In 1992 my mother died, I was 10 years old. Besides me, my father had two more sisters younger than me. From that moment the nightmare of my life began: my father abused me as much as he could: beating me, humiliating me morally, until one day he decided to kill me. I ran to my aunt’s house, and he drank vinegar in fright. Everything was all right. They sent me to the camp, and everybody pretended they didn’t understand anything. After the camp he never touched me physically again, but I was always afraid of him until I was 14.
I started running away from home because he never wanted to let me go anywhere, no friends. He married a woman with children, he didn’t care much about us, whether we ate or not, he didn’t buy what we needed, and he spent our children’s money on her. My younger sister’s friend helped us, she brought us groceries and we quietly cooked and ate. I dreamed of getting married and leaving my father, but I thought no one would marry me, I thought I was ugly, though I was quite pretty. My father always said that I had narrow eyes and was not his daughter, that I was of Chinese descent.
I started running away from home because he never wanted to let me go anywhere, no friends. He married a woman with children, he didn’t care much about us, whether we ate or not, he didn’t buy what we needed, and he spent our children’s money on her. My younger sister’s friend helped us, she brought us groceries and we quietly cooked and ate. I dreamed of getting married and leaving my father, but I thought no one would marry me, I thought I was ugly, though I was quite pretty. My father always said that I had narrow eyes and was not his daughter, that I was of Chinese descent.
I hated him and cursed him to myself. I went to school, everything was going somehow, life hadn’t changed, but I met a man at 16, he was four years older. I won’t write about how we met, of course, everything seemed like a fairy tale, until he brought me to his house, to his parents. I was glad, though I never wanted to marry a countryman, but the hunger in the city made itself felt.
I thought he would be okay, but the fairy tale crumbled with the first slap on the cheek. That was the norm for him, the way his father had taught him that he should beat his wife every day. He would hit, I would cry, he would say, “I’m sorry, I love you,” and I would forgive, then I was sure I loved him. He drank every day, drank and hit, just on the cheeks. We went back and forth between us and him, by the way, we weren’t married. He was always drinking.
At 17 I got pregnant by him, he went to jail for robbery for 3 years. When my father found out I was pregnant, he kicked me out of the house, my husband’s parents did not need me. I found shelter with acquaintances. I didn’t live there for long, my stepmother made my father take me away. I gave birth to a beautiful daughter. I went to see my husband, for short visits, I wanted to show my daughter, but he yelled at me, saying, “Why did you bring her? We didn’t understand each other and broke up.
I lived the best I could. I left home, my father was not happy with us. Time passed, he was released early, I was terrified. I thought he was going to kill me, but we got back together. Life was hell: he drank, he hit, and I was afraid and hoped for the best, he openly cheated, and when he said he wanted to take my daughter away I could not stand it. I swallowed some Dramamine, but they were able to revive me. Life went on, he somehow worked, I stayed with the child in his village. There was a lot of betrayal of lies and pain, morally I was killed. I will not say that I was perfect, I smoked, but I did not drink, I loved him and my daughter and hoped for the best. We moved to another region – he, me and my daughter, got a job at a collective farm, I thought life would get better, but through my fault it got even worse.
I asked him to bring his parents to help us, so they wouldn’t get drunk, but he didn’t. His parents also got a job at that collective farm, they started bullying him against me, they drank everything away, and I handed out my paycheck for their debts. I started fighting with his parents, very rudely, they insulted me as much as they could. He started beating me up in a terrible way.
Soon my parents moved to another house and I became pregnant with my second. It got better somehow, they took pity on me, helped me sometimes. I gave birth to a son. There was no limit to my happiness. But nothing changed. I found out that he had a mistress, older than me, even older than him. She gave him drinks after work, he slept with her, came home and beat and raped me. The only thing I asked for was that it wasn’t in front of the children. He would lock me in my room or in the barn, send the kids outside, and beat me, just stupidly beat me so I wouldn’t think about cheating on him. He knew that I knew about him. I beat his mistress once, he beat me. Now he was beating me brutally, even as if with pleasure. He would hit me in one eye, then look, suddenly hit me in the other eye, I would cry quietly so the children wouldn’t hear, he would hit me quietly further, when my eyes closed, he would hit my lips and nose, as soon as blood flowed he would calm down. Then he would rape me and fall asleep. I would run away with the children to his parents’ house. A couple of times they beat him. When he sobered up, he apologized, said he was drunk, he didn’t remember anything, and then it happened all over again. He cheated, he hit me, I ran away. I was afraid to leave, and I had nowhere to go. I lived, endured and hoped.
Time passed, gradually he began to drink less, we left the collective farm, we left the children to their mother, we went to work ourselves. We lived quite well, he hardly ever hit, he only cheated every time we came home. I don’t even remember how everything changed in an instant. He stopped drinking, he didn’t touch me. He started to take care of himself. We bought a car, not a new one, but our own. I dreamed that soon we would buy a house and live next to our children, whom I missed so much. We worked in shifts for two months at a time. He started drinking again. He didn’t have his license, we sold his car, and we thought we would pay off the debts and the children needed clothes for school, but he almost skipped everything and drank it all away. The house was left in his dreams.
We have been living together for 14 years, he stopped cheating a long time ago, and he no longer beats me, but he has started drinking again. I always tried to talk to him, to solve problems, I told him that everything would be fine, that we had to be patient and we would buy a house. I wanted to die 20 times in my life with him, but I didn’t want to leave my children orphaned. But I can’t live like this anymore either. I am still afraid of him, that he will hit me, from time to time I run away from fear to my acquaintances when he is drinking. When he is sober, I shame him to think about his children, but to no avail. He always says how bad he feels, that there is nothing, that nothing works, and I am like a child, you have to try and be patient.
Everyone says, “Leave him,” but I don’t know what to do. On the one hand I love him, on the other I want my children to be happy, and how can I live without a father? I am afraid and do not know what to do? I have nowhere to go. Before I blackmailed him that I would leave, and he quit drinking, and now he is sure that I will not go anywhere. He openly tells me about it and also says that I will go down in life without him. Morally destroys me. And I don’t have the strength to tolerate it.
I already think that we will never have a home, but when I think about how to explain this to the children, my heart bleeds. I don’t know how to go on. I’m already looking for a house myself, at least to rent a house to take the kids with me, but it’s like he doesn’t care. He doesn’t believe in anything, he doesn’t want anything. He started drinking every month for a week, going on a binge. From time to time he frightens me with physical violence, and when he gets sober, he says, “I’m sorry. I have gained weight over the years, and my self-esteem has fallen. Yes, and he periodically hurts me with this, that I will never lose weight. I don’t know who can help me, but what I have written already makes me feel better.
People reacted to this story.
Show comments Hide commentsI am very sad that people like you, Natalia, exist at all. And even more so, they give birth to offspring. You evoke in me in no way the sympathy you hope for, but contempt. It is much easier to “cure” people like your husband than it is for you, because there is no way to exterminate the desire to be a victim.
I support Nikolai. Why the hell do you need this idiot? You write that you work, that you earn money. If it were not for him, you would have had everything long ago. All you have to do is to tell him to go away and start living. Why waste your life on a jerk like that? And use your kids as a cover. You don’t think they need a father like that. Or do you wish your son would grow up to be that jerk?
Natalia, Nikolai is only right that you have a victim complex. But it’s not your fault – it’s the “merit” of your father, who made you this way with his abuse, who abused you. The father is the first man in a girl’s life, his image is always sealed in the subconscious, later on the adult girl is looking for a husband, similar to this image. No wonder you went from one tyrant to another. Your husband is also a product of his parents’ distorted, horrible upbringing. Two lonelinesses met, as they say, a tyrant and a victim. How did you know each other? There are nonverbal signals (facial expressions, gestures, etc.) that our brain reads and that our behavior sends out. Your husband was probably looking for a woman who looked like his mother – I can almost vouch for that, a battered husband, submissive, etc. And then you came along. I’m sure you looked just like that. Your motive for starting to live with this man was not love, as you thought, but a desire to escape from the terrible situation you were in, thanks to your own father. And that desire was so great, so desperate, that you turned a blind eye to everything, not seeing that you were falling into the same trap. And then it was just like a script. All the time you hoped that something would change because of a change in circumstances, but it’s an illusion. A person has to change internally for something to change. Your husband, besides being a tyrant, is also an alcoholic. It’s not a bad habit, it’s a disease which can’t be cured by persuasion or simple support. Only if the man himself recognizes this disease, decides to treat it, to eliminate it, then there will be a shift.
You have children growing up. The girl will imprint the image of “daddy” in her head, then look for the same man, your boy will also take a negative example of how to treat a woman. And children can repeat your scenario. I don’t think you want that. So you need to change the situation, to get out of the vicious circle.
You say you love this man. But your “love” is unable to save him, you have no source of love, no nourishment, you are already devastated. Sometimes real love is expressed precisely in leaving the person behind – in order for him to shake the consequences of his actions, to realize what he has lost, to realize that something needs to change. You must also love yourself, even though you have been so crushed that it is difficult. But it is necessary. By loving yourself, accepting yourself, you will set an example for your children – they will learn to take care of themselves, to be independent.
So how do you make a difference? I have been going to church for 10 years, and in that time I have heard many testimonies of how God has changed the lives of drug addicts and alcoholics. When a wife became a Christian, gave her life to Jesus Christ, then constantly prayed for her husband, the husbands gradually changed, they came to church, repented to God and their wives. Now they are believing families, God has changed both husbands and wives, healed gradually the wounds that were inflicted by parents in childhood and each other, taught His love. Many of them are now pastors of churches and have healthy children. You can also turn to Jesus and ask him to forgive all your sins and become your Lord and Savior. Ask in prayer to lead you to a church where you will feel good, where you will find friends. I also realized that you and your husband are not married, so he is not your husband before God. In your case I would leave a long time ago and try to pay attention to the children – they need it more than this man, but at the same time I would pray for this man, for the salvation of his soul, because God wants to save any soul, loves even such a person. After all, Jesus died for the sins of all sinners. God loves even such a tyrant. You are working, you can try to rent a place to live. By the way, what about your sisters? How is their life going? Shouldn’t you look to them for support?