He Didn’t Cheat

My husband was confused as to why I left him

Photo by Chris on Unsplash (2X4s were kept next to our fireplace as a threat)

It was October, and I was standing alone in a room with my abuser- hopefully my soon-to-be ex-husband.

I was terrified.

I can’t imagine why the court system put us in a room alone while the attorneys talked to the judge. I can’t understand why I was required to fly from California to the Midwest for a 15-minute hearing, although I neither spoke to nor saw the judge. But there I was, in a small wood-paneled room, alone with my abuser.

What was there to say to a man I left five months ago due to control, financial, physical, and mental abuse?

Ironically, my husband still didn’t understand why I left him.

I sat at the conference table in the small room, and he stood with his back toward me, looking through the window to the trees losing the last of their fall leaves. His voice was as bleak as the view.

“I was a good husband,” he said, breaking the silence. “I never cheated on you. In all those years, I never cheated.”

I didn’t reply. What was there to say? He didn’t cheat.

He removed my name from our joint bank account, so I had to ask him for money.

He called me “cunt” and “bitch” daily.

He hit, kicked, and choked me, threw me up against walls…