It couldn’t happen to me

 

IT COULDN’T HAPPEN TO ME

 

I met him right after my mother died.  We fell in love right away.  In retrospect there were red flags, but I didn’t know how to read them.

He had a hard luck story, an awful childhood.  Hearing about it filled me with compassion and a desire to help him.  Now, looking back, I don’t know how much of it was real.  Lying came with the package.

I saw the good at first.  He was handsome, funny, friendly, interested in life.  When I talked, he seemed to anticipate my next word, seemed to understand me better than I did myself.  He listened to me talk about my mother’s long death, and he’d hold me and tell me she was up in heaven.  He meant it literally: puffy white clouds and angels with harps.  This was new for me, a person who spoke of death in such simple, childlike ways, but I latched on and accepted the comforting image.

He also said, from our first night together, that we were Made in Heaven.  ”Heaven” came up frequently.  I was a once madly devout child but had fallen away, and he was a serious Catholic, and I felt spellbound by the thought of my old faith, embodied by this man who said he loved me.  We’d walk through the city and most walks included more than one stop in church.  He’d light a candle and kneel, head bowed in deep prayer, and somehow that made my heart open a little more.

The beach; he did love the ocean–the Jersey Shore, the east end of Long Island.  We could spend hours walking the tideline in any weather, swimming when we could, lying on the beach and staring at the sky.  He told me he loved surfing.  With his blond hair, blue eyes, and salt water tan, he did look like a surfer.

Our love story happened fast–a whirlwind romance–and lasted until we were married six weeks after meeting.  Right after I said “I do” everything changed.  He quit his job so I would support him, disappearing whenever he felt like it.  He didn’t speak to me so much as growl at me.

I was strong, “myself,” at the beginning.  But he wore me down.  I was one way the day we married, and quite a different way by the time I finally left.  My bones aren’t broken, he never gave me a black eye.  Yet his need for control wore me down–to this day it flabbergasts me that I allowed it to happen at all.

He raged at me.  Or he’d go silent for days, not saying one word but giving off hateful energy, brushing past me hard enough to knock me aside.  After a while we’d make up and he’d beg me to understand HIS pain, and not to leave.  He could be so charming, seeming to love me.  People on the outside saw a handsome, friendly man.  Sometimes I saw him that way, too.

When he yelled, his voice boomed like a manhole cover slamming the pavement.  It reverberated through my bones.  His blue eyes turned dead and black, like a shark’s.  He had been previously married, and dated many women, but his hatred for women came out the longer we were together.  His physical changes were so extreme and violent; I felt I was watching Dr. Jekyll turning into Mr. Hyde.  Once I asked if he’d ever been diagnosed as a psychopath and he said yes.  As if it were no big deal.

Sometimes I would be so scared I would take the cats and leave him, checking into a hotel under another name.  I was lucky to have the means.  I was unlucky enough to not trust myself enough to stay away for good.  He always won me back.  Maybe part of me, at least at the beginning, wanted to be won back.   The drama of dangerous love.

I had close women friends.  I would confide in them.  Some got sick of seeing me drain away; they must have felt frustrated to watch me be stuck in something so bad.  They would say something real to me, and I’d agree, say that I had to leave.  Then he’d be nice again, and I’d remember the harsh words my friend had spoken about him.  I’d retrench and either she would drift away or I would.

My friends and I would have tea–out somewhere, away from the apartment.  Some were so patient, just allowing me to talk–whether my stories dealt with “good” or “bad” details–they listened to all I had to say without telling me what to do.   I’d drink Earl Grey, speak calmly, enjoy being with a friend who didn’t treat me as if I were crazy.  But inside, even at those soothing times, I was churning, adrenaline pumping, in a constant state of fight or flight.

Once, on a book tour cross-Canada, after a very bad spell, I reached out to a woman I didn’t know well–but who the Al-Anon sponsor of a New York friend, to meet me for tea at the King Edward Hotel.  She was living in Toronto, I was alone; he had stayed home.  The woman met me, and we sat for an hour in the warm, turn-of-the-century lobby talking about detachment, powerlessness, and letting go.  I thought she looked perplexed, and only after she left did I realized I’d felt too flayed and desperate to remember to order tea.

His first wife, the one before me, is a great woman.  We respected each other from the beginning and have become close as we’ve gone along.  She was one of the few people I could really open up to–because she got it.  While pregnant with their child, she’d been hammered on the head by him, one night when he’d come home late from the grocery store where he worked.  She still has skull pain and hearing loss from that beating.  Once I mentioned his surfing to her.  Although he always talked about it, I’d never seen him with a board.  ”That’s because,” she told me, “he’s the surfer boy who never surfed.”  Another lie, a relatively small one, but it went to the way he’d invented himself.  What was true, what could I believe?

Why did I stay with him?

You may have seen the Cycle of Violence diagram.  That part, when you decide to believe his explanations, is called the Fantasy or Honeymoon part of the cycle, and it’s unbelievably destructive.  Each time I stayed, it chipped away a little more of myself.

He never beat me with his fists, but he attacked my spirit the best he could.  He cut down my friends and family, telling me they looked down at him, failed to appreciate him, and if I loved him we wouldn’t have to see them anymore.  He’d get furious at me, told me that he had once broken a woman’s jaw in three places, the message being that he could do that to me.  It became easier to give in than to fight.

I used to pass a domestic violence center, but I never stopped–wasn’t that for women who were bruised and bleeding?

Holidays were especially hard.  Friends and family invited us to join their celebrations.  We went a couple of times, and his glowering silence in the car to and from, and at the table with loved ones, filled me with despair.  At home he’d always find reasons to criticize the kindest, or even simply innocuous, gestures.  One Christmas I was dressed and ready to go, and he said he was staying home.  No talking about it, no explanation.  I made one comment like, “can you tell me what’s wrong?”  He grabbed the car keys, said, “Fine, I’m going,” and proceeded to drive so ragefully I thought we would die.

He had quit his job and his not-working had caused problems between us.  The friend we were visiting had offered him a good position in a maritime company.  When we got to the house, festive and glowing, he didn’t bother with his customary charm.  He sat in a corner, sweating and glaring at everyone.  He refused to eat or speak.  Later when we left, and I asked why he’d acted that way, he’d told me I was a fool, those friends had offered him a job only to get his social security number so they could have him investigated.  He said we weren’t going to see them ever again.

Some things were almost good.  He liked to eat, so we tried lots of restaurants.  Sometimes we’d have a good time.  Others he’d get angry on the way to the place, and refuse to go in.  Or we’d enter, not speaking, and sit through an agonizingly silent and hostile meal.

Holidays became a time to brood and suffer.  He’d brood, I’d suffer.  Eventually we shut everyone out.  He liked to sit in a big armchair, right in front of the fire, staring at the flames.  If I interrupted his fire-watching, he’d glare as if he wanted to roast me.  I spent many many hours feeling dread and fear.  Paradoxically, he was big on sending out Christmas cards–it was all about the show, giving the appearance of a marriage.  He kept a detailed list of people who would receive our cards each year.  He wrote them out and addressed the envelopes.  He’d sign them, “May your New Year be blessed!”  He spoke about God and religion frequently, had prayer cards and Rosary beads and miraculous medals and spiritual books.  Meantime he wouldn’t be speaking to me.

Driving ragefully: it got worse toward the end.  Once we were heading to Woods Hole, and I said or did the “wrong” thing, and he told me he was going to kill us both, drive us into a tree.  He sped up, onto the shoulder–I felt and heard that buzzing friction of pavement designed to let drivers know they’re going off the road.  I was terrified, but it wasn’t the first or last time.

Somehow I found the fire to leave him. When his ex-wife’s father heard, he called me and said, “He’s left a lot of wreckage in his wake.”

Doing preliminary research on a novel, I called an FBI agent.  I gave him the basic story, which involved a woman learning her marriage had been a lie, that her husband wasn’t who he’d appeared to be.  As I spoke I realized I was thinking of my own feelings about what had gone on.  The FBI agent asked for details about my situation, and he profiled him on the spot.  Did he quit his job, did you give him money, did you meet him at church?

“You’re married to a con man,” he said.

“But he can’t be!  He’s funny, charming.  He’s troubled, but…”

“Do you think con man wear name tags announcing themselves?  The best ones never get caught.  Their victims trust them completely, I sometimes can’t get them to testify against the guy in court.  Yours isn’t so successful.  He can’t keep himself from being cruel.  Track down his exes.  See if this is a pattern with him.”

I remembered one girlfriend’s name.  I searched for her, calling New Jersey information, and found her.  When I dialed her number my hands were shaking.  I heard her voice say hello, and I spoke.  ”Hello,” I said.  ”My name is Luanne Rice, and I’m married to X…”   A pause, then in a warm voice, “I’ve been waiting for your call.”  It gave me chills.

She and he had been together at the time we married.  He’d never bothered to break off with her, just moved on to the next thing.  When she finally figured it out she did what I was doing: called the one before her.  And heard the same story.  On and on.

The divorce was as abusive as the marriage had been–he and his lawyer designed it to break me.  They threatened to go after my computer to find proof that I was writing.  During a hearing just before Christmas that year, they asked the judge to order me to write, preferably a bestseller, an act they regarded as money in the bank for them.  I drove home, threw my computer into Long Island Sound, and jumped in after it–in late December.

I survived that desperate act.  I felt my mother with me.  I swear she saved me from the icy water; she buoyed me up, and I didn’t die.  My loving, artistic, scholar mother would have despised what I was going through.  She’d introduced my sisters and me to paintings of female strength and family love by Mary Cassatt.  She’d read us so much Shakespeare when we were young, teaching us early life’s beauty and pain.  Certain scenes had lodged deep in my psyche, among them, Prospero’s lines from The Tempest, 5.1:

I have bedimm’d

The noontide sun, call’d forth the mutinous winds,

And ‘twixt the green sea and the azured vault

Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder

Have I given fire and rifted Jove’s stout oak

With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory

Have I made shake and by the spurs pluck’d up

The pine and cedar: graves at my command

Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let ‘em forth

By my so potent art. But this rough magic

I here abjure, and, when I have required

Some heavenly music, which even now I do,

To work mine end upon their senses that

This airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff,

Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,

And deeper than did ever plummet sound

I’ll drown my book.

So I drowned my “book” and tried to do the same to myself.  That night I was driven to McLean Hospital in Belmont, MA, a miracle place especially known for helping writers, helping people who’ve gone through trauma.  McLean is where I finally saw the whole of what I’d been through, who he really was and what he’d done to me.  The staff built me back up, let me regain my strength, and head back out to resume the trial and my life.

The first thing I found, when I returned home, was a subpoena for my computer, stuck in my door.  The next court date they asked me where it was and I told them where they could dive for it.  I wrote my next novel, The Perfect Summer, entirely on yellow legal pads.   That habit has stuck with me.

As the divorce progressed, I finally went to the domestic violence center I’d passed so many times, and found loving support.  The women there really helped me realize emotional battering is as bad as any other kind.  I wish the courts and our society would recognized that emotional and psychological abuse leaves scars which, although you can’t see them, are just as terrible and deep.

As others have said, I never thought I was the “type” to be abused.  I’m strong, independent, with wonderful friends and family, and a life and career I love.   Domestic violence can happen to anyone.  To learn more about that, and to get help, I recommend reading Patricia Evans’s powerful book The Verbally Abusive Relationship, and to visit websites such as The National Coalition for Domestic Violence and the National Domestic Violence Hotline.

My own linked novels, Summer’s Child and Summer of Roses, as well as Stone Heart and Little Night deal with domestic abuse.  The Perfect Summer tells of marriage to a liar and the damage done.  I am proud to be involved with the Domestic Violence Clinic at Georgetown University Law Center where law professors and students advocate for victims of abuse in Washington, DC, taking their cases to court and fighting for them.  Their work is extraordinary.

Good luck to anyone reading this–with love and support to you.

(This painting is A Goodnight Hug by Mary Cassatt.  The one at the top of the page is Tea, also by Mary Cassatt.)

 

 

My novel LITTLE NIGHT deals with domestic violence and its devastation on the women in one family… Thank you to all the readers who’ve written me with their own stories. I am honored and grateful.

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  • Johnna Rano

    wiw I know someone who went through this

  • http://LuanneRiceFacebook Linda Pendleton

    I have been in this spot and gotten out. I try to help others who need a place to stay. Thanks Luanne for making more people aware. Linda

  • http://Facebook Ann Vincent

    I am so sorry you had to go thru something like this, my daughter was in a similar situation, she hung in until the kids were grown, couldn’t quite make it until the youngest graduated, but it was only a few months. She is still living in limbo of a sort and so are the girls. I think I need to copy this and give it to her and purchase the books also. We both are avid readers and love your books.

    A fan and friend always, Ann

  • http://facebook Tammy Comeau

    Thank you for sharing that incredibly personal and painful experience, I am sure it will help other women. What did you think of Nicholas Sparks new novel, Safe Haven?

  • lynda vanhal

    Thank you for publishing this ,the more we reach out the more lives could be saved! I was terribley battered physically and emtionally back in upper 70′s early 80′s . i was denied protection from the court , went in wit a broken nose and fractured jaw . The judge said well his name is on the lease too! I got out of that and after much counseling and healing I worked for a domestic violence program around 1982 , I trained the Vt police at the academy in their domestic violence program and aided in and was in a training video called “who would want Me?”I was given an award from the Governor’s commison on the staus of Women by then Governor Kunin ,I advocated for laws to give women access to a judge 24 -7 in the State of Vt. God Bless you and thank you for your publicity on this subject ,perhaps you saved a life today . Thank You

  • http://www.teresamedeiros.com Teresa Medeiros

    What a beautiful spirit you have, Luanne, and how incredibly brave of you to share your story with other women who may have suffered, or even now be suffering, this devastating emotional abuse. Your own survival is like a beacon bright enough to lead them out of the darkness and toward the light of recovery.

  • Gina T.

    LR, I am beyond words. I’m all teary eyed. You really have shared so much of yourself. You are a strong and brave woman. You go girl!

  • http://www.twolftshoes.blogspot.com Kiersten

    I admire your courage Luanne, and applaud your gutsy move of sharing your story so others might know that help is out there for them. May blessing continue to shine on you.

  • http://www.zumayapublications.com Elizabeth Burton

    There are no bruises to show where it hurts–the bruises are all inside, along with the cuts bleeding away your Self and your soul. The mind-twisters are good at showing their perfect face in public, and it’s only behind closed doors they do their damage in the name of love.

    I wouldn’t listen to all the friends and family who saw something odd about him. The problem was, when I started to see if for myself they offered no help, until I finally reached a point where the mind games no longer worked and I saw his rage building. How long before he decided to move beyond words?

    So, I packed up four kids, one not quite 2 years old, and moved into an apartment over a pizza parlor where my electric meter was wired into their system and the only heat was what worked its way up through a couple of grates and the cracks in the floor. In northern Pennsylvania.

    Believe me, this is one time when I can say “I know what you mean,” and it’s true. Bless you for speak out on behalf of those who stay silent because they’re convinced no one will believe them.

  • Debra

    I feel for any woman or man going through abuse. I put up with it for five years of abuse verbal and with fist. I finally got the courage while he was sent to prison, to end it. I have never looked back.

  • Caroline Allen

    Luanne, thank you for sharing such a painful memory. I have known friends in similar situations. Even strong women can be pulled into such a cycle. You became the steel by being forged in the fire.

  • Tamara

    I wish I had the love and support that you did. I went through the same thing, only there were cultural differences thrown into the mix as well. For years after I made him leave, I still jumped when I heard the garage door, wondering if everything was done, wondering if I had forgotten anything he could potentially yell at me about. What I didn’t realize until much later is that it didn’t matter…he would have found something to yell about anyway. Thank you for sharing :) For some odd reason, it’s comforting to know that I am not the only one…

  • Blanche

    Such an amazing message you’ve shared with us! You truly do have an amazing spirit and strength!

    My Mother lived through this in her first marriage. Not only was her husband verbally and emotionally abusive but he physically beat her every single day. After several years she walked out the front door of their home with the dress on her back and a child on each hip and never looked back. I thank God every single day that she had the courage to get out and that she never gave up. She eventually met my Dad and they had my 2 sisters and I. My Mom is my hero and this is an issue that will forever be close to my heart!

  • Renee

    Thank you so much for sharing your journey with us.

    Personally, I never married my abusive partner, but I was stuck in a relationship for almost 5 years before I finally got the strength to walk (run) away. My friends still can’t believe how much I allowed him to change me…to break down my strength and spirit. When I would try to break it off, he would stalk me.

    I like to think that if he’d ever struck me physically I’d have walked away, but I’m not really sure. It was so much easier to stay with him. It took me almost 9 months to make my break once I’d finally decided to…and I had to put so many things in place. He stalked me for 3 months after the breakup althernately threatening and pleading with me.

    I finally completely broke free from him on October 18, 2000…and was blessed to meet my now husband the next night.

    To everyone who thinks…it couldn’t happen to me, I would never let it – don’t be too certain. Abusers manipulate and become exactly what you want to see until it is too late. Then they convince you that it is in your head.

    I allowed myself to be lied to, to be cheated on, and to be systematically destroyed…luckily I had a wonderful support network that helped me to rebuild myself even stronger than before. I will never again, however, be naive enough to think that it couldn’t happen to me.

    God bless you Luanne…for sharing your story, for writing such beautifully moving books, and for having the strength it took to move beyond the abuse!

    Hugs, Ren Long Island, NY

    PS – Thanks to Theresa Medeiros for sharing this link on fb.

  • Linda McKenzie

    Luanne, how powerful and how familiar. I lived with a man who was so charismatic and smart that very few saw his other face.In private he could be sweet and loving and in the next instant a raging entity. He kept me and our children on a very short leash, if we went somewhere we had to give him a time we would be returning home and if we were late the rages could go on for hours. If we were lucky enough to have a visitor when we got home the rage would be delayed until the audience left. Sadly the separation didn’t happen until my sons were in their late teens and I found out while stating with my parents out of state that he was cheating with several different women. That was probably the best thing that could have happened because that was my stopping place. My sons response to the break was “What took you so long?” It has been 19 years and my youngest son has not seen his dad since then, my oldest saw him about 16 years ago.
    He has gotten sober and seems to have changed, fortunately for me I don’t care. We talk on the phone once or twice a year because I am still the last wife of record and I plan on taking everything.

  • Katrinase

    Thaanks for the inspiring words, have not been through something like this myself but am aware of it with some people I know.. Stay strong Luanne.

  • Lin Allison

    I too went through this. Eight plus long years of emotional hell. It got so bad that when I would look in the mirror I saw nothing. I finally got the courage to leave. My family– what is left of it is the same way. I can never seem to do anything right. Their way is always best. They will make snide things about my writing, how I need to pump out a novel every year so I can become rich and then ‘they can buy themselves a motorhome to tour the country with my money. Plus, whatever else that inspires me such as painting, cosmetics, my friends is not safe you name it.. I am trying to find the way back into full swing in my life so I can who I was born to be.

  • Gerry

    I know about this too, from a slightly different standpoint. My stepfather was the abuser not only of my mother but also of three of us kids. I bear this invisible scars and will until I die. But I got strong and have worked through it all. I am so glad you got out! I too love your books. I am glad to learn you are as strong as you appear in your books. You got out and can build the rest of your life just for you! He can only have power over you now if you let him, and you won’t let him do that now or ever. Congratulations! Please keep writing for all of us, and for you too!

  • Paula R.

    Luanne, thank you for sharing your story. I am a big fan of your, and I am grateful that you took up the pen to continue yor battle. I cry whenever I read your books. Beach Girls is my top fave, but Summer of Rose and Summer’s Child are up there too. I am glad you found the courage to walk through the doors of the domestic violence center. Though I have not endure domestic violence as a spouse, I have seen its result growing up. I, too am a survivor of abuse, but I haven’t taken that step of walking into a center. I have tendency to bury what happened to me and compare it to the abuse of othersm oftentimes I don’t think I should be classified as a survivor because my abuse wasn’t as “severe” as others. I know that’s the wrong way to look at, and I am trying to stifle that part of my thinking. You are very brave thank you for all that you do.

    Peace and love,
    Paula R.

  • Connie Williamson

    I went through this. It was awful. I identified with what you said about being one person the day you married him, and quite another at the end of it all. It’s hard to talk about now. But I’m glad I’m past it.

  • http://www.mariahstewart.com Mariah

    Luanne, how generous of you to share your story. You’re a most amazing and courageous woman. I have endless respect for you and for your decision to go public, which maybe has inspired others who are going through the same thing – maybe even given someone else that extra bit of strength they needed to walk.

  • Melanie N.

    If you cut yourself, it heals. You cut yourself again, and it heals with a scar. No matter how much you heal, eventually the scars make the hurting stop. and that is almost as bad as the hurting. The moment when you realize he can’t make you cry anymore is a real eye-opener. When it doesn’t hurt and you realize what a different person you have become from the girl you remember, that’s what hurts. How did I get to this point? What the hell happened to me? This is not me! But the fix is never as easy as your friends think. It’s never easy when it’s you. But maybe it’s not meant to be easy. Maybe this was part of the Master Plan to develop you into who you were meant to be. That’s what I tell myself, that all of this has made me a stronger, better, less frivolous person who is conscious (and cares) about other peoples feelings and how it changes their lives after you have spoken the words and can’t take them back. I’m not sure I would be half the woman I am today if I hadn’t endured what I have endured (and concurred!). I’m not saying every woman should go out and find an ass to fall in love with, I’m just saying don’t let it beat you.

  • http://machelpenn.com Machel

    Dearest Luanne, How amazing to share your hurts and pains with others so they can learn and help them, too. Normally, I am one of your first readers here, but I have been shell shocked by losing my friend. I know that your spirit is strong and your life touches so many others, such as myself, I just want to say thank-you publicly for touching my life and for having the courage to recover, find your voice and to still keep writing The world is in need of you, m

  • Susan K.

    Yes, the emotional and mental abuse is the hardest to shake. People who have never experienced this are clueless and the first to judge. They simply cannot fathom what we actually have lived through. Thanks for having the courage to share. God Bless!!

  • Patricia

    Been there, did that, and thankfully had the support of friends during the process of finally kicking him to the curb after 13 years of the “cycle” and therapy meant to “save” the marriage.

    People who meet me can’t believe that *I* was emotionally abused, but yes, it absolutely can and does happen anyone. The only reason he didn’t actually hit me was because he knew that would result in his public humiliation. It was the one line he knew he’d better not cross or I’d tell everyone we knew, including his parents who thought he was perfect, the cause of the bruises.

    But he’s gone, I’ve had relationships with kinder, gentler men, and I’m strong and growing. (He’s still in the same place, and I pity his partners.)

    I win.

    Oh, yeah, I wrote–and sold–a story about a woman whose abusing husband drowns in sewage.

    *Never* tick off a writer! ;)

  • rosemary

    thanks for helping me.

  • Diane

    This is just the beginning. I could add so much more to the story of abuse. I was the victim of the mind games, emotional, verbal, and physical abuse. I read once that the men who are really “goog” at abuse do not leave a mark. I was held off the floor by my neck so that I could barely breathe but there was never a black eye, broken bone but it was definite physical abuse. He was a compulsive liar and also abuse our animals but so sorry afterwards. When I discovered the abuse he was inflicting on my children, I was finally able to get enough evidence to get out. I had called the police before but each time they talked me out of pressing charges. he usually did not leave markds on my children but the times he did is what gave me the motivation to get us away. Sadly, it wasn’t soon enough because my children have deep emotional scars. I really want to write a book on this because nothing I’ve read describes everything.

  • Luz Enid Soto

    I’m sorry that you had to go through the pain and anguish of dealing with this person whom was suppose to love you and didn’t. I’m sorry that person like him exist, but I’m happy that you survived and that you now help others who are in a similar situation like the one you had. Bless you and much happiness to you. Sorry for the errors English is my second language.

  • Airial

    My experience was verbal abuse and isolation from my family, but there was also outbursts of physical abuse. Not enough to send me to the hospital and in most cases no bruises, except the time he hit me in the leg with a flashlight, but he claimed it was an accident. But his favorite physical abuse was throwing me against a wall, which usually knocked me unconscious.

    Every 5 years I brought up divorce, but I never followed through. Finally, after 20 years he agreed to divorce on the condition that I was the one to leave and he kept the kids. Accepting those conditions was the worst mistake of my life. He didn’t want the kids or have a relationship with them. They feared him. He just wanted to punish me. When I got the kids back 2 years later, they were so traumatized that it took 2 years of family therapy to get them back to the kids they were before they were with their father and step mother who had a huge family of children of their own who were abusive to my children. It was a horrible situation and my husband told vile lies about me to his new wife and to my children. He broke every promise to me he had made about the conditions I wanted out of the divorce. My oldest daughter wondered why I had hung in there for so long. She felt I should have left long before I did. She said staying for the sake of the children was not good for the children. She knew full well, because her father sexually abused her. I didn’t find out about that until after the divorce. She’s in her forties now and is still in therapy and on medication for incurable depression. She will never be able to have a normal relationship with a man because of all the years of abuse she endured and the lies her father told her about me… that I wanted him to teach her how to be a good wife sexually, but she was not to talk about it to me because I was jealous of the attention she got from him. SO SICK! And she hated me for not protecting her and believing that I was encouraging it all to happen. My biggest heartbreak! I could go on with more stories of how each of my 7 children were effected, but it is still almost too heartbreaking to talk about, even 25 years later!

    I know I’m not alone in my heartbreak. I went through years of therapy and educating myself about what had happened to me and to others and how easy it is to fall victim to such abuse. I will never let it happen again. I know all of the red flags to look for, and discovered they had been there from the beginning, but I was too naive to understand and act appropriately. My husband even succeeded in cheating me out of hundreds of thousands of dollars of community property that I don’t have the financial resources to reclaim.

    Thank you for sharing something I so closely relate to and know that others suffer and relate to these stories. I just hope and pray that they wake up and get help, and that the help is available to them.

  • Ellen

    It was 16 years for me. My daughter was fourteen when things came to a head, and we had to leave. I’m just so glad she was away on a trip with friends at the time.

    Thank you for helping to make this part of abuse more visible.

  • Maxine

    Luanne, it is such a blessing that you can give back to those who may not know where help lies. Abuse comes in many forms and doesn’t always leave a mark on the physical body but it does damage the soul. Each one that has suffered abuse needs to take back their soul! God didn’t make you to be hurt and abused. He gave you and inner light to shine and no on has the right to try to extinguish this beautiful light. You all have something beautiful to give to the world. There are many out there who fought back by leaving and growing and taking their lives back. You have such a gift to give to the many and I think it is a blessing that you can save so many lives through your writing and your support. But please take care of your little light! It is so beautiful and you need to protect and care for it. You have given me such a gift in knowing you and some of the wonderful references you shared with me have truly changed my life.
    Thank-you! Love to you! Don’t forget to keep that garden tended. There are so many miracles around us it is amazing that some of them can be seen by looking in the mirror!!!!!!

  • Jen

    I went through something very similar, only I was 16 when we starting dating, he was 19. He had an abusive step dad from the age of 2 and felt it was his excuse to treat me the same. He was verbally battering and physically abusive. He felt he was above me and had the right to speak and treat me anyway he pleased. I married him at age 18 and left him at 19 1/2. I left him for a man who probably saved my life, I didn’t love the man but he made me feel safe and protected me through the divorce. It could have been a lot uglier. I left that man when we both realized it was not a healthy relationship, it was a very mature and easy breakup. I do not promote infidelity, but at the time it was my way out.
    I met the man I am married to now at age 21 and have been happily married for 15
    years! I have two beautiful daughters! There are still occasions where my exhusband haunts my dreams and sub-consious. He told me when I left that he would get revenge, he said it could be 10, 15 or 20 years down the road and he woukld find me and ruin my life. So I am still careful and still look over my shoulder at times. But i am thankful God has given me the family I have today and trust he will protect us! That is my story in a nutshell.

  • http://www.stayathometraveler.com Rita Elizabeth

    Dear Luanne,

    I read one of your books last year (I forget the name, but it was about the young woman who spent some time in southern France and met up with the wise gypsy women there.) I enjoyed your book very much.

    It pains me to hear about all you had to go through. THANK YOU for sharing this with the world and for supporting the Domestic Violence Clinic at Georgetown. Your story, and that you eventually gained the strength to leave, will give hope to many others.

    Sincerely, Rita Elizabeth St. Claire Horiguchi

  • Kristi Robinson

    Thank you for sharing. I have been through this twice,and it is so true that it is a widely unrecognized form of abuse. My friends and family to this day blame me for everything that happened. I make ‘bad choices’ and now they all treat me now as if I cannot be trusted to cross the street by myself. Of course my family is where I learned to take the abuse…

    I am so proud of you for sharing. It is so hard for a woman to admit in today’s world that she is not 100% empowered and in control. Even more so for a successful woman. I will remember you in my prayers and thank God for your story, as it has lifted me up to know someone else has been through this, that I am not the only one living with the consequences of simply trying to love someone. Thank you.

  • Sharon

    It was 7 years for me and the kids getting hurt was my trigger to get out. I had both emotional and at the end physical abuse. After I got away he tried to kill me 3 times and kidnapped my boys to try to force me to return to him.
    Thank you for sharing your story and giving us this place to post.

  • LR

    Went through something similar. I found out not only was my ex abusive–he has Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I strongly suggest you look into that if you haven’t already, because it will help YOU heal even more, seeing so much laid out in black and white that was nearly verbatim your life. I know it helped me by being able to put a label on it. I finally quit expecting him to apologize for everything he did to me and when I let go of my anger I truly began to heal and my life turned around. I’m now married to a wonderful man who is the light of my life and the total opposite of my ex. I am successful in my career while my ex is on wife number three, wearing her down, and driving them both deeper into financial ruin. I feel in the end I “won” because although it was a long, hard road (I was with him 7 years and I was very young when I met him, plus he was much older than me), I am at peace, I’m happy, and I don’t look back. Living well truly is the best revenge.

  • Tracy

    So brave of you to share this story. People have a particular vision of an abused woman and you are not it. I applaud you for sharing your story as it is a story shared by to many and can happen to anyone. Peace and Love to you.

  • Ashlyn

    Thanks Luanne for writing what you wrote. It helped. You are right the bruises are inside. No one looks at verbal and psychological abuse as Domestic Violence. My ex had the same story about a bad childhood and I felt sorry and wanted to help him and all. He lost his job, etc. too. He always raged at me and blamed me…some how it was always my fault for everything…you start to believe it sometimes too…like if only I had done that the other way then I wouldn’t have gotten yelled at…you second guess yourself all the time. :( I’m in therapy and will get better..it will just take time…I am out of the relationship I think only because the police were called and he threw me…but thank you so much for the advice on the books, etc. I do have one of your books already.

  • Susie (Kentucky)

    Dear Luanne, Thank you so mcuh for sharing yourself. You are a wonderful lady and a very talented writer. I have not experienced this myself, but never say never! Please let me know if I can do anything for you — other than thoughts and prayers that are coming your way. Hugs,

  • Bridget

    Luanne,
    How brave you were to get out, and how brave you continue to be to share your story. I enjoyed the Summer series as my daughter has a similar CHD as your protagonist’s daughter; I am so sad to hear that you share even more with her. Thank God for your mom. I’m sure you carry her strength with you. I hope that some of the other women sharing their stories, as well as some who haven’t left yet, will find their strength soon.
    Blessings,
    Bridget

  • Rose Thatcher

    I’am so touched that you are sharing your personal story that many of us have lived. I thank you with all my heart,

  • http://www.virginiapike.com Ginny

    I am an abuse survivor…not only verbal but also physical. He beat me the first time four weeks after we were married.I am most concerned the damage it did to my four children observing me allow it. My youngest would yell “mommy! Mommy! Mommy” as he beat me around the yard. I think of myself as strong and independent now…but did not think I could make it alone then with four children.The convince you that you are the cause of the beatings. I love your books…maybe I have felt a bond to you without knowing why

    • http://luannerice.net Luanne

      thank you for sharing your stories. i wanted to tell what happened to me so others would know they’re not alone. it gives me great happiness to know that this page has become a safe place for people to open up. talking about the abuse is the way to heal. i learned that years ago when i first walked into that domestic violence clinic. i spoke to the counselors first, and during the first five minutes began to howl in a way i couldn’t believe was coming from me. susan and mary lou, the counselors, listened until i was through. they encouraged me to return on thursday nights, to meet with a group of other women affected by domestic violence. i went week after week; i took seriously susan and mary lou’s suggestion–that by letting the truth out, i could start to heal. i hope those of you who are still suffering can find such a place, or call a hotline to talk to someone. the dynamic of domestic violence affects us mentally, emotionally, and physically–even when the abuse is “just” verbal. i was a complete wreck by the time i got out of the relationship. i needed a lot of help and support; i had loving, gentle friends who eased me through. one, who posted above, later went through similar abuse and found help at the clinic that helped me.
      i know domestic violence can feel hopeless and impossible, but please know that if i could get away, face him in court, and gain strength along the way, you can too. abusers do their best to make you doubt yourself, but don’t! if you feel it in your gut, it’s true. they are crazymaking, but you are not crazy.
      to lr who mentioned narcissistic personality disorder: thank you for bringing that up. my ex was a psychopath. from the brilliant “without conscience” by dr. robert d. hare: “[psychopaths] are social predators who charm, manipulate, and ruthlessly plow their way through life leaving a broad trail of broken hearts, shattered expectations, and empty wallets.” my ex scored high on dr. hare’s checklist. dr. hare also writes, “psychopaths are often witty and articulate. they can be amusing and entertaining conversationalists, ready with a quick and clever comeback, and can tell unlikely but convincing stories that cast themselves in a good light.” bingo–the ex to a “t.” not all abusers have personality disorders such as psychopathy, but many do. as the fbi agent said to me, “do you think con men tell you they’re con men?” the same can be said for abusers.
      thank you all–i am humbled and in awe of all of you. please feel free to post here anytime.
      love,
      luanne

  • http://dgsagan.tripod.com Dianne G. Sagan

    Dear Luanne,

    I have been through an abusive marriage myself. I am now a twenty-one year survivor and like you want to help others advocate for them. Thank you for not staying silent and sharing you story. We all have to work at getting rid of domestic violence together.

  • http://ouremptynestadventures.blogspot.com/ Charlene Ramsey

    Thanks for sharing your story. I think there is a belief that only weak people become victims of abuse. I know from personal history that it CAN happen to anyone. I think talking about this and getting this stuff out in the open in crucial to stopping it. I also wish there was more effort put into educating the teen boys who are showing signs of heading down that path. I think this epidemic has to be approached from the abuser and the victim sides to make real progress. Thanks so very much for sharing.

  • Janet

    Thanks for sharing this personal, painful part of you. It shows that it can happen to anyone.

    I was delighted to find the Phases of the Moon link-I won’t buy a calendar if it doesn’t have phases of the moon on it. Everyone thinks I’m weird because of that, but I just like to know when it’s going to be a full moon, new moon, etc.

  • Edward D. Taussig

    I recently read HELP YOURSELF by Dave Pelzer–VERY GOOD BOOK!

  • Becky

    I know someone that happened to its me. I was abused for 30 years and now I am happily married no abuse to a wonderful man and he is supportive of what I went through.

  • Renee

    Every time I hear my son start to tell an untruth, I really emphasize how important it is to tell the truth – to not embellish stories…about respecting others by being honest. He’s only 5, but these habits start early, and as he is such a charmer already, I want him to know that deception is unacceptable and that Bullying in any form is unacceptable. And I make sure that when I see people around us telling “stories” that he learns the difference. I agree Charlene, education is the key…that and involvement with your children to help them learn how to love and be loved in a healthy manner.

  • Janet

    A con man, eh? I didn’t know that there was a name for him. But yes, he wanted my money and use of my car. All the while telling me he wanted to be with me. He never met most of my family in the 6 yrs. we were together. Once he took me to a pancake house and on the way out the door got very upset with me for eating pancakes. I asked what he expected, and he said I could have picked something more healthy. He was moody and pouty on the way home. There are MANY more incidences that are just unexplainable. He is a con man and I am so glad I have closed the door on that phase of my life! Thank you Luanne for sharing your story.

  • Beverly

    Thank you for sharing your story, Luanne. It has helped to confirm what my sisters and I know happened to my father (yes, men can be abused!). My Dad (in his early 80s at the time) was stalked by a woman much his junior on the internet. My Dad was lonely and wanted to be loved by someone. She preyed upon older men. She was charming to him in the beginning until she browbeat him into marrying her against our pleas that he not do so-she exhibited ALL the signs you mention above but he could not see it. She is the ultimate control freak. In fact, the second time I met her she said to me “I know what I want, I get what I want, and NOTHING gets in my way” The minute she dragged him away to get married in secret she began abusing him, controlling his every movement, turning him against us who had loved and cared for him since our mother passed away in the 70s, hitting him and throwing things at him, letting him sit in his own fecal matter for hours on end – he was wheelchair bound, overmedicating him, not giving him the medicine he was supposed to have, not using good judgement in her care of him: (eg., letting a cut on his finger fester for a month until it had to be amputated;leaving for a trip to Europe while he was still in the emergency room after being transported there from going unresponsive in dialysis because she had overmedicated him), separating him from and turning him against everyone he loved. For YEARS my sisters and I called every social services agency we could think of, we called adult protective services, we called the police, we called his doctors over the course of the five years they were married – not one single person helped or wanted to help us – they all either said he married her and there was nothing they could do or that they were too busy fighting “real crime”. They implied we were jealous stepchildren. When we would call the doctors to say that we had observed her overmedicating him they would listen, but then she would find out, threaten to sue them and they stopped talking to us. Finally, adult services did come in and speak to my Dad. They agreed he was abused but said that they would need to remove HIM from his own home and that this horrible woman would be allowed to stay in the house he had lived in for 45 years (and where she had only been for 4). He opted for counseling for both of them instead, but whenever the counselor would come, she would overmedicate him to the point that he couldn’t speak to the counselor at all. The counselor would reprimand her but nothing else was done. We finally got my Dad to agree to get a restraining order and called the police while he was in the rehab center; my Dad finally admitted to a police officer two months before his death that she had hit him “more times than he could remember” but he refused to press charges because “he wasn’t that kind of person” – we knew he was afraid of her and humiliated that he was being abused by a woman. He was terrified of being put in a nursing home (which was what she would threaten him with if he got rid of her). In addition he was Catholic too and could not bring himself to make her pay for what he admitted she had done to him. He would waver, knowing in his heart that she was abusing him. He would “turn the other cheek.” I have over 30 pages of documentation of what this woman did to our father. Finally desperate to help him, we filed for the state to take guardianship of him-something we knew would hurt him deeply-but we thought it the only way to keep her from killing him. Finally she managed to drag him out of a rehab center (where he had been for a month after being on a respirator in ICU for another month because he had stopped breathing after she overmedicated him and she took him to an emergency room 20 minutes away rather than the one less than 2 miles from our house)and took him to a lawyer where she had him sign a living will (which he never had had before) giving her complete control of his health care-he was so doped up I am sure know what he was doing. A month later he was dead due to her invoking the living will. Our story is much much worse than what I can even relay here. We asked for an autopsy – she refused. We had to get a court order to have an autopsy done which we paid for out of our own pockets because the prosecutor’s office would not pursue it (again they were busy fighting “real crime”). After he died, we again went to the prosecutor’s office, we went to the county fraud department, we went to the mayor’s office – the mayor’s exact words were “he was old and was going to die anyway”. We are still awaiting the final autopsy results a year and a half later, because this woman has put up every legal roadblock she can think of to keep the medical records from the pathologist. We finally got the court appointed executor to agree to ask for the medical records. We have spent every single cent we have seeking legal justice for our Dad. Nothing can bring our beloved father back, but my sisters and I are committed to seeking justice for our father and to changing the laws that allow abusers to get away with what they do. There needs to be a recognition by the law that a victim in the cycle of abuse CANNOT make rational decisions about themselves or their situtation. If a victim says that someone has hit them or abused them, it should be REQUIRED that the police investigate whether the victim wants to press charges or not. There needs to be an awareness that 1) men CAN be abused and are even less likely to want to report it adnd 2) seniors are in extremely vulnerable positions also. I know that our story is not the same as yours, Luanne, but the cycle of abuse you post above clearly delineates EXACTLY what happened to my father. Unfortunately, this woman was able to consciously and willfully bring about his death before the cycle could be broken. My point here is that if you suspect someone is being abused… Please take steps to stop it. And don’t give up. Also, help us to seek changes in laws that allow abuse to continue. We have not succeeded yet, but my sisters and I will NEVER stop trying.

  • http://yahoo julia vallati

    OMG, I know why now ,,your book”SuMMERS CHILD And “SUMMER OF ROSES are my two favorite books, I mentioned this before I read yourstory this morning,
    I too was married to my highschool sweetheart, He did hit me,And cheated, looking back wewere too young!,my spelling is awful,please forgive me. thank GOD for support his motherAnd family I still have all the beautiful things they gave me. when I remarried in 1961, she was always there for me,so good to my family,we celebrated our 49Th on dec26th. That other life seems unreal to me ,It has been many years. I feel like I was nevered Married to him, He has had foue wifes and many children since 1958 a lifetime ago
    thankyou for sharing your story.I admire you. god bless you

    wow what a story and to wrie about it

  • Neva

    Luanne, I have read your “It couldnt happen to me” several times and feel so connected by what you have shared. My husband has never hit me although he has come close. I have been with him for 46 years and am caught in the cycle of abuse. Everything bad is my fault (of course) however it happens. I don’t have the courage to do anything about it. My daughter recently left her abusive husband. She told me she was not strong enough to endure the unhappiness any more. I TOLD her she was much stronger than I am and that I am proud of her. I was brought up to believe if I tried hard enough, a marraige would work. I am so tired all of the time that I can’t do anything but bury my head in the sand. I have been to counseling and although it clears my mind it doesn’t give me the strength to leave him. I cannot talk to HIM of course. He just starts to rage. He has done this for too, too many years. You probably didn’t want to hear all of this. He makes me feel very unimportant and dumb and overweight, etc. I would like to help others who are in relationships of abuse and to help myself. Any suggestions? I live in a very rural area. I admire you as I admire my daughter.

  • Beverly

    Luanne, I am sorry my post was so-self centered….but you just struck a nerve in me that we have been keeping to ourselves for so long. Your story triggered the floodgates and I am sorry that I did not acknowledge your own story. In any case, I wanted to thank you for having the courage to tell your story. I want to honor you for your courage in getting out of the situation and I want to let you know that there are many people in the same situation as you were and that if your story helps one single person by saving their physical and emotional lives your story will have done tremendous good. Thank you!

    • http://luannerice.net Luanne

      beverly, your post wasn’t at all self-centered! i am honored that you shared your story. it means a lot. i love the support and encouragement everyone is showing on this page. your words mean a lot to me and, i’m sure, to others. i treasure our connection! thank you for being a friend here and also on facebook.

  • sharon

    Luanne, I know all to well about the cycles of abuse….I was emotionally abused by my father as a child and occasionally physically abused by him as well. Being a good Catholic school girl, I didn’t know any different-”listen to your parents.” I went on to become physically abused by a boyfriend….raped, held at knifepoint and sustained a broken nose. Frightened beyond belief, I somehow found the will to survive. I nailed my door shut with 2×4′s because he secretly made a copy of my apartment key and would let himself in. He would wait in the night for me to come home and would not take no for an answer. He held me at knifepoint in the middle of a field (after he broke the window in my car with his bare hands)until I agreed to take him back. I always thought I had a future career as an actress because I was able to convince him not to kill me that night. I would wake up screaming in the night for years after, unable to shake the feeling that there was someone standing by my bed as I slept. Many books and years of therapy helped me become whole again. Thank you for sharing your story, because I, like you, thought things like this don’t happen to girls like me-and it was something that was never talked about in the 80′s. I wish we had stayed in touch after high school, maybe we could have helped each other…..there are so many similarities-men like that do prey on strong, independent women and it CAN happen to them.
    I give you so much credit for sharing this…and I thank God you were able to get out. I cannot imagine not having your mom to turn to, being young and in love and not understanding how someone could treat another human being this way. Especially one they professed to love. It is a testament to your strength of character to have achieved what you have in your life. You followed your dream and let nothing stand in your way. I am so sorry this happened to you, you deserve so much more…..

  • The “Girlfriend” before..

    Dear Lu..
    Wow, as I read through the story which as you know is so aligned with mine, minus the marriage, the forgotten and unraveled knot began to tighten. Hard to believe after so many years, how the memories still haunt when revisited.
    I can hardly believe I allowed myself to remain in such an abusive relationship, never seeing the grass as greener while standing in the midst of that burned out meadow, thought of as pure bliss at the time. Oh sure, there were issues, but that poor injured soul just needed some lovin’ to make it all right. And the fun we had, how would I ever find such a magnificent person again?

    As so many of us believe at the time, we’ll never be happy again without this person. The destruction leaves a greater mass than one can imagine. I took the leap that lead to recovery and have never looked back.
    Dearest Luanne, you told me early on that you would spread the word on this cause, and you have. I am so proud my friend, my true woman’s woman of a friend! Thank you for this and more.
    Love you!

    • http://luannerice.net Luanne

      dear the girlfriend before,
      i love you. i want everyone to know that when i called, completely out of the blue one cold, fall night, we became instant friends. you listened to everything i said, and you matched my unbelievable experiences with your own. until i spoke with you i felt so alone–i wouldn’t let myself realize how bad it had become. the day he took the stand in the divorce, you came a hundred miles–we’d never even met!–and sat in the courtroom supporting me, willing to testify.
      your friendship was a beacon then, and still is.
      it’s true, i did say i would spread the word on this cause. i want people who go through this to know they’re not alone–and that speaking out and reaching for help can bring amazing gifts, including deep friendship and renewed strength.
      love you, the girlfriend before…
      luanne

  • Mary

    Dear Luanne,
    I just read your story, and even though my experience with this same type of man ended in 1982, I still get chills when I think of the emotional abuse that both my son and I both lived through. I will have to get your books and read them. Thanks so much for being so willing to spread the word so that hopefully other women will be able to recognize this type of individual before they get in too deep.
    Best wishes,
    Mary

  • Linda

    How good of you to write such an honest and helpful story. You are very brave.

  • Leigh

    Luanne,
    Thank you so much for posting this article. Hopefully at least one woman will read it and see herself and leave her situation. I was raised in a violent home where my mother was the abuser. And when I married, I also was the abuser. He didn’t know how to abuse and wasn’t interested in learning. I had no idea how to have a relationship without abuse, so I moved on. I then married a man who was a most excellent abuser; far more accomplished than me. And right before my eyes, I allowed him to strip me of everything that was precious; my dignity, decision making ability, self- esteem, family and friends.
    A friend helped me rediscover my spine.I kicked him out and he stalked me for a year. I was fortunate enough to get the absolute best domestic violence counselor and between her and two friends, I finally was able to break the cycle. I finally understood how I perpetuated my mother’s violence, and to see how I was easy prey for a master con.
    Your sentence, “Yet his need for control wore me down–to this day it flabbergasts me that I allowed it to happen at all” just reverberated through me. I had always been independent and self-reliant. I remember not too long after he left, I remember standing in the middle of the kitchen floor with tears streaming down my face because I could not decide what to make for dinner for my child and myself. I look back at that woman and still have a hard time believing that was me … and this was over 20 years ago.
    Don’t stop spreading the word. Too many women are in such horrendous circumstances and it may be your words that lets at least one of them finally see there is more to life..
    Thank You!

  • June

    Luanne, I’ve been reading your wonderful books for years and have never known anything about your own life and I have to say that when I read “your story” I was a little shocked. You know how it is, I’m sure….reading these wonderful, powerful books of yours I imagine that you have and have always had this great life. I never thought that you had troubles in your life other than deadlines, and book tours. That sounds so shallow of me, doesn’t it? I wnat you to know that although I haven’t experienced anything like what you have, I have compassion for you. I sincerly hope and pray that you have peace, joy and love in your life now that is immeasureable. I know you by reading your books. By that, I mean that I feel that I know your heart and I hope that you are happy. I feel happy whenever I see a new “Luanne Rice” book on the shelf.
    I also hopw that your experience with love has not soured you on finding another one.

  • Shirley

    Dear Luanne,
    First, please do not use my complete name. Though I’ve read you article late, it resonates for me. However, I am much older than you (81) and I remained married for 30 years until my children were grown and independent, There is a new twist in my life which adds sorrow and pain.

    My husband was an immigrant from a poor country who came to the US for a college education and stayed. We were introduced by friends, and I was on the rebound from a blighted affair, a combustible ingredient for this ugly stew. From the first, he was engaging, absentminded, very handsome, charming, and I was infatuated. And, from the moment we married, he was indifferent, self-absorbed, troubled, and resistant to change. Because I had a son within the first year of marriage, and we had little money, I worked, but was frightened about finding adequate childcare (this was the 1950s), so I never faced the issue of divorce. Eventually, I gave up partt ime work, continued attending night classes at college, and began to work fulltime. We had another child, a daughter, but everything worsened. Indifference, detachment, tantrums, accusing me of crazy things, and his anger controlled our home.My spirit withered. though I had beeen independent and sef-supporinting since I was 18.

    Though I knew that divorce was inevitable, I could not jeopardize my children’s lives, and I didn’t want them to be without a father, though he left all responsibility to me. He could not look at me, he could not help in the home, Emotionally and sexually, he abandoned me.In a lucid moment, he admitted: “Indifference is abuse,” but he never learned from it.

    When the children were ready to attend college, and I had qualified as a teacher and accepted an appointment at a public school, I went into therapy to learn how to face a divorce. Also, he and I had taken our first vacation without the children, and it was so awful that I vomited on the streets of Santa Barbara.

    He died more than 20 years ago, but his memory stings us all.The turn in events now is that my daughter models herself after her father; She is verbally cruel, abusive toward me though she needed my help when she had 2 children, and I am close to them, a doting grandmother, but her manipulation, her rages are accelerating. Her husband is spineless and acts as middleman whenever she brutally alienates members of our family and old friends. She is a narcissistic menace to her children, who have no contact with their cousins because of her behavior..

    Most recently, because we had a disagreement, she and her husband (who never questions her motives or behavior) sent me a nasty message that I can only have contact with my grandchildren if I go into therapy with them, which I declined.

    My daughter’s past therapy never included her issues with me, and she has spent her entire adilt life researching her fathrer’s family history. She worships him, and disregards her brother’s “take on things,” which she distorts. She leaves victims behind in her cavalier treatment of all of us.

    This most recent banishment is very, very painful to me, for I am a loving and caring grandmother who has aided au pairs who have had many problems because my daughter mistreats help. I am trying to cope with this awful loss, but mental illness and cruelty can be shocking examples of how children emulate troubled parents, and abuse continues generation after generation..

  • http://www.jbarrett5.blogspot.com julie barrett

    wow 2 stories i’ve yet to read, thanks for the titles and i’m going looking right now to get em.

    Julie

  • http://KYW8 EV BEDARD

    Thanks, Louanne, I was involved with someone during my college years & I gave up many wonderful things in my life because they did not fit his life (my attendance at church, my friends, family functions)–The physical & sexual abuse was overwhelming–I later found out that many of my friends parents were praying for me to get out of the situation. It took years to get to where I am now.

  • http://yahoo julia vallati

    I reread your story ,and sorry you had to go through an awful time,
    but today you are healed and writing great great novels.
    when we live through these times we become stronger in every way life offers us.

  • http://facebook Barbara

    LuAnne ~ I too was abused in my marriage as were my two sons. I was afraid to leave for fear he would kill us ~ If he couldn’t have us no one would were the words he would use if I threatened divorce. My sons left home when they were only 16 & 17 because of his abuse. It broke my heart. Several years pasted with my oldest son not having any contact with us. He was young ~ He didn’t understand my predicament. My husband died of a massive heart attack at the age of 48 leaving me penniless. My sons came home and we began to mend and after six years are still mending. I understand. Thank you for sharing your story. Your books are some of my favorite ~ I read anything you put in print. Again, thank you.

  • jennifer

    Hugs! Glad u got out of that!
    It took me 10 years to get out of a physical and mental
    abusive relationship.

  • http://silentwhisper1.blogspot.com/ Dee

    Oh, Luanne…all these things I’m learning of you, sighs, there’s simply no words I could think of right now but images and feelings~
    However much that I am a stranger to you I wish I could have been there for you, dearly. Instead, here and there miles away- there will always be one thing for certain.. tea~and~apple~pie (virtually of course) with warm hugs for you.

    Denise Law~
    Cndmade-twitter