A life of abuse...it's not a choice

I've seen so many shows on TV about wife abuse. Oprah has done many shows over the years and interviewed many women who have been or are going through the abuse from their husbands. Often the woman feels trapped inside her own body, imprissioned in her own home by another human being. Many people are angry by this and family members don't understand why they stay when they "can just leave him or divorce him to get away".

As I watched one of these Oprah shows 17 years ago, I remember seeing a woman that had left her child with her husband. While the woman was gone, the husband threw the baby against the door where there were wire coat racks hanging out, and the baby stuck to these racks, killing it. I was sitting alone in my living room, completey alone in more ways than one, sobbing uncontrolably. I was living in my own prision with an abuser. At the time, my son was less than one year old and learning to walk. That show changed my life forever. I knew if I didn't leave, he'd kill my son just to get at me because he knew I loved him so. He destroyed my self-estem little by little until I thought that every time he hit me, I some how deserved it or that it was my fault.

Up until that point, I had been beaten, had numerous trips to the hospital, black eyes, bruises, broken glass in my face, and he even caused the miscarriage of my first child. I didn't tell my family a whole lot because I was ashamed and embarassed by it all. I felt less of a human than I had ever felt in my life. When they figured it out, they all wondered why I "didn't just leave or divorce him". There's such a control that an abuser has over his victim that no one can understand it unless you've been through it. Women don't decide that they are going to stay and be abused...they feel they have no choice. I found the strength inside me that was there before I ever met him and I got my son out before one of us got killed. The straw that broke the camels back you ask? When my son was learning to walk and still holding on to the coffee table, screaming and crying because his dad was hurting his mom...he was on top of me on the couch choking me by the throat so that I couldn't breath.

It's not a choice to be abused, but you do have the choice to leave. It IS there...you may not realize that is an option, but there's a way out some how by the grace of God. If you are in this situation, you are not alone in this. I'm sure you may feel like you're all alone, but you are not. GET OUT NOW and live your life for yourself! If you have kids, you owe it to them to give them a life with no abuse. Life may not be easier, but you'll certainly be happier. Lean on God and He will give you strength and the power to do all things!!