When they knew it was all over

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Updated: January 23, 2012 8:19AM

This is how it is. You’re in a relationship. It’s not great. In fact, it’s lousy, but you put up with it. Maybe you think it will get better; maybe the thought of change is even worse than the status quo, or maybe you’re waiting for the right time to get out. And then, something happens. It may be something big, it may be something small, but all of a sudden you say, “Enough is enough.”

Here’s the moment when these readers knew they’d had it.

BILL: I knew it was over when she cheated on me with one of her co-workers while I sat at her parents’ house waiting for her to come home from her office Christmas party. It was actually over long before; it just took me 20 years to realize it.

GERRIE: I knew it was over when he slammed his fist in my face and broke my nose.

The verbal abuse started as soon as we got married. Then after three months, mere verbal abuse no longer satisfied him. He began physically abusing me. With each new insult he hurled at me, I became more and more convinced that I was worthless as a wife and a human being.

Every time I said something he disagreed with — even something minor about the weather — he’d slap my face. I never fought back. I was terrified of him. All I could do was cry. Finally, when I was pregnant with our third child, he graduated from slapping my face to punching my face.

We lived on the second floor. There was no elevator. I was supposed to keep the baby buggy in the basement, but I wasn’t able to negotiate the steep basement stairs. I would leave the buggy in the lobby and he would put the buggy in the basement every day after work.

But once, after supper, he fell asleep on the couch instead of putting the buggy away. I was sick with worry that the buggy would be stolen. I waited hours for him to wake up, beside myself with anxiety. Finally, at 10 o’clock, I couldn’t wait any longer. The buggy was vital to my children’s existence. So I tapped him on the shoulder.

He awoke and sprang up from the couch in a towering rage and slammed his fist into my face. The blood flowed copiously. He’d broken my nose. That was the last straw. I was determined that my fourth and final divorce attempt would stick, and it did.

This time, I refused to drop the suit and take him back. Within days after the birth of my third child, my husband was out of the house under a police escort, and my lawyer saw to it that he never entered it again.

JENNA: I knew it was over when I greeted him at the airport (I actually parked my car and went as far as security would let me) with a big hug and an attempt at a kiss, but he shrugged me off and went on talking to the stranger he had met on the plane. And no, he did not introduce me.

Has your tale been in the column? Send an update to cheryllavinrapp@gmail.com.

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