Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, February 5, 1991                   TAG: 9102050205
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

VICTIMIZED WIFE: `I WAS TO BE A SHADOW OF WHAT HE WAS'

\ I don't think there was a thing that my husband didn't do to me.

I've had a gun pointed at my head and the trigger pulled. My children and I have ran out into the night and we called family for help.

That was toward the end. Because you really don't want people to know - you're ashamed to let people know that this is going on in your house.

You're two individuals when you get married. You're supposed to come together and you have a union where you agree on things, but still yet, each one of you, God made you different.

My husband didn't see it that way. I was to be a shadow of what he was.

I was to think like he thought and do what he did, do it like he wanted it done.

When I did work outside the home, I was given five or 10 minutes to get to work and five or 10 minutes to get back. My husband would follow me and clock it to see how long it took me If I was a minute late or whatever, he'd know I'd stopped to talk to another employee. And that wasn't allowed.

I was beaten down for so many years, thinking that I couldn't do it, and I had four children. And 10 years ago, 15 years ago, I had no place like the battered women's shelter.

I thought that as he got older, it would get better. That's what kept me in there and then the idea that your marriage is supposed to work. You want your children, when they get grown, to bring your grandchildren back to a home.

I've had him arrested. He was ordered to go to counseling, but that didn't work, either. 'Cause if you don't want it to work, it's not going to work.

Before I actually left three years ago, the year before that I had left and gone to live with one of my children.

I was gone like three weeks and he wouldn't let me alone. He would keep after me or threaten me or try to talk me back into coming home or tell me this was going to happen or that was going to happen if I didn't come home.

This time I went back. The honeymoon period lasted like an hour for me to get back in the house and he was chasing me all over the house again.

He was always saying: "You're not afraid of me. You've got no reason to be afraid of me."

It got to the point that he'd follow me from room to room if the children were in the house, afraid I was going to say something.

But it was very painful when I left. I don't care if the marriage is good or bad, the breakup of a marriage is just like death.

You got a good roller coaster to go over that first year, but you get to know yourself during that roller-coaster ride. You get to know what kind of strengths you can draw on. And little-bitty accomplishments like, "Hey, I got my own checking account in my own name today. I got my car in my own name."

I've been out of my marriage for three years. If there's anything I can say to anybody that hears this: It can be done. You can get away.

I don't care if you have no education or you have plenty of education or you think you're too nervous or you got too many children, there is a place to go. It's not going to be easy. But the first big step is leaving.

You might be sittin' there in your living room, wherever you're at, a person like me that was beat down so far. I can't tell you how good it feels to be alive and be able to breathe.

I know I work a lot of hours, and one Friday I went in and propped my feet up on a beat-up old coffee table somebody had gave me 'cause when I moved into this apartment, I had nothing. Nothing. We ate on a tablecloth on the floor, had birthday parties on the floor.

I put my feet up and said, Lord, this is what it's all about: Peace of mind. Nobody hollering at me. Nobody screaming.