Fantasy world. Chapter sixteen. Life worth living

With every fibre of my body screaming at me not to marry Barry, we married in the registrar office, two weeks before our baby was born. I had just turned eighteen but felt much older than my years. In my heart, I cared for Barry and did not want to hurt him but I did not want to get married. Shortly before our baby was born, I was told my baby would have 'Bastard', on the birth certificate if I was unmarried. I panicked and we got married on my expected date of delivery. My dad joked that he would book an ambulance and have it waiting at the wedding venue. I borrowed a dress and we got a ring from a second hand shop. On the day of the wedding I was stood on the steps of Barnsley town hall registrar office and something inside me was telling me to run and hide, not to go through with the wedding. I tried to do a runner but my eldest sister caught me, 'Get back in there and get married. We have bought new clothes to come to this wedding so get on with it!', she said. So I did. We had to go home from the registrar office on the bus and I had to stand up. I felt totally ashamed as I stood there on that bus in my wedding attire and clearly ready for having a baby at any minute. I could imagine people thinking that I only got married because I had to, they were right. I married to give my daughter a name. I married for the wrong reasons.

My wedding photographs were taken in my street and in every picture, barring one, boarded up homes in the background, can clearly be seen. Not my ideal wedding, not the one I had imagined I would some day have, with a white dress and veil and horse drawn carriages. I did not have photographs of my wedding that I was proud to show anyone.

Barry promised he would never hit me again if we were married and as usual, he lied. I spent my wedding night, alone, on the settee because Barry had beaten me up and left me to go off drinking with his dad. I woke up again with black eyes and a busted lip. Barry was crying and begging me not to leave him. I did not have the strength to leave at the time and even if I had the strength I had no where to go, so again I gave him another chance.

Two weeks later I had my baby, a little girl who weighed just five pound eleven ounces. I had promised myself I would be a good mum and I would protect my baby from the horrors of abuse that I had experienced. I would make sure no one got close enough to my new baby to ever hurt her. I would fantasise about how it would be with my new baby, the glossy magazines, with smiling happy babies in them, fuelled my imagination, but I was living in a fantasy world which was far removed from the real world I lived in. I used to think, my children were going to be happy and want for nothing and I was going to love them and them me. I did not know the meaning of love and did not know how to love myself never mind a baby. Looking back I can see clearly that none of us were mentally equipped to deal with the responsibility of a baby. We were struggling to take care of ourselves.

Desperate to be a good mum, I was in denial about my situation. I hid what was really happening to me from others because I wanted them to think that I turned out good after all! I wanted them to think I had successfully come to terms with my past and was getting on with life and living. In reality, life was horrendous, like a living hell, to be endured rather than enjoyed. At the age of eighteen, I felt nothing but shame and embarrassment of my situation and fear that my situation was going to carry on for the rest of my life. I was being beaten on a regular basis, I lived in an almost derelict house and I had a new baby who never seemed to stop crying and I was scared. I felt that I was useless and a waste of time, just like my mother had said I was. I used to try and convince myself that if I could get somewhere decent to live, I could pull myself together and make life better for my baby and myself, even though I did not know how.

I felt relieved when the council offered me another house, as they wanted to pull down the house that I was in. This time it felt more like a decent house. It had a garden where my daughter could play in the summer. It had a kitchen and bathroom and I felt like I had hit the jackpot, I felt truly lucky and grateful to get that house.

New house, new start, I was determined to get it right and be a good wife and mother like I was supposed to be. I truly believed that I had been put on the earth to be a mother, to cook, clean and care for others, for the rest of my days. I tried really hard to adapt to that role. I did not realise then, that life was not just about, getting married and having a baby. Life was dull, boring, monotonous and hard. I could not see the point in my life and could not imagine a world out there, full of exciting and rewarding experiences. I did not know happiness or how to have fun but was prepared to try. I wanted make new friends and get involved in the community like normal people did. I wanted to be a family and be happy but as usual I was still living in a fantasy world.

My bubble burst on the first Christmas in our house. Barry had convinced himself that I had sneaked someone into the house in the middle of the night and taken them in the bathroom with me. No amount of pleading, 'I've only been to the toilet', would calm him down. ‘Don’t fucking lie to me, you dirty slut’, he screamed at me, as he punched me so hard in the face that everything went black. When I came to, he was still punching and screaming at me, calling me a whore and a slut. I hated myself for putting up with the violence and the name calling. My self esteem was lower than that of a slugs belly, yet I continued to put up with the violence. I thought I had no choice but to accept my lot in life. I had a choice whether or not to stay with him, but at the time, I did not know that I that I had the rights to make different choices. Others had always decided for me.

I started to question the purpose of my life, why was I here? and all that. I could not find happiness in my role as a mother and wife. I felt frustrated, depressed, guilty and terrified that this was all there was to life. All around me I could see other people doing the same thing, courting, getting married, getting a house and then a baby, not necessarily in the order, and they were not happy either. I was convinced that happiness did not exist. I wondered why people did what they did not want to do. Whenever I asked the question, why did they do things that did not make them happy? I always got the same response, because they have to. Like many other women during the seventies, I wanted to rebel against what I saw as, my impossible social role and at the same time, I felt guilty for not enjoying what was expected of me with a smile on my face. When trying to explain to Barry that I felt trapped and suffocated in my role and that I was seriously struggling to cope, he told me that I was mental, and that I needed to pull myself together.

If only I knew then what I know now. If I could have my time again, which I cannot, I would have run for the hills as soon as a man looked at me wrong. Being abused is not a sign of love! They abuse us because we let them! We are so desperate to be loved, we let our partners abuse us. We over look their cruel abusive name calling. We pretend it never happened when we are black and blue from another beating. We feel shame and humiliation and still we let them abuse us. Why? Because we do not love ourselves. A man beat me because he knew that I had no love or respect for myself. It is impossible to have love and respect for another if we cannot love and respect ourselves. We have to learn to love and respect ourselves and then the abuse will stop because you will no longer be willing to accept abuse.

If you are being abused, you need to stop allowing it right now! You need to protect yourself and seek help to enable you to leave your abuser. Abusers do not love, they abuse, is obvious. Yet there are those being abused, find it difficult to believe that, an abuser does not love. He does not love you! If he loved you would he lay a hand on you? Could you lay a hand on someone you love? Could you do to another what your abusive partner has done to you?

Those who are being abused need to educate themselves. Read about abusive relationships if you need to, know you are not alone. There are thousands of women beaten every day. I know men are beaten too and I say the same, your abuser does not love you so get out while you can. I can guarantee your abuser will soon have someone else just like you that s/he can abuse. You don't deserve to hurt. You deserve to have the best of life. You deserve to be respected and loved. You deserve to be happy. You only have one life and it is meant to be happy. Don't waste it, be happy. Learn to love and respect yourself and you will be loved. Education and understanding why we accept abuse is one way of ensuring we do not ever put up with abuse again.

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