expressing the painful confusion of the love my ex-husband and I shared.  He was charming and loving and so caring at times....others he was like another man!   But I knew that no matter how much he hurt me I would still love him, and that is something that no one but another victim/survivor can understand.   They wonder how can you love the man who causes you so much pain?   I married him, and I chose to love him.   And the painful reality of my life was confusing even for me.   My ex-husband had been diagnosed with OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder)  but at the time I was angered that they put a name to his treatment of me.  The last time I saw him, I displayed a violent hate for him, because I knew if I didn't....I would crumble under the spell of his eyes when he said that he loved me that day."