I didn’t know it at the time, but this story of abuse began in January of 2001, mere days after I married my husband. With your help, this story can have a happy ending with the damsel no longer in distress and instead relaxing and roasting marshmallows with her two sons as the sun sets in the west.
I need to escape a narcissistic abuser, and I’ll be entering a shelter and getting help to get a divorce from him.
When you read this story of abuse, it will probably be easy for you to judge me harshly. For you to even come close to understanding, there are a few things you need to know.
- I am autistic, and for the first 30 or so years of my life, I naturally took things at face value, believing what people said to me. I had to learn to overcome that.
- I have always been extremely generous, loving, and forgiving, and the church tells women to submit to their husbands, so I did.
- Alan was a professional actor and is a narcissist who was able to play me like a flute from day one.
So, even though you will be able to see where the story is going, please be kind to me and remember that I was blinded. Even when I suspected the truth and took action, he was able to “change,” and religion demanded I get back together with him, so I did. No more, though. No more.
The fairy tale had dark undertones.
1998
Everyone liked Alan. He always had a funny story or a joke to tell, and the room lit up when he entered. An egalitarian, he cooked and cleaned—in fact, he cleaned a large portion of the campus at the Christian college where we met. He was good at cooking. We met in January of 1998, and I ran into him most afternoons when I went to check my campus mail because he was scheduled to clean that building at that time.
He knew I was into trivia and a game called Mind Trap. Most days that he saw me, he had a trivia question or a Mind Trap puzzle for me. The other days, he talked about some book. He was my oasis of calm in my 70-hour work week and basically double load of classes (it was 18 hours of courses, but the courses at that expensive private college were harder than normal). I was always running from one thing to the next, and I quickly got addicted to that minute or two of peace each day. He and I became best friends.
He seemed ambitious, working a full-time job, then driving an hour into the city to rehearse whatever play he was in at the time, then driving an hour back home, sleeping a few hours, and getting up to do it all over again. We were going to make plenty of money and change our family trees from the roots, as we heard Dave Ramsey say a couple of years later.
2000
We got married at the end of 2000.
Imagine my bewilderment when he balked and dug in his heels and just didn’t do much after we got married and moved in together. I got pregnant a couple of months after the wedding. It was a difficult pregnancy, landing me in the hospital for hyperemesis, and I had morning sickness until the seventh month. Just recently, I found out that is emotional abuse.
We were children’s pastors and the church custodians, and the cleaning chemicals made my morning sickness so much worse, but I had to clean the toilets anyway. Our compensation was an apartment in the church, so Alan didn’t need to pay rent anywhere. I needed my husband to handle the chemicals and to contribute to the household labor and mental load.
He agreed to.
But then he just didn’t do it.
Round and round we went.
Is having the same argument emotional abuse?
It can’t really be called an argument because he always agreed with me about my complaints. I’d tell him I needed his help and he had not been doing anything. He would say I was right, and he would commit to doing X, Y, and Z. I thought it was settled and felt relief. But then he just did not do the things. I would complain again. Eventually, I was complaining more emotionally or more forcefully. He would always agree and commit to doing the things.
We had the same conflict over and over with no change, which I found out years later is emotional abuse. We talked with our head pastor at that church. We went to counselors. I read book after book.
Nothing helped.
“Well,” many people told me, and I told myself, “at least he isn’t abusive. He doesn’t beat you, and he doesn’t cheat on you like most married men do to their wives.”
We had three children. He rarely ever changed a diaper or did bathtime or anything else with the kids except yell at them and spank them.
About 99% of everything was on me.
He didn’t earn enough money to live on his own, let alone support a family, and childcare cost more than I could earn, so I was a stuck-at-home mom until I figureed out how to start and run a business at home. From the beginning of our marriage, Alan always expected me to “magic up” any money we needed, and I did. Every time.
Over the years, my health dipped all the way to death’s door many times, and Gabor Mate would say it’s because of my husband abusing me.
2001 to 2009
During these years, aside from those same old struggles, he was good to me. Well, I thought he was. Because I came from a childhood of abuse so severe it’s not allowed to be portrayed in books or movies, I thought he was Prince Charming.
The kids and I walked on eggshells so as not to anger him, the king of the castle, as the churches we went to told us he was, but I didn’t realize it was abuse.
Control is abuse.
Everything was done his way. Every TV show that was watched was what he wanted to watch. The house was organized the way he wanted it to be. It was never clean enough, and he complained about it constantly, sometimes even screaming and throwing things. Did he clean whatever it was he was griping about? No. One of us jumped up and did it, every time.
He controlled all of the money from day one, what little there was. This is financial abuse, which also began on day one. I just didn’t realize it for many years. I had to account for every penny I spent, and apologize for it, too. But he couldn’t be bothered to keep receipts. I was supposed to budget blind.
We “couldn’t afford” for me to wear makeup or buy clothes or snacks or sodas, but Alan bought coffees, sodas, and junk food from the vending machines at work every day. He sometimes ordered takeout at work, too. At home, Alan got to eat the expensive foods, and the kids and I ate generic.
The Lays chips were his.
The Oscar Mayer hot dogs were his.
The block cheese was his. Half of the sliced cheese was his.
The onion dip was his.
The Heinz ketchup was his.
The kids and I could eat the Bar S hot dogs and the store-brand ketchup. The kids and I “didn’t need” any chips or block cheese or dip, according to him, but if we did get some, it was generic and cheaper than what he was entitled to.
He bought a package of each kind of hot dogs: one for himself, and one for the three kids and me to split.
He bought a package of sliced cheese and expected at least half of it to be for him and the four of us to split the remaining slices. How many slices could we use before he would explode? We never knew. I don’t even know how many hundreds of times I went without cheese on my burger hoping there would be “enough” for him.
Walking on eggshells is part of this story of abuse.
We made sure he had what he wanted. We put him first in everything. We were as quiet as we could be so he wouldn’t wake up in a rage.
And we tried hard to keep things where he expected them to be. Anytime something was not where he expected it to be in the house or car, and especially anytime something had been used up that he expected to find when he went to the kitchen, he would give us hell. He wanted hot dogs, and there weren’t any, but he never bought enough food, and people have to eat! Every time that happened, the kids and I spent the rest of the day scared of what he might do.
But I didn’t think that was abuse. And people near us told me it was not abuse.
It was abuse. Every bit of it was abuse.
In 2009, he began getting physical, but he still didn’t hit me. He threw and broke so many things. Not his things, of course. Our things. And he would sometimes “accidentally” hit one of us with an object he threw.
But still, everyone told me it wasn’t abuse. They said things like he was just depressed. He was just particular. He was just…something other than abusive.
2010
This is the year Joe became our pastor. Without the wives knowing, he taught the men in our tiny church that they were the kings in their castles. Joe said that husbands are commanded by God to rule over their wives and children, and must do whatever it takes to obtain and maintain absolute control over them.
It was the worst Valentine’s Day ever.
On Valentine’s Day in 2012, Alan got angry that it was his turn to cook instead of playing computer games all day, so he started slamming things around in the kitchen.
I told him to stop.
Instead, he ramped it up, throwing my expensive Dutch oven onto the floor and chipping the enamel.
I told him I was calling Joe.
He followed me and pinned me in the bedroom door. The left side of my body was in the room with him, and my right arm and leg were trapped on the other side of the door. He bruised me head to toe on the left side of my body, demanding I give him my phone, which was on the floor on the other side of the door.
It occurred to me that he was not going to stop, so I fought back and kicked him across the room. I got away from him, got to my phone, and dialed 911.
The police refused to arrest him.
The other adults who were there and witnessed it gave the police a statement, too.
The cops still refused to do anything except fill out an incident report.
Joe “had a talk with” Alan. That’s when I learned that Joe and his cousin, who was the other leader at that tiny church, used to beat their wives and children. They didn’t anymore, they said. Probably because their wives and children were terrified of them and did eveything they told them to do, instantly. The men said they “didn’t need to” beat them anymore. They were still abusing them.
Over the course of the next year, Joe also taught the men that sex belonged to them, so they should get it whenever they wanted it, and should force their wives if they said no. “It is impossible to rape that which you own [referring to their wives], so take what belongs to you.”
My husband reminded Joe that I could fight back. When I was in college and we were dating, Alan came to watch me spar with half a dozen guys. After the session, he said, “Remind me never to piss you off. You could kick my ass all over the place.” And on Valentine’s Day 2012, when he beat and choked me and I realized he was not going to stop, I kicked him across the room.
Joe knew about all of that. He also knew every bit of my trauma, since he had “counseled” me for a year before he told my husband to start raping me. Joe told Alan exactly how to incapacitate me so that I would be paralyzed and unable to fight back.
Alan did it.
All I could do was stare at him as the tears ran down the sides of my face.
The next morning, he shook me out of the paralysis I was still in, apologized tearfully, and swore never to do it again.
I believed him.
We moved six hours north to get away from that so-called pastor.
Some things got better. Alan kept demanding control over most things in our lives, but I was finally able to get a part-time job, and my editing and author-coaching business grew. He didn’t force but did coerce me sexually, and he threw and broke things on occasion.
The police do not arrest abusers.
Not once would the police, in any town we lived in, arrest him. Not for beating me. Not for raping me. I later learned that 40% of police officers (which is a very high percentage of the male officers) openly admit to abusing their wives, and many do it but don’t admit it, so it makes perfect sense that police officers refuse to arrest their fellow abusers. The ranks of judges are also full of abusers, which is why it’s so hard to get help there, too.
2018
In May of that year, Alan blew up over the ketchup bottle being placed “upside down” on the table by one of the kids. It was actually placed the right way—not that it would matter if it had been upside down. There is no excuse for exploding and slamming things all over the house just because you think a child set something down the wrong way.
When I went to call the police, he interfered with that 911 call (a felony). The police still would not arrest him, but a domestic violence shelter an hour away would take the kids and me in.
The kids and I were finally able to leave Alan.
2019
He seemed to be changing his beliefs and reforming his behavior. We spent small amounts of time together out in public, and eventually at my new apartment.
The guy I married was back but better: he read the self-help books, he spoke respectfully to the kids, and he cooked and cleaned!
We moved back in together.
In late 2019, we let him move in with us in our new place. Things went pretty well for a while, with the occasional “Hey, you don’t get to talk to people like that” and reminders that “We don’t play the ‘who ate the food I expected to be in the refrigerator’ game anymore, so stop it.”
The marriage continued to go well during the lockdown in 2020.
And through 2021. In late 2021, I ended up in the ICU, and my business came to a screeching halt. For years, my health was so bad that I couldn’t make much money.
During 2022, our daughter moved out, and it was just the four of us (Alan, the two boys, and me).
Near the end of 2022, Alan told me he had been taking advantage of the fact that I was medicated for sleep and pain and was unable to respond to or remember whatever he had done to me the night before. He admitted he had been raping me in my sleep, and the kids and I made him move out. His touch suddenly made my skin crawl.
He pulled his usual “turning into a bump on a log” thing, so if I wanted him out, I had to find an apartment for him and pay every dollar needed to get him settled in: first and last month’s rent, deposit for the apartment, deposit for the utilities, buying him a bed and basic furniture.
I refused to set foot in the place, though, so he had to move his stuff in by himself.
I found out a couple of months ago that he had called our daughter, who knew nothing of those crimes he had committed against me, and she moved his belongings into his apartment for him. A few months ago, she found out, and she told me that had she known, she would have refused to help or even speak to him. She has not spoken to him since.
We were staying in contact for the kids’ sake.
Around the time Alan was moving out, the boys asked me if Alan could come over for the family game sessions we had once a week. They said they’d be sure he could never get me alone with him, and if I ever felt too uncomfortable, I could let them know, and they’d make him leave.
I agreed.
Once a week, Alan came over for the morning. My muscles were stiff the whole time, and I was on high alert. After he left, I slept the rest of the day. But the boys got to see their dad and enjoy game time with us. We shared the car, moving it between the apartment and house as needed.
From the night Alan told me what he had been doing to me, I could no longer fall sleep in that bedroom we had shared. I got a twin bed and put it in my home office and listed the master bedroom on Airbnb while I tried to find a roommate. After a couple of weeks of the Airbnbing going extremely well, I fixed up my daughter’s old room and listed it, too. I attained Superhost status in less than 60 days. That was my income while I recovered from the health crash that landed me in the ICU.
My husband started showing signs of dementia.
After a few months of sharing the car and having weekly family game time, Alan began showing signs of dementia, the disease that killed his mother. He started telling age-old stories wrong. He got schedules mixed up. At first, it was just inconvenient and costly in time and gas. Soon, it was threatening his job.
Over the course of the next few months, his symptoms got worse. He called me to say he didn’t know where he was or how he had gotten there, and I played detective, figured out where he was, and mapped his way back. He was hitting curbs and parked cars when he operated the car. He drove 40 miles in the wrong direction when he was supposed to pick up our son, who was waiting on him a few miles away in one town, and I was waiting on him 20 miles away in another town. He drove right by me and did not stop to pick me up. I had to sit in the waiting room of my doctor’s office until they closed, and then I had to stand in subzero temperatures outside until my husband finally came back to get me. You bet your boots I drove home!
Alan started leaving the stove on when he made snacks during family game time, nearly catching the kitchen on fire, and he told us of times he had done the same at his apartment.
The boys and I could not in good conscience allow him to keep living on his own. I couldn’t let him continue to drive. Every time he did, he was risking lives, and he was risking the only vehicle we had among the four of us. The boys and I were afraid he was going to hit a person or total our car, and we had no way to get another vehicle. We were afraid he was going to burn down the apartment building he lived in, and we were never there, so we would not be able to prevent it.
He needed to be supervised at all times, and I needed to feel safe.
So, the boys and I made a plan and talked to Alan, who agreed to every bit of it.
We set boundaries with the narcissist.
The boys and I fixed up a room in the garage and moved Alan into it. We spent about 100 man hours and two months’ worth of our income on that. Then I added a combination camp toilet and sink. That way, Alan could stay out there in his room during set times and come in to shower and get ready for work at set times. I would know what to expect, and I could feel safe. Everything was in writing in case he “forgot,” you know, with his “dementia” and all.
At first, it went well.
Then, he started “forgetting.” Whether it was dementia or narcissism (some say narcissists are highly likely to develop dementia and Alzheimers) doesn’t really matter. The result is the same. The story of abuse we thought was over just continued.
He started coming into my space unannounced—and silently, sneaking up on me and startling me right out of my skin and into a freeze/fawn response. He would hug me, kiss me, do whatever he wanted, while I could do nothing to stop it. After he got what he wanted, he would shuffle away.
I would eventually “thaw out” and go cry and shiver for hours. It ate my whole day. Often, one of the boys found me and confronted him and told him to keep his hands off of me and follow the schedule. He was never to be in the house when they were not present to protect me from him.
Whenever one of us told him what he had done and what it did to me, he’d be all apologetic, and “Oh! I didn’t realize,” and, “It will never happen again.”
But the next day, or the next week, or maaaaaybe two weeks later, it would happen again.
It “shouldn’t” affect me that much.
This is another part that is hard for me to get people to understand. It’s hard for me to understand it some days.
It just does not seem like it should be as stressful as it is when he pops up out of nowhere when he shouldn’t be in the house and sexually assaults me. And certainly it shouldn’t stress me out so badly when he just pops up out of nowhere when he shouldn’t be in the house and proceeds to do whatever—use the bathroom he’s not supposed to use, raid the fridge between meals, etc.—without touching me.
Please just believe me when I say it shakes me to my core every single time, and it takes about a day for me to get over each instance. As it keeps happening, that stress compounds, and after a number of times, I was right back to being unable to sleep in my own bed. I had moved out of the master bedroom and put a small bed in my office to have a space that was uncontaminated by rape. That didn’t last long.
It also triggered a flare of a particular medical condition I have, and those flares are brought on by massive amounts of stress. Since 2006, doctors have told me that any amount of stress can kill me. Extreme stress like this?
This must stop, and it must stop now.
Going to a domestic violence shelter is a nightmare.
The kids and I stayed in the shelter for a couple of weeks several years ago, and it was just as bad as living with an abusive husband. Staff woke me every 60 minutes with their bed checks, and it took me about 50 minutes to get back to sleep after each adrenaline jolt. They had absolutely no need to do hourly bed checks because they had cameras in every room in the shelter except the bathroom, but they did anyway.
Their rules prohibited sleeping during the day. I got basically no sleep during those two weeks. Sleep deprivation is abuse. It’s also super stressful and leads to health problems. After day 10, I was weeping at the drop of a hat and snapping at my kids.
I had tried more than 300 places, and no one would rent to me because I had no credit (thank you, Dave Ramsey). Determined to take “risk” out of the equation, I emailed clients who were on my calendar for the rest of the year and raised the $10,000 needed to pay for a year’s lease up front. I got us out of the shelter by the end of day 15.
Despite the fact that going there again will be hell, I’m calling the shelter when they open and checking myself in if they have space for me. The boys will stay here and take care of the house and dogs and go to work.
Due to the shelter’s rules and regulations, I’ll be dealing with complete isolation and the inability to earn money while I’m there.
- The boys will not be able to visit me because no men are allowed on the premises. My daughter lives too far away to be able to afford to visit.
- No phone calls, no Zoom calls, and no recordings of any kind can be made or shared from the shelter. What this means is, until the court forces Alan to move out and I can come home, I will be alone and practically unable to earn money. I will be depending on your kindness. My eldest son has the mortgage covered, but I have to come up with the rest of the money needed to run a household, or the utilities will be shut off. I don’t have any upcoming client work on the books this time.
I promise to do everything I can to line up business while I am in shelter and waiting for the judge to expedite my divorce and make Alan move out of my house (his name is not on it, so that’s a plus).
I also promise to buckle down and work hard once I get back home. That way, I won’t need your help for long. But right now, I do need your help. Please click the button below (if it will stop disappearing) to send me some financial support, or send whatever amount you desire via my PayPal email (Jennifer@HarshmanServices.com) or Venmo, which is @Jennifer-Harshman-5