I lace up my running shoes and head outside. The autumn night air is so crisp it feels like you could break a piece of it off. The leaves on our block crunch under my feet.
I remind myself for the thousandth time: Christi, you had to make that phone call. It was a matter of survival. You did the right thing. But did I?
I start my run. Running always clears my mind, especially through this familiar territory. I’m so happy to be back home with my family in the small Ohio town where I grew up.
A harvest moon rises above the branches like a giant pumpkin; moonlight shimmers on the shingles. I know every turn in this road, every crosswalk, every hedge. My roots run deep here. But where am I going? Am I running away from something or running to something?
My breathing focuses me. I think of Justin and our failed marriage. I come from a solid churchgoing family that has been there for me, all my life. My grandmother, Gram, helped take care of me as a child.
Like her, I sang in the church choir. She and my parents came to all my performances in the school plays. All I knew from them was love, not fear. But my relationship with Justin had become about fear.
I remember the first time I saw him blow up. We were working together as TV news anchors and he exploded in a rage in the newsroom. We were having a little disagreement, but his face turned red, the angry words spewing out like venom.
We all just watched him, no one more bewildered than I. This wasn’t the Justin we knew.
It was our first job in TV, a tiny station in West Virginia. Justin seemed so confident, handsome and charismatic. I saw in him what I wanted to be, self-assured. I fell in love.
In a matter of months we were engaged and I was going to follow him to his next job at a bigger station out West. Wasn’t that what a wife was supposed to do? Stand by her man and support him in every way possible?
Sure, I told myself, he has a temper. I could help him with that. I didn’t think he was abusive. I made excuses for him, even when we had our first big argument just before the wedding.
I had gotten an unexpected job offer of my own, working as an anchor in Cleveland, not far from my family. It would be a huge step up, great experience in a good market. Maybe we could work something out, change our plans.
“You can’t do that, Christi!” Justin screamed. “We’ve already decided. You can’t back out now.” That same anger was in his voice, and a veiled threat. If I loved him, truly loved him, I should go with him, not him with me. Otherwise, it was over.
My running shoes pound the sidewalk, the trees tremble in a cool breeze. I remember driving through these same streets on my way to the wedding, heading to church. It should have been the happiest day of my life. Instead, one uncomfortable scene after another haunts my memory.
Justin stomping away from the altar when the photographer wants to take more photos of me; Justin rolling his eyes when the DJ asks us to dance together again. I know now I was in denial. I told myself things would be better after the honeymoon, when we were on our own.
Only a few weeks into our marriage, he went out with some of the guys after work. He came back to our apartment rip-roaring drunk and in a foul temper. His words were toxic and felt like a punch in my gut. “You whore,” he shouted. “You’re a liar! You don’t really love me.”
“Justin, please calm down. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. Who was this stranger screaming at me? Not my husband.
“I never want to see you again,” he snarled. “This marriage is over.” Then he threw his wedding ring at me.
“Justin, wait…”
The next thing I heard was the sound of splintering wood. Boom! Two fist-sized holes in the bedroom door.
When he finally passed out, I curled up on the bathroom floor, scared to breathe. I knew I couldn’t let him treat me like this. But I also knew I married this man. I couldn’t walk away.
Maybe he’d suffered some terrible trauma. Maybe Justin just needed to know that he was loved unconditionally. I couldn’t abandon him when he was clearly hurting. Wasn’t that what marriage was about? For better, for worse. Love could heal all.
Why did I think I could stop the violence just by being a devoted wife? His demons were much too big for me to deal with alone. And yet I was too ashamed to tell anyone that I needed help. Ashamed to admit how he treated me, ashamed that I would be seen as a bad wife.
Justin and I moved ahead in our broadcasting careers and had some good times together. We’d go out with friends, see movies. But then some argument would rise up about nothing, usually after Justin had a few too many, and he would lash out at me again.
His rage chipped away at everything I knew about myself. One day I looked in the mirror and had no idea who the woman staring back at me was.
If only I could be kinder, more loving. Maybe that would change things. Maybe that would help. At least he doesn’t hit me, I told myself. But once he held my arms so tight I got bruises. Another time his fists flew so close to my ears that I could feel the wind rush by. The threat was unmistakable.
“We’ve got to go to therapy,” I pleaded. We went. Justin promised to stop drinking and that lasted for a while. But then we stopped seeing the counselor. “I don’t need some guy to tell me how to run my marriage,” he said. I was too exhausted to object. And too afraid.
Only when I was home in Ohio, home with people who loved me, could I begin to see through the fog that was my marriage. Only when I stopped saying it was all my fault. Only when I dared to believe I wasn’t the awful things he said I was.
I had to leave Justin. But how could I end my marriage when I believed that marriage was forever? I would be letting down God.
I prayed for God to give me wisdom and strength, and made that call from Mom and Dad’s house. I couldn’t have this conversation with Justin face to face. I had to be in a safe place. Still, it was the hardest thing I had ever done.
At first Justin was quiet, almost eerily so. Then he started shouting. “I can’t believe you’re doing this, Christi! Don’t think you’re getting out of this easy.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I hope you can understand.”
“Tell that to my lawyer,” he hissed.
I hung up the phone and waited for the tears, but they didn’t come. Only relief. But the following night the guilt found me again. So I ran.
Running lifts me. Running makes me feel closer to God again, as if it’s just him and me, one-on-one, leaving the cares of the world behind. Not running from something but to something.
I dash by the high school, by the track around the football field, by the auditorium where I’d sung in the musicals. I head back toward home along the street where Gram lives, the same house where I used to drop by and play her old Melodian. Her light is on. I stop and push open the door. “Gram!”
She comes, ready to listen, ready to help. As always. We sit in the living room, she on the old couch, me on the Melodian bench. I notice the hymnal open to a favorite hymn.
“I have to tell you, Gram,” I say. “I called Justin and told him I’m not coming back to him. I can’t stay married anymore.” The guilt still burns, the fear that I am wrong. That it is still somehow my fault.
“Oh, honey,” she says. “I’ve been praying for you.” She stands and comes to my side. “God doesn’t want you to be where you aren’t safe. Not where there’s violence. That’s not love.” She pauses. “I know.”
I scan her sweet, lined face and know in an instant what she is talking about. She too had been in love; she’d had a very happy marriage.
But when my grandfather came back from World War II, she said, he wasn’t the same man. He drank and turned “mean.” Though she never elaborated, I know we have something else in common now.
“I prayed and prayed then,” she says, “and asked God what was the right thing to do. For years I waited. Then one day I knew I had to leave him. God has never let me down. God won’t let you down.”
“I love you,” I say and hug her, and in that hug is all the reassurance I need. This is what I had to do. Love with violence isn’t love, and God is only on the side of love. As guilty as I felt about leaving, I could see that love isn’t abuse. Nobody is born for this.
I have to be honest. I had a lot more work to do on my own, separating the excuses from the truth, learning how to ask for help and not be too proud or ashamed.
I found an incredibly supportive therapist and in session after session I looked at who I had become. I needed to let go of the victim and reclaim the strong, capable woman God had made me. I had to forgive in order to heal. Fear is the opposite of love, and where fear reigns, love can’t.
What I dared to believe brought me where I am today, happily remarried to an extraordinary man. We have three beautiful girls. They’re a big part of the reason I needed to tell my story. I want them to know, the way Gram let me know.
Love doesn’t make excuses. Love doesn’t intimidate or lie. Love speaks the truth even when it’s painful but not in a painful way. It is the way I was loved by my family. It is how we are all loved by God.
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