When I heard her story, I had moved into a 1-bedroom loft after leaving my abusive husband and was working at her telecommunications company to support myself and my toddler.

Married for 27 years, her marriage started out like any young vicar and wife might start out.  There were plenty of drives with hand holding and sweet kisses. Sundays, her husband provided sermons at rural churches.

As his career took off, they had children. She was the pastor’s wife and provided a place for prayer groups, women’s Bible study, and prepped the church annex kitchen for potluck gatherings and board meetings. She taught Sunday School for elementary and later for the middle schoolers. She learned to multi-task with their three boys, keeping up the house, and all her duties.

What no one realized was that she was also being tormented verbally and regularly struck by her “Godly” husband.  The man everyone in the 200-member church looked up to was also secretly beating his wife. She recalled one time when she was pregnant that he beat her and pushed her down a flight of cement stairs. She recalled that she was able to fall on her knees while upright and so not injure her baby, though her knees were in pure pain. 

Since I was trying to decide what to do, whether to get a divorce and whether God would still love me if I divorced my husband, I was shocked by the depth of the abuse she endured. Back then, there were no women’s shelters or domestic violence awareness. I was impressed by her strength to endure and to see that women today need not stay where they might be killed at any mood swing. The Quiet Man, where John Wayne’s character slaps and spanks his wife was seen as the norm. Women in the mid Twentieth Century were not yet familiar with the women’s movement; so she had no recourse but to endure. He died in their 27th year of marriage and she was finally free. (Remember that domestic violence occurs across every socio-economic stratum.)

As I listened to her tale, I was reliving my own hell: the battering with a beer being pushed into my stomach, or a hair brush used to hit my shoulders, or his hands pounding my head into the wall and punching my stomach. I recalled all his verbal torments of “See what you made me do!” or “You’re so stupid!” or how he held a shot gun on me while nursing our baby.

When I went through the most dangerous time which is when a victim leaves the abuser, I did it secretly while he taught middle schoolers. Friends loaded up my son, my dog, my belongings and myself into a pickup. I stayed first with my mom then at the YWCA where a counselor lined up a lawyer and shared information about the cycle of abuse.   

I’m so thankful for those first nights with the women who were counseling others like me and for the friend who shared her story. It’s important to speak up now that we have protections in place and so many geographical areas have women’s shelters like Tu Casa in Alamosa.

Take my suggestion: God loves you no matter if you are single, married or divorced. Keep yourself SAFE. Living with someone who threatens you, hits, slaps, pushes or holds a shotgun on you is just not living. Be empowered and create your future; there are legal and health resources available. Others have moved forward; they will help you make sense of it too. 

For help, call Tu Casa: 719-589-2465. For information, [email protected]

—Nelda Curtiss is a retired college professor who enjoys writing and fine arts. Contact her at [email protected]