When love hurts: The story of an abused woman

The abuse worsens
The rapes began about two months after we were married. I was dressing into my security-guard uniform when Rob came out of the shower and asked me where I was going. He didn't wait for my answer. He threw me on the bed, sat on my stomach, pinned my arms up beside my head and ripped off my clothes. "If you want sex, wait until I get home tonight," I said. "You'll do it when I want, and how I want," was his response. It got worse after that. Rob would tie me up and put foreign objects such as necks of beer bottles and dirty washrags into my vagina.

Five months into the marriage I endured beating after beating. While most of the assaults were done when my children weren't home, they did see Rob hit me near the end. I was worried that they might step in and try to protect me. If they did, they might get beaten, too. I began plotting our escape, but it was difficult. Rob had begun making threatening comments: "You can never get far enough away from me. I will always find you. If I can't have you, no one will." I felt trapped.

The breaking point
But then came the night I had no choice but to call the police. Rob had disappeared for three days. I didn't know where he was. I thought he had been in an accident and was hurt. I left messages on his truck telephone and called the police and hospitals in the area. Nobody had heard anything.

He arrived home on the third night at about 1 a.m. and immediately started screaming at me that he didn't appreciate me trying to track him down. We were in the kitchen and he grabbed the phone receiver and began to beat me in the face with it. His eyes were red and flashing like I'd never seen before. I ran to the bedroom, and he was right behind me. He picked me up over his head and threw me across the room twice. I broke my tailbone in the second fall.

My 10-year-old daughter woke up. She must have heard something and came to see what was happening. We were now in the hallway. She just stood there, stunned. Rob looked at her and got scared for some reason. He went into the bathroom to pack his things.

I found my way to the kitchen, fighting the pain from the broken bones, and called the police.

A responsibility to other women
At first I hesitated making a statement. Even after everything, I didn't want to send Rob to jail. But then a police officer said something the next day that changed my mind: "Do you think you have a responsibility to other women? Do you want this to happen to someone else?"

What I didn't know at the time was that Rob had a history of violence against women. All he ever told me was that he had been married once before. What I learned from the police was that she had been found unconscious in a pool of blood on the floor of her garage. Rob had married a second time, too, and beat that woman up. But he was never convicted of assault because I was the only one of his wives who turned him in to the police.

The police had no problem charging him. But they were honest with me: it was going to be difficult to prove spousal rape in court. I didn't care. I wanted Rob to be charged with rape. He might not be convicted, but at least the charges would be on his record. I felt I owed this much to the next woman who crossed his path.

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