My Story of Domestic Abuse!
The Whole Truth!
Ruthie Gilliland
My Story, Part 2!
Hello there,
Welcome to my blog! If this is your first time here, I encourage you to first read. How I ended up here and My Story of Domestic Abuse! The Whole Truth! Part 1
So my marriage began and instead of happy bliss, I entered survival mode, what ever that looks like. I don’t think anyone who has anything like this happen to them, knows how to survive. You just do the best you can and you do it alone, because, how do you tell people that are close to you, how stupid you are? You are ashamed and embarrassed and after all, everyone “loves him” and thinks you are so lucky to have found him. So……you just exist to survive each day.
I immediately was living in fear. I woke up in fear, spent my day in fear and went to bed in fear. I couldn’t even get through the night with out it because Ron would wake me up in the middle of the night to begin to torment me.
This is not to say that there were not good days. The man that I fell in love with would show up. The man that would have love, compassion and understanding. The man that would show remorse and accept responsibility. It never lasted though and everything that he told me would be forgotten and I never knew when it would happen, so I would feel like I was walking on egg shells, afraid I would wake the beast.
Ron had access to all my email, my facebook and monitored my calls and text messages. There was never anything for him to find because I was not doing anything wrong but that didn’t satisfy him. He would constantly text me and call me often and if I didn’t answer him I had hell to pay. I tried to explain to him that I could not be on my phone at work, that I didn’t have the freedom that he had but it fell on a deaf ears.
He would show up on my lunch hour randomly and he would always show up at places where I would be. He basically went every where I went, showed up or was texting and calling the whole time. There was no logic in his accusations, when could I even have a chance to cheat on him. There was nothing I could do to keep the accusations from happening. I was always very careful not to look at anyone for fear he would accuse me of “hunting” but it didn’t matter. One time we went through a store and I made sure I looked at the floor the whole time and we still walked out with him accusing me of looking at a man. There was no escape!
I could set here and share story after story of the abuse I encountered with Ron but I would need pages and pages just to share a few and I just can’t dump that all on you. I am sure you will hear some of the things down the road as I continue to share information on my blog. The shortest way to describe what Ron was doing to me was torment. It was sheer torment!
Not long after we were married, I pleaded with God to provide me someone that I could talk to, that could help me. That Sunday, Ron and I went to church as usual. We got there a little early and were setting in the sanctuary. I just sat with my head down oblivious to anything going on around us. The senior pastor was normally out in the foyer until the service started but that day he walked up to us. I could barely look at him and of course, Ron put on the “I’m a great guy” act. Ron asked Pastor Fred if he could pray for us. Fred suggested we come down to the front after the service was over and he would pray for us than.
So, after the service was over, we went down for prayer. Fred asked one of the ladies, Sheila, to pray with us. Ron explained that we were newly married and were having some problems while I stood there with tears rapidly falling down my face unable to speak. After they prayed for us, Sheila gave me her number and told me that I could set up a time to meet with her to talk. God is so amazing!
I met with Sheila and it was very helpful but she didn’t know how to help me. I gave her permission to talk to pastor Gary who was over healing ministries. Long story short, he told her I needed to go the the Domestic Violence support group, Hope Ministries. She suggested that I go to the group and left the door open to come back to see her if that was not a fit for me.
When I talked to the leader of the support group, I expressed fear about what Ron would say about me going to this group. She suggested that I tell him I was going to meet with a group of women that talk on certain topics each week and she would even provide me with information to show him. So, I explained to him that instead of meeting with Sheila that I would be meeting with a group of women like the leader suggested. He immediately said, “Is this a domestic violence support group?” I said yes and he blew up, accusing me of lying to him. I didn’t sleep that night but I was determined to go to that group.
Gary was right, that is exactly what I needed. Through that group I found support, I learned about abuse, I learned that I was not alone and I was not crazy. I grew stronger and learned to stop trying to defend myself when I was dealing with crazy making behavior. They helped me keep things in perspective instead of letting him cause me to believe his lies. I could go on and on about what that group and the support of those leaders did for me.
In January, Ron came to me crying before I was heading to work. He said he had a problem and he needed help. (I know now, this was because I had hit my breaking point and he feared I would end it) He contacted Pastor Gary and got information for Synergy. He began to tell his family that he had a problem and he was going to get help. He quit drinking and got connected with the synergy for group counseling with many other offenders that he attended weekly. Things were a little better and I finally had some hope. The torment seemed to happen less and he stopped accusing me of “hunting” all the time.
It was not long before the torment was rampant again. It was all I could do to get through each week. I would find myself on the phone with the counselors at synergy, in tears, pleading with them to give me some sort of hope that they could help him change but they could not promise anything. I understood that he would be evaluated in October and I just kept telling myself to hold on till October.
I continued to go to group every week and it was so much help but it was not enough so I began to see a counselor at Synergy once a week also. Group, my counselor and God helped me to make it through each week. They helped me to cope and they helped me to grow stronger. As time went on I was able to be strong enough not to engage all the time. When he would start in on me in the mornings when getting ready for work, I would lock myself in the bathroom so he could not get to me. I would often get up and leave and set at a park down the street as soon as it would start, to get away.
In June of 2012, I found out that I needed to have surgery to have a cyst removed from my abdomen. Ron was not with me at the doctor. I asked the surgeon if I could hold off until August for the surgery because I didn’t want to do it in the middle of the summer. He assured me that it would be alright as long as I follow through with getting it taken care of. I explained the whole situation to Ron and explained that there was no concerns about the cyst. I just needed it removed because it was causing me problems. So I scheduled the surgery on August 24th.
In July Ron informed me that he was going to take out a life insurance policy on me. I asked him why and he told me that anything could happen, I could die. I was very upset about this and he told me that I was in denial. He said that his Mother, who was a nurse, agreed with him. (with the story that he shared) I was so upset by this and he just didn’t understand why I would be upset about it. A day or two later he called me at work. He told me that someone would be calling me about the life insurance and basically wanted me to downplay my surgery. I asked him how much insurance and he said $250,000.00. I just started crying and had to get off the phone.
The last week of July, I went to my appointment with my counselor. She told me that we were going to have a meeting with one of the counselors from the program Ron was in. They informed me that Ron did not think he had a problem and they were going to exit him from the program. This was devastating news to me and I began to sob but I knew in that moment what I had to do. I asked them to keep him in the program until I got out, they agreed. I began to work with my group and my counselor to form a safety plan to get away from Ron. I didn’t want to do anything until after I had my surgery and I recovered.
Ron shared his plan about the life insurance with his DV group, thinking they would think I was the crazy one. He was wrong, they all, including his fellow abusers, thought he was the crazy one. The counselors at Synergy were concerned that Ron was going to kill me. They were fearful that when I had my surgery he may try to harm me. I didn’t feel that he would hurt me as long as he was not drinking but I had learned enough about abuse to know that he was capable of anything.
I was very careful about protecting my plan from Ron. I only made calls from work and I used my work email for any communication with my attorney. I made sure I deleted any text messages that may lead him to believe I was making a plan.
Ron began to have strange behaviors. He began to always go outside when talking on the phone, being very secretive. He use to walk around with his phone on speaker. He would be gone late and make up excuses about where he was. He started asking me if I was going to leave him. He went to one of my co-workers wedding with me. At the reception he drank and kept going outside and walking away to talk on the phone and text. He was not putting on his “Good Guy” persona. He was cutting me down in front of my friends, embarrassing me. We left early because I couldn’t take any more and I was afraid he would get drunk. This continued while he denied anything was going on.
The morning of my surgery I forgot my phone at home. I didn’t have time to go back to get it. I checked in for my surgery while Ron acted like a jerk to me. He was very rude to me up till they took me back for my surgery. During my stay in the hospital, Ron treated me pretty bad. His torment continued and he complained about not getting sleep and how uncomfortable it was to sleep there. I told him to sleep at home but in his crazy mind he probably felt the need to be there to torment me.
Ron had gone home to get my phone and I know now that he used a sim card reader to read any text messages that had been deleted because that is the only way he would know the name of my attorney. I hadn’t filed for divorce or anything and he could only speculate and accuse me. Even deleted text messages didn’t tell him much of anything. He began to mess with me and torment me while I was waiting to talk to the doctor. I was in tears when the doctor came in and when the doctor left the nurse told him he needed to leave me alone.
When we got home from the hospital I went to put on my wedding ring that I had left in a certain spot in my bathroom but it was missing. I asked him if he had taken it and he said he thought I would want it but some how he must have lost it. He went though the whole routine of checking everywhere but I knew he took it and was lying about it. Less than a week after I got home he informed me that we should separate and he was going to move out.
As crazy as it sounds, I was devastated and hurt. He said all kinds of things to me. In one breath I was a liar and a cheater and in the next breath he talked about working things out. For the first time I would tell him what a horrible person he was. I told him, I am a liar and a cheater, why would he want to work it out and he told me there is help for people like me.
We got married on November 4, 2011 and on September 2, 2012, nine days after my surgery, he left with everything he owned, never to show his face again. He didn’t help pay any of the bills and took almost all our money and I was suppose to be off for a few more weeks. I had to go back to work way early.
Initially, I was devastated and hurt at what he had done but Then The Peace Came.
We had been planning the best way possible to get Ron out of my house, the best way to make it happen and keep me safe. I had been asking God to work it all out. All that I had been through, I clung to God and put my trust in Him. He never let me down and after the shock of what happened, settled, I realized something. It may not have happened the way I wanted it to but God worked it all out, the best way, the safest way.
I know in my heart now that Ron figured out what I was doing right away. He began to make his own plan because he had to be in control. He was going to do this to me, not the other way around. He had to set the stage for everyone in his world to believe that I was the crazy one. He also couldn’t risk getting another restraining order against him. (Oh….I didn’t tell you about the restraining order his ex-girlfriend got against him a month after we were married after he showed up at her house.) He also found another victim when he left. He married her and put her through the same torment. (I prayed for her often, they are no longer together and her and I are friends. )
I will end this chapter of my story. I just want to add, God didn’t put me in this situation with Ron, I did. He did hold my hand all the way through it. I almost never miss church and to this day, I have never seen pastor Fred walking around the sanctuary before service. I had no idea there was a domestic violence support group in my church. God answered my prayer for help and led me to Hope Ministries and those leaders. I tell people all the time that if I didn’t find that group, I can’t honestly say that I wouldn’t still be in that relationship with Ron, living in torment. I wouldn’t have known how to get out.
Peace and Blessings,
Ruthie
September 14, 2017