I had two options: live or die.
What I’m going to tell you is a real, personal, painful story, an experience that I hope will never happen to you, but I have to get it out of my mind. In addition, it is also a testament to how men can be abused by women for years, and the suffering I endured.
When I met my wife, she was a sweet, intelligent and beautiful woman. Her previous partner had left her with a 6-month-old daughter; she was unemployed, no car and no money. At first we became friends, I helped her raise the kid, buying food and other needs. Eventually, I fell madly in love of that beautiful girl.
I was a successful lawyer, I earned good money and I had an apartment in a comfortable area of the city. I wanted to get married, have a family and settle down. And out of the blue, I had a wife, a daughter, a home. We got married totally in love, and almost immediately, she got pregnant again. All my dreams began to come true.
In the meantime, she studied and established a small education company, which I helped grow with my hard work and hers. Those were good times: we were a young, successful, and healthy couple. Our youngest son was born and the house was filled with joy and mischief.
Our problems began when she started to spend more than we could afford. Suddenly, she came home with expensive bottles of wine, clothes, jewelry, cell phones, paid trips abroad and dinners, she had surprise parties with hundreds of guests and she spared no expenses. I told her my concern about our finances, to which she replied that she had some “investments” with a friend and that I did not have to worry, since she could afford those luxuries. She handled our bank accounts, the house budget, and made all the financial decisions, because I trusted my wife fully and because she (I thought) was better with the money: her company was successful and she was good doing business. We had saved money for difficult moments that would appear in the future.
One morning, she asked me to sit down and talk in the car before we went to work. Astonished, I heard hear the confession that the "investment" she had made with her friend turned out to be a Ponzi scheme, a scam in which this individual had managed to vanish with hundreds of thousands of dollars from dozens of people, including us. She had lost all the money we had saved for more than a decade, my wife had great personal and company debts and, in summary, we were bankrupt. My wife had made a very serious mistake and had financially sunk our family and the business.
I was in shock. Before I could recover, I was presented with a printed sheet that specified each of our expenses, what each person paid and asked me to assume more payments from our budget, which implied that I had to produce a 100 % more within a month or stay at home with the kids so she could work more hours. I immediately refused both solutions, knowing that it was not possible to increase my income in such a short time, and if I had to stay at home with the children it would be even less possible.
Her reaction was absolutely intimidating: She yelled at me completely out of control, threw objects, slammed the doors of the car, and threatened me with divorce, "if I did not do what she said".
The abuse in the couple is to use the power that one of its members has to control the other. It is not only about physical violence, but also about other forms of control: verbal abuse (being rude, threatening or insulting, ridiculing, using irony) sexual abuse (forcing coitus) or economic (forcing the other person to earn money beyond its possibilities, the use without authorization of the goods and money of the other, etc.)
I can say that that day my hell began. The kind woman I had known disappeared completely: she became aggressive, moody, and violent. Reacted angrily to a comment about the weather, news or even the simple greeting was reciprocated with screams. Then he locked herself in the room for hours watching TV or talking on the phone, leaving me alone with housework and taking care of the children. And although I always helped at home, the following months she treated me like a slave. If only one plate was dirty, if clothes were not washed or ironed, meals cooked, she had outbursts of anger that lasted several days, time which she would not talk, or insulted me instead ("you're lazy, you suck, you should be ashamed, you are gay, you are a bad husband ") She constantly rejected my attempts to fix the situation, refused to talk " until I get more money ". As for sex, only on a few occasions, she jumped over me in the middle of the night, when I was sleeping, in a rough way and without love or kisses.
Every day living by his side was a torture. I started to lose weight, slept very little, and to avoid get her angry, I stopped seeing my friends, exercise, watch television or enjoy music. She started spending less time at home and more time working or going on trips or party with friends. When she was home, I only watched her spent hours on social networks, eating without talking to me and then, she went to sleep. She left very early in the morning and did not return until evening, even on Saturdays and Sundays. Little by little, I sank into a great despair, I knew my marriage was over, and there was nothing I could do. I was just clinging to her for my children, because I knew that if we divorced, I would not be able to see them every day. So I stayed with her in the hope of saving my family, that at some point she would reflect and we would be happy again.
My income for my work had decreased a lot. The economic crisis in the country, with high inflation and food shortages, affected us even more. The tension was constant in the house. At one point, she demanded that I had to leave my job to devote myself exclusively to housekeeping, because she was the one who made the most money. Finally, I agreed, believing that it would be the only way to save my marriage. So I gave up my clients, closed my office and started my new job as a full-time parent.
But nothing changed. She continued demanding more money, since "I could do other things to earn it ". The mistreatment, constant complaints and emotional abuse continued. Inside, I was dying.
One night, tired and depressed, I felt it was time to do something. I wanted to escape, just for a day, to go to the mountain for a walk with a group of friends, something I had abandoned to spend more time with my family years ago. She had barely spoken to me in the previous fifteen days, but when I told her that I would leave early the next day, she told me that I could not do it, because I had to go with her to buy food, to carry the heavy bags, to wait in line . I refused. And his response was: "I want a divorce." I said that, at that moment, we were not a couple anymore.
The next day, I woke up and left home silently. I spent the day enjoying nature, laughing with friends, taking pictures. I didn’t know that, for an abusive person, being challenged came with a greater escalation of abuse.
The next day, she said the words. "We need to talk". Again, we sat in the car, away from the ears of our children. She told me that she had already made a decision, that we had to divorce and that I should leave the house. I said between tears, that I had nowhere to go, although she did have the possibility of going to her mother's spacious apartment. I begged her, I begged that we have to put together our relationship, but everything was useless. I asked her to at least have joint custody of my children. She refused. She wanted full custody, that I have to go and pay, in addition, maintenance, let her with all the furniture and home appliances. And finally, he announced that, in six months, she would leave the country with the children. I refused outright. The discussion ended with her slamming the door, breaking the car window, and walking away.
That week, the abuses continued. I knew it was only a matter of time before a lawsuit came, so that she could achieve her goal of punishing me for my daring attempt to obstruct her wishes. She abandoned all options for dialogue, locked in another room, talking with her lawyers and friends.
That week, on Friday morning, after taking the children to school, she asked me if I had something to do. I had to look for my passport downtown, so she offered to give me a ride. I accepted, thinking that it was a kind gesture in the middle of our bitter dispute. Then she told me not to worry to pick up the children at school, because she would take care of it. It was something strange, however I thought it could be calm in the middle of the storm.
Fortunately, I was able to find my passport in a very short time, so I decided to return home earlier. I could prepare a good lunch, play with my son, talk with my daughter, relax from so many tensions. I took the subway. I approached smiling at the entrance of the house. But something out of the ordinary was happening.
A moving truck was parked in front of the house. I saw boxes with familiar objects, sofas and beds still in the entrance. And upon entering, a terrifying discovery: my house was empty. My wife, the woman with whom I had shared 18 years of my life, had taken everything. The furniture, kitchen, washing machine, dryer, appliances, books, music, including my clothes, bed and food. I had lost everything.
She entered. I was crying, she was with a totally cold expression on her face. "What did you do, what did you do?" I asked in the middle of my crying. "This is what you wanted" was his response. He was going with another. Then, in a few months, she would leave the country. And if I wanted to see my children, I could do it three times a year if I could travel. "Stop crying! Man up!" were her last words before turning her back and leaving.
There I was, kneeling on the floor, begging. I don’t remember for how many hours I cried. The sun was setting, leaving me in the dark. I had no money: she had emptied my bank accounts, no car, no food, no job. I felt a deep pain, as if a dagger had been stuck in my heart: my children were gone, I didn’t know when I would see them again, I only had the clothes I was wearing , my cell phone and a few bills in my pocket.
I looked through the balcony. All my life had disappeared, in just a few hours. My family, my reason for being, had left, without knowing where. I couldn’t see another way out...
I was at a distance of 6 floors, 18 meters, to stop feeling that pain. Months of depression, so many sleepless nights, tightness in the chest, would end in seconds. I couldn’t live without my children, without the warmth of my home, now I was just a painful piece of flesh and bone, and the exit was there: I just had to sit on the railing, and jump. For me, the options were simple: I keep suffering but alive, or die and everything ended in an instant.
To be continued…