An Abused Wife

This is going to be a very long blog.  Perhaps I am being self-indulgent, but I need to tell this story.

The media is full of outrage over abused women.  People ask, “Why does a woman stay with a man who beats her?  I know.  I was an abused wife.  I never called the police.  I never signed a complaint.  I put up with it for 27 years.

I loved Wally, and I thought he loved me.  When we were first married and I went with him to Chicago, I was not prepared for the situation in which I found myself.  His mother was an ignorant woman, with only a third grade education and who said to me, “You are in Chicago now.  You must do things our way.”. 

She criticized everything I did.  If I slumped under her barrage, she said, “Look at you!  Sit up straight!”  If I sat up, she said, “Oh, you look so stiff.”

She said I was a slob and a bad housekeeper.  Several times a week Wally echoed her in shouting at me.  “There is dust on top of the refrigerator.”  He called me names I never heard in my parents’ home.  

I thought he did not want to disappoint his Scandinavian mother with his choice of a wife.  They really believed I did not know how to clean house.  Before he came home (sometimes quite late), I picked up the children’s toys and vacuumed and dusted the living room every night.  This did not stop the verbal abuse.  Wally came home and irrupted in a torrent of rage. “There is a dust bunny in the back of the closet.  Your house is dirty!  I won’t put up with this.”

Only one time did Wally speak up to his mother.  As he shouted at her, the pitch of his voice became higher and higher.  I was appalled and said, “Wally, don’t speak to your mother like that.”  His mother said, “Yes, Wally.  Shout at me like a man!  You sound like a girl.”

At first I thought all this criticism and shouting was a cultural thing.  In my parents’ home no one ever raised their voices.  The strongest language I was permitted to use when I was really, really angry was to say, “Darn!”   It was a relief when I was upset to say, “Damn!”

The first time the abuse became physical  was when I became pregnant for the first time.  In addition to constant verbal abuse, Wally slapped me around.  The entire nine months was hell.  I told myself, “He is just nervous about taking on the responsibility of a father.”   Karl was born.  Wally was thrilled with his baby son.  There was no more physical abuse for many years. 

Wally was transferred from Chicago to Detroit to Dallas to Philadelphia.  Most of that time he did not even shout at me.  I thought contact with other business men and their wives had shown him a better way to behave.  Then we moved back to Chicago, and the verbal abuse began again.  I thought, “He has problems at work, and he’s taking it out on me.” 

Then the abuse  became physical.  The night he put his hands around my throat and choked me, I finally realized: “Unconditional love is not going to work”.  I saw a lawyer. 

I did not tell Wally.  I was working as a real estate agent.  One night I went out to see prospective clients about listing their house.  I did not get the listing.  Feeling low, I went home.  As I walked in the door, Wally, who had been sitting drinking Scotch in the den, jumped up.  He socked me so hard I fell down.  He started kicking me in the ribs.  David, in the next room, heard the sound of blows and came out in his pajamas.  He saw me lying on the carpet while his father pummeled me over and over.  In tears David said, “Stop, Daddy, please stop.”  

Wally said, “This does not concern you, David.  Go back to your room.”  

David: “Stop!  Stop!”

Wally stepped back.  He looking dazed and drunk. 

I stood up and said, “David, put on your clothes.  We are leaving here right now.”

Wally became contrite.  He begged me not to go.  He promised it would never happen again.

For the next year Wally and I went to Arlington Heights, Illinois, every week to talk with a psychiatrist.  Once the doctor gave us “homework.”  We were to go to the ice cream shop.  I was to order whatever I wanted.  Wally was to order something else.  I was to eat whatever Wally ordered for me, and while I was eating, he was to explain to me why I should prefer what he ordered over my choice.  After supper the next night, we did exactly as the doctor prescribed.  I ordered a double dip chocolate cone.  Wally replaced that order with a maple sundae with caramel sauce. 

As I tried to eat the damned thing, I said, “Wally, have you ever known me to order maple or caramel? You know I don’t like those flavors.”   

Wally said gruffly, “The doctor told me to order something different.”

Why hadn’t he ordered the brownie treat or a strawberry sundae or even a simple butter-pecan cone?  I knew why.  I would have been delighted with any of those, but Wally would never do anything to please me.  He wanted to punish me for my supposed sin of being a bad wife.

Soon after that the angry outbursts began again.  He made fists and shook his big hands in front of my face.  I was terrified that hitting and choking would begin again.  When he finally calmed down, I said, “I’m going ahead with the divorce.”

“Why?” he said.  “I haven’t hit you for over a year.”

I said, “I can’t take any more of your anger.  I simply can’t take it.”

We were divorced.  I still loved Wally, but I could not live with him.  I thought he understood that.  He didn’t  He married Dee.  He broke my heart.  I think he was having an affair with her for the last two years we were married.  I now suspect that he was having affairs since the first year we were married.  All those nights when he was “working late.”  His way of dealing with his cheating was to convince himself that I was a bad wife who deserved all the abuse he heaped on me.

Since the divorce, I’ve had a wonderful life.  First I moved to Albuquerque, crying all the way for the 1,000 miles from Chicago.  Within two weeks I went to the Senior Center there, where I started having more fun than I ever dreamed possible.  Then I met John Durkalski, the kindest, gentlest of men who devoted the last four years of his life to making me happy and whose estate now enables me to live in luxury in a retirement home in Dallas.. 

Wally’s anger turned to pure hatred.  He convinced himself that I was a bad woman who had mistreated him.   David refuses to tell me all the horrible things his father said about me.

Wally developed lung cancer.  The doctor came into his hospital room and told him, “Wally, you are dying.”  

Wally said, “No, I am not.  I’m going to lick this thing.  I am not going to let Ilene have my Social Security.”

Two weeks later he died.  That was 17 years ago.  His Social Security check has been deposited in my bank account every month since.