How I Left A Fist and Ugly Words Behind Me

When you experience domestic violence on any level, you oftentimes can’t recall each traumatic incident. Four decades is a long time to wait to tell this story.

The beginning of losing three years of my life

I was a 19-year-old emotional and compassionate thinker. I was vulnerable, naive, and impressionable. I was also a strong person and my character could fit into a novella about what it takes to be a good person.

My mother didn’t want me to leave home and get married. I was too young and inexperienced with life, but I didn't listen. I thought I was an adult. A controlling personality was already shaping my mind. I also didn't fully understand at that time my thinking shouldn't be 100% heart on the sleeve.

The marriage took place and on the wedding night, he watched TV and I lay there on the soft pillow with a tickle of an instinct of "I think I just made a big mistake." I quickly learned that I wasn't old enough to make this decision.

One month after the marriage, I learned I was pregnant. He said I needed to quit my job before the baby was born.

If I were ever close to even five minutes late getting to the apartment, he would accuse me of having an affair so it was always a race on the clock. Then it happened. I had that five-minute experience. I was close to the apartment and it was sprinkling. A piece of my windshield wiper popped off. Anxiety was starting to rise. I stopped the car to get the wiper. What raced in my mind was if I didn't get it, there was going to be a problem.

When I arrived at the apartment, he said, "you know you're late." I explained about the wiper. The accusatory tone was present. I knew then the truth was unimportant. When you speak out of fear or nervousness in your voice, that invites an accuser not to believe anything you say.

Little did I know that once I was no longer working, being in isolation invited the worst physical experience I would endure.

The red flags

He was 26 and handsome when we met on a blind date set up by his sister who worked at the same company that employed me. He was also funny until he wasn’t. Everything became my fault.

He compensated for his insecurities by making jokes or being sarcastic. Any internal torment he must have felt was behind a great smile. One drink would lead to rage. He always talked about the domineering mother he had. In time, it was obvious he had strong issues towards her to the point of disdain. Still, no excuse for what he did to me. He also had the habit of being untruthful. And every bruise I had turned into another lie, another story that wasn't true. When the bruises healed and family would come over, he was always a different person. A show of pretend happiness was shown. I could have won an award.

Before I moved out of my parents' house, there was an incident that happened one evening. I was resting in my bedroom after my wisdom teeth were extracted. He came over and I assumed to check to see how I was doing. But when I opened the door, he kicked my left shin with his steel-toed boot, and a blood vessel broke. He said his foot must have slipped.

My whole leg from the knee down into my foot started bruising from the blood. He said it was an accident. Was it? My leg looked awful for weeks. At the time, it never occurred to me this was abuse. I gave him the benefit of the doubt. That was my first red flag that I didn't even know was a red flag.

In hindsight, the classic signs were there even before the marriage. In 1976, though, looking for classic signs of domestic violence wasn’t a phrase as far as I knew. I had no awareness of domestic violence. I was born into an Air Force family and respect and civility were the examples I knew. I had never been called hateful names before by anyone. When he started calling me names associated with being part Asian, evil was knocking me down.

The escalations and departures

As the abuse became more routine, I went from anxiety to a fear of him. I learned fast what he was capable of doing. The last punch, the last slap, the last word, and the last pull to my hair. I remember I was going to make sure he never pulled my long hair again. I went to the bathroom and cut it off when I should have cut him out of my life. And when he punched me in my mouth a second time and broke a tooth, he fulfilled the comments about how ugly I was.

The first time I left, I went from my job when I was still working to a hotel. He had called my parents to see if I was there because when I called him to let him know I wasn't returning, he told me my parents were at the apartment. He pleaded with me to return. When I arrived, I had no idea what he told my parents. When they left, his fist met my face.

I took off on foot during the day before he got home from work. I walked down the main road, and right when I’m walking in front of a hospital, he shows up and pulls the car to the side. He said, "Where do you think you're going?" He makes me give him the wedding ring. I hand it over and his closed fist punches me in the mouth splitting my upper lip open. He does this in broad daylight. How convenient that we were in front of a hospital.

We go to the emergency room with blood running down my chin. I don’t remember what I told them. They take me into a room and make him wait outside. They asked me, “Did he do this?” I must have said no. He kept looking through the window in the door possibly wondering what I was telling the doctor. Why was I so afraid to tell them what happened? They already knew the truth.

When they released me, we returned to the apartment. He returned the wedding ring and wanted to know if I slept with the doctor. Mind you, I could not have a tone with this man, and I could not believe what he was asking. The mind games were tortuous and confusing.

He asked me to forgive him and said it would never happen again. He said he was sorry. Hours later he reminded me how ugly I was and that my parents never wanted to see me again. Classic manipulation and lies. My self-worth began its journey of slowly diminishing.

He used to take the meals I cooked and dump them all over the floor and tell me I didn’t know how to cook. Then he would time me after telling me to get it cleaned up. I hear the snap of another beer tab. I feel the hate I am battling.

Since I didn’t work, I sewed a lot. Sometimes he would take the things I made and rip them apart. I would watch in disbelief. The cost of the material and the loss of time with the effort to create made my soul scream. If his goal was to make my heart bleed, he succeeded. My spirit was sad but intact, so far. I couldn't stand up to this person. All it took was for me to hit him back one time. I never did it again.

One night he made me sit on the floor in the living room all night and said I couldn’t move. He said I needed to learn a lesson. What was the lesson? He went to bed. I kept looking at the car keys on the table. I wondered if the floor would creak if I moved. We lived in an apartment building. I wondered how much light would shine through from the common hallway if I opened the door to make a getaway. Would he see me and if he did, would I live through that? Escape was all over my mind.

The horror of abuse

When he hit me in the solar plexus, it was awful. The effect on everything behind your stomach strangles your breathing. You get winded because your diaphragm contracts and goes into spasms. The first punch there gave me the thought of dying. I couldn’t catch my breath. A method to induce fear. It worked.

He had a .357 Magnum. He pointed it at my head and told me it would be so easy to kill me. He said if I ever left again, he would find me and put a bomb under my car because he knew how to make bombs. He was so mean, I believed him. Did he just hate women?

Well, I did leave again. I stayed with friends we knew. I was still pregnant even after he had beat me with a belt.

I went back. I believed he changed. I hoped he changed until I knew he never would. At the time, we were going to a church. I know, it sounds ironic. The minister in our church said I needed to work on things I could change. That’s when I got confused. What was I supposed to “work on?” The only thing I felt I needed to change was my address. A minister who believed women should be subservient to men. I could no longer belong to that denomination.

How was I the problem? How was it acceptable that a spouse was hitting his spouse? Of course, I felt inferior. I felt trapped. It didn't matter what I did or didn’t do. Nothing was ever right by his standards. Ever. Beatings, black eyes, a broken tooth, hair pulling, and public humiliation were pretty consistent. I was isolated by him from family, friends, and life. I could never go anywhere alone. And every time he said he was sorry, it was another lie. He had no empathy.

The neighbors in the apartment above us had called the police. When they arrived, they saw my black eye and swollen face and asked me if I was okay. I’m standing there crying nodding my head up and down. What in the hell was I not thinking? By then, my toddler child sitting in his highchair was two. If I just had him arrested, I would be free from the terror. What was I afraid of? I could have told the police to take him away. But then there was that story he told me about putting a bomb under my car. He also said he had connections with people who could do it for him.

On another occasion, the neighbor across the hall helped me escape. She took me and my child to a domestic shelter. I had $10 in my purse and someone at the shelter stole it. From there, we went to a safe house. I was expected to find a job by the woman in charge so I could stay. The environment there was negative, and I didn't trust them to watch my son when I was at work. So, when the part-time job had ended, I picked up my son and just never went back there.

I returned to the apartment. Things were good for one day.

I used to pray he wouldn’t be able to make it home from work. I wondered every day, is this the day I die? My instincts always knew when something bad was going to happen. You can never prepare yourself for a beating.

In the third year of the marriage, I miscarried. There was a day he slammed my head into a wall so hard, that the sheetrock cracked. After he choked me on the bathroom floor, I was finally done. That was the day I started planning for permanent removal from his life.

When the abuse escalated weekly, it never occurred to me to document anything. I had never heard of domestic violence until I was living in the core of it. His mother heard it all from me and she helped me go into hiding for a week. I also explained to her that all the cuts on the sofa were from a switchblade he used. How do you tell someone's parent that their child has done terrible things to me?

Determination gets in the driver's seat

I eventually called my parents to get me. I think my parents were afraid of him also. I did find a job, bought a car, and moved as far as I could within driving distance to the job.

The emotional and physical abuse lasted for three years. I don’t remember all the incidents. There must be a special place in your mind that inhales trauma, so you don’t relive the pain. When I left, there was no going back. There were no more tears, only determination. Regret was all I carried. I had a young toddler and he needed to have a better environment. A safer one. I was so numb with mistrust of men.

It didn’t matter that he thought I was worthless. I needed to prove to myself that I could do anything. I had nothing to prove to him. I put myself in that situation and I had to emotionally fight like hell to get out.

I like to fix things. I’m a people fixer. By the end of the marriage, there was so much damage to all my senses and instincts. My spirit was drowning but still alive. Fixing him wasn't going to happen. I also realized there was never any love in that relationship. It was the idea of love that drove me into the madness.

Removing the fist of rage from my life

In the mid-70s, the media was starting to bring focus on the subject of domestic violence. Movies were being made like, "The Burning Bed." That movie carried experiences I knew too well.

Women were being charged with killing their abusive husbands. I understood the fear that drove them to their actions. When someone charges at you with a closed fist and you’re begging for it to stop and it doesn’t, you keep taking it until you don’t. You cut your hair so the pulling stops.

After 15 years, I went through counseling. I’ve asked myself all the questions. What could I have done? Why did I stay so long? My strong brown eyes survived many black eyes. My scars weren't going to define me. My spirit survived after all.

I’m proof of self-motivation and determination. The act of living inspired me to reach for a solution. My message to anyone who gets hit by another person is to leave. Because it will happen again. There are no second chances with domestic violence.

The scars strengthen who I am today

Even after the divorce, his face used to haunt me in my kitchen window. I would flinch every time someone would raise their arm.

I have scars that remind me what happened, but they don’t dictate how my present joy is steering me. I don’t dwell in the experience like I used to, but the effects of the damage are always with me. It has caused me to be protective.

For three years, someone controlled my mind and existence. What I took away from the experience was a stronger spirit, and a drive to succeed at everything. It began with a choice. It ended with a choice.

When he passed away in 2017, I felt nothing. My residual fears lifted, but the effects of what he did to me will never go away. I was sad he never explained his actions or apologized like he should have. I was also sad that so many years had passed and he never built a relationship with his child. I somehow don't believe he had the paternal ability.

I can't say that my real journey in life began when I was free from his abuse because that experience was a chapter in that journey. While the scars don't define me, escaping the horror says it all.

If you need help, or know of anyone in need of help, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1–800–799–7233. You can remain anonymous and of course, your call is confidential. You can always call 911 if you or someone else is experiencing danger.

© Cathy Coombs