It's time to really speak up

When I was a little girl, my Mama use to tell me, or educate me if you will, on what a wife was, does, and doesn't do. 
I grew up thinking a woman's body belonged to her husband. That a wife obeys and submits to him. 
Well, I was a spitfire and wasn't having any of that... until I was being controlled by threats and deprived of necessities by someone I thought I loved and was afraid of losing. 
I never talked about our deep, dark secrets. And somewhere in all the chaos and pain,  I buried them. They were the things that kept me focused on filing for the divorce. They were the things I never wanted to get out. Until now. Why now? Because it's part of healing. It's part of acknowledging the trauma and moving forward. I no longer have any reason to protect him. But have every reason to protect my sanity.  

There is one friend I confided in and I believe what she told me set the stage for my silence. "You're his wife, it's not rape!". Which brought me back to what my Mama said. I belonged to him. And he never let me forget it.  
Not when he was coming home from the bar stupid drunk. Not when he was coc'd out of his mind. And not when he was sober. Doesn't matter. When a woman says NO, she means NO. I don't care who you are! 
But wait... there's more. How about sexual favors if I wanted money? Even if that money was to grocery shop? Have you ever been told, "No, you can't have money to feed the kids unless you get on your knees"? Well, I have. He red flagged any checks I tried to cash at the bank. Even though I worked the business too and he couldn't run it without me, it was HIS money. And it was a vice he used to control me and get what he wanted. 
I stopped going out to dinner with him for reasons of "owing him" when dinner was over. I stopped asking for money and took what I could, when I could (like when he'd forget about the money in his pockets and I was doing laundry. If he wanted meat and potatoes for dinner, he was bringing it home. I slowly and subtly pulled away from that control. But not without a fight here and there. Always fighting. Always interrogating. Forever demanding. What the hell was I thinking? 

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