Nanci Kuykendall

>the main reason women stay with their batterers are
>that they are less likely to get killed staying than
>leaving. ...(snip)...For many women the thing that
>made them decide the risk was worth it was when he
>started hurting the kids. I heard this over and over.
>Another reason is a lack of resources. Most batterers
>not only use physical violence, but psychological.
>Frequently the batterer has set things up so the
>woman has no friends, and also alienates the woman's
>family.
>Kathryn Baptista

This is pretty personal, but I felt like sharing.
It's not a secret or anything, just not something a
lot of people know about me now. My elder son is not
my husband's biological child, although we married
before he was born. Having grown up in an abusive
home and environment, I unconsciously sought out those
types of relationships as an adult also. The last
relationship I had with a man before my husband was
4.5 years living with an extremely abusive and
unbalanced addicted person. He was physically and
psychologically abusive and HAD cut off most of my
contacts with others, driving my friends away one by
one, controlling my time, taking my money, even taking
my car overnight to keep me from going places. He was
a lot like my dad unfortunately.

Anyways, the final straw came for me when I
acidentally got pregnant after 4.5 years. I tried for
a couple of months to get him interested in the baby,
but he always said the same things: "Get rid of it.
You'll be a rotten mother." and other scarier things
about what he would teach a child about the world and
how he would teach these things. I finally got
terrified of having this person around my child, MY
CHILD, and realized I would never allow someone like
him near my child (let alone parent them) in any other
situation.

SO I decided to leave. I told him that whatever I
decided to do was none of his business, since he had
already made it abundantly clear what his feelings
were about it. He didn't care anyway. But I was
terrified to go bak to the house and pack up my
furniture and things alone. I could usually trust him
not to touch me if I had witnesses (abusers usually
want everyone else to think they are wonderful
people.) I asked a couple of co-workers if they could
help me get my things. One in particular was an over
6 foot tall Engineer whom I had worked with for over 2
and a half years and was a good work pal who shared
the same friends at work as I.

Yup...that was my husband. We began to see each other
a couple of months after that, and knowing each other
so well already things progressed quickly. We decided
to have a small, very romantic, private ceremony on
San Juan Island in the Puget sound and his name is on
our son's birth certificate. I kept photos of my ex
so that my son can have them when he is older and I
fully intend to tell him his story (how do I broach
that subject????.) My husband was really, REALLY
excited about me being pregnant and very involved in
my pregnancy. His ex wife had two children and he was
VERY ready to be a daddy. Both my sons adore their
daddy, the best daddy in the world. And I am so
thankful for the blessing of my older boy, coming when
he did, and knocking some sense into me to get me away
from where I was.

Nanci K.

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