Native Writes: Love isn’t violent

Domestic violence is no way to express love.

My first husband, I call him the “sperm donor,” is deceased now and called me during his last six months alive to apologize for “being a bad man.” I told him as a Christian, I would forgive; as a woman, I would never forget.

The first time he hit me, we had just begun dating and he was jealous because I talked with an old friend. He said it was because he loved me.

When one is a teen, “love” comes in many forms. He convinced me that I was fat and ugly and he was the only man who would want me.

He took a job out of town and I saw him about once a month. He grilled me about my friends and ordered me to get away from them.

He claimed it was because he loved me so much he didn’t want to share me.

After we were married, it was just the two of us. We moved to Santa Fe and established a home.

Then the landlord, a kindly man in his 70’s gave me some magazines to read.

I was pregnant with my first son and was thrown in the shower, where the hot water was turned on to “cleanse” me of the sex we allegedly had.

We lived far from my parents, but near his siblings. They didn’t want to get involved. “That’s just how he is.” My religious upbringing convinced me I had “made my bed and must lie in it.”

Jealousy, especially violent jealousy, is a warning sign of domestic cruelty, so is destroying the partner’s self-esteem and isolating him or her.

I took the baby and left. He followed. We moved back to Alamosa and another life.

He found another bed to lie in and tried to convince me it was my fault. He needed someone else because I was so worthless.

We had three sons and every Sunday morning, he would wake up with a hangover, beat the boys to make them “men” and torture me to remind me he was the boss and I was his and his alone.

I began spending Saturday nights with my parents. The boys were loved and so was I, in the right way.

He tore up the Christmas tree and ruined all the presents because he had converted to a religion that didn’t celebrate Christmas and, besides, the boys shouldn’t be “spoiled.”

People didn’t see this side of him. It was our “home business.”

The boys became withdrawn.

I learned to cover bruises with make-up and claim I was accident-prone.

During my third hospitalization, the priest sat alongside my bed and told me I had to get away from my husband before he succeeded in killing me. He had shoved me out of a moving vehicle because he didn’t like my collegiate grade report.

I got a restraining order, filed for divorce and with the priest’s support, worked it out with God.

The cruelty continued indirectly. He knew we went to eastern Colorado once a month to visit my brother and, during one of those visits, he drove from New Mexico, broke into my home and tore up the place, breaking every one of my record albums, fragmenting a piece of pottery and slashing the mattress.

A phone call later claimed it was to save me from Hell. I was evil and so were my parents and all my friends.

He finally re-married and transferred his “love” to someone else. She called crying a couple of times, but stayed with him until his death.

I can live without that sort of “love” and hope never to be so “dearly beloved” again.

To all the women who are abused, help is available and there’s always an ear to listen.

Thank God for that one understanding priest.