Figuring it out as I go by Happy

Nine years ago today was both the one of the scariest days and the best days in my life. I was married to the worst of my 3 ex-husbands yes I said 3 ex-husbands didn't I? ....and I'm such a nice girl

....well here's the story in a nutshell...

This husband was a control freak and had a incredible hulk type personality...either he was sweet as could be or you feared for your life. When I was pregnant with our second child in 1993 I had decided that I no longer loved this man and wanted out (that came when he smack me in the face while holding my 11 month old son while trying to keep him away from my 4 year old). BUT...and there's always a but isn't there, but I didn't know how to because I had 2 small children and one on the way and he had me convinced I was a loser one minute and the next if I ever left him he'd hunt me down and kill me. So for the next 3 1/2 years I did my best to keep the peace and stay alive for the kids. I did have my oldest son go live with his father when he was 5 1/2 years old to keep him safe...something I'd later regret.

I got a job when the baby was 2 and started to get back my self respect and confidence. This angered Lou-cifer and he began accusing me of having an affair. Now granted, I no longer loved him and there was someone I was interested in, but I was NOT crazy enough to have an affair while married to that psycho! But he KNEW otherwise.

At around 1 a.m. on December 8th, 1996 I was asleep in my daughter's bed. She was going through a stage at that time and I often would fall asleep while laying down waiting for her to fall asleep. Anyway.. I was awakened abruptly by being pulled out of her bed by my ankles from the bottom of the bed and drug through the house with his face up against my screaming WHAT'S GOING ON?? Trying to wake up and figure out what I had missed that made him so angry I just said, uh I was asleep I'm not sure. I got away and went in to the bathroom where he followed me and began telling me to tell him that I didn't love him anymore...uh yea sure. I was doing my best to calm him down when my then 4 year old son showed up in the doorway trying to see what was going on and Lucifer screamed GET BACK IN BED! I said it's ok baby go on back to bed, trying to not upset the poor kid because he looked dazed and petrified. As soon as he had gone back to his room the beating started, first just smacking me and pushing me, then I was thrown in to the shower doors and they went flying. Then he picked me up and tossed me in to the wall and I tried sliding down to get away but he just kept punching and smacking me in the face and head. Then he head-butted me against the window sill and I saw stars and the blood started gushing from a very small but life saving cut on the bridge of my nose. It somehow got him to snap out of his rage and then he began hugging me telling me how much he loved me....which made me want to vomit. I thought my jaw was broken because the pain and tightness I felt when I tried to speak was awful. I told him I had to go to the hospital, at which point he began to try to clean the blood off me and made me change my blood soaked shirt. He began pacing and saying oh great have me arrested and I said no I just need some medical help take care of the kids and I'll be right back and proceeded to leave the house.

The windshield of my car was completely frosted over and I was afraid he was going to change his mind about letting me leave so I drove to the end of our street with my head hung out the window to see and then got out to scrape the ice away. I drove a mile or so to a friends house and she opened the door saying what the heck are you doing out so late... She woke up quickly when she turned on the light and saw my battered face and immediately said THAT BASTARD IS GOING TO JAIL. She called an ambulance and the police as I laid on her living room floor wondering how did I let this happen to myself??

As the EMS & police were standing over me and my friend Lynn was telling the story I hear "I know Connie we went to school together". Leave it to my luck to get a police officer that knew me to make my humiliation even worse. They convinced me that the bump on my head should be ex-rayed and my friend couldn't drive me to the hospital because she was going back to my house to get my kids when the police went to arrest him. I was freaking at this time afraid that he might hurt them and telling them to go get him I was fine!! But they made me go to the hospital. The next few hours were a blur of repeating the same humiliating story over and over again.

When I got out my friend was there to pick me up as was my little sweet face daughter. We went home and I slept for an hour or two and called my sister because we had planned on going to a new church that day and she said lets still go and I said, are you sure? I look like quasi-moto. I went in with two swollen black eyes, a cut across my nose, swollen lips, & swollen ears. After Church we went back to my house and collected what we could before Lou-ser was released from jail and I moved in to my father's house. He was in Arizona at the time but I had told him when I dropped him off at the airport a few days earlier not to be surprised if he had roomies when he got home.

All in all it was what I needed to get out. I'm so very thankful that I got out alive and now live in a peaceful loving household where when you lay down to sleep you know you're safe and loved.