For Stacey

I'm having a hard time writing today. I revisited a place this morning, that I haven't been to in awhile. A bad place. And I'm crying as I write. Not really sad, but for some reason tears come. Its going to be a long post, I can tell right now. But I need to write. And I am going to warn you Kirk, if you are reading this, you may want to stop. I am not writing to hurt you or make you look bad, I just need to write.

I am writing today because of Stacey (http://www.iammelting.blogspot.com/). I read her post today and it took me back. I could have written it. I got married when I was 20. I loved him. We weren't in love, he would never let me that close. But I loved him. We were poor, had nothing of monetary value, and every single red flag that could have gone up was up - prior to getting married. Verbal abuse, physical abuse, rape, infidelity, drugs, lies, time spent in prison, lots of anger. And it was taken out on me. All this even before we got married. But I saw something in him that I thought was lovable, redeemable even in spite of all those other things. And I wasn't imagining it. There was something good there. Inside of him. I loved him and wanted to be with him. I, like all stupid youth, believed that love will conquer all. That even though other people had written him off, had rejected him, that I wouldn't. That I would stand by him and wanted to spend my life with him. So we left his world, I brought him to mine in Phoenix, and we got married and started a life. It's the little things that always bothered me. I guess the big things were too obvious and harder to accept that they were there. The rape is something that I still am dealing with. But winning. The wedding was already planned before he proposed - I got my "official" proposal about a month before, cause he hadn't got a ring yet. I knew he was getting it soon. One day we were sitting on the couch and he said, "here's your ring," and handed me a little box. I was supposed to be thrilled with this. But I ignored how it felt. And showed everyone my ring. I got a call one day from his "probabion officer" , who I didn't know existed, who informed me he was on probabion for drug posession, and when confronted about it he tells me he was actually in jail that night a month ago when he told me he was "pulling a double" at work. I ignored and forgave that too. Cause its the loving thing to do right? Nice way to start a marriage. We got married August 18, 1991. 2 months later I was pregnant with Tyler. I was thrilled. I always knew I would be a baby machine. He was happy I think. At least he wasn't angry about it. When I was 6 months pregnant he informed me that he had cheated on me when we were going out and living together back in Iowa. He had slept with some girl after one of our fights. I ignore this. When I was 22 weeks pregnant the doctors found something on my ultrasound. It was a choroid plexus cyst. A cyst in the ventricles of the baby's brain. I was not a nurse and knew nothing about nothing, and it was my first baby. It could mean nothing. But it could be an indication of Down's syndrome, or mental deficits. I was terrified. This was all dropped on me in one sitting. I called him at work and told him. His response was, "Well, can we take care of it?" meaning an abortion. No consolation, no we will get through this. Just can we get rid of the problem. Cause a handicapped child is so unacceptable, right? I had an amniocentesis to determine any abnormalities. But the results took 2 weeks to come back. I would then be 24 weeks. I would literally have hours to legally decide if I wanted to terminate. Before it even got that I knew what I would do. I knew I could never kill my child, no matter what was wrong with it. I would just deal with it. And hope for the best. Those were the 2 longest weeks of my life. Even though I had made up my mind, it was still very stressful. He was never angry about this decision, I actually think he just ignored the whole thing. But his first reaction always stayed with me. Everything was normal, and if you know Tyler he is extremely bright, very talented - I think even more musically talented than I was, good looking, and very popular. I'm glad I made my decision before I knew though. I had a c-section with Tyler. The doctor's told me he was too big and wouldn't fit. He was actually a month premature and 7 pounds 10 ounces, and would have fit nicely. But now I have a beautiful scar to remember it by. At the c-section he told me "They should have sucked out some fat while they were in there." And I was probably 125-130 after my surgery. And raved to my mother and family about how cool it was to see my abdomen splayed open. Tyler ended up being in the intensive care for 12 days due to respiratory distress, he couldn't breathe well enough, from being premature. All the stuff I know now, it just makes me sick how everything medially happened with Tyler. But that is past, and I have a beautiful child. I was now immediately post-op, with a huge incision, breast engorgment cause I couldn't nurse him, and my baby was taken away and was sick. I remembering just crying. And never wanting another child if it hurt this much. I asked him to stay the night with me. He said no, because it would be too uncomfortable to sleep there. I was high on Percocet, and just slept I guess. When I got home, I stayed with my mom. When he was there, instead of taking care of me and helping, he expected me to take care of him. Get him a glass of water, get him something to eat, go do this, go do that. I could barely walk without pain. But he was uncomfortable getting things for himself in my mom's house, so I should do it. I spent 12 days traveling back and forth to the NICU, sitting with Tyler, bringing in breast milk that I had pumped at home, and hoping. I didn't get to nurse him for 10 days, he was so unstable he couldn't be taken out of the isolette. It was probably the worst time of my whole life. We finally got to take him home. It was so scary but somehow Tyler survived. I was supposed to wait 6 weeks to have sex. Kirk wasn't that patient. I think it happened at about 4 or 5. (One time a patient at work came back a week after her c-section because her husband had gotten on top of her and made her have sex, and her wound dehissed, meaning it popped open. Not good. I guess I was fortunate for it to have happened at 4 or 5 weeks.) I ignored all of this. Shoved it away. Because it was unacceptable to acknowledge it and stay with him. When Tyler was just a year old, I went out one night with one of my best friends. We went to a concert, drank alot, and came home and crashed. This was like my sister, and it was not weird to be physically affectionate with her, or to sleep in the same bed with her. We had grown up together. By the end of the night he and her were pushing a three-some, and had already messed around that night, with me in the same bed not knowing he had felt her up and fingered her. Don't ask. Its called denial. I eventually was forced out of denial, asked her to leave, and lost my best friend. And the trust in my marriage. I ignored this too. When Tyler was very little,we had a huge fight in our apartment. He ended up breaking my hair dryer into a thousand pieces in a fit of rage, and when I confronted him yelling, standing up for myself, he looked at me square in the face and spit all over my face. I picked up the baby, got my purse, walked out the front door to a payphone, called my dad, and stayed with my mom for 5 days. After 5 days and an apology and a dozen red roses, I came back home. It was the only time he bought me flowers in our whole marriage. The fights continued. Sometimes violent, sometimes not. And I have a mouth on me, I know I wasn't blameless. I contributed. But I knew that someone hurting me was not ok. But I ignored it. I got pregnant again. About February of 1994. I didn't tell him for a week. Just wanted to secretly enjoy it myself for a little while. I was scared of my mother's reaction. And the fact that we had no money, he didnt have a good job, and he had no plans of doing anything else. By the time a week went by, I was having a stressful moment about it. We were fighting. I kept bitching about money and "what are you going to do with your life?", he wanted to know why I was in such a tizzy, I told him I was pregnant. He was actually nice right then, hugged me, told me it would be ok, but by the end of the conversation we were fighting again and he ended up calling me a "Fucking Whore" over and over. This was the beginning of that pregnancy. My little Sydney.
We lived with my parents then because he was in school. I had to drag him to prenatal classes, (which I loved), every pregnancy. On November 17, 1994 , and at 5 days past my due date, at 3 am I woke up from contractions. I waited 2 hours, they didn't go away. I tried to wake him up, to tell him I thought we needed to go to the hospital. He told me it probably wasn't anything. Most men have a bag waiting by the door, and are in a panic attack. He rolled over and went back to sleep. I tried to wake him several times. To no avail. My mom wanted to know if I was ok, a little after 5. I said I didn't know, but they were coming every 5 minutes. Finally I went in, woke him up and told he we NEEDED to go. He reluctantly got up, drove me to the hospital, and informed me they were just going to send me home. I stayed and had a baby. When Sydney was 6 months old I decided to dedicate her at my Baptist church. Nikki even came to be here for it. He knew it was very important to me and that we needed to be at church early. He went out with his friends that night, drinking and god knows what else. This was the time he was doing meth too, but I didn't know until later. I stayed up all night, with Nikki, waiting for him to come home, worried about him, thinking something had happened to him, hurt that he did this to me. He rolled in at 5. I was pissed, and the day started with a fight. We fought until we went to church. He was so pissed off that he drove us there at about 100 miles an hour, both kids in the car. After church it just got worse, the argument escalated. Nikki stayed out of the bedroom we were fighting in, and eventually came and got Tyler, who was almost 3, out of the room so he couldn't watch. We just kept fighting. I had to take Nikki to the airport in a few hours. Right before we had to leave, the argument reached its boiling point, and he picked me up by the neck, strangled me for a few minutes, then threw me up against the wall and left. I took Nikki to the airport. Both of us were quiet. Both in tears. She was so angry, and so scared and so sad for me. She was wondering if she would ever see me again. Me, ashamed and embarrassed, and so low. I will never forget saying goodbye to her that day. The next day Kirk and I talked. He told me he was sorry, like always, but that I just make him so angry sometimes that it made him "just want to shove my head into the ground." I knew what I had to do. I had had enough. This was the time the whole OJ trial was on. I had all those details and images in my head, and I kept thinking I was going to end up like Nicole Simpson. I actually feared for my life. The next day I went to the court and got a restraining order. I told Kirk I was leaving him. I told him not to come home. He lived in his car for a week. This restraing order was such an insult to him. He was so angry and depressed about it. He never violated it. A week later I got in the car to talk with him. I told him I would lift the order. But that I didn't want to live with him. The next day I went back to court and had it lifted, at the disapproval of the female judge. Before she lifted it, she took me into her office, sat me down and told me how much she thought it was the wrong thing to do. Made me look at all the reasons I had listed that I wanted it, all the violence, and stongly warned me, almost angry at me, but signed it and lifted it. Kirk moved back to Iowa. It was a very freeing time for me. I liked being alone. After 7 week I asked him to come back, because of medical insurance reasons for the kids. I had AHCCCS, Arizona's medicare, and he needed to be her if it was to continue. But I wasn't getting back together. I found him an apartment and we lived that way for awhile. I asked him to get counseling, but he never would. Eventually, things seemed better, and we moved back in. I had three requirements, that he not cuss at me and call me names, that he not hurt me, and that he have some plan for the future. In the next year, we bought our house, a dream come true, I never thought we would have one. It seemed that things had resolved. He kept his word for awhile. Little by little it went back though. He started taking classes to be an electrician. I was in nursing school. In January 1998 I got pregnant again. I thought we had fixed things. We now had a house, real medical insurance from his work, and were both in school, and had more money. My mom got cancer that year. While visiting her in the hospital one day, and being huge and house like at a week and 2 day past my due date I went into labor in my mom's hospital room. I called my doctor, they told me to go downstairs to ob and be checked. They decided to keep me. It was a Saturday. I called him to let him know. His response was," Are you sure, cause me and my brother had the day planned, we were going to the junkyard and look for parts." I told him the hospital itself was admitting me, my contractions were 2-3 minutes apart and getting worse. He reluctantly changed his plans and came, but let me know that I had ruined the day with this brother. After about 10 hours of labor I had my Lyndsey. All 9 pounds 5 ounces of her. (So much for Tyler not fitting at 7 pound and a half pounds - stupid doctor.) Another year went by. I graduated as an RN in December of 1998, and took my board exam a couple months later. I started working at County in Labor and Delivery May of 1999. 8 years ago. This year went by. Over the last 10 years, I had grown numb. Ignoring this, ignoring everything. I died. Slowly. Little by little Barb died. I didn't draw anymore, like Stacey. I didn't write. I didn't have any interests. I didn't play the piano anymore. I never felt sexy. I never dressed up, never wore make-up, never went out. I didn't like sex. I never flirted. Between raising 3 kids and my marriage, I lost myself and I died. I was this zombie in limbo, with a heartbeat. I compared it to an experiment I learned about in high school. Where they put this frog in a pan of room temperature water. They put it over a very low fire. So low the frog never noticed it warming up. It got warmer and warmer, so subtely that the frog never noticed, until at last it was boiling and the frog was dead. A slow slow death. That was me. Years of not being allowed to use the hair dryer, because he couldn't hear the tv when I did. Years of not being allowed to watch The Cosby Show, because it was some stupid nigger show. Same with Oprah. Not allowing the kids to play in the sand, cause he hated sand, and not being able to have Easter grass in the easter baskets, because he hated that too. Always having to rush out of a restaurant because he was done eating, whether the kids or I was or not; at the buffet, he always got his food first while I sat with the kids, then I got the kids food, one by one, inbetween kids he would get his second and third helpings, and by the time I got my food he was ready to leave, and irritated if he had to sit there and wait for us to finish. Getting slack if I controlled the remote control. Getting yelled at if I opened my straw by hitting it on the table. He would never brush my hair, never sit by me on the couch at night, and for years had called me a fat whore, a fucking bitch. And a hundred other things. The water had boiled - I was dead. But then IT happened. May 15, 2000. It was Tyler's end of the year program for first grade. My first baby had finished 1st grade. i wanted pictures and more pictures. With my mom and dad, me me and Kirk, with his friends. Lots of pictures to remember. At the end of the program, it was kind of chaotic, everyone talking, getting ready to leave. I was trying to get things organized. And getting frustrated. Kirk just wanted to leave. Was getting impatient, wanted to get the hell out of there. Needless to say, people went home, Kirk pushed me to get home, and I didn't get the pictures I wanted. On the way home, something happened. I got madder and madder. Everything just kind of came to a head due to this. Its funny how being lied to or cheated on, or raped or hit or strangled didn't make me leave. But not getting my pictures. Something happened inside of me. I guess birth is often times traumatic and painful. Things are broken and ripped in order for a new life to be brought forth. Damage of one thing in order for another to be born. And this birth was no exception. On the way home I exploded. I remember driving in the dark, alongside the zoo on Van Buren and laying my fist into the side of his head over and over and over. It wasn't right. I will never say that is was. But it happened. We were both screaming, and cussing, me hitting him at the risk of crashing the car and killing us, kids and all. At that point, the only thing I could see was his ugly face, how much I hated him and how much I wanted to hurt him. He swerved over, tried to push me out of the car, but didn't. Then we drove silently home. I'm sure the kids were terrified. After that I was different. I quit talking to him. I'm sure he thought it was like any other of our horrible fights, and that it would blow over like it always did - that I would ignore again. But I didn't this time. I couldn't. Enough was enough. I maneuvered around the house, ignoring him this time. For days. He would try to talk to me, I wouldn't respond. And it was uplifting. It was freeing. I didn't make the decision to divorce right then, or to even leave, but I knew something was different. I think I knew deep inside, but it was too much to acknowledge it. About a week into it, I was in the bathtub. I had always wanted him to come in and talk to me before when I was in the bath, always asking him to. He never would, said it was to hot in there. So this time, I'm in there. He comes in and sits in the door way. "So, whats up? How are you? Wanna talk?" I looked at him. "You never wanted to talk to me before. So no, I don't want to talk to you anymore." Him-"What's wrong?" Me - "I don't know, but something is different. Something inside me." He went on his way that day. Thinking it was nothing. Thinking about it took too much energy. But it didn't go away. This is the way things stayed for a couple months. I lived a separate life. Stayed away. Saw a glimpse of myself. Probably didn't recognize me it had been so long. I know I didn't do things the right way after that. But that is all in the past. We had just bought our first computer. I got on it more and more, late at night. I found Mike there. This was someone that after months of talking to him online, and on the phone, while Kirk was asleep, we connected. I didn't care about doing things the right way anymore - where had it gotten me so far. I had found something good and wasn't going to give it up. A few days before I was to meet Mike in person I made the decision. Kirk was still living at home. I remember standing in the kitchen and telling him I wanted a divorce. He kind of blew it off. When I insisted I was serious, he called me a dumb bitch, and said, "whatever you want." The day before I left for California to meet Mike, I took off my wedding ring. I had never taken in off in 9 years. Over the next few weeks, the more obvious it was that I was serious the more irritated he got. Especially when he found out I was getting involved with someone else. I hadn't slept with Mike yet. I couldn't yet. Kirk refused to leave the house, saying I was the one with the problem, I'm the one that needed to go. This went on for awhile. It was unbearable living in the same house. I stayed across the alley most of the time at my mom's house. One day when it was bearable no longer, I went and arranged to move me and the kids into an apartment down the street. That same day, it was a pay day and I had been planning, I went to a different bank and started my own account and put my paycheck into it. I was approved for the apartment, a nice little 2 bedroom, nothing fancy, but beautiful because it was mine. I came home, ready to pack my things, told him I had the apartment and that I was moving tomorrow. He broke down, said fine, he would leave, that he didn't want his kids to have to leave their house. We both knew he couldn't afford the house payment at that time anyhow. So he left. The sweet sweet feeling that I had for the next few weeks was so wonderful. He was gone. Gone. It was over. I thought the kids would be sad, but they weren't. In fact things got better with them. Before I changed the locks, actually had my dad change the lock, he would come and go unannounced. Take things, be in the house. When he left I told him he could take watever he wanted. Couches, bed, tv, anything. I didn't care. And I felt for him. He had nothing. He would still come and go. It was like a power thing for him. I remember he came in one day, apparently horny. I was in the kitchen, ignoring him but being pleasant, and he started messing with me. I kept brushing him off, telling him to stop, but he picked me up, put me on the counter and tried to fuck me there. I resisted, and he didn't push. Another time, I had worked all night, came home and was sleeping. He came into the bedroom, crawled in bed, got on top of me and put it in and started having sex. Like so many times before, I just laid there, waiting for him to finish. And so for a second time, he raped me. But then I woke up a little and said no. I told him no and to get off. He said, "Come on Baby, one last time, for old times sake." This is when my dad changed the locks. I continued to be involved with Mike for about a year and a half. In the meantime started my divorce papers. The day before Sydneys birthday 2000, she was turning 7, I was having a party for her the next day. He came by, I wouldn't talk to him and locked the door. The window was open. We were cleaning. He went over to the window and started yelling at my mom. I tried to shut the window. He took it in his hands, violently forced it open and broke it. There was glass everywhere and Sydney was sad and scared. My dad came over, helped me clean up the glass, and repaired the window the next day. He worked so slow and patiently, cleaning out all the old window paste, and making the new paste so perfect. He worked for hours. I still have that window. It makes me cry when I think about my dad now. I got pregnant from Mike, while on the pill, in April of 2001. I broke things off with him a month later. My divorce was final July 6 of 2001. My Independence Day. I had to stand before the judge and answer that I was pregnant with someone elses baby. I was so nervous to be in court anyhow, and out of the whole room full of people there I had to go first. But it was over soon. I walked in there Barbara N, and walked out Barbara M - my maiden name. Nikki had sent me a little care package for my divorce. It had lotion, and a card, and some other things, and a $10 bill to go and buy something for me. I walked out of court, with my new name, my new baby in my tummy, and I went to a little cafe and had a sandwich with the money. Kirk continued to get angrier and meaner. He wouldn't give me any help with the kids, but I never asked for it. I knew I was able to make enough money. But in order to get a divorce hearing, child support had to be arranged whether I asked for it or not. He was ordered to pay me $100 a week for 3 kids. It is still the same today. I never asked for anything. It took about a year for the child support to be taken out of his check. The first time it was taken out he was so pissed. More pissed than I had ever seen him. I was probably about 6 months pregnant with Ryan. My whole pregnancy I lived in constant fear that he would not let me stay pregnant. He came over that day, wanting to talk. I could see in his eyes how angry he was. They had taken money from him, and he didn't even have groceries, and how was we going to survive. I stayed quiet, knowing how upset he was, and listened to him, but he just gotangrier and angrier. My mistake was opening the door. He endd up pulling me outside, grabbed me by the neck, picked me up off the ground, strangled me again, and threw me up against the front of the house, and held me there. 6 months pregnant. He eventually let go, I think scaring himself, knowing he would do something really bad if he stayed. He put me down, and left. He left a bruise on my arm. He would never keep a schedule of when he saw the kids. He said he didn't need to talk to me. He would just show up. I was 8 months pregnant, and one morning he showed up. Wanted the kids to get up, get in his car. He was extremely agitated and angry. Threatening me. My door was locked with a new lock, and I would not open the security door. The kids were terrified. I told him he could not take the kids anywhere when he was this angry, to leave, and he could see them tomorrow. He said if I wouldn't talk to him he would go start "trouble" at my parents house. They were not home. I knew this. I could feel the situation getting bad, and felt very helpless at 8 months pregnant. I did nothing to egg him on, but closed the door, went in my room and called 911. Sydney came to stand by me. Not because she was scared, but to protect me. I will always remember this. I was on the phone to 911 in the back bedroom, I heard movement in the house. He had come through my parents yard and into my yard, and broke in through the bathroom window. I saw him come down the hallway, and then he was standing in the bedroom doorway , just feet away from me, while I was still on the phone with the police. I remember telling them to please hurry because he had just broken in the house and was standing in the doorway starring at me. And I rememeber the crazed look in his eye. I have never ever been that scared in my life. I know it takes the cops at least 5 minutes to come. And all I could do was stand there. With Sydney by my side, and pregnant. He walked out, the cops came, the kids saw everything, and eventually he went away. That memory still does things to me though. Years later I even had to rearrange the furniture in the bedroom cause it was the way it was that day, and it reminded me of how he looked in the doorway. The next day, I went and got my second restraining order. This time I kept it. He did not violate it. I had Ryan January 18, 2002, a week after this whole thing happened. I had him alone, with the help of another co-worker who came to visit me. I had to put "no visitors" on my chart to make sure Kirk or Mike who were both angry and threatening to me at this point, didn't come to the hospital.

Somewhere around July I saw this guy at work. I instantly thought he was cute. He worked in the lab. He brushed past me one day. I got chills. I was still scared to really date anyone, didn't want to pursue anything, so admired him from afar. For a couple of months. My day was better if I even saw him somewhere. He was big, and handsome, and confident, and all guy. One day he came up to draw blood. And stopped at the nurses station and talked to me for about 20 minutes. I was in heaven. My friend Gina and I were talking one day some time later. About the cute guys at work. There were 3 I thought were cute. When I described them, he was the only one she couldn't place. All day long she tried to think and figure out who he was. We had basically given up. I walked to another floor for something. When I came back, I was approaching the nurses stating, and there he was, back to me, talking to her. My eyes got big, my blood pressure went up, and I waved so she could see me and mouthed the words "THATS HIM!!!" . I went and hid in a side room, like a little high school girl. She mentioned me to him, he walked past and glanced at me. Then left later. Gina decided to introduce us. I wanted to - but in a day or so. The next Monday, she called him up in the lab, told me I liked him, and told him to call me. He said he remembered who I was, and instantly called me up on the floor I was working on. I was totally not expecting it. I didn't even know what to say to him. He asked me how I was doing, and wanted to know if I wanted to go out. I said yes, and faked calmness. I hadn't had a date in 13 years. I didn't feel so well and took my blood pressure. It was 150s/90s.

Royce and I had our first date on September 2, 2002. And the rest is history. I never thought I would find someone either. I never thought I would be treated with respect, loved, or that I would find any kind of a life with anyone ever again. I had 4 kids, who would want me. Royce and I connected instantly, and magically. And the rest is history. It has had its hard moments, but it is still magical and we have been married 3 years. I had Cheyenne on April 1, 2004. Then decided no more babies. I have never had a relationship with anyone like this. Our first date was magical. The whole thing. He is the best man I know and I am so lucky to have him. So lucky that he loves me.

And after Kirk saw him, someone his same size and strength (actually more), Kirk never bothered me again.