“As a child, I saw my mother physically abused numerous times. I was very young, maybe in the 2nd or 3rd grade, but I remember this one incident vividly, where my brothers and I heard her and my step father arguing in the back bedroom. All we could hear behind closed doors were screaming, crying, loud bumps and bangs up against the walls. As the five of us stood at the door helpless, my brothers became angry. Mind you, we were all young, but our human instincts kicked in and we all grabbed knives. What a horrible position for children to be put in, but we felt helpless listening to our mother beg for our step-father to stop. As a child watching this, it made me conscious of who I dated as I grew up because I never wanted to be in an abusive relationship. When I noticed any signs of excessive jealousy, or rough play under the disguise of “just playing”; it was a red flag for me to leave. My mother suffered at the hands of multiple abusive husbands, the first being my father but she survived!”

“My ex-husband was an alcoholic and very mentally abusive and jealous. When he would drink, he would turn into another person and began calling me names and become very aggressive, sometimes even physically. I would be so scared that I would take our daughter with me to our bed and lock the bedroom door. Of course, in the morning, he was very apologetic, but the damage was done. He would always accuse me of being with other men, even one time waking me up in the middle of the night to confront me about an email I received from a classmate. When I finally left, he went on a rampage and called several of my family members in an attempt to smear my reputation and urged them to make me come back to him. He also stopped paying our bills and later told me that not paying the bills was a way to make me come back to him. During our divorce proceedings, he requested full custody of our daughter, child support, and alimony; although he made more money than me. This frightened me so much and just furthered the abuse. In the end, after a two year battle, I was granted sole custody and child support, while he was granted visitation. Throughout the process, I lost a lot including my savings and had to start from scratch. But now I am extremely happy and remarried to a wonderful man who treats me like a queen. Everything he tried to take from me was replaced with more by the grace of God.”