She Was Completely Blindsided By Her Husband's Behavior

Unfiltered Stories

Today on Unfiltered Stories, Sara Sobrofski shares her harrowing experience of living with an abuser. From the very first day of marriage, Sara was subjected to years of physical and psychological abuse, hidden beneath the facade of a great job, a beautiful home, and children. Despite the outward appearances, her life was filled with suffering. Join us to hear how Sara found the strength to overcome this dark period and work towards healing.   #survivorstories #domesticviolence #resilience #healingjourney   Thank you for watching Unfiltered Stories! We offer a platform for our guests to speak openly about their life stories and journeys, shedding light on the challenges they faced and the resilience they've shown.   Our mission is to raise awareness about survivors by delving into their stories, exploring the impact of their experiences, and how they've managed to heal and rebuild their lives.  By sharing these stories, we aim to break the silence surrounding those challenging memories and create a compassionate environment.   🌅 FOLLOW US 🌅  Facebook ➮ https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredFB  Tiktok ➮ https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredTT  Snapchat ➮ https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredSN

Transcript

00:00Hi, my name is Sarah. Today you're going to hear my story of my experience with my ex-husband in

00:04my abusive relationship. I grew up in a traditional home. I was raised Pentecostal Christian, so it was

00:11very hierarchical. So my dad definitely was the man of the house. My dad was ex-military, so he

00:17suffered from bipolar disorder. So there was a lot of ups and downs within his personality. I am the

00:22youngest of three. We were a close family. I had good parental role models for a relationship.

00:29I didn't date very much. I watched my siblings really battle with my parents at a young age. So

00:35my brother and sister were kind of rebellious. And so at seven, eight years old, they're like

00:40screaming and yelling at each other. And I just knew I didn't want to be that way. So I pretty

00:43much

00:44did whatever my parents told me to do. And I really didn't date much till I got to college, which

00:49I

00:49think was part of the problem. I would kind of dream about who that person was for me. And

00:53obviously at that point in my life, it came from a religious standpoint. So I was like, I wonder who

00:57God has chosen for me because I truly believe that those relationships were chosen sort of. So I would

01:02think a lot about that. I definitely wanted to have kids. I knew I wanted to be a mom at

01:06a very young age,

01:08but I was kind of awkward and I was loud and I didn't have very good relationships with my peer

01:14groups.

01:14And I think that was where a lot of this stemmed from is I didn't have like in high school,

01:21I definitely wasn't a popular kid. I remember a guy in high school said to me, it's unfortunate that

01:27you're so pretty and so annoying at the same time. And so, you know, just kind of like, wow, you

01:31know,

01:32lots of boys in school want to date you, but you're annoying kind of a thing was kind of the

01:37messaging that I got. Even like the one person that I did date in high school, he wouldn't talk to

01:42me

01:42in school. Like we dated outside of school because he was in a way different peer status than I was.

01:48And so we worked together and then he would talk to me outside of school. But as soon as we

01:53were in

01:53school, he wouldn't acknowledge me at all. And for some reason that was just okay with me because I

01:57really liked him. But then he started dating a cheerleader from a neighboring school at the same

02:01time. I have big feelings. I've always had big feelings. I get really attached really quickly.

02:06And so that has caused me to not have the best judgment because I tend to stay attached too long

02:13because the hurt of losing someone is greater than staying with them. I went to college. I immersed

02:19myself in college. I joined a sorority because I wanted to make friends. And then I took a semester

02:25off and I started to work at this local insurance company in my town doing customer service type stuff.

02:31And he worked there. We met that way. I didn't know he liked me. I had no idea. And then

02:36when I came back

02:37after going to London, we connected pretty strongly after that. Like he told me liked me. I really

02:43wasn't sure. Then there was another girl at work who liked him. And then I was like, okay, maybe I

02:47really do like this person because there was this twinge of jealousy. Don't take him from me kind of

02:52experience. He went to the same college as me. And so I really felt like it was kind of meant

02:56to be

02:57because we went to the same college. We had similar lifestyles. Like he understood me. Like he never

03:03ever, while we were dating, ever made fun of me. He never talked down to me. We just sort of

03:09really

03:09hit it off really well. And so he was the first person that I really felt like understood me in

03:13a way

03:14that other people didn't. So I think that's where I was like, okay, this is easy. We got along. We

03:18had

03:18similar interests. We went to the same college. So we started dating. We had a lot of similar interests,

03:23but I immersed myself into a lot of his interests that I didn't even know I liked. Like we would

03:28go

03:28fishing and we would go camping and we would do all these outdoor things that I really hadn't been

03:32exposed to that much. My mom didn't like those things. My dad took me to a dude ranch in Wyoming

03:37when I was in eighth grade, which I absolutely loved. So he let me explore like a side of myself

03:43that I

03:43didn't really get to do much when I was younger. I would describe it as easy. It was easy at

03:48first.

03:49We were dating for two years and then we got engaged and we were engaged for a year

03:53before we got married. So we were together for a good solid three years in our twenties.

03:57And it was just that whole time. It was pretty easy. He was everything I wasn't. So it became

04:02this like very complimentary back and forth with, Oh, I'll do, I could do the bills and you could do

04:09this part of it. And it felt very easy and connected. We did start living together about

04:15three months before we got married, which I don't even know how that was okay with my family,

04:19with how I was raised. I did start to see some difficulties with living with somebody.

04:24My parents reassured me, Hey, you know, you guys just started living together. You're going to have

04:28some disagreements about who picks up the socks and who cleans the bathroom and who,

04:33who does this and that within the relationship. Both my parents approved of the relationship.

04:38Everything was wonderful. And then we had this like dream honeymoon in Aruba on this like magical week,

04:43which I thought was going to be this perfect honeymoon. And that's where immediately I felt

04:48like he like flipped a switch. We got to Aruba and he obviously had some issues that I was not

04:56aware

04:56of. Immediately he pulled out the courting device at the time and wanted to videotape us being intimate

05:02on our honeymoon. And I was like, what are you doing? No, absolutely no way. Like I'm not comfortable

05:07with this, especially with my really strict religious background and growing up the way that I did.

05:12And this being a very sacred sort of thing with the way I was raised. And he did not like

05:17that.

05:18He did not like me telling him no, like at all. And that was really our first physical anything.

05:24Like he gave me a fat lip because I would not allow this to go on. He pulled my hair.

05:29I had a

05:29ponytail in and it was like all disheveled on the top. And I had a big fat lip. He ended

05:34up holding the

05:35back of my hair while he videotaped it and then didn't like it because I wasn't into it, I guess,

05:41or whatever. And so it turned into this big thing on our honeymoon and I'm sitting in Aruba and I'm

05:47completely blindsided. I'm like, what do I do? I can't just fly home. We just got married. Like

05:52we hadn't even unwrapped our wedding gifts yet, really. They were still all boxed up. And so I

05:58just sort of pushed it aside and enjoyed the rest. And if anybody was really paying attention,

06:04they could see my fat lip. And like he recorded the majority of our trip just for tourist type purposes.

06:09So every time I would see that, I would see the big fat lip that I had, the big cut

06:13in my lip that

06:13I had. We had been intimate before we were married. So this wasn't like our first ever experience or

06:19anything. He had never expressed any sort of kink. He was raised Catholic. Like I just assumed that we

06:25were just having a normal loving relationship. I wasn't aware of any sort of sexual addiction or

06:30anything like that at all. When we moved in together, a little bit of control kind of stuff about

06:36living together. But again, I was reassured that that was normal. When you first start to live with

06:40somebody, you're going to have that period of time where it's a little bit rocky. This was

06:45completely blindsided. I mean, I was completely and totally blindsided. I remember I left the hotel room

06:52to get away. I was like, what do I do? I mean, it wasn't like a big city where I

06:56could go to the

06:57airport and find a flight home. Like they only flew on certain days of the week. I remember running

07:01into a hotel staff and he's like, are you okay? And I'm like, yeah, I'm fine. But I must have

07:06looked

07:06a mess because he was bleeding from my mouth and my hair's all. It was completely like a different

07:12person. Not at all like anything I had seen. Our relationship was completely very normal, very easy

07:18while we dated. And then it was like we got married and this light switch just flipped. We talked about

07:23it at the time and then he just apologized. And we know how they do this profusely apologizing to me.

07:31Oh my gosh, I don't know what got into me. I'm so sorry. And I being the kind of the

07:36glass half full

07:37empathic person that I am. I was like, oh, it's okay. Like I'm sure I don't know what that was.

07:43We just got married. There's been a lot of stress for the planning the wedding. So I immediately started

07:47to downplay it even with things that he wasn't even telling me. Just like in my own head,

07:52I was making excuses for him. And we got home, continued to integrate our life. And I never,

07:58we didn't have the kind of relationship where we could talk about anything. The gaslighting happens,

08:03the, you know, you're the problem all the time happens. So if I would try to like discuss really

08:08anything of any substance, it didn't go anywhere at all. I became very conditioned to just let him do

08:16what he wants, let him spend whatever money he wants to spend, let him be like man's ahead of the

08:21household. I never knew what was going to set him off. So I would keep this tally in my head

08:27of,

08:27okay, I can't do that because that set him off. Okay. I can't do this. This set him off. It

08:32was

08:32never predictable. I never knew what was going to make him angry. So there, there was this very

08:38classic cyclical pattern of abuse in our marriage that everybody that, you know, that revolving door

08:45of abuse and he even got smart. He would hit me on the top of my head so that you,

08:50I didn't have any

08:51marks on me at all. Like he would hit me in the head so that there weren't any bruises. There

08:56weren't

08:56any marks. I have really thick hair. So he would pull me by my hair. There wasn't any marks. I

09:02didn't

09:02have to answer to anything. I didn't say anything to anyone for a long time. It went on for quite

09:08some

09:08time. He is very charismatic. So everybody loved him. Everyone thought like he was the golden boy

09:14of the three boys in his family. My parents thought he was just the greatest thing. And then we had

09:20kids

09:20and I started to kind of say things throughout having kids. I really did make excuses for him. I

09:27mean, we were, we were this golden couple. We both had really amazing jobs. We had a very large home

09:32in

09:32our early twenties on three acres of land. I think there's a misconception about abuse, especially

09:39in like upper middle-class families. It's, there's almost like more shame in it when you're, when

09:44you've reached a level of education and a level of success, it's almost harder to say something

09:49because you're supposed to be educated and you're not supposed to fall for this. I didn't say anything

09:53for quite some time. Like everything, it escalated. I did call the police on him a couple years after

10:00we were married. And that's when I finally told my parents about it. He threw me out of the house

10:04in the middle of winter with no coat and told me to go away. And so I walked down to

10:08a gas station

10:08and I had to call the police for, to get help because I was freezing cold. So I did call

10:13the

10:13police. That's when my parents found out he was arrested. It was dismissed down to a disorderly

10:18conduct, you know, ticket because I was like, please don't, you know, do anything. You know, I was the

10:23wife that was like, it's okay. It's okay. It's okay. A lot of it started to revolve around the house

10:29cleaning. I tend to be more of a laxed person when it comes to the house. He is very OCD

10:34under

10:35gender roles. He wanted me to clean the house. That really wasn't my strong suit. So if the house

10:40wasn't exactly the way that he wanted it to be, that was a big point of contention in our

10:44relationship. It was a lot of hair pulling. It was a lot of dragging on the floor. It was a

10:49lot of

10:49punching me in the head, verbal abuse. There was a lot of sexual abuse where I didn't feel like doing

10:56anything, but he kind of, you know, that, that became clear on our honeymoon, that that was just

11:00kind of the precedent that he was going to set definitely started to escalate to more and more

11:05severe as the episodes went on. I remember being in the, um, in the car one time and he wanted

11:11me to

11:11do something. And I said, no. And he just like backhanded me and my head hit the side of the,

11:17the car window. And I like blacked out for a second. And I had a huge black eye the next

11:22day

11:22and had to try to explain to people what happened. And, you know, we were camping and I, I was

11:27under

11:27the table and I looked up and I hit the pole of the table. Like I had to come up

11:31with something.

11:32He tried to toss me, but I was like a hundred pounds and he missed, I missed the bed and

11:37I hit

11:37the floor and I fractured a vertebrae in my neck and I had to make excuses about that. Um, and

11:43you know,

11:43that, Oh, the, the dog leash got caught and I fell down the stairs when I was going down the

11:47stairs with

11:48the dog. I think that's when I started to notice that there was a big problem was when I was

11:53wearing

11:53a neck brace at 25 years old. I just got this overwhelming urge that I wanted to have kids.

11:59And then I got pregnant and then he was so upset because a couple of days before I found it,

12:04I was pregnant. He had had an episode where he was abusive to me. And I remember coming home and

12:08telling them that I was pregnant and him feeling like so upset about the fact that I was pregnant and

12:14could he have hurt the baby? The safest I ever felt with him was when I was pregnant. And it

12:19was an

12:19empathy that I had not seen from him ever. Our marriage while I was pregnant was really like very

12:25calm. And if I would get upset, he would try to do whatever he could to, to diffuse my stress.

12:32I remember writing him a letter after I left him about how I felt jealous of our kids because I

12:37felt

12:38like he treated our kids way differently than he ever treated me. And he was kind and nice and gentle

12:42with

12:42them when, when they were little. And I remember saying, I shouldn't be jealous of my four-year-old.

12:48I had hoped and I thought that would continue after they were born because I'm like, oh, now we have

12:52kids. He's going to want to shelter them. He's going to want to protect them. He triangulated us a lot.

12:57So he would say, oh, mom's stupid or, oh, mom's this or, oh, mom's that. And then I remember one

13:03time

13:04with our, so my daughter's older and I remember one time my daughter was maybe two and they were sitting

13:09playing a game on the floor and I walked into the room and he said, tell mommy to go away.

13:14And she's like, mommy, go away. And I was like, okay, this is not okay. Like, I don't want my

13:19daughter growing up having to say mean things to her mom. He was verbally abusive in front of the

13:24kids. He also, um, a couple of times would use the kids as pawns. Like my son was up in

13:29his crib

13:30and was calling for me. And my husband was like, you can't get him out of the crib until you

13:34clean the

13:35house better. And then there was the one time that I, what made me finally get out was, um,

13:41he hit me in front of our daughter and she walked in the room and said, dad, what are you

13:44doing?

13:45And he's like, mommy deserves a spanking. It was like a flip of a switch for me. And I just

13:50was like,

13:50I, I cannot allow my children to be raised in this environment. Like I just, I, I can't, I can't,

13:57I called the police and just said, Hey, my, my husband hit me. This is where I am. And then

14:03they came over,

14:04they took my statement and then they went back to the house. So I never told him I was leaving.

14:08And I think that was part of what saved me. I mean, there would have been no way for me

14:12to get

14:13out. If I would have said, I'm leaving not too long before this had happened, we were away for

14:17a weekend. And he said to me, no, if you ever leave me, they're going to find you at the

14:22bottom

14:22of a lake somewhere. And he just said it really subtly, like casually in a conversation, like it

14:26wasn't part of a bigger conversation. He just said it. I put a 72 hour hold, like a no contact

14:33hold on

14:34it. I called my parents. They came over cause I'm like the minute he gets out, he's going to come

14:38here. And I don't trust him. He, he's never been one to like boundaries. And then that's really when

14:45I, when I discovered the sexual cheating and the affairs that he was having and other things too,

14:51was that same weekend. So if the physical abuse wasn't going to cause me to leave the, the,

14:56the affair would, I almost feel like while we were dating, he was like studying me,

15:00my personality, my insecurities, my weaknesses. There's a part of me that found gratitude in my

15:06experiences, not necessarily gratitude in him, but gratitude for my experiences because I'm able

15:12to use them to help other people now.

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