Burning Bridges

Burning Bridges first appeared in the October 2009 issue of The Phoenix in Portland Maine

Even though it has been several years since her divorce, Michelle still wakes in the middle of the night from nightmares of her past life, only to realize that she is free from the physical pain, anguish and feeling of utter fear and horror from her eleven-year marriage to Tommy, her high school sweetheart.
“It doesn’t just go away,” she said. “It took everything I had in me and years of counseling to escape and cope with my low self esteem, emotional pain and the ability to trust another man. The bruises go away but the emotional pain is everlasting.”
Her divorce from Tommy wasn’t a mutual agreement or irreconcilable differences. It was a break away from the life where she was captive to a man who promised to love, cherish and protect her.
Michelle remembers the first time Tommy hit her. He had always been jealous, making negative comments about her appearance and analyzed her conversations to others, especially with other men, always questioning her intentions. However, it wasn’t until they were into their second year of marriage and she was pregnant with her second child that he lashed out at her physically.
“Tommy grabbed me and pulled me towards him. Screaming in my face, he threw me down a flight of stairs. The only thing I could think of as I fell was holding my belly tight so not to injure my baby, but I had no control. Fear and gravity carried me to a place that I could have never even imaged. I was shocked and full of fear.”
“He was so sorry for what he had done and I forgave him, I was convinced that I was to blame for not having the laundry folded and put away as he wanted. He told me I slipped and he didn’t mean to let me fall. I owned up to my part in the situation and felt that in the future I needed to tow the line. Feeling like a child for disobeying their parents, I tried even harder to please my husband, the man I loved and trusted with my life.”
“He didn’t hit or even verbally abuse me for weeks after that incident, but once he started again, it never stopped. There seem to be no reason for the abuse. Drunk or sober, happy or sad, it was my fault and he had all the answers and excuses.”
The abuse went on for eleven years, sometimes daily, sometimes months in between. “I was so ashamed that I couldn’t tell anyone. Talking about it was never an option I thought I had. It was part of my life just like cooking dinner, laundry and taking care of the kids. The one thing I knew in my heart was that I didn’t have a choice, or so I thought at the time.”
“One night he was drunk and playing around with his rifle. The kids were asleep and he was waving the gun around their bed wanting to shoot out the window. For the first time the fear and rage overtook me. I needed to protect my children; it wasn’t about “us” anymore. I remember Tommy coming after me with the butt of the gun as I begged him to stop. The next thing I remember was my father in law standing over me with a wet cloth on my eye, trying to pick me up from the floor.”
“Nothing was said or done, I didn’t go to the doctors even though I had a black eye and the left side of my face was lacerated and swollen with a golf ball size goose egg. “They” agreed Tommy would be arrested if we got medical attention. His father took all his guns that night.”
“Tommy always reassured me that no other person could ever love me. How could they? My medium framed, 130-pound body was disgusting and I was lucky that he loved me. He had me convinced that even my family didn’t love me.”
“I attended college part time for years. Tommy said I could go if it didn’t interfere with our life and my responsibilities. My desire to better myself left little time for sleep, but I was determined to finish school and get a job. Some how I thought working would stop the abuse, and in some ways, it did. Tommy never hit me from the neck up again. That didn’t stop the verbal abuse, beatings, rape and the horrible threats of death if I tried to leave.”
“I would daydream of what it would be like to live without Tommy. What if he died? Then I would finally be free. I knew he would never let me go. He would always tell me that if I ever left him, he would find me and kill me and I believed he would. When the movie, The Burning Bed was released, I realize the agony and terror I lived was happening to other women. The support systems and awareness programs were not available like they are now. I had a choice. I started thinking that maybe I could live a different life.”
“At work, I would try to figure out how to live on my own, how much money I would need and how I could hide without Tommy finding me. The hope chest my grandmother gave me was secretly stuffed with three of everything in preparation for our escape.”
“My parents were never happy about my relationship with Tommy, so I was compelled to let them think the marriage was perfect. I finally remember getting up enough courage to talk to my mother about the abuse, thinking she would jump at the chance to save me. I sat at her kitchen table sipping a cup of hot tea, shaking in fear. As the kids were playing in the other room with my dad, I told my mother about the years of abuse and that I needed to get out of the relationship before something terrible happen.”
“And then something happened that left me paralyzed and stunned. She told me that I didn’t want to be divorced, what would people think? I should at least stay until the kids graduated from high school.
I was devastated, it had taken me years to work up to this conversation and to admit that just maybe I should make the prison break, only to be shot down by the one person I thought would understand.”
“One morning I called in sick to work. As soon as Tommy left, I packed the kids in the car with all our clothes and the contents of the hope chest, stopped at the bank, withdrew my four hundred dollars in savings, and drove away. “
“My oldest daughter once told me she was surprised to find out from her friends that not all fathers hit mothers. I was so sad and ashamed that I had put my children through this nightmare. I thought I was the master of disguises and no one knew what was going on. Everyone knows though, or at least they suspect, it’s just that nobody tells.”

This is a true story, the names were changed.