At 15 I became sexually active. My first relationship to
last longer than 2 months was when I turned 17. I found out I was
pregnant that
same week. I had been dating a man that was 23 and recently had gotten
out of
the navy. He was a serious “mama’s boy” but I thought since we were
having a
child, he would change. I was wrong! After my daughter was born I was
hospitalized for 7 days, due to the mid-wife that delivered her at the
military
hospital in Fort Hood, TX.
Didn’t remove all of my placenta and I developed a severe uterine
infection and
almost died. After that, my daughter’s father and I remained a couple
until she
was 3 months old. I needed someone in my life that would put us first,
and with
him I knew his mother would always be first. While he does see Marina
every summer, he still has not had a long-term relationship with any
woman.
I moved to Kansas City
when Marina was 6 months.
I got a
factory job and we managed. My sister and I shared a house and split
the bills.
I was now 18 and struggling when I met my son’s father. We had a met up
a
couple of times and I got pregnant. Everyone wanted me to have an
abortion, but
I couldn’t do that. He never spoke to me or saw his son until he was 1
½ years
old. Adrienne is now 9 and although his father lives in the same town
and pays
child support, he has seen him 10 times in his 9 years of life.
I was desperate to
find a man to love me and my kids.
At age 21 I was desperately seeking to find a man to love my
2 children and me. When I met the man who would later become my first
husband
and father of 2 more children.
I met Edgar Granados in a Mexican dance club. He spoke very
little English but he made me laugh. During the first 3 months
everything was
great. He took my children trick-or-treating and he took us out to
dinner. It
was perfect. He was really interested in the “family”.
My “Perfect” man began
using drugs.
Then he began using drugs heavily and developed this
paranoia that I was cheating on him. At that time I was living with my
mother,
he came over and asked me to run with him to get cigarettes. As soon as
we
turned the corner he started punching me and smacking me. I was shocked
and
confused. I tried to figure out what I had done to him. I didn’t speak
to him
for three days. Then he cried and apologized and I fell for it. Of
course, it
got worse. We moved in together and the abuse became a daily thing. I
have been
bitten, kicked, punched, hit, had scissors held to my throat so hard
that the
point pressed into my neck and caused it to bleed. I have had a loaded
sawed
off shotgun held to my side, with the kids in the backseat and a police
car
right behind us. I have been raped with that same sawed off shotgun. I
have had
plates of food thrown at me and learned that when we leave the house to
keep my
eyes looking downward so he doesn’t think I am looking at another man.
He poured beer on
me
and tried to catch me on fire.
Then I became pregnant with our first child together. At 9
months, he had went on a drinking and drugging binge and came home and
decided
to grab me by my pony tail and drag me around the house. We returned to
the
living room where he threw unopened cans of beer at me and then decided
to see
if beer was flammable. He poured beer on me and tried to catch me on
fire. It
was unsuccessful, so he passed out. My sister came the next morning to
take me
to do laundry. As I was taking the bags to her, he woke up, thinking
that I was
leaving him and began hitting me. I backed Adrienne who was 4 at that
time,
into a corner and I stood in front of him. He began throwing things at
me, when
my sister came up and got us out of there.
I asked myself
repeatedly “why are you with
him”?
I filed a police report and he eventually went to county
jail for 2 months. I asked for him to be deported and was told that
they only
do that when they have enough to fill a bus. Two months later, he swore
he had
changed. By that time I had already given birth to our son, Nicholas.
Everything was fine the first 6 months, then I got pregnant again and
his
father and brother came up from Mexico
and were staying with us. He started drinking and using again. By the
time I
had my 4th child, a girl, Angelica. I was fed up with the
crap. I
simply hated him. It disgusted me to even look at him. I realized how
big of a
loser he was and asked myself repeatedly “why are you with him”? One night when
Angelica was 2 weeks old, he came home at 3
am
and thought he would do his usual of degrading me. I wasn’t in the mood
(finally) and grabbed my pink princess phone and started beating him
upside the
head with it. I was sitting on the couch feeding my daughter at the
time and
“forgot” that I was holding her. He yanked the phone from me and at
that point
I grabbed him by his shirt and flipped him over us, and the couch onto
the
floor in front of me. I then grabbed a pole that we used to hold the
window up
and started hitting him with it. He got up and started hitting me and I
dug my
nails into his face and we went to blows. My son Adrienne at one point
came in
and said “MOMMY! ANGELICA!” I somehow handed Angelica to him and we
just kept
at it. Afterwards, I thought about everything that had happened. I felt
this
horrible guilt inside of me for being filled with such rage that I
didn’t even
remember that I was holding my newborn. I knew something had to change
and I
started to plot ways I could leave successfully.
God was saying “here
is your chance, don’t blow it!”
Later that week, his father had decided he didn’t want to be
around our arguing and he was returning to Mexico.Upon his leaving, he died of a heart attack.
Edgar left to go to the funeral and I decided that this was God saying
“here is
your chance, don’t blow it!” So I left. The last thing I wanted to do
was move
in with my mother and her drunken husband, but I knew I had too. That
was not
the life I wanted, that is not the person I am and that was not how I
wanted my
kids to live. My family has a history of living miserable lives. They
all
settle. I hate my family for settling and I did not want to be like
them.
I hated myself more
for LETTING him do that to me.
At one point, a prosecutor wanted me to go to a woman’s
shelter. I didn’t want to. To me that was like saying, he won. He
scared me so
badly that I had to go live in a shelter and hide. I hated him for
everything
he did to me, but I hated myself more for LETTING him do that to me. I
hated
that I was so desperate for a man that I lived like that and brought 2
more
children into a meaningless marriage. I hated that I had settled and
believed
him when he said no man would ever want a woman with 4 kids. I hated
that I did
that to my kids.
I was miserable at my mothers, it was like I was still
living with Edgar. My step-father would come in at 4 am and wake me & my kids up just to let me
know I was a whore
and he hated me. I was miserable but I knew it would get better, I
don’t know
how but I just had faith that something good HAD to come out of this.
After I found a job,
I went on my first date ever.
About six months after leaving him, he was still calling,
driving by, stalking me, butI
eventually found a decent job and within 2 weeks was asked out for a
lunch
date! It was the first date I had ever been on!! During my lunch, I let
him
know I have 4 kids, 2 are part black, 2 are part Hispanic. There are 3
different fathers. My kids have not had an easy life and if all you
want is to
have fun, then I am not the girl for you. For the first time in my life
I
didn’t care if he liked me, or was offended, or thought I was rude. I
told him
what I wanted and if he didn’t like it then that was on him. I knew it
wasn’t
going to be easy for my babies and me but I knew I could do it; it
would just
take me a while.
We continued to date andhe helped me get
a place. My credit was a mess so even though he owned
his own home and wanted me to move in with him. I wasn’t quite ready
for that.
He co-signed on a house for my kids and me. He bought us all kinds of
house
wares and for the first time in my kid’s life, they all had their own
beds! It
was exciting! That Christmas he spent $500 on each of my kids. That was
their
best Christmas ever! Three months later he bought me an engagement ring
and we
will be married for 3 years this June! It hasn’t been easy, and I have
had my
moments where I don’t think I deserve to be treated so good, but we
work
through it. Our lives have changed drastically. It still surprises me
how
different we live.
Edgar
is the true
victim, not me.
I definitely do NOT
consider myself a “victim”. Edgar is the victim. He is a victim of the
life he
created for himself. He has a total of 7 children between the U.S &
Mexico
(that I know of) and I am certain that there are 2 that will never
consider him
their dad. He is a victim of drugs, he is a victim of alcohol, he is a
victim
of himself. I am thankful that I stopped considering myself a victim of
him,
and realized that the choices I make can get me out of there just as
easily as
they put me in there! I chose a better life and it didn’t take me long
to find
it!
Abusers
are very adept at casting a
veil of secrecy - often with the active aid of their victims - over
their dysfunction and misbehavior.Open
Encyclopedia
