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men we love men we hate
I’m Divorcing My Husband Natalie Maloney, teacher
I’m divorcing my husband. We go to court next week. We’ve been having problems for quite a while. Even before the storm. Irreconcilable differences will be the official reason for the split. It’s a “no fault” divorce. But although this decision was born of many hours of painful self-evaluation and thought, it was one epiphanic moment that sealed the deal for me. I made the decision to finally file for divorce just over a year ago. One afternoon when I said something my husband didn’t like, he grabbed me by my arms and shoved me against a door so hard I saw stars. I knew there would be blood on my head, on the door. My arms hurt. My head hurt, but the most painful reminder of that day was not the series of big black finger mark bruises on my arms that meant I couldn’t wear my sun dress to Jazz Fest. It wasn’t even the lump on my head that made sleeping hurt. The thing about that day that was so excruciating, the thing that cut me to the quick was the sentence he spit in my face as he pinned me to the door. “Now, I know why your father used to beat you.” The sentence came out of his mouth like vomit. As I stood there, with a lump the size of a lemon forming on the back of my head, I thought to myself, “You have no idea why my father used to beat me. No one does.” When I was a little girl, I was my daddy’s favorite. He always wanted a boy. When he held me in his arms for the first time, he said I was no bigger than a football, and he always called me his little pig skin. From that day forword he taught me how to punt and pitch, how to dribble and how to change the oil in our car. We did everything together. Then something changed. My father was not an alcoholic or a drug addict, so I can’t blame a substance for his actions. But from the time I was 12 years old until I escaped my home at 18, my father beat me whenever I said anything that he didn’t like. Sometimes I just got hit in the face. Sometimes I got shoved against a door or a wall. I had big bruises I tried to cover up. Long sleeves even in the summer. Jeans year round.