POLITICS OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE

Freewrite assignment for Leslie Simon's Class Women 54, Politics of Sexual Violence:

(DAY 1)

The subject I decided to pick was the thing that was most troubling me in my personal life. Even
though the divorce is done from abusive ex husband who was also an alcoholic, I am haunted by his memory. I honestly believed that when I got through the legal end I would be done with him. It makes no sense to me at all. For about a year during the legal, I cried like a baby almost every day for about a year. During this time I finally decided to get help from an agency. The one that helped me the most was La Casa de las Madres. They helped with what I needed to do. I keep thinking about the past seven years up until now. As a person in recovery I am surprised I decided to be with him at all. I was going along with what I was supposed to do. My mother was a big influence on me at that time. I think I felt I would find no one better than him. I have been living in a SRO and although I needed to keep the place for logistical reasons, I also wanted to get married. The past seven years I went through from 2003 to 2010 and another year that it took a year to get the divorce was hard for me. It is taken more time to get over my ex husband than it was my mother. He did not treat me very well. I was unaware of the signs. I think I just felt this was going to be the best I could get. I was actually in love with another man when I met him and still had feelings for an ex boyfriend as well even though that was over long ago. He was really handsome, african american and two years older than me. I thought he was very althletic and smart. He answered an ad I put out on craigslist. It just seems like yesterday, this all happened. I have alot of memories of all that we shared. To me he seemed like a haven for me of all I was going through at the time. I knew we were very opposite but he seemed real stable. I have memories of him not really being available and I thought I was just asking for two much. I would ask him for simple things during the marriage and he would threaten divorce. I realized he was a very angry person who really did not totally support me in what I needed to do. He liked spending money and I did not. When he decided to get this apartment in Tiburon, I was too scared to really say how I felt which was no way. I just told him that I would see him part time and he was ok with that. I was upsetwhen he would go to strip clubs and get lap dances and did not tell me. I felt real alone in the marriage in more ways than one. I did not like surburbia. At first I thought it was a nice break from the city but then afterwards I realized it was just a pain in the neck. I am a city girl and a San Franciscan girl at that.I remember just wanting to go to back to San Francisco soon I would visit him in Tiburon. When I found out later that he apartment he got unethically, I was very angry. We did not need to move up there at all. I did not feel he understood my need for the city and I really did like simple things in life.

Day 2 of my Freewrite:

This is Day 2 of my Freewrite regarding my ex husband Claude. I wake up in the morning thinking about.him and do not know why. I think about all the memories we once shared. I thought he would be the oneI would be with forever. I feel like i still get triggered alittle around my partner that I have today because I do not feel I am completely healed from Claude. Doing everything I do in my life now is a reflection of what I have been through. There are nights that I think about everything we did together. It is still hard for me. It is sometimes one step forward and two steps back. I feel being at La Casa De Las Madres was very helpful. I do enjoy my life better being in the city. When I wake up in the morning, I feel better. I do feel kind of old though. I am 50 and trying to start my life all over again in a different way. I feel like my creativity has also been going in the direction of writing in my life. I am not the same person
I was almost two years ago. I felt trapped by someone who was very abusive to me. Sometimes, when my partner says things to me I have to remember that he is not my abusive ex husband. I still get triggered alot with him and at least I know where it is coming. I do a lot of meditation and that helps me alot as well I do not know if it was the right time to meet someone in my life. At first he suggested we would just be friends and I did not like that idea. My partner is inward just like Claude and I am very outward. At the same time I could not imagine my life without him. My partner is about something. My ex husband was not.I have been in 12 step recovery for almost 29 years. I really thought I knew the person I thought I was going to marry. Sometimes I blame myself for being with him the way I was. I know that being where I am has changed me. I do not think I would have the strength to leave have it not been for the support
I got from my friend, companion and people at La Casa De Las Madres. I realized towards the end of the marriage I was very unhappy with him and they way he was treating me. I really felt I did the right thing by marrying him. This issue is bothering me today because I spent so much of my life being there for him and what he needed, that I did not spend enough time with me and what I needed. I really appreciate City College alot for what I have been given. I was very sexually abused by my husband and I felt he really ignored me alot and never really made the time I needed to have. I did alot of crying the first year that I left him. I did not deserve to be yelled out or force to do something just because he wanted me to do. I also felt I was mislead by my husband alot in terms of the person he was. I could not accept the life I once had with him anymore. It was killing me emotionally and spiritually. It felt I was trying to live two lives and it fell apart on me.

(Day 3)

I just came from my domestic violence support group. I am sitting here at El Cafetazo. I am writing here again for twenty minutes. This spanish cafe has alot of importance to me. Over a year ago at this cafe,I was about to make the most decision of my life. I would not go back to my abusive husband. At the time my companion and I were just starting to get to know each other. A month he had to go back to london. I was surprised when he went back I did not even contact my ex husband. I had faith I would get through. I had him and some other support. Soon afterwards I realized in my apartment that I may need outside help I found the best agency for me is still La Casa De Las Madres. I can get up to 50 supplies free a week and free support counseling. I do not need alot of material things in my life. I paid a huge price for all of that
I still remember one of the last times I saw Claude. It was on a Thursday Morning. He decided he needed to get back to Tiburon and did not want to stay with me at my place. I had a feeling it would be the last time I would see him. To be honest I think I realized that I did not like anymore and that I was falling in love with my new best male friend. At first I thought he would just be another one of those men in my life that I would just play and be friends with but that was it. I am a recovering sex addict and I engaged in some middle circle behavior with men in my life when I was not seeing Claude. I felt very torn in that marriage between who I was and what I was trying to be. It was a very hard decision. I still think about the day I got my stuff
out with the help of my friend. I will never forget that day as long as I life. I was shaking so much it was not even funny. It was a very emotional moment for me. I knew that once I took that step there was no way I was going to turn back. I knew that what he provided for me was based on a lie and I could not go back there anymore. It was beginning of the end for me. Then and only then did Claude finally contact me once I stopped paying for stuff and took my stuff away. He cried on the phone for fifteen minutes by leaving multiple messages. He wanted to work things out but wanted to get the keys back. I text him and told him to give me a week to think about it. Exactly one week after I told him that, he came by my place unannounced at my place at eight thirty in the morning. Through the grace of my friend, I was with him that morning. The funny thing was I was supposed to go to sleep at that time but because I told him I was
going to up there and just get some things I was down in fifteen minutes. Another time I was with my friend my then husband called me when he got the divorce papers. I got the divorce by default. I did irreconsible differences. This is still heavy on my mind. I am hoping that this writing will relieve it somewhat. I am in recovery from a lot of things and I want to let go of him. I am still trying to figure out.

Day 4

This is my fourth and final day of my writing of what has been bothering me. I did cry last night about my ex husband. I sometimes can not see the good in my partner and all he has done for me because of the healing I am going through. That is why my companion tells me just heal first. I go back and forth with him alot since my divorce was finalized. I question sometimes way too much about what will happen. I think what has happened is that I have been going the other direction and over analyzing and not trusting the spirit. Part of me wants to make the leap of faith and go for it, and see what happens, part of me is maybe scared. My mother died the same week as my divorce was finalized. She taught me how to have a relationship with a man like she did. It was not based on friendship and compatibility with my father. It was based on dating and sex and having a house together. I thought I would be happy forever with him and our lives together. I was with so many years. I did not realize how unhappy I was. I felt trapped in my
marriage for so long. I wanted to get out. There are ways I almost got out in an unhealthy way. It still bothers me today that I put myself through all of that for so long. I did not realize that the questions I should ask myself is do I enjoy hanging out with this person? Are we that compatible? Did he have a drinking issue. I thought I knew everything I needed to know. I like having a companion. For me my husband felt like more like an arrangement than anything. I like hanging out with people. He wanted to hang out with his sports television and I wanted to back to the city all of the time. It was getting harder and harder for me.I bought into all the material stuff he provide for me. I thought it was time to be a little different than I was. I am a bisexual woman and I hid that in my marriage. I did not feel I could speak alot in my marriage with
my husband. I had to do what I needed to do to stay. I felt torn alot in my marriage for a long time. I think what was the hardest was the Tiburon commute. After awhile I knew I could not do it anymore. I could not be what someone else wanted me to be. I wanted to break free from someone. I thought that marriage would keep me safe and secure. The day I decided to leave my husband once and for all was the day he lost his job. When I found he lost his job illegally I was so surprised. It was like a shock to my system. The hardest thing for me was no so much the legal end but the emotional stuff. I cried every day for almosta year non stop. Through the grace of god I met this man You sef, a 35 year old African American Man who has been very supportive. I started going to more 12 step meetings. City College has been healing for me.
I was fortunate to have met Leslie Simon and be a peer educator. I found that school really came in handy.