The Eye of the Tiger: A story of hope

I have been there and I understand. Don't stay until there is nothing left of you. You are going to need all of you to survive your situation. If you're thinking about leaving, believe you can do it but be prepared. You will cry until your eyes swell shut. Everywhere you look there will be people holding hands. Every movie you see will cause you to doubt your thinking of leaving the situation. Every thought you think will be of the two of you. That will only last a short time.

Your mind will began to clear. You will stand a bit taller and people will notice. You will laugh at jokes that people tell. You will begin to live again.

The stress of the situation you had been living in has taken a toll on everything about you and within you. Once you are free of that stress-you will, I promise, began to rest better, breathe better. Your body will began to heal itself. There will be weak moments but what is wrong with crying? Crying shows that you have feelings inside your heart. Something that you tried to show him all those years. In time, you will realize that "he" is not what is important any longer . . . it is the fact that "YOU" realize that those feelings are from your heart.

You will come to peace in life. You gave him all that time-give yourself the time now. That time out of your life will not have been wasted if you come to find yourself in the end. Believe you can do this . . . look at the road you have already traveled and you will see just how strong you truly are.

When you are in an abusive relationship your thinking begins to change as the abuse escalates over time. For me it started out slowly. An occasional issue. One for which he was very sorry each time. Over the length of time that I was married to this man, the fear during the time of it happening, when it might happen again, and thoughts of what did I do to cause it, overtook every part of my being.

My world became a foreign place which no one could understand. I look back now and wonder to myself, how did I allow this to happen to me? Answer is that I really didn't realize that it was happening. I excused it as OK because I must have made him mad. At the beginning, I couldn't believe that he meant to do what he did. I am very lucky to be here today . . . to be a survivor.

We allow it because we want that perfect picture of what it was supposed to be. We allow it because we love him and after time we allow it because we are afraid

I was not a weak person when I met him. Life was full and exciting for me and from the moment I set eyes on him, I was in love. He was exciting and rugged and very good-looking.

Our lives went from that to my hiding in the closet and spreading trash down the hallway so that I could hear if he was coming. Sad but true.

It went from throwing his key ring at me in the beginning to holding a shotgun and racking the bullets all over the living room floor and making me pick them up and hand them to him . . . so that he could re-load.

I left that relationship, after many years, and yes, I was willing to die to leave. It came to the point that I knew that one day, he would kill me. But the reason I left, was because I realized that one day I might go after him.

The Eye of the Tiger

In thinking back at my life, there is a time that I wish I never thought about. Since that time I do realize now, that everything that I went through is a part of who I am today and I have become strong in that. It was a time when the things that were happening to me only "happened to other women." I was married for the first time at the age of 25. My heart was full of dreams and expectations of what my life would be. I knew we had some problems, I knew he had a temper. I believed him when he said he was sorry.

I married a man who always considered himself as the number one. He felt that way at home, at work and in life in general. I thought I allowed this because I loved him, but I now know it was because I was weak. I saw signs that there were problems but I truly believed that I could change it. If I could just love him enough and he often told me that when he was angry. I learned different in the years to come. I learned that when the tiger is on the hunt, everything he comes across is his territory and he masters with an iron will. His strength and agility allow him to do things that others cannot. I learned you can't run from a tiger. He captures the weak and sick with no problem and captures the strong and healthy prey by running them down. The Tiger runs them down until they can't run any longer. Through the eye of the tiger, nothing is unfair.

My husband was very pleasant to look at and he could be charming. He could also be deadly and unforgiving. Just like the Tiger laying in the sun, beautiful to look at but deadly when he is on the hunt. He taught me things that no one should ever have to learn. He taught me about anger and fear. There were times that I was so afraid that I could not contain the shaking in my body and my speech would become impaired.

After 10 years of marriage, on the day I decided to end the marriage, the fear was welling up inside of me, but it was regular fear. This fear was different than the fear I had come to know. It was a fear of chance, a fear of standing on my own two legs, not a fear of life or death. When you realize that it's come to the point that it is either him or you, your thinking changes. I called him at work and told him that we needed to talk when he got home. He came home much later than normal and he had been drinking. I knew this was not the time to upset him or make him angry. That conflict would cause the Tiger to hunt. I left the house after he entered his drunken sleep and rented a hotel room. I cried for hours and hours, but to this day, I don't know if I cried because of fear or relief. I think I cried because of both. Fear that I was making a mistake, fear that he would find me and relief that I made it out of the house without waking him, relief that I had made the decision to leave before the inevitable happened.

The next morning I waiting to return home after I was sure he had left for work. I was so frightened. If you are frightened to go "home" that is a sign you're in a relationship that is wrong. Don't let it take you 10 years to realize that. This story isn't for those of you who have never lived within the Tiger's lair, but for those of you that have or currently do. Women that have never been touched by abuse can only try to understand. This is something that unless you have been through it you can't truly grasp the immensity of the situation. Many times family and friends would say, why do you stay? Why don't you leave? It was said out of love for me, but it only made me feel weaker. It made me feel afraid to tell them that it was because I was afraid. I was afraid to leave him and if I did I was afraid he would find me.

This was Tuesday morning and I called him and told him over the phone that I was filing for divorce. I told him that if he came home that the police would be called, not that it mattered to him, because back in the 80's they didn't take one of the parties to jail. I wouldn't have called because that would only have made my situation extremely dangerous after they left. Thank God that law got changed. I told him that I had taken his clothes and bathroom things over to his mother's. The appointment with the lawyer was Friday morning. He listened and as usual apologized about the last incident. Asked me why I was doing this. He figured that I was just angry and this would blow over in time.

I told my girlfriend to leave and she refused to go without me. I couldn't go! Why couldn't she just understand? He knew where she lived and she had children. Just go! Over the years I had developed an ability to keep myself alive, but I couldn't guarantee that this night. How could I keep her alive also?

I went out to the truck and the whole time I waited for the bullet to ring through my body. I could easily see that he was very angry and again had been drinking. I looked into his eyes and saw the Tiger. Why did I go meet him at the truck? I needed to know what shape he was in so I knew where I stood. I told him to leave and he refused. After all, I had just signed over the house to him that day. He kept saying it was "his" house.

He went down the hallway and returned with the shotgun. I knew that tonight might be my last night. He racked the bullets all over the living room and told me to get on the floor and hand them to him. My girlfriend was so frightened that I finally got her to agree to leave. He allowed it because, after all, he was there for me. I told her not to call the cops because he would talk his way out of it and then they would leave me with him.

I came back in and got on my hands and knees and began to pick up the bullets and hand them to him. He re-loaded the gun. I made him another drink, and then another, and then another. Through the years I had learned that when he was drunk enough he would just go to sleep.

That night was the longest night of my life. I thought morning would never come. I sat in the dark listening to him sleep so that I knew where he was. So that I knew that he wasn't "approaching." When the sun began to rise, I knew that I had made it. I was drained physically and emotionally, but I was on my own two feet and I knew I was right. I woke him up, hang-over and all and told him to leave. He was always apologetic in the mornings. I sent him off to work and after he turned the corner I took a deep breath. I listened for his return as I got everything together and I left.

I had survived and I had made the decision to make myself a better life. For the first time I stood tall and I knew that this was right.