Update: Comments & Contact

I am closing the comments on this blog. If you want to contact me or leave me information about the deplorable acts Coward has committed against you, or family members for building a case against him contact me via email (contact page.) If you ask me to not identify you, I will not—promise this includes his family members. We have all been victimized for far too long, I won’t let him continue to do it to us.

I am seeing someone for my PTSD, I hope to god I can finally burry this: hurt, sadness, anger, and my fears-- I deserve it.  I also deserve to have a life without depilating pain as well, but that isn’t going to happen. I can at least make my psyche healthy.

"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no ones definition of your life; define yourself."~Harvey Fierstein

 

Get Service

I'm sharing this video because it could apply to so many things. After I kicked Coward out, people came out of the wood work to tell me how he was a: bully, liar, cheater, scum bag, perv, and all around creep. I would even have old friends of his ex's tell me how he was awful to them before me.  Obviously I wish they would have told me while I was IN the relationship, because afterwards was of no help, but it is, what it is. I so wish someone could have seen what was going on really in our house and helped me. As this video shows you can't judge a person by appearances, and you never know what is going on behind closed doors. So because no one ever stuck up for me, or came to my aide, I've become every vigilant at making sure I never let a possible abuser get away with it. I've offered my number to a women whose boyfriend slammer her against a car in a parking lot. I've threatened to beat the living shit out of man who was holding down a woman as she was screaming. I learned later that the woman was mentally ill, but at the time all I saw was a man hurting a woman--and my anger and fear kicked in.  I speak to my children about it DV, I speak others about it--I am not going to be shamed into hiding what he did to me anymore. I share the signs with them so that they can identify someone who might be in distress. Share the video with friends.

Humilation

Sorting through photos today I came across a picture of him and I.  I’ve been asked by my sister why I don’t get rid of any pictures of him and I tell her, "because I’m in them too." I have thrown away any that were of just him, but the ones I’m in, I still have them. They are literal snapshots in time of my life.  Looking at the picture I see me, so young—just a baby.  I also see that engagement ring he gave me on my hand.  I sold it for the gold and ruby/diamonds many years ago, it wasn't worth much, but I didn't want it in my jewelry box any longer. I suppose I could have just thrown it away, but it could at least buy a dinner a nice dinner for friends and that’s just what I did with it.

That dress I’m wearing in the picture, it triggered a memory I had long suppressed. Coward wanted to have pictures taken at Sears, and so we had driven to the mall where it was located. On the way there he got into one of his moods—if you’ve been on the end of one of these you know what I’m talking about. Honestly I don’t know what triggered the arguments half the time, it really was what was going on in his head most of the times it wasn’t even anything I’d personally done. Soon I was crying, he was yelling and it went on for about an hour in his truck in the parking lot. I didn't want to go in and get my pictures taken now, my face was a mess, and my eyes were puffy. He was even madder now, because I didn’t want to go in, and damn it-- he was here to take the picture!  Finally I gave in, really it wasn’t a matter of giving in, I had NO choice but to go inside and have the pictures taken. I could fix myself up in the bathroom at Sears beforehand he said to me.  Here is the big part of this memory that makes my heart sink. Crossing the street from the parking lot into Sears I ran into my Aunt, my favorite Aunt who was at the time the GM for Sears and with her, I find out later is her boss. Not only is my face a mess, puffy and clearly I’d been crying, but I was wearing this thin pink dress that Coward FIRMLY insisted I didn’t wear a bra with. He insisted I didn’t wear a bra with most things and panties at times too. Sleeping naked was forced too, thank god for periods and the only time I could wear panties. Anyhow,the wind was blowing hard that day, making my dress cling to my breast and making my nipples show through.  I was humiliated and so embarrassed, for both her and I to see me this way. She met my face with her eyes, made small chit chat with Coward and I, and then kissed me goodbye on my cheek with a “call me” in my ear. Coward was clueless as to what had transpired; he always was a bit socially inept. So much humiliation, so many things he imposed upon me over the times we were together. 

This is what happens when I open up a corner of my memory, is that other things flood in. Oh so much more to share about his doucebagness, it’s just come flooding back in.

Domestic Violence, There is no poster child for it.

Tomorrow is volunteer day at one of the local women’s shelters. I know sadly, very well what they’re going through. I’m hoping that they can see from me and other volunteers whom have been in similar situations that there IS light at the end of the tunnel. I know I am still wrestling with the demons of what he’s done to me and others, but I’m getting there.

I also realized that Coward married a woman who is no better than Todd Akin, U.S. Representative, Missouri  whom believes that women don’t get pregnant if it’s legitimate rape.   Coward’s wife's logic is; it’s not abuse if you stayed. It’s not abuse if you lived with him for a long time, short time, a weekend? It’s not abuse, because she won’t have it. Deny it all you both want, it happened. It happened, it happened.

I am educated, live a nice life and have a wonderful spouse and children. I know that to most people I am NOT the face of domestic violence. Guess what, there’s not a certain type of person this happens to, it can happen to anyone. Below is a TED conference on Domestic Violence, from( GASP) an educated successful woman! Her degress blow me out of the water, and most people for that matter. Her story is very similar to mine, because if you would have told me that the same man who sent me flowers weekly, wrote me love letters, spoiled me, would one day tell me what to wear, what not to wear (bras and panties under dresses to church especially!) where I could work, where I could go, what I could spend money on, push me, choke me, humiliate me, and so on. I would have called you a liar.

Please watch this video, and know that you’re not alone.

 

 

Fool, Foolish Coward

I was standing in line at coffee shop this morning and I was overhearing the conversation of the young kids in back of me. In youthful joviality one of them was sharing how he was planning to prank his sister, with an April Fools joke. I felt like I had heard the word fool for the first time in years. I have this happen lately, where I remember things that I have suppressed--they come at me so randomly. That's what happens when you start picking at a scab, you open up old wounds. The word fool was not allowed in the vernacular with Coward. " Don't call me a fool, or say, foolish! A fool is one who does not know god!" Ah, there goes that preaching again.

I love when people nit pick what scripture they want to follow. The fool part matters SO, SO much but ignore the; abuse, lying, infidelity not following the law of the land and so on. Really I could go on and on, because there's so much, hypocrisy coming from him.



“To those who abuse: the sin is yours, the crime is yours, and the shame is yours. To those who protect the perpertrators: blaming the victims only masks the evil within, making you as guilty as those who abuse. Stand up for the innocent or go down with the rest.”
― Flora Jessop, Church of Lies