Part 2: I’m A Domestic Abuse Survivor. My Name Is Darrell.

 
darrell lucas domestic violence
 

As I mentioned earlier, in 2003 I married a woman whose devout Christian facade masqueraded an emotionally abusive and controlling woman. I finally left her in August 2006, though my gut had told me to leave several times as early as 2004. When I moved in with my mom, I thought all I’d have to worry about was coming to grips with the fact that I had endured three years of domestic abuse, as well as waiting a year before filing for divorce in August 2007. Boy, was I wrong. As it turned out, the worst abuse I was to endure from her was just beginning.

On the day I left my ex, her son had finally made good on threats to beat me up. So naturally, I pressed charges against him for simple assault and communicating threats. He was arrested the day after Labor Day, so I started girding myself for having to see him again. But four days later, while I was getting ready to go to the store to scout out a new computer, I got a rude surprise–two cops showed up at my mother’s door. To my shock, I learned that my ex had gotten the daughter of a friend of hers who was staying with us to tell police that I had made the girl watch X-rated movies and threatened to beat her up if she told anyone. I was horrified–especially when I saw that my ex’s son was listed as a witness. He was autistic, and from what I knew about autism at the time, in all likelihood he didn’t understand that he was being manipulated into lying under oath.? That made the four hours I spent downtown even longer than they were.

A family friend referred us to a lawyer who had been a longtime assistant DA. When he saw that the charges against me had been filed on the very same day my ex’s son had been arrested–just hours after the arrest, in fact–he concluded almost instantly that this was retaliation. Additionally, my ex claimed to have discovered what I had been supposedly doing at a time when I was at work–and I had the timesheet to prove it. I was certain that I would not only be cleared, but that my ex would be staring down the barrel of charges of perjury and subornation of perjury. That certainty became even greater when none of them showed up for court. But the DA requested a continuance, ostensibly to make sure that girl got the summons–which was granted. I should have known this would happen–my initial appearance was on Halloween. She didn’t show up for the next court date in January, and the charges were thrown out. The last time I saw my ex was December 2006, when out of nowhere she showed up at church. I promptly grabbed my stuff, ran out the door and took off–after all, I didn’t want to chance her starting something. I eventually had to leave that church after realizing that I was looking over my shoulder nearly every week. While my friends there were 100,000 percent on my side, it wasn’t nearly enough to make me feel safe.

I have since found out that my ex almost certainly pulled this off by way of North Carolina’s “self-initiated warrant” process, which allows someone to take out a warrant after furnishing “sufficient information” to a magistrate. That process is constitutionally questionable at best, given that it opens the door for innocent people to have their rights violated.? It also violates what I believe to be one of the most sacrosanct rights we have that isn’t enumerated in the Constitution–the right to go to the police and demand the righting of a wrong without fear of reprisal. Apparently she was banking on me rolling over and pleading guilty–and when she saw that wasn’t happening, she didn’t have the guts to take her medicine. What really hurts about this is that she no doubt knew that anyone who does anything to a child ranks among the lowest of the low on the inmate social scale. The thought that I was married to someone who wouldn’t have minded one bit if I’d been beaten senseless–or worse–still sickens me even now. Indeed, I had nightmares for several years afterward about being in prison and either being in solitary or getting beaten up.

While this was going on, my mom suggested that I get the divorce papers from my ex’s first marriage. Mom thought that given how she acted and the lengths she was going to lash out at me, there was a chance we might not be legally married–and I could not only get an annulment, but get her charged with bigamy. While leafing through the papers, I saw that her first husband had filed a statement saying that he’d witnessed my ex hitting her oldest son in the head several times out of anger. She never filed a response. No normal mother would let an accusation like that go unanswered. I had been prepared to accept the prospect that we weren’t legally married. What I wasn’t prepared for was the discovery that in all likelihood, I’d allowed a child abuser to share my bed.

Truth be told, I’d wondered why when she went back to see her relatives in December 2003, she had to see her kids via what appeared to be supervised visits. But I didn’t want to believe that dreadful possibility. However, the evidence was undeniable. If I had known this at any point while we were dating, I never would have married her. And if I had found this out at any point during our marriage, I’d have thrown her out first and asked questions later. At the very least, she hadn’t told me the whole truth about why her kids were taken from her. While I never have been able to find out what my ex may have done to merit such an extreme step, you’d have to do something pretty bad to not be allowed to see your own kids without supervision. I can’t even begin to tell you how sickened and betrayed I felt–after all, I had been an unwitting accomplice in a manifestly unfit mother’s attempt to snow the state into thinking she’d changed. Even now, that thought makes me physically ill. I have since found out that my ex’s relatives fell all over themselves to talk him out of moving in with his mom, and repeatedly warned him about the kind of person she was. But from the looks of it, his limited social skills prevented him from comprehending.

In North Carolina, you can legally file for divorce if you and your spouse have been living apart for a year, via the state’s divorce clinic. When that time came close in the summer of 2007, I got a surprise in the mail–divorce papers from my ex, who had apparently conned her way west. Specifically, Washington state. Something about them didn’t pass the smell test. There was no tracking number, and she also asked for my financial and salary information. Unless I was very wrong, it looked like these papers were fake–potentially exposing me to charges of bigamy if I ever got married again. So when the day came that I could first file via the divorce clinic, I didn’t waste any time. However, due to the remote chance they were real, I was afraid to talk about the hurt I was feeling with anyone, lest my ex dredge it up and use it against me to wring money out of me. Normally, I’d have taken those odds–but I wasn’t about to chance effectively being locked out at ever being able to live on my own again.

The divorce went final in October 2007 via the divorce clinic. Even after that, every time I felt like writing about what she’d done to me I had to hold off, since with the hurt raging through me I thought I’d say something that could be construed as a threat. It finally boiled over one morning after work in October 2008, when I just broke down and cried. I don’t know how I made it to my car before the tears started flowing.

I gave some very serious thought to suing my ex in order to recover my legal expenses, as well as hold her to account for the emotional heartache her frame-up caused me. The circumstantial evidence screamed that my ex had manipulated a 15-year-old girl and her own autistic son into this. However, without assurances that I would be protected from another attempt at retaliation from her, it wasn’t worth it, especially given how emotionally raw I still was. Additionally, I found out she was homeless–and I lacked that one critical piece of evidence that could have overcome the inevitable objections to suing a homeless woman. In other words, this was a classic case of knowing what had happened, but not being able to prove it. I had also seriously considered looking into pressing charges against her for mail fraud after she sent those divorce papers from Washington. But I wasn’t mentally ready at the time to handle the strain of possibly being away from home for a long time in a city where I didn’t know anyone–and additionally, there was no guarantee she’d be kept in jail, so I couldn’t chance her framing me again.

Needless to say, it’s taken me a long time to heal. After all, not only had I found out that my marriage was false from the start, but my ex intentionally delayed my recovery with her depraved actions after I left her. For awhile, I blamed myself for being too big-hearted for my own good, ignoring what seemed in hindsight to be obvious red flags, as well as for not doing enough to protect her kids. But over time, I’ve realized that she merely took advantage of the qualities that got me where I was. It took realizing that I was subconsciously doing things that women really appreciate for me to see that. Additionally, there are certain questions that no spouse should ever have to ask–such as whether he or she would even dare to lay a hand on a child. What happened was a textbook systemic failure–and I got hit by the shrapnel.

If I had to say anything to a guy reading this who’s going through a similar situation, it would be to listen to your gut feeling. They tell women in abusive relationships that they have every right to pack up and leave. Men have that same right. Abuse is abuse is abuse is abuse–period, full stop. Also, don’t give up on finding someone. While I had a couple of flings in the year after I left my ex, it took me almost two years to really open my heart up again. Take it from me–a woman who loves you and really cares about you is the best kind of therapy a guy who has had to endure this can have.


Darrell Lucus.jpg Darrell Lucus is a radical-lefty Jesus-lover who has been blogging for change for a decade. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook.

Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook. Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello.