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FROM HURT
TO HOPE: A BATTERED WOMAN'S JOURNEY INTO AND OUT OF ABUSE
By Evelyn
J. Dahlke
When a girl is sixteen years old, it seems
like life is full—innocent and wonderful—opening up like a book
waiting to be storied on fine, white linen pages. The confines
of childhood are being left behind while the concerns of
adulthood are yet far enough in the future so that the moments
of teenage hood burst with joy and possibility. Yet at any time,
we are vulnerable to forces both within and outside of ourselves
that can both gradually and quite quickly shift the course of
our lives in ways that will affect us as long as we live. I say
these things as one speaking from my own experience of feeling
the wonders of being sixteen, later complicated by life and
marriage to an abuser.
It was late in my sixteenth year as I was
busied with school work, activities, and preparing for my first
prom, when I accepted a date for that prom with one of my male
classmates, whom I thought I knew well. Bob had been in several
of my classes, and being typical sixteen-year-olds, we had “cut
up” and joked together with classmates to make learning more
entertaining. As prom approached, friends of mine, who also were
friends of Bob, encouraged me to accept Bob’s proposal for a
prom date. The prom date soon grew into a regular “thing” as one
date led to another and another, and a relationship between the
two of us developed.
The summer of my seventeenth year was filled
with trips to the movies and dances, after which the two of us
would walk the blocks of the small town near which we lived,
getting to know each other better. Bob was courteous and kind to
me, and I was drawn to him like a paperclip to a magnet. I was
shy and reserved and did not make friends quickly, while Bob was
outgoing and friendly, both qualities I wished I had. Instead I
saw myself as the silent, intelligent “nerd”—a nobody in search
of love and acceptance. This was all at a time in which a girl
was nothing without a guy, where social norms put pressure on
the coupling process. I thought I was most fortunate to have
landed a prom date and a fulltime relationship all in one fell
swoop.
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If I had
anything to be worried about regarding the
relationship, I was able to put my worries aside,
desiring to be with Bob, to be Bob’s “girl,” more
than anything else in the world. |
Bob and I dated regularly and had become a
“thing” in the eyes of our classmates. So what if Bob was moody
and sometimes said unkind things to me? I must have deserved it.
So what if Bob flirted inappropriately with other female
classmates embarrassing me? It was me that he continued to date,
not them. So what if Christmas of my senior year in high school
was ruined because of Bob’s sullen and ornery behavior? Everyone
has bad days, I reasoned. If I had anything to be worried about
regarding the relationship, I was able to put my worries aside,
desiring to be with Bob, to be Bob’s “girl,” more than anything
else in the world. Besides, I could talk Bob out of his moods
and
sarcasm, if I gave him my time and undivided attention. Bob
needed me as much as I needed him. Like lock and key, we were
made for each other.
Our relationship continued throughout our
years in college, slowly and surely becoming
rockier and his
behavior becoming more abusive. I had become so used to his
verbal put downs and name-calling (all done in private of
course), I didn’t ever think they were a reason for us not to be
together. Once during college, when I complained to Bob that he
had acted inappropriately by teasing a female dorm mate, he
punched me repeatedly in the stomach. This was the first
instance of physical abuse at his hands. It sent me to the
emergency room with a broken rib, which of course I said had
occurred when a group of us guys and gals had been playing
basketball. I said I had taken an elbow to the ribs, which was
an out-and-out lie. Bob willingly agreed to the story and took
me back to my dorm to mend. The next day when I returned from
classes, a bouquet
of red and white carnations with a twisted pipe
cleaner heart was waiting for me. I never thought not to
forgive him. And I really believed with the gift of the flowers,
such an incident would never happen again. So I didn’t worry as
I became more deeply involved with Bob, and we began to talk
about marriage following our college graduations. But I should
have.
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The next day
when I returned from classes, a bouquet of red and
white carnations with a twisted pipe cleaner heart
was waiting for me. I never thought not to
forgive him. |
By our senior year in college, we were
engaged and wedding plans were under way. I received a diamond
ring for Christmas and was the envy of many of the girls on my
dorm floor. I was student teaching that semester, and Bob was in
his last quarter of study before graduation. My days were busied
with kindergarten children, lesson plans, and all that student
teaching entails, while Bob didn’t seem to have a care in the
world as he coasted to the end of his college career.
One night he wanted to go to the bar with
friends. He insisted that I go with
him. I told him truthfully that I had too much to do and that I
needed to be ready for another day of student teaching that next
morning—I simply couldn’t go. He again
insisted, twisting my hand and fingers until he broke the small
finger on my right hand. So I accompanied him to the bar that
evening. I had already learned what it was to fight against his
will. And the next day I bandaged the finger and said I
had fallen on the ice the night before. No one, I believe, was
the wiser. Never did I think that I should fear this man that I
was about to marry. Never did I think I
shouldn’t marry him.
That would have been embarrassing and shameful. Besides, I
“loved” Bob. I believed that providing a loving home away from
all the incidents that had occurred during college would prevent
his abusive behavior.
Bob and I married in the scorching July heat
of 1974, and I moved in with him into a farmhouse.
A summer of drought and our lack of farming
experience triggered abusive episodes. Many of those episodes
were of the name-calling, belittling type of verbal assault that
were over nearly as quickly as they began. One time a glass flew
across the room, smashing into bits as it hit my newly painted
kitchen wall. Another time a fork flew into the door of the
stove, denting the fine, chrome edging around the
oven’s window. Yet another time a wrench flew, putting a rather
large dent in the gold refrigerator we had received from my
parents as part of our wedding present. Of course, outside on
the farmyard both words and wrenches also flew, and one had to
be careful to avoid an airborne object on a particularly ornery
day. Sometimes
Bob would become angry at me just for looking at
him “wrong.” On such an occasion I might have to dodge a
pitchfork or end up tackled, my face being ground into the
gravel of the driveway. I learned to pick myself up, bandage my
wounds, and get on with life. Never did I think of leaving. That
would have been too shameful. Besides, by this time I was so
used to Bob’s abusive behavior, it had almost become normal.
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Sometimes Bob
would become angry at me just for looking at him
“wrong.” On such an occasion
I might have to dodge a pitchfork or end up tackled,
my face being ground into the gravel
of the driveway. |
Living with Bob’s verbal, emotional, and
physical abuse continued as we built and expanded our dairy
operation and added our three daughters to the daily mix of
cattle chores, field work, and my teaching career. When the
weather was bad, Bob’s abusive moods escalated, when the cattle
were sick, they escalated, when I had to stay late after work,
they escalated, when the girls were sick, demanding, or crabby
(which, of course, all children are at times), they escalated.
Looking back on it now, Bob’s abuse had become so “normal” and
life so demanding, I just tried to get through each day not
thinking about what another might bring or that I might
actually leave. On top of that,
I was a Christian woman, so divorce was not even entertained as
an option. Also, there were not laws to protect abused women
during much of this time, so I really had no recourse.
And besides, I “loved” Bob.
So life went on. By
this time I had learned to disassociate so the instances of
abuse disappeared from consciousness as quickly as they
occurred. The girls, who had lived with the abuse their entire
lives, didn’t know a life that was any different—until they got
older. Then at times they would comment on some of Bob’s
behaviors or wonder why it was so calm at a friend’s house and
always in a frenzy at our home. Over time, Bob’s abusive
behaviors had so permeated his being and our relationship as a
family that they were all-consuming. Life was like balancing on
the top edge of a fence. One could fall off either way in the
wink of an eye—and I believe, both ways were equally as bad and
as dangerous. Life just went on as I tried to stay afloat with
the farm, my teaching job, three growing children, periods of
weather that were either too hot, too cold, too wet, or too dry,
and Bob’s fits of erratic behavior. I didn’t think about how
complicated everything was. Yet even though I couldn’t have said
it at the time, my “love” for Bob was beginning to wane.
After nineteen years on this merry-go-round,
I finally hit a cement wall I couldn’t pick myself up from. It
had been a year of flooding on the farm. We had lost nearly
everything to rainy weather and sick cattle. I had hit some
major obstacles in my job, which were demanding more of me than
I had to give. I fell into a deep abyss of
depression. As I fell, all of the instances of abuse that I had
tolerated for more than twenty years of marriage flashed before
me like lightening, and I saw Bob as the domestic abuser that he
actually was. Since Bob refused to let me get help for my
depression, I had to live with it for months until one night my
sixteen-year-old daughter screamed at me to get some help.
Against Bob’s wishes and putting up with his
abusive behavior, I began to see a therapist, take medication,
and heal. One day he finally physically threatened one of my
teenage daughters after a lengthy time of spewing verbal
assaults and put-downs on her. When I intervened on her behalf,
I was severely beaten. And that was the first day I called the
sheriff.
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God gave me hope
through a dream of entering the formal ministry.
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I give God the credit for my healing process
entirely—God put therapists, counselors, and pastors into my
life to give me wise guidance and counsel as I took the
necessary steps to leave the abuse. And God gave me hope through
a dream of entering the formal ministry. Along with my
depression came this urgent call to follow that dream. Two years
after entering therapy, I began studying to become a pastor. A
year after that, I left Bob. And two years later I divorced him.
None of this was as simple as the words you find in this
article. I had to deal with the effects of the abuse, the
resulting Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, taking care of my
daughters as they have moved into adulthood, and the legal
system, which has made strides in helping abused women but which
still has a long way to go to really protect and help them
reorder their lives in places of safety. And I had to deal with
my faith beliefs surrounding marriage, relationships, and
divorce. I am still working on that journey even now as I serve
the church and life moves in a fairly predictable and safe
pattern.
Yet by God’s grace, I was gradually set free
to live my life—the life God has planned for me. For that grace
I am forever grateful. I was once paralyzed, but today my faith,
my girls, my therapists, and my faith community carry me through
as I step towards brighter tomorrows.
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Evelyn
J. Dahlke
