I had an appointment today with Donna, Jonah's therapist, and she gave me an assignment for the next time i go back. I am to write my ex-husband a letter that I will not give to him, explaining how I feel about all the trauma and abuse he felt entitled and obligated to dish out to me after I left him. So, here goes.
David, It didn't take long to realize what a mistake I had made by marrying you. I can see that I only married you because I was tired of being by myself. I thought that the person I saw while I dated was the person that I was marrying, but I was wrong. I've told you before that your personality totally changed after we got married, and you yourself have told me that you deliberately were on your best behavior so that I would marry you. You did not let me see what you knew I would refuse to be around.
I come from a good family. A Christian family that knows how to treat each other. Even though my mother had multiple marriages, looking back, I can see that she did a darn good job at keeping me out of any drama, and I knew that I had stability with her. Even in after I became an adult, Mother was always dependable. I don't consider the home environment we had to be any thing close to dysfunctional. I wanted that for my daughter as well.
You know what all went on in the marriage, and you know why I left. You are as ass. That's just the nicest way that I can say it. You are an ass. You don't treat someone you love the way that you treated me. I am always quick to say that you never physically abused me, but you are an extreme emotional abuser. If I had not left, I really believe that you would have eventually killed me. It was coming to that point.
A woman is NOT a possession. You do not own me, and you never did. A marriage license do not declare ownership. You treated me like I was yours to control, and have continued to act as if I have to answer to you. You lie and manipulate and you have absolutely no right to be that way.
You compared me to Brenda, saying that I would do everything that she did. That I would take Jonah and never let you see him again. I would turn him away from you and tell him lies about you. I never talked to Samantha about her dad that way, so you should have known that I wouldn't do you that way.
That first weekend after I left that you wanted to have Jonah, I did not keep him away from you. You harassed me ALL WEEKEND LONG. As soon as you got back to your house, you started calling me, telling me that I had seen Jonah for the last time, that you weren't going to let me have him back. YOU CALLED ME AT WORK, YOU JERK. ALL WEEKEND LONG.
Thank God I had wonderful supervisors that were aware of the situation, and were willing to work with me. I was still in that "battered wife" frame of mind, and I was wild with fear! After I got home, you called there, and told me if I wanted Jonah back, I had to come and pick him up, that you weren't bringing him to me, and that I had to bring the computer back up there with me. And that I had to come ALONE. You stressed that alone bit. You know I have back problems, so that was why I brought Samantha with me, so she could carry that tower for me. when we got there, you cussed me, cussed her, called her a bitch-she was only 16 David. And that was the reason you wouldn't let me have him back. I had to leave without him.
You let Jonah call me, and he told me over and over that he wanted to come home, but you wouldn't let him. You made me drive back up there, but this time, you were going to let me bring him home. You made that baby stand at the window and cry for me, told him to wave his had "shoo" at me and tell me to go away, that he didn't want to live with me anymore. When I collapsed on the back porch, you saw how I was crying, and you knew that you had done wrong by me. I could see in on your face, but when Jonah came running after me, you held him back and locked me out. He cried at the window as I begged you to let me have him. I had to leave without him again.
After I got back to Mom's, you called and told me that you were just mad that morning when you were calling me, and that you were going to bring him back the next afternoon, which was Sunday.
On Sunday, you started the same crap all over again, I lost count how many times you called. Wilfredo normally wouldn't have called me to the phone since, in a kitchen, you work with time constraints, but he knew that you were extremely volatile, and he was afraid that if he didn't let you talk to me, the situation would have been a lot worse. You even had the nerve to accuse me of having an affair with him, and with all the black men down there as well. You were so vulgar.
I was a Sunday school teacher when we met. I led the singing at church. Why, just because I married you, would I start doing all those things? I didn't do things like that BEFORE I met you!
After I got off work that day, you told me that I would have to come back up there with the computer, but that I had better come by myself and not bring that bitch back up there with me.
So, that's what I did, because I was so anxious to get Jonah back.
When I got there, Jonah was no where to be found, and you told me he was at the babysitters house, but I had to have sex with you before you would call the "babysitter" to bring back. I did it, because I didn't know what else to do. I thought I would throw up.
Then, I found out Jonah was at the house out back with Ronald. You are such an ass. But, at least I got Jonah back.
I had filed for divorce, and told Don all this. He told me that I did not have to go through all that, that if you tried that again, to call the police because he could not keep Jonah .
Two weeks later, you put me through the same thing again, except when you told me I had to come and get him, you told me that you wouldn't make me have sex with you again. But when I got there, Jonah was nowhere to be found again, and you DID tell me if I didn't have sex with you, you wouldn't let me take Jonah home. I sat down at the kitchen table, and said that I wasn't having sex with you and I wasn't leaving without Jonah. You went into the bedroom, and got that little handheld pistol and told me that if I wasn't going to give you any, then this was "it". You let me hear that thing click as you cocked it back, and looked me in the eyes as you held it less than a foot from my head.
I looked you in the eyes, and turned my head. I was thinking that my co-workers were right, that they were going to be reading about me in the paper the next day. All kinds of things were going through my head-my mother would have to bury me-my kids would grow up without me-and that your kids would be without you. If you were going to shoot me, it would be in the back of my head and that the police would know that it wasn't in self-defense.
Re-read that last paragraph David. Think about it. YOU HELD A GUN TO MY HEAD. It doesn't matter that it wasn't loaded-you knew that, but I didn't.
When you laid it down on the entertainment center, and walked back into the bedroom, I took that as my chance to leave. I pulled into Timmy Ford's driveway, thinking that I would ask him to try and talk some sense into you, to let me have Jonah, and found out that you had sent Ronald down there with Jonah. Jonah was so excited to see me. I thanked Tammy for letting Jonah play a little while, and we left. I had just gotten to the stop sign when I saw you pull up behind me in the van. As I pulled out, you gunned the gas and passed me. You swerved at me, and if I hadn't hit my brakes, you would have run us into the ditch. Jonah was in the car, David. You were just so mad at me because I didn't want to be married to you anymore, that you didn't care if you hurt him or not, just as long as you got to hurt me. You would have run Jonah into the ditch too, you asshole. What as ass you are.
I hurried and backed up, and got back to Timmy's house, and didn't even have time to get out before you had pulled up and blocked me in. Jonah was absolutely terrified. And you didn't care! You absolutely didn't care that your child was a witness to all of this!You tried all the doors, and then hit Jonah's window like you were going to bust it in. He screamed and cried, and said "mommy, find me a new daddy, I don't want this daddy any more. I want a different daddy".
You were there, David, at the door, when he said that. How could you not have seen the tears running down his face, how he was clinging to me, scared that you were going to break the glass in on him.
You finally left, but I wasn't going to get out of the car so you could grab me or grab Jonah, so I
waited until Logan came out and asked him to call the police. He brought me the phone and let me call. I had to wait in their driveway-I was too afraid to leave, because I knew that you would try to run us off the road again. After the police came and I filed a report, they let me leave before they tried to arrest you for aggravated assault. they didn't get you that night, but they did a few days later. You had the nerve to be mad at me?
Now, when we are back at the therapist's office, and she asks you why I got the order of protection, don't be acting like you don't know!

Even with it, you only stayed away for about two months. Because of growing up without my dad, I have tried hard to work with you to have a relationship with Jonah. I don't have any doubt that you love him, but you certainly don't know how to treat him. Children are a gift, and even though, with the bipolar, he can be MORE than a handful, you are the adult. Act like one.

Now, the assignment was to tell you how all this made me feel.
I was a Sunday school teacher, a Bible-school teacher, a song leader at church. Even though I was divorced, I was an honorable woman. A decent woman. I didn't sleep around, I didn't drink, do drugs, or anything at all that would've made my Lord ashamed. I went to work, came home. Went to church, came home. Samantha and I would eat after the evening church services with Hubert and Bud, two old men from church, at Hardee's or at Git-n-Go. I had dated more than one guy that got mad at me because I wouldn't sleep with them. So why did you talk to me and treat me like I was a whore? Why did you call me that when you got mad at me? Why did you accuse me of so many things that I would never do? You never were physically abusive to me, but you were mean as hell. I have never been treated like you treated me, not even when I was going through the other divorces, I wasn't treated like that.
What gave you the right to threaten me? Why did you think you were above the law? Why do you still think you have the right to talk to me the way you do?
If I had not been so tired of being by myself and wanting a dad for Samantha, I wouldn't have married you so quickly. My self-esteem certainly wasn't what it should have been, and even though i did make a bad choice, I wasn't stupid. I am not stupid now. Stop treating me like I am.

I didn't do anything to deserve how you have treated me. I did not deserve how you talked to me. I should have left LONG before I did. I lived all those years BEFORE meeting you, and I can live without you now.
You're an ass.