Lord knows there was a time when I wished he had just pounded me into the ground. Don’t get me wrong, the physical abuse — the spousal rapes — were vicious, but the ravaging my mind took was savage. I almost died.
The domestic violence started on October 24, 1993. We were married on October 23, 1993. The little ceremony took place in my mama’s living room at 2 PM that Saturday and we took off for Denver the following morning. We weren’t four hours into the drive when that trash mouth of his crawled out of hell and revealed itself. That thing would be the source of the mental and emotional abuse I endured for 19 years. The financial abuse would snake it’s way in at the mid-way point.
The two incidences of spousal rape were enough to put fear in my soul. The first time it happened, on November 5, 1993 — my birthday — I was stunned into silence. We had gone out to celebrate my special day and by the time we made it back home, he was sloppy drunk. I had no idea he had been sniffing coke while we were out. Call me naive, but if you tell me you’re going to the bathroom to pee, I think you’re going to the bathroom to pee, not sniff coke.
