I tried. God knows I tried. I tried like hell to make it work. I tried to be the doormat of a person that he wanted. I tried to cover up for him with my family. I tried to smooth things over for him with all of you. I tried to keep him from hurting you. In the end, I couldn’t take it anymore.

I couldn’t take the emotional, mental, verbal, and psychological abuse. I gave him more than most people would have. I stayed even when he cheated on me. I stayed when he hit me. I stayed when he was drunk every single night. I stayed when he was in the hospital for a month. I stayed when nobody else wanted to be around him. When none of you would even talk to him, I stayed.

Over the years, I heard the stories. Some stories I heard from the beginning. I remember the warnings. I remember being told...

“My dad is abusive and will beat the crap out of you when he drinks.”

“My cousin has alcohol problems and is like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

“My dad always got us kicked out of where we lived, because of not paying bills.”

“My brother is messed up, and I don’t understand him.”

“He cheated all the time.”

“He stole from different people.”

“He lies so much that he ends up believing his own lies.”

There were more stories, more accusations. I have some questions for all of you though. Why do you blame and attack me? Why am I the bad guy because I couldn’t keep taking it?

After everything you knew about him, how DARE you think you can say something about me leaving? Not one of you would be with a person like him, but it’s good enough for me? I don’t get a chance to be happy, and live my life free of his abuse and manipulations?

How would you like to spend your life being told things like: “Women are the devil’s tool,” “you look like Jabba the Hutt,” “you’re a cow,” “I’m the only person that will ever truly love you, everyone else is just using you,” and the one that hurt the most was “it would be nice if I could find somebody rich that would take care of me and do everything for me like (this or that woman) does for him.”

I have thick skin. It’s something essential to being a writer, but you don’t think hearing those things over and over again through the years was hurtful?

You don’t think it hurt and upset me when he would hit on girls that were in their early 20s right in front of me? Hell, you even got embarrassed and mad about that! I remember you telling him that it wasn’t right, and it wasn’t fair to me when he acted like that.

I am not at all trying to say I was perfect. I have my faults just like everyone else. I have said and done many things that I regret, but I didn’t cheat on him, lie to him, steal from him, or try to make him feel like less of a person because of my own insecurities.

I can’t help that my intelligence makes him feel inferior. I asked many questions that I already knew the answers to, so that he could feel like I needed him for something. What was I supposed to do when he would go off on a tangent about how dumb he felt, or how he wished he was a smart as me, and how he’s useless because he doesn’t know this or that? He always told me that it made him feel good to provide me with answers, and made him feel smart and worth something. I tried to show him that I thought he was worth something in my eyes, but that wasn’t enough.

I am not sure what could have made our marriage work because I was the only one that was willing to fight for it. I look back through Facebook memories and see how many different times I said I was done with him I said I couldn’t do it anymore. I wondered why he was so cruel and so mean. I was so close to giving up so many times, because I had no hope.

The way I left might not have been right. Do any of you think I would have done it that way if I felt I had a choice? I really had no master plan, I just kind of went with things as they happened.

The only thing that I feel bad about is leaving my animals. I never meant for them to be re-homed. I told them it was goodbye for now, but not for long. I had every intention of going back for them. The only reason that I left them in the first place was because I was afraid of my truck breaking down on my way here. I couldn’t have lived with myself if something happened to them because of it.

I had no choice but to let him think that I didn’t care about them or want them anymore, otherwise he would have used them as hostages to make me come back. You laugh and tell me I’m wrong? I challenge you to think back, and think about the times that he has kicked me out in the past, kept my animals, and then used them as hostages to make me come back and do what he wanted me to do. Do you remember? I ask you then, what was I supposed to do?

I made the choice to change my life because what was happening in my marriage was slowly killing me. I’ve died a thousand different deaths on the inside over the years.

As you sit and pass judgment on me, please take a minute to really think about and try to understand what I went through. Leaving your father/brother/cousin/uncle/grandfather was the only choice I had left if I ever wanted peace in my mind and soul.

I know none of you will ever read this, but it makes me feel better to finally have a voice and say things that I have needed and wanted to say for years. It helps me find comfort and healing. I didn’t argue with him or anyone when I left, and I’m not going to start now. I only ask you to please remember the stories that you told me in the beginning. Please try to understand. Please have some compassion. Please ask yourself what you would have done.

Most of all though, please know that I am very sorry for hurting you. Leaving was never about hurting anyone. Leaving was the only way that I knew of to get the pain to stop.

You’ve been rude and unfair to me, but I forgive you. I see who you had as an example, and I understand. I don’t hate you.