Blog entry #1 By Jo Rodriguez
There were so many red flag moments leading up to the day that changed who I was and my life forever, but those moments all came to head in December of 2003, when I had “the moment” when I realized that I could no longer endure being in a marriage that was based on control, infidelity, emotional, verbal, and physical abuse. I remember always finding a way to justify staying and telling myself that I didn’t want to fail in my marriage or as a mother. All I remember is that it just happened, and at that moment, it was like a cloud had been lifted and I no longer felt suppressed and I could finally breathe. I remember feeling like I had found myself again, and he knew as well, that he no longer had control over me as the panic in his face began to show. It was right then, that I told him that I was going to divorce him and that there was nothing that he could say or do that would change my mind. All the times I tried to get him to listen to me to try and save our marriage and all my wasted tears had finally caught up to him. I spent the rest of that evening and into the wee hours of the next morning, slammed up against our bedroom restroom wall, held prisoner, while he tried every antic in the book to try and convince me to stay. He truly did not care about my feelings, his focus was on what was everyone going to think about him and how everyone was going to know that he had two failed marriages. As always, it was about his feelings and how it was going to be an embarrassment for him. No regards for me, or our children.
I did find the strength to leave shortly after, when his antics led him to borrow a neighbors gun and put it to my head in front of our one year old daughter and then put it to his own, in an attempt to convince me to stay. I’m not going to lie, even then I struggled with denial that he could be capable of anything more heinous. I no longer felt it was safe for me or my kids to be there, so I left with a basket full of laundry that I had done the day before and headed to my parents house in another town (This was in January of 2004). I had filed for divorce a week later. He was out of control and was fixated on getting me to move back home with him. He took a leave of absence from work and his only priority was getting me back. There were many attempts to try and get me alone with him, but I had refused until the day came that our income tax check had come in and needed both of our signatures in order to cash it. We had agreed that that money would be used to settle some of our debts. The day was February 12,2004. I often wish that I had not gone alone or at all… It was that day that he kidnapped me, held me against my will, and raped me. His actions changed many lives that day and started a chain of painful events, still radiating until this day.
This blog shares true events, and I will share them with you to the best of my recollection(names and places may be altered for privacy reasons). I have always been a very private person, especially in regards to my personal life and there are people that would like for me to never speak of this, but just as I had “the moment” fifteen years ago….. I find myself wanting to listen to that little voice that keeps telling me that I survived all of this for a reason. That reason, to me is to help shed light on what I, and many others, try to keep in the dark. I believe that I can make a difference to someone that is reading this. So, here you will find me,,, sharing….and Silent No More.
