Mothering In The Shadows
Mothering In The Shadows
Trigger Warning - Domestic Abuse & The Mother-Child Relationship
Sometimes the biggest shadow in your motherhood ray is the person you created children with and you may not realize it until you get them out of your light. I share these stories because I refuse to let another generation move forward into their season of procreation without having access to my words. In healing, I’ve noticed that I’m not the only one who has had these experiences. People are so ashamed that they tuck them deep down and away, leaving the next generation as prey. Much gratitude and respect to the ones who pop out to support the survivors after the fires start, but we need more mama bears talking to the children about preventing these fires. I’m not ashamed. I’m embattled.
My rage and embattlement come from knowing that there will be a mother of a son out there who supports and encourages her son’s mistreatment toward her own kind. Enraged that there will be a girl or woman who has poor boundaries and accepts love-bombing and trauma bonding as a relationship foundation, shrinking herself for what looks like love in the presence of her children - sowing seeds for a repeating cycle. This is the war I’ve fought within myself and I refuse to watch my children endure the same struggles.
I’ve mentioned this in previous writings, but when my oldest daughter was one, I received a download in the wee hours of the morning. The download said that I would write books for my daughters. I didn’t get another daughter until 6 years later. Today my oldest daughter is 19. She is at the age where she calls me when her friends are going through a crisis to offer them support and advice. I created a separate blog just for this because the questions are questions women have asked me since I was in high school. Many of these issues are not based on age. They are based on one's level of self-love vs the manipulation/abuse received vs the strength of boundaries.
The crazy thing is that I have published two books. The books don’t explain much. They are poems that reflect the emotions I felt while enduring a traumatic period in my life. They have been helpful to women. Some have reached out to tell me how I gave them the courage to leave their abusive relationships, which was empowering and then weird to me because I didn’t have the courage to leave the abusive relationship that inspired the books.
When I think about my first marriage what I find most upsetting is how the marriage impacted me as a mother - how it impacted my mental health - how I wasn't fully present for my daughters - how my anger at him tricked down to them.
After a typical day, I would retreat to my bedroom and have them play in their rooms. On good days, I would invite them to my room while I lay in bed and zoned out. On a great day have a dance party, watch their favorite shows, or go get ice cream. We had times of fun and we had love, but with a healed/healing mind and heart, I wish I could go back and inject way more light into the shadows of my motherhood. I hurt my oldest and when I left I hurt both of them. They are seven years apart. The pains they experienced from me weren’t the same. My fuse was short and I had no patience.
You can love your child to the moon and back, but it doesn’t matter if they don’t feel it. In healing, growth, and atonement, I’ve had to ask myself “What does your love look and feel like today?” These days my motherhood looks and feels like molasses with a longer fuse - observant, check-ins, group therapy, analysis, research, healing
How Would You Mother Through This Storm?
I would come home from work plus hours of traffic to a home full of men and strangers. My baby girls hanging around and him yapping his mouth with recycled stories where he was always the victor. My dining room table was barely used for eating. It was a place for him to entertain his followers and to rest items that were unsafe for children.
Coming home from work felt awful. I worked at Fortune 500s and within different facets of corporate life. The actual work was easy and fun but the corporate politics was a disgusting film that I just wanted to wash off as soon as I got home - especially after a few hours of Atlanta traffic. A home that had the vibe of a frat house in my 30s was not on my life bingo card, especially while raising young ladies. I grew up in a quiet middle-class home with two working parents and one sibling. The house I shared with my first husband had a level of politics that was draining. From end to end, I was left with little energy for my daughters after coming home from work and walking into the fuckery.
Most weekends the kids went to one of their grandparent's homes. This is when things would get extra weird. He would get even more disrespectful toward me and our home environment. I would address the latest transgressions and the end of our relationship and he would keep our house full of people to try to avoid confrontations from me. All the while he was grooming people to believe I was cool with his dealings with other women, keeping a fraternity environment in the house, and convincing people he was the bread-winner when it was my 9-5 and business(s) that supported a grown man and my daughters - we only shared one daughter.
When I say I had a horrible marriage many people have no idea what I was dealing with. They think it was just the run-of-the-mill cheating, but oh boy I'll just run down a fraction of a general list and I wonder if you could function through the bullshit I experienced at the hands of my 1st husband. We were together 5 years before we got married and it would be another two years before we had a child. In early 2011 I had a big increase in income. I was able to move our family near the GA Dome to be more centrally located for jobs. That’s when his behavior started to take a nosedive. Three months after the move, I found out I was three months pregnant. The nose dive accelerated.
What makes all of this worse to me is the fact that he isn’t an unskilled person. He is one of the best sound engineers and music producers in Atlanta. He does amazing graphic design and video production work. He is a brilliant and talented person. When we met I was working in the entertainment industry so when we unified, it made sense. I later realized he had underlying desires that would eventually consume him.
This is just a fraction of some of the worst things that happened after we were married and had our first child together:
He decided he wanted to be a porn star
He decided he wanted a porn production and adult entertainment company
He kept a mini blow torch on the table with paraphernalia around the children
He kept lots of men in the house around my daughters all the time
He refused to keep a man away from the house who was looking at my daughters like they were dinner (I touched on that in this article)
He refused to get a job or write a resume
He never made enough money for 50/50, 75/25, or 90/10.
His mother was upset with me for holding him accountable for paying at least 50/50
His mother told me her son isn't supposed to work a regular job
I walked into the living room with the kids in the morning to take them to school to see various random prostitutes lounging around that he brought to the house I paid for in the car I paid for
He allowed his friends to shoot pornography in our house and was upset with me when I'd find the footage on his phone
He spent time with a woman he was cheating with and her children while claiming he wasn't cheating and that he was trying to be a good black man in the community while also having a firstborn son across town whom he only spent time with when his own mother organized it
He lied about cheating while also being angry at me for not supporting his adult entertainment business and requesting that I befriend his employees to the point where I felt sorry for one when she had nowhere to stay and invited her to live in my home for her to later confess to me that they had been sleeping together the whole time he was claiming to be a good black man in the community
Taking money out of my bank account to help his “employees” pay bills
Ignoring my depression, anxiety, and insomnia diagnosis
Being angry at me for how my mental breakdowns impacted my ability to work
Getting carjacked in the car I paid for on the same street we lived on by a rivaling pimp over one of his “employees”
Letting his “employees” drive my car
Not coming home for days at a time
He broke furniture and put holes in walls because I handed him separation papers
He beat me and choked me for ending the relationship then cried as if he had been deeply wronged (repeatedly)
He beat my ass, choked me, and blocked me from leaving the house until I was backed into a corner in the basement while he punched me every time I made contact with the door
He invited a woman I asked him to stay away from to a party. She showed up and walked right into our section. He pretend like it wasn’t her, even though she had been a concern since I was pregnant with our daughter.
He continued to text the woman after he agreed to avoid her
After I discovered he was still in contact with the woman he told me it was my fault he was in contact with her.
He felt like it was a good idea to try to put his arms around me even though I told him to back away.
I finally snapped and punched him in the face
We fought like men in the street in the house while my daughters were home and my oldest saw the fight.
I was temporarily unable to tolerate light in my right eye.
He was temporarily unable to move his neck.
I called the woman to see why she thought it was a good idea to contact my husband if she knew we weren’t friends.
The next day I saw text messages from him to her apologizing and saying she “didn’t deserve that”
I snapped again and the next thing I knew I was dripping my blood on his face while he slept
I had cut my forearm horizontally three times to the fat with kindergarten scissors
He woke up and beat the shit out of me
I begged him to just let me go
He said, “Fine”
I told him, “I am not as strong as you think I am”
My wound was dressed with Bleed Stop and butterfly stitches
I received no mental or physical healthcare for multiple reasons
He was obsessed with trying to have sex with me after the incident even though I didn’t want it.
I was afraid his mother would use my mental health concerns against me to try to take my child
Soon after, I took my children to my parent’s house and left the country. I was terrified of what I did to myself and scared of him. The children were in the house when the last incident happened, but they never saw anything. However, the energy of the house was crushing and they knew something was wrong. Because of this, I was ashamed of myself as a mother. It felt like he was a black hole sucking the life out of my universe. Even when the days were hard, I always felt good about at least having my babies, but the progression of dealing with him and the incident made me scared to be a mother.
My parents weren’t perfect but I felt better about them being with them vs him and his mother. He and his mother soon told all of our mutual friends lies and even my parents a lot of false, self-serving stories. Most of the mutuals turned their back on me, and for a while, even my parents. This was by design by him and his mother to maintain their narrative. He and his mother have a reputation and eventually real people came forward to tell me Earth-shaking truths. By the time I came back to the States for good more people came forward and the stories started layering I soon realized I was in a fake relationship and most people knew it except me.
Disinheriting His Shadow
I spent so much time healing through this period in my life. I was seeing a psychiatrist, taking prescribed medication and herbs, seeing multiple spiritual healers, participating in various ceremonies, and even walking on hot coals when all I needed to do was leave him. It may seem so simple to a regular person, but for me, I felt like I had nowhere to go, my relationship with my parents wasn’t the best and even though I made money, he kept it tied up with probation fees, various legal fines, keeping up his false narratives, and paying people back when he messed up business deals. Aside from the money, I was in a dynamic trauma bond that was a disgusting carousel that I wanted to jump off of.
When I think back on how he cried after he beat me, I wonder why his tears were more important than mine in my mind. Why did I have it in me to hold him after he destroyed me? Why did he get so much of my time - over a decade and my daughters got to see the worst of me? Why wasn’t I strong enough to just walk away with my girls and leave it all behind right after I had the baby? Long after the end, I faced the fact that what I had with him was not real. While I thought he loved me and just had childhood trauma that he had to overcome, like most of the world, WE had nothing. I was just a cog in his wheel that was too weak to walk away. He fought me to stay, not because he desired me, but because I and the fruits of my hard work fit into the story he wanted the world to believe.
After I was back, one of his childhood friends asked me why I never spoke up sooner. I was afraid no one would believe me because he and his mom liked to get the jump on stories as fast as possible. Even though I watched them destroy people at their most vulnerable moments, I never thought they would do it to me. His childhood friend gave me some other earth-shattering truths about staying for so long and my obvious lack of self-love. As a father of a daughter, he felt it was necessary to say his peace because of his love for both of my daughters.
Come to find out, my 1st husband’s antics weren’t new and exclusive to me. I may have lost mutual friends when we broke up, but people came forward after they knew I was back. I wasn’t special. He was shooting pornography long before he met me, getting violent with women, driving women to the abortion clinics, love-bombing, and pretending to be a “nice guy.” I just hung on too long. There were multiple women from his past who had emotional concerns and left town after dealing with him.
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I once believed he cared about his blood daughter at least. He always puts on a good show, especially when his mother is in his ear. The first vocal conversation he had with her this year was on the 11th of May. Months have gone by with no response to her texts or calls since the year started. He only spoke to her today because I sent other members of his family photos and updates on her recent achievements. Whatsapp moves fast. He was at his mother’s house when he called her.
Don’t Save Him
I saw the hurt little boy in him and wanted to be there for him and support him through his healing. I even took him to a series of ceremonies, but if someone doesn’t want to get better they won’t. He believes he is perfect. I’ve actually heard him say, “Everyone else is crazy.”
I don’t know what it would take for him to change. I used to want him to change for his daughter and now I realize she doesn’t need that. He is just fine right there being a living breathing example of what to stay away from.
The time I spent licking my wounds and trying to heal someone so devoted to their vices and shortcomings could have been dedicated to expanding my self-love and pouring more love and attention into my children. They didn’t deserve a shell of a mother, a wounded mother or to watch their mother betray herself regularly.
What Love Looks Like Today
When I got them back together it felt like a breath of fresh air for me and my 2nd daughter. She was the mastermind behind us coming to Indianapolis to visit and not going back to Georgia to live. She got a better version of me. By the time she was born, I was four years deep in my healing journey. My first daughter later admitted that she approached me with caution when we all got back together. While I was pregnant and through the 5th month of my 3rd daughter's life I was immersed in cognitive therapy. I attended sessions 2-3 times a week. When I started my maternity appointments I was off the charts on the depression scale and the doctor's office staff ran me down on the way to the parking garage. I am grateful they did. If I hadn’t gone through that level of therapy I would have been cautious too. Prior to our coming together again, I signed my 1st daughter up for cognitive therapy as well. Today, I have all the girls in therapy - even the four-year-old. Their mental health means the world to me.
I noticed while I was standing there holding my abuser, some women and men in his life would come around and soon leave. They saw through his bullshit quicker than I did and they had no attachments. They never got close enough to get caught up. A few years back I connected with one of our mutuals who I had blocked everywhere. He was rehashing the most recent ways in which my first husband betrayed him, got a couple of thousand dollars out of him, and how he knew he would never see the money again. I asked him why he continues to stay connected to him. He said, “You got out of the cult, Candyman. The rest of us didn’t escape like you.”
I’m still in therapy and I’m also still discovering things my 1st husband and his mother did to me and my family. I attended a funeral in December and even more was revealed. My daughters continue to recall hurtful incidents and conversations that he and his mother had with them. I love them through it and apologize. I apologize for not being strong enough to be the mother they deserved. I apologize for not protecting them the way they needed. I’m very candid with them about mistakes I’ve made, signs I ignored, and what I would have done differently knowing what I know now. Having a solid foundation for love helps keep all types of fucked up relationships away - platonic, romantic, familial, and work. That’s what I was missing. That is what made it easy for me to run into relationships where love didn’t exist.
I was raised by a woman who didn’t love herself and a man who proved that he felt the same way about her and her children who also happened to be his children. Just because there are two married people in the household doesn’t mean it’s a safe space for children. My first depression diagnosis was at 15 years old.