Surviving Mike

I am sorry to say that things continued to get worse in my life.  Our sex life had been bad for many years.  Mike like to role play Star Trek characters.  But in the last few months I was desperate.  I did what he asked.  I tried to invent new things.  I remember one night dressing as best as I could like a Geisha.  Oh went for that one.  His requests became strange.  He asked me to laugh like my mother and pretend to be her in bed.  He wanted us to be teenagers, like 14 and 15 year olds.  One night he decided to try to bite me all over my back.  Hey if it was good enough for Marv Albert, why not him. 

Mike began to express to me that he wanted to become swingers.  He told me, “I want to have sex with a blond, and a red head, and a black woman and an Asian woman.”  I told him that was fine but he could not have me and do those things.  I said, “If you can’t keep me satisfied, how do you expect to keep them satisfied.”  I’d really fuck with him and say, “I know you can’t wait to see me with another woman.”  Oh that got him hot.  “And I can’t wait to see you with another man,” I said.  Oh that shut him up.  “What its okay for you to want me to bisexual, but not you.” 

I have learned much about swinging and bisexuality since those days.  A lot of what I said to him was from misconceptions that I had about both communities.  Neither one goes hand in hand.  Just because you have sex with someone of the same sex does not make you bisexual.  I have been told by swingers in this community that Mike would not have been let into their groups without a partner.  When I asked my swinging friends if they knew Mike they said they did not.  I guess Mike never got his wish, poor boy.

The worst night came sometime in late June of 2001.  Mike was angry I was asking him for sex again.  I was lying in bed necked as usual.  All of a sudden he was on top of me.  I thought, oh this is different.  Then he pinned my arms above my head. He said, “You always want sex so much.  How about this!” and he entered me dry.  I screamed.  I began to try to fight, but he had my legs spread out so I could not kick him.  I screamed, “No!” at the top of my lungs, over and over again. I fought as long and as hard as I could. But I remember thinking I am being raped and there is nothing I can do about it.  I turned my head to the side and prayed for it to be over quickly.  When it was over I got up and showered.  I felt like I would never get clean.  I was terrified of him after that.  I could not even look him in the eye.  I was like a whipped dog.  I was broken.

The details around that time are a bit muddled in my brain, so forgive me if we go back and forth in a dance for a minute.  I don’t remember when I became suicidal again, if it was before or after the rape.  My plan was to jump from a local bridge.  I felt from the water I came, and to the water I would return.  I woke in the night to see my plan out and I felt something heavy push me back down on the bed.  I fell instantly back to sleep.

There was a computer at work that I had begun journaling on.  I did not know that it was company policy for the office managers to go around and check what was being done on all of them.  I had written a piece where I talked about wanting to kill Mike.  That even if I cut his head off, with his blood running down my arm, it would still not give me satisfaction enough for all he had done to me.  I was caught.  I was hauled into the office and given an ultimatum.  Either I begin counseling immediately, threw their Employee Assistance Program, or I would be fired.  I consented.  Although angry at first at what I saw was an invasion of my privacy, it was ultimately what saved my life.

Mike and I walked in to the councilor’s office a few days later.  My opening line, which I thought was funny was, “One of us is about to die and his odds are not looking to good.”  Very coolly the councilor, Liz, suggested we might try a trial separation.  We resisted the idea.  I began to see Liz every week.  Mike was to see a male councilor.  I believe he went once or perhaps twice.

Mike still would not work at this point.  He would not even look for work.  We were behind on my Methodist loan payments, of which my father was a co-signer.  My Dad called me one day at work and said, “I just called and paid $535 on your Methodist loan.  I told that husband of yours if he didn’t get a job I was going to come and get $535 out of his ass, move you home and pay for the divorce.”  I laughed and hung up with my dad.  I called him back an half an hour later and asked, “What time can you be here?”

My parents picked me up.  I went home and packed a bag.  I told Michael I would be back when he got a job.  I took the car, which was in my name, with me.  I think that was on a Thursday.  I went home to stay with my parents and I noticed how much better I felt.  Mike continued to call me and tell me to bring back the car.  How could he look for work, with no car?  I told him figure something out.  I was feeling stronger every day, just being away from him.  This is all I heard that weekend, bring my car back, bring my car back.  He called me on a Tuesday. 

“I’ve got a job.  Bring my car back,” he said.

I’ll never forget I was making copies, talking to him on a handset with a 25ft. cord.  “Wonderful!”  I said.  “I want a divorce.”  He heard me this time, after 6 months he finally heard me.

The other end of the phone was dead silent, “But I love you,” he said.

“Funny, that’s the first time you’ve said it since I left.  From now on if you want to talk to me, you will have to do it threw my attorney.” and I hung up on him.

I saw Mike a few more times after that.  We met at counseling so I could return my gold wedding band to him.  He had long ago made me pawn the little diamond that he had brought for me.  We got $100 for it.  I told him I released him from his vows.  I made him take off his ring and say the same thing to me.  I considered our marriage dissolved at that point. Somewhere in there we went to dinner so I could explain to him why I was leaving him.  He just didn’t get it.

When I left Mike I only took what was mine: my bookcase, my books, my clothes and accessories, my toiletries, my gumbo pot, my muffin pan, my big bottle of tobacco sauce and my car. I had wanted to make Mike hurt for a long time for what he had done to me.  My best revenge came the morning after I left.  He now had to figure out, for the first time in years, who was going to pay the rent, who was going to pay the bills, who would wash his clothes and clean up after him, how would he go anywhere, and who would pay to feed him.  For the first time in years, he had to be totally dependent on himself.  I hope it scared him to death!

One day after work, I went to get in my car.  Inside, I’ll never forget, was a potted African Violet.  He had been there.  I freaked.  I realized at that point, that Mike still had keys to my car.  I called him and told him to come to the dealership immediately and return my key.  When he showed up I was just coming down from inside the tower, where all the deals happen and the sales managers sit.  He walked up to my desk and said, “Hello Sultan Vial Betrayer.”  It was a line from Aladdin, one of his favorites.  I lost it.  He just had to have one more jab at me. I ran crying back into the tower.  I begged the new car sales manager to get the key from him and throw him off the lot. 

“Your husband?” he asked confused.

“My ex husband,” I informed him. 

He was great.  He took Mike by the shoulder and walked him outside.  I have no idea what he said to him.  He returned with my key and Mike has never tried to contact me since then.  And for that I am grateful.  We did try later on to establish nice relations, via chat, but that quickly disintegrated.  Liz told me, “You stay away from that psychopath,” and I have. 

I continued to see Liz every week for about a year.  Early on I told her, “I cannot get out of my head what he would say to me.  It keeps playing over and over again in my head.”  She told me to write some of it down and bring it in next time.  I did.  About half way through the first page she stopped me.  She said, “You do understand you have been abused?” 

“What?” I said.

“The things he said to you is verbal abuse.”  I was shocked.  I was too smart to be abused.  It just could not be.  Over the years I had counseled other women to leave abusive relationships. But it was true.  Mike’s abuse left me PTSD.  I had flashbacks for the first few years.  Although I have not seen him since that last day in the dealership, I remained terrified of him.  Afraid that he would somehow find me and convince me to go back with him.  The first few weeks I jumped at every sound.  I was so unsure of myself, that I was not even sure the ground would hold under my feet.  I slept with a loaded shot gun in my room for two years.  After that I kept a knife under my pillow or had to go to sleep with my hand on it.  I still keep a loaded gun in the head board, but that is more for scarring coyotes off than anything else.  For many years I refused to go on the side of town he had once lived on.  Terrified I would run into him.  I changed the spelling of my name and took back my maiden name.  I kept my profile on Facebook hidden, until just a few years ago. We have mutual friends on Facebook.  We have even commented on the same things, but he has never tried to contact me.  He is either to stupid or is being respectful.  I am grateful for whatever one it is.  For the last 14 years I have considered myself to be in hiding.  But with these articles and blog I feel I have finally come out of hiding and reclaimed part of my life.

And then there are my dreams.  In the 14 years since I left him, I continue to dream of him on a frequent, sometimes nightly basis.  For the first year after I left I blew him up, cut him up, hit him and killed him in every way possible each night in my dreams.  But every night he just came back.  I had not been dating Jay long when I woke up one night in his arms.  My face wet and Jay gently soothing me.  “It’s okay.  You’re safe.  You’re going to be okay.”

“What’s going on?” I said confused.

“You’ve been screaming in your sleep again.”  Jay answered. 

I have no idea how long I had been doing that.  It was a year and a half between leaving Mike and meeting Jay.  I am thankful to say that does not happen anymore.  Now most nights Mike is just a figure in the background and rarely tries to hurt me.  One of the affects of the Buspar is I have hardly dreamed of him, even in the background, since I began taking it.  Oh he’s reared his ugly head while I’ve been writing about him, but now that I am finishing telling you this story, I believe he will go away again.

I never talked about my abuse or my rape to the police.  I do not even know if marital rape is prosecutable in the state of Louisiana.  I washed away all evidence with my shower.  I knew who my assailant was.  Of course his DNA was going to be on me, he was my husband.  So it would have been a story of he said she said.  As for the abuse unless it is recorded in some way it is damn hard to prove in court.  By the time I understood I had been abused, it was already too late.  I escaped with my life and that was good enough for me. 

I fear now for Mike’s other victims.  I know there have been several women since me.  I know that he has since remarried and is living in the Houston area.  I also believe that she has children.  Now when I left Mike the pictures were getting younger and younger.  I saw young girls just starting to bud.  I don’t know what dark corners Mike’s predilections have taken him into. 

My thought in all of this is, if I can survive, you can too.  With good meds, good councilors and doctors you can get better!  Whatever you’re going through there is help out there.  Tell the people around you want is happening.  No matter how embarrassed you are.  Tell everyone until someone helps you.  Tell them even if you think they won’t care.  Watch how they treat animals. They will treat you the same way.  They keep them on a chain; they will keep you on an emotional one too.  If the animals don’t want your person around, RUN!  The animals know, they can sense these things.  No sex and no amount of money are worth your life.  If you want to leave, have a plan, keep a bag packed in the car.  Remember don’t go back for something you forgot.  Don’t take the animals with you, almost no abuse shelter allows you to have animals.  Abuse is wrong no matter what your religion or morals may teach you.  No one deserves to live in fear.  You did not cause this problem, no matter what they might tell you and I promise you, that no matter your intentions, you cannot change the abuser.  Only they can do that.  I tried.  You’ll get thru this.  What I learned from Mike was that I wanted to be loved at any cost, and it cost me my soul, my mental health, and almost my life.  Don’t be like me!

Mike taught me an important lesson.  If I had not had such a terrible husband I would not know what a good one looks like.  I was into bad boys.  I had it messed up in my mind that abuse, control and manipulations equaled love.  They do not.  I have often said if Mike had hit me I would have stayed forever, because in my brain that would have meant he loved me.  Leaving Mike made me get help for my depression and continue to seek counseling for the other issues in my life.  I do not regret being married to Mike.  I honestly believe if I have not survived what I did, did my work to get over it, that I would never have married Jay and have the successful marriage I have today.  People often tell me as a pagan that I am going to hell.  I respond with, “No Mam’ I’ve already been.  I spent 6 ½ years there.”  And any person who’s been in an abusive relationship knows that it is the truth. 

Ilsa