I am a victim of domestic abuse and marital rape.

There, I said it.

I fucking hate that there’s a name for it. I hate this hell that I’ve lived. Victim. But that’s the reality, and apparently, there are others like me. This haunting thing that tainted me beyond recognition has a definition, a distinct classification and meaning.

I am a victim of domestic abuse and marital rape.

Ugh.

I will always be a victim. Kind of like how an addict is always an addict, their addiction the result of something bigger than them, something out of their control. And while I often convinced myself that what happened to me was my fault, I now know that it wasn’t. I didn’t ask to be raped by my husband; I didn’t ask to be abused. But I did choose to marry him. And then I chose to stay, even after the abuse started. Just as an addict makes a choice each time they slip the heroin-laced needle into their veins, snort the white shit up their nose, or replace the water in their tumbler with a liter of vodka, I chose to stick by my despicable husband, which did nothing more than enable him to further neglect the tenets of societal norms and overall basic human decency.

Hindsight sure is a bitch.

I am a victim of domestic abuse and marital rape.

While I hate to say I didn’t know better, I didn’t know any better. My parents, who have been married more than thirty years, had never once been violent toward one another. Sure, they argued sometimes, just like any other married couple, but they loved each other. And they loved me—I grew up happy, I grew up content. We went on vacations, they watched me play sports and participate in extracurricular activities. They supported my hobbies and piled more than enough Christmas gifts under the tree every year. They weren’t bad parents by any means—although at times I’m sure I made them feel as if they were, thanks to my love of all things F-word related and an overwhelming desire to do as I pleased. The good example had been set for me, but for some reason, I was ignorant to that knowledge when I met Nathan. I looked the other way and pretended there wasn’t a problem. I dismissed the warning signs of abuse and instead fell into bed with a handsome face who liked to use sex, drugs and manipulation as a form of discipline.

That’s how—seventeen years ago at the ripe young age of nineteen—I stood in front of a judge and two clergymen and vowed to love, honor and cherish, in sickness and in health, until death do us part, a manipulative and evil man. I signed a few pieces of paper, changed my last name and became the wife of an abusive addict.

I just didn’t know it at the time.

A handful of my close friends and family suspected what I’d gotten myself into. That’s why Nathan and I were married at the Wright County Courthouse in the first place. My best friend, Jerilyn, hated Nathan. My mother despised him and likely would have murdered him if such a thing were legal. My father would have helped her bury the body. It turns out it only costs about three hundred dollars to get married by a judge in their chambers, and apart from having to sit through Judge Vesser’s final case of the day, it was over in less than thirty minutes.

Nathan didn’t buy a ring, make a grandiose proposal or ask for my parent’s permission—I assure you they wouldn’t have given it to him. I didn’t buy a wedding dress, book a honeymoon or send out a single wedding invitation. We merely applied for a marriage license, and when it came in the mail a few weeks later, headed to the courthouse and had the least romantic ceremony in the history of wedding ceremonies. It was a Wednesday afternoon.

I’d like to say that my new husband eventually got his shit together and grew into the man that I desperately wanted him to be, but that would be a lie. Not that it mattered—I was bound by the laws of marriage. I did, after all, vow to love him in sickness and in health, until death do us part.

I am a domestic abuse and marital rape survivor.