What Abuse Can Look Like
Revisiting my 2012 post about leaving an abusive marriage
Looking Back: What Abuse Actually Looks Like
Originally written March 5, 2012
I wrote this in 2012, 13 years after leaving my first marriage. I was still processing the damage, still blaming myself, still working to forgive and let go.
Reading it now, 13 years later (26 years since I left), I want to tell that woman: None of it was your fault. You were young, you were trying, and you eventually found the courage to leave.
I share this because I understand abuse—the verbal kind, the emotional kind. I lived through it. I left it.
This enters my mind again and again. I am not sure why. Many years have passed since I have lived and dealt with this.
I lived with this secret for 9 years. The secret that he was addicted to porn magazines, porn tapes and even sex calls. The secret that I felt I was to blame for this “problem”, that I as the wife was unable to please my husband enough for him to stop wanting porn.
A few months into our marriage, I was 20 years old, and found the stash. As a naïve 20 year old I at first thought it was nothing. Months later after “catching” him, I felt sick and disgusted. 1st clue I should have moved on... Yet “I can change him” always entered my mind... After 2 years of marriage, I lost all trust, and even though I tried to trust him again, I always questioned and worried about what he was doing... Yet I thought I STILL could change him... 2nd clue to move on...
He always bought magazines and tapes. He would always hide them and would become very defensive whenever I found them or caught him. Whenever our phone bill reached hundreds of dollars he would become defensive again. Always defensive, because there was no problem, he had no problem; he just had a wife who was the reason he had to buy the porn or make the calls.
I prayed he would stop. I prayed to God begging that He would make it better. I also yelled at God asking why. I believed in the forever of marriage, and the sanctity of marriage. I asked God to take over my marriage, yet I know I pushed Him farther away each time I realized the addiction hadn’t disappeared. He just got better at hiding it...
The porn addiction caused him to be moody, irritated and angry. He was verbally abusive and offered no emotional support. I was told I was fat, ugly, stupid, and that was the reason he turned to porn. “You need to lose weight, you are too fat, you are unhealthy”. He told me constantly that I spoke to my family too much and I only needed to speak to them once a month. Yet outside of the house he was a completely different person. He wasn’t this moody addiction man...
His addiction affected me, making me very self-conscious. I was both ashamed and embarrassed that he needed porn. Even though we tried seeking help one time, the sheer embarrassment prevented me from going back. I felt stupid, immature, fat, ugly and very unattractive. I constantly feared he was cheating on me.
Though the addiction was clearly not my fault, it finally hits me, (yeah 13 years later!) that I was an enabler all of those years we lived together. I continued to “allow” it to happen all of those years. He always slept on the couch and I slept with my kids in the bedroom and I made sure tapes and magazines were well hidden. Though we would scream and yell about the magazines, the tapes and the calls, I could never follow through with leaving. I truly believed that I would not make it on my own. In my own insecure mind no one would want me, I was fat, ugly, stupid, and a mom of kids!
Update - 2025
It has been over 13 years since I posted this and over 26 years since I left. I have forgiven, but not forgotten. It has been moved to the past where it belongs. It reminds me of how strong I really am!
~Isla
~Isla