Happily Never After

“And he shattered something else
She dragged her suitcase down the path
To the driveway
She had never gone that far
Normally this would be,
The time that she
Would let him talk her out of it
But this time, without crying,
As she got into her car, she said,
‘No, happily never after, that just ain’t for me
Because finally I know, I deserve better, after all
I’ll never let another tear drop fall’ ”
Pussy Cat Dolls “Happily Never After” Doll Domination

I was making dinner yesterday, yeah, yeah, I know! But I was and I was listening to music from my flash and this song came on, while I was dicing tomatoes, I went and looped it coz it struck a nerve.

There is a very beautiful woman and mother I know and love with all my heart and she is and has been in an abusive [physical] relationship and when I heard this song, I wished and prayed, like I have done so many other times, that she would do this, free herself, just leave and for once, be happy just being.

The relationship she is in is abusive on so many levels it is as illegal as it is saddening; and so many of us, women, are in these relationships and we still hold on. It may not necessarily be physical, it could be emotional or mental torture and it is the easiest thing to find yourself in this kind of relationship, it creeps up on you and unconsciously, you let it fester.

I am not one of those self righteous people who tell others stories and they have no clue about what ‘it’ is really about, and am not saying I know exactly how someone else feels, but I have been there, I have been in an abusive relationship and I hope by my coming out, it will help someone realize that coming out of it is the only way to free yourself and be happy.


It was the usual; boy meets girl story and the ‘one thing led to another’ cliché…..
He was really nice and at that time, a breath of fresh air from the guys I had met and I was really happy. It was like that for a long while but then after several months, I realized that I was trying really hard [and it was getting harder]to make everyone believe that I was happy and that he was the reason for it all; but when I got into the house, I would be on auto pilot and I would have this smile on my face, coz he liked it when I smiled, (he said I had a pretty smile) that I would make sure never faltered, I would be all dressed up for him but I was crying on the inside and on my pillow almost every night.

See I had to have everything perfect for when he got home otherwise he would curse and “talk at me” and he would call me names, saying nasty ass things to me like “and you still wonder why your father wants nothing to do with you?! You are a waste of skin and space, good for nothing, you should be grateful I give you the time of day!” the insults weren’t what was really bad, no, it was the fact that I believed him, that I believed that no one else would “have” me, that without him, I wouldn’t be.
After such a tirade I would rush to correct whatever trivial matter irked him knowing very well that that wasn’t the end of it. He never raised his hand to hit me but every now and then, I would have to wear panty hose to hide marks on the sides of my knees where he would have pressed when I was seated next to him for being “a smart mouth” to his friends, I had to “just sit and look pretty” for him. Sometimes, I couldn’t hold back and I opened my mouth to speak and I would end up gasping from the pain, sometimes it was so painful, I had to ice it and not come out of the house for at least a day. He would use his thumb and middle finger on either side of my knee and press in really hard, sometimes he dint even use so much force, but it still hurt to high heaven.

It was small things at first which I excused by saying to myself, “you are the one who keeps pushing him into doing it” but then one day; he came home, late as usual, and he got into bed and he touched me, and I moved away, I dint want to, but he did, and apparently what he wants, he has to have, I said no, but he dint, wouldn’t hear any of it. That was the first night that he raped me, and I dint, couldn’t do anything about it. How do you even start?! “My boyfriend raped me….” Who would believe that that was possible? Who would listen to me?

I just lay there and cried because if I struggled it seemed to excite him, and I figured if I just lay there quietly, it would be over sooner. After he was done with his atrocity on me I curled into a ball near the wall and cried myself to sleep. This went on for a long time, he would come home late and “take” everything from me, and since he knew he could get away with it, he decided that he needed to go to the next level…

I will never forget that day, he bought me chocolates and flowers, my favorites, lilies, white, delicate lilies; this was the man I fell in love with, the one who knew my favorite flowers, color, shoes…

We ended up in bed but for the wrong reason, he wanted something different, I struggled and cried, threatened to scream, tried to hit him (I was a tiny size 8 then, he was like 3 times bigger than me!) but he won, it was inevitable. It was pain like I had never known and I couldn’t even cry anymore, it hurt to even move and it felt like forever before he stopped. He had buggered me and I vowed to leave as soon as he got out the door, but I couldn’t move, it hurt to just breathe!! As usual, I curled up and cried myself to sleep, maybe when I woke up it would just be a bad [awfully so] dream.

When I did wake up, he was there, looking at me like I meant the world to him, and he said he was sorry, he said he wouldn’t do it again, and I believed him.
I guess you know how this next part goes, he did it again and again and I let him. Here you ask, “Why dint you just leave?”
And I will answer with what every woman has at one point said, “I loved him”

One time, it hurt so bad and I got really sick, an infection, I went to my gaenae, and I told him, a sort of disclaimer before he started his exam on me, that he couldn’t ask any questions that were personal and he couldn’t tell my siz (he was an intern when my mom was a nurse, she took him under her wing).
He did his exam, looked at me, I cried but I couldn’t, wouldn’t tell him anything. It hurt bad enough that I could let this happen to me, and now he knew too and I just lay there, looking at the ceiling and I just cried. After that visit, it became so frequent, he said, “You know you can always leave and you will have the support of your family and friends, they are there for you”

After sometime, I heard that he had other girls over when I wasn’t around, I dint want to believe it, “after all that we had been through!” [It sounds ridiculous to me now that I thought like that]
I went and packed my bags and went to my pals’, I lay on her couch like a zombie, and she let me, I dint eat , I dint feel like it, I wanted to die, I thought that would make it all better.

One time, she came home and she took me to the bathroom, told me to look at myself, and I dint like what I saw, I had let myself go! I had dark bags under my eyes, I had a haunted look in my eyes, my face was splotchy and my hair was a mess!!! I looked at her in the mirror and I cried, just cried.

I went back after a week, don’t ask me why, I still don’t know why I did anything back then, but I went back and it was good at first but he is what he is and it was back to routine, pain, and more pain.
I left many times after that, but I always went back.

The last time I left, I dint wait for him to leave the house, no I told him I was leaving, he just sat there and watched his big ass telly and save for a squinty look towards me, acted like I dint exist. I took a step into his living room, told him not to call me, not to look for me because I deserved better and I was going to learn to love me because I had forgotten how that felt like. He paused what he was watching and I thought to myself, “this is it, this is the day that he will finally hit me, can I take it?” I was shaking as I stood there, but I knew in my heart that if I dint stand my ground, I would be back in, and I would come back.
He said, “Yeah, you deserve better. Everyone deserves better. So go, what you waiting for? Go look for someone who will stand you.”

I did just that, I packed up my stuff, left my set of keys on the hall table, and I walked out the door, I cried the whole way to the cabs lot, and I dint care that anyone was looking, I dint care because for the first time, I had stood up to him, and for the first time, I knew that I couldn’t go back, not after that anyway.
I moved to a different town, (turned off my cell) somewhere quiet and I got a place to lay my head and just cry, for a whole week [seriously, I cried all the time for a whole week; when I wasn’t sleeping, I cried, in the shower, I cried in bed…] it did me a whole world of good, to just let it out.

When I eventually decided I had had enough of self pity, I got up and left the house, I smelt the flowers, am serious, I bent down and took a big whiff and I listened to the children playing outside my gate, the birds…I listened to life going on. You see, while I was wallowing in self pity, the world was still going round, it dint stop for me, for my misery, so it must have not been that important!

It wasn’t easy to leave and get on, more like start life all over again, build on my esteem, and I dint do it alone, I asked some people close to me to just be there for me, I dint tell them everything, and this is the first time I am actually admitting this out publicly, and I hope that by telling my story….you know.

When you decide that you deserve better, then you walk out and you walk into your life, the way that it’s supposed to be.