I Endured Domestic Violence For 24 Years From My Husband

Unfiltered Stories

Today on Unfiltered Stories, our guest Rosalyn Atkinson bravely opens up about her life journey.Throughout her marriage of 24 years, she faced intense physical, mental, and emotional suffering and endured domestic violence inflicted by her husband. Even her quest for independence through divorce led to a life-threatening situation, as he attempted to end her life.  Now she she shares her story of going from being a victim to survivor and ultimately emerging victorious.   #lifestory #survivor #inspiring   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

00:00My name is Rosalyn Atkinson. I am a survivor of an abusive marriage for 24 years. I met my husband

00:11when I was 13 years old. I absolutely loved him. Even though I was so young, I still saw some

00:20red

00:21flags that I looked over. And so we actually met in the ninth grade. But I saw anger issues with

00:29him. Even when we were teenagers, I remember him smacking me at the mall. And I also remember

00:38him smacking me in the elevator when I was in medical and dental assistant school. And

00:45it wasn't until we got married where I guess he felt like he solidified the deal, that it

00:52was done. And literally five days after we got married, I remember how terrible it was.

01:01We were putting our apartment together. I was so, so happy and excited. I was 24 years old.

01:08I left my mom's house, my first apartment with my new husband. And I remember we had decided

01:14that I would put everything together in the back of the house. He would put everything

01:21together in the front of the apartment. So I remember when I was done hanging clothes and

01:24I went in the kitchen and it was all this stuff on the kitchen and made a sandwich and he

01:28had

01:28left it all. And it was like 90 degrees outside. I said, you, it's hot outside. I said, you left

01:34the Miracle Whip and the cheese and everything on the counter. I said, you need to clean that up.

01:41And he looked at me and he said, I'll get it. And so when I went back and was continuing

01:46doing what I was doing, about an hour later, I came and it was still sitting there. And

01:51so I began to clean it up. And I'm telling you, that was the worst thing I could have did

01:55because I cleaned up his messes from that day forward. And then when it was time for us

02:02to bring some other things in, some boxes off of the truck and all of that, he would not

02:07help. He said he was done. He would not help me at all. And so I was out there literally

02:13myself dragging boxes, dragging bins, bringing things in because again, we are newly married

02:20five days in. And I remember saying to myself, who in the hell is this? Because I didn't know

02:26that person. It was like he was waiting until we got married. We were together for, like I said,

02:33I met him at 13, we were together for 11 years. And I was still a virgin when we got

02:38married.

02:38We got along very, very well initially. And it was after we got married that everything

02:45took a turn for the worse. I started doing everything. He started speaking to me in a

02:52very aggressive and mean manner. I was pregnant four times. My second son, I will never forget

02:59this. I carried him for six months and I delivered a... It was very, very hard for me. And I

03:06remember

03:07it was maybe five to seven days after, not long after this had occurred. And I was in the closet

03:16trying to find me something to wear because I don't have a baby, but I'm still... I remember

03:22sitting on the floor in the closet going through my jeans. He came in the back in the bedroom and

03:31he said, what's taking so long? And I have tears coming down my face. And I said, I can't find

03:36anything to wear. He said, hurry up and find something because it's time to go. And I remember

03:43burying my face in all of those clothes, just screaming like, how could you, why would you

03:50not comfort me? I lost your son. I don't know. It wasn't just my son. You're the daddy. I went

03:55through that literally by myself. My first pregnancy, I was so ecstatic. I was pregnant for the very

04:03first time. And my ex was there, but he was not kind to me. He was not there emotionally

04:14for me and his child. And so I really didn't want to have any more children. And so my second

04:20son actually was not a planned child. It just kind of happened because I really wouldn't have

04:26any more kids by him. My second pregnancy, once I found out I was pregnant, so I'm loving my baby.

04:33I am nurturing this baby. I'm doing everything that I can possibly do to protect. And unfortunately,

04:42I was pregnant for about five months and I started bleeding. And I remember them putting me on bed rest

04:50and I just did not have his support. At that time, thank God, my mom was still alive. So she

04:55would

04:56help me. But it was, I was, I was on my own. I had two more children. I actually planned

05:03my next son

05:04because once my oldest son had got older, he was a really, really needy child. So I was like, okay,

05:12this kid need to play me. So I had my second son, my ex-husband. He just was who he

05:21was. And I learned

05:22to cope with it. I learned to deal. And I say this all the time. I say this on a

05:26regular basis.

05:27I learned, and unfortunately, so many abused women learn this. We learn to function in dysfunction.

05:38And that was me. I built walls. I tried to protect my boys from seeing any of this. I was

05:46with my ex

05:48from 13 years old. And it wasn't until we got married at the age of 24 that I saw the

05:56abuse. He

05:57was emotionally abusive. We would make plans, or I should say, I would make plans to do something.

06:04And I'm all excited. And then the day of, he would say, no, I'm not going. And just be mean

06:09about it.

06:10Or he will start an argument so that he wouldn't have to go. And then we're not talking for the

06:17next

06:1710, 12, 13 days. He absolutely put his hands on me. I was not beaten every day, none of that.

06:24But I

06:25would be lying if I tell you that he's never, he's never hit me. We were leaving out of my

06:32son's

06:33eighth grade basketball game. And so my son had gotten upset because the coach had taken him out

06:41of the game. And he thought it was unfair. My ex-husband played basketball as well. And so he

06:45was telling him, you know, you have to do what the coach says and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And

06:50so

06:50I say to my ex-husband, I say, he's not hearing you, what you're saying. I said, wait until he

06:56calms

06:56down and then have a conversation. Why did I say that? And so we begin to argue. When

07:03we get the boys in the car, I'm getting ready to get in the car because I was driving. I'm

07:11getting ready to get in the car. And he comes, I see him coming over there towards me forcefully.

07:16So I started running. And so this is like February, March. So it's snow outside and everything. And

07:21I knew he couldn't catch me. So I started running around the car and he couldn't catch me. And he

07:26saw it, he couldn't catch me. And he was out of breath and all of that. And so we both

07:30started

07:30laughing. So I'm thinking that it's over because we were outside of the car and we both started

07:40laughing. And as I opened the car door to get in, he came around there and he smacked the stuffing

07:48out of me and said, I bet not say a word. When I got in the car, all he did

07:56was scream and holler and

08:00fuss at me while I'm driving silently. And he kept saying to me and my boys are in the back

08:05car. And

08:06he says to me, if you say something, I'm going to bust you in your face. And all I can

08:11think to myself

08:12was, if I say, even if I breathe hard and it hits me, I'm going to crash. My children's safety

08:21is in

08:21my hand. So I couldn't say a word. So when we get home, pull in the driveway, he got out

08:27of the car,

08:28he slammed my car door so hard. I thought the window had broken. I put the car in reverse

08:34because we had another basketball game to go to for my oldest son. I put the car in reverse. And

08:40as

08:40I'm driving to the game, I tell my sons, the two youngest ones, I say, you never treat a woman

08:48like

08:48that. You never, ever put your hands. And so I started trying to fix it. I went in a fixed

08:55mode

08:55so that they would not become who he was. This one, it was really, really bad. And it was

09:02towards the end of our relationship. He had gotten up to go to work and he passes me and it's

09:09a haul.

09:10And so I hear him pull the door shut. He thinks I'm asleep, but I'm not. I hear him do

09:15all of that.

09:17And he comes over to the side of the bed and he said these words, you're going to give me

09:22some

09:22and you'll give me some now. And if you scream, I'm going to choke you out. And so I scream

09:29because

09:29we're getting ready to see. I scream as loud as I could. So that scared him. He jumped up and

09:36he

09:37unlocks the door because we kept the key in there. And he slaps the door back. He tells him to

09:41get

09:41away from the door. And while he is in there, like, what's going on? What's going on? And while he's

09:46telling me to get away from the door, I literally in my night shirt, I ran out of my front

09:52door and ran

09:53down the street, hid behind my neighbor's bushes. I was there about 10 minutes or so because my baby boy

10:05called the police and I am hiding about eight houses down, running down the street, 2.30, 3 o'clock

10:14in the

10:14morning, no shoes on, nothing but a night shirt. And I'm hiding from somebody that's trying to rape me.

10:21So the police comes and when I see the police pull up, I go down there. They ask, could they

10:28come in my

10:29house? And they ask, could they look around? And his car was still in the garage and they looked

10:36everywhere for him. And we could not find, we all were looking for him and we cannot find him in

10:41the

10:41house. And so my sons and I, we grabbed some things and we left and we went to my sister's

10:48house.

10:48That was a temporary leave. That was not the final leave. You was, you was off that that would have

10:55been the end. I was terrified to be on my own. I wasn't afraid to be alone because I was

11:05very much

11:06alone in the, in the marriage. I was afraid to be on my own because I had never been on

11:12my own before.

11:13And my ex-husband, he was the primary breadwinner. So it was like, I need his money in order to

11:22take

11:23care of my children. And so I was just petrified at the thought of being out there on my own

11:29with

11:29little to no resources. I was diagnosed in 2009 with thyroid cancer. And for me, whatever reason,

11:41I just thought that I had never been under the knife at all. So I was petrified. And so I

11:46told

11:47him that, and I knew the kind of man that he was. And so I said to him, they're taking

11:51a biopsy

11:52next Friday. I said, so we can have every day up until Wednesday, because I need to get myself

11:59together in order to go into the hospital to have this biopsy. Right. And so he agreed Wednesday night,

12:07I'm sleeping. And I very rarely, even to this day, sleep on my back, but I happened to be sleeping

12:11on my back. And I felt something poking me in my neck. What is this? I said to myself, what

12:19is this

12:19poking me in my neck? And when I opened my eyes, it was a knife, he had a knife poking

12:26me in my neck.

12:28And he told me that I was going to give him some. And if I screamed, he was going to

12:37slit my throat

12:38because my son's bedrooms were upstairs. And it was a school night. So they were fast asleep.

12:47And so I did not scream. And he raped me. And that was the first time that he raped me.

12:55How could I have ever loved this person? What attracted me to this type of abuse? And what

13:04I've discovered is, um, I didn't know of any, if my father did any of those types of things to

13:11my

13:11mother. But what I do know is that I chose the same type of man that raised me. Now, let

13:17me be clear.

13:18I loved my father. My father loved me. Um, my father loved his daughters. He was wonderful to us.

13:24My ex-husband was good to his boys, but my father was not good to my mother. Neither was my

13:32ex-husband

13:33good to me. I was 48, I believe. When I finally left, it was a series of events that had

13:43occurred. The

13:45atmosphere was always explosive. You know, you didn't ever know when he was just go flipped.

13:53My best friend passed away on his birthday, actually. And we were at the movies. I took him to the

13:59movies

14:00for his birthday. And I get a call from my best friend's son. And he told me that his mom

14:04had died.

14:05And we raced to the hospital. And sure enough, she had passed away. And my ex-husband never consulted me,

14:16never hugged me, never embraced me, never said that he was sorry. And me and this woman had been best

14:23friends since I was 18 years old. And I remember being at her home going service. And we were sitting

14:32there and she was a poet. And it was what was in her poem that did it for me. And

14:39so in her poem,

14:42she said she had a family, but she had an unhappy home. I heard a poem, a line in a

14:48poem that my best

14:49friend wrote. And it was those words that inspired me to leave. It empowered me. And it made me see

14:59that I had to be done with this relationship. After that, I asked him for a divorce. He told me

15:05that I

15:05didn't want one. I told him, yes, I did, that I was done. He cried. He begged. He pleaded. He

15:12said he was

15:12going to do what was right. He was going to be better and all of that. And I had heard

15:16all of this

15:16so many times before. And it did not matter. I didn't care if he had a billion dollars. I didn't

15:24care if he could lavish me with the best of the best. I was done. And it escalated. I told

15:33him that

15:33I wasn't going to leave until after our middle son graduated high school, which was literally about

15:40six months away or less. And I just didn't want to disturb his 12th grade year with all of that.

15:47One day I came home from work and I came in the house and I immediately noticed that my two

15:55younger

15:56sons were not there. My oldest son is away from college. And I remember being in our bedroom and

16:03I am looking for a sweater. And the next thing that I hear is the emergency room doctor saying to

16:15me,

16:16do you know where you are? And I replied, I'm at home because that was my last memory.

16:24My ex-husband had choked me and left me for dead on our bedroom floor. He called 911 and he

16:34said,

16:34my wife is dying on our bedroom floor. I was taken to the hospital. They tell me that I had

16:42a CAT scan.

16:43I had an MRI and all of that. And they had to give me a shot of adrenaline

16:52to wake me up out of this. My personal doctor who I saw the next day and the police officer,

16:59when I had to go and file the report and all of that, said to me, had he kept his

17:07hands around your

17:09neck 10 seconds longer, we will not be talking to you. Because when I went to the police station,

17:15they put an ultra velvet rays on my neck and you could see all 10 of his fingers around my

17:24neck.

17:24He fled. He has gone for five days, I believe. He comes back and he turns himself in and he

17:34posted bonds.

17:35He posted $500 and got right out after trying to kill me, aggravated assault.

17:42You know, in my opinion, attempted murder. When I was 48 years old, I finally had the courage to leave.

17:53So after he strangled me, I had a no contact order. I was straining order placed on him,

18:04but that didn't stop him. He still caught my cell phone. He began to stalk me. It was just,

18:10I was always a high alert. When he should have been at work, he was watching what I was doing

18:18and

18:18calling my phone and telling me what I was doing. And we lived on the main street. So I was

18:23like,

18:23how in the world is this man seeing what I am doing? He never stopped trying to get at me.

18:31And so,

18:31finally, it was February the 3rd, I had an event. It was my middle son's last official at home basketball

18:44game. So I went there and walked him in and all of that. And before I went, my ex had

18:51called me. He

18:51asked me, was I going? Because he wanted to see if he could go. And I told him, I said,

18:56yeah, I'm going.

18:56He said, well, I'm not going. About 15 minutes after the ceremony, I'm sitting there in the bleachers

19:04and I see him come in. But it was so crowded. I didn't see where he went. So it was

19:09time for me

19:10to leave. And so I'm leaving out of there and I have the cart from the hotel and I'm pushing

19:18the

19:18little cart going on across the parking lot. And, uh, I decided to put my things in my back seat.

19:25And when I went to get the second bin, I see these lights from this car come on. I am

19:34saying to myself,

19:36why are you turning around in the air? Because he hit me with a car.

19:43I went up in the air. I turned around in the air. I came down. I hit the windshield. I

19:48hit the front

19:49of the car. I rolled away from the car. I hit the back of my head. I hit the front

19:54of my chin.

19:55And when I started coming back, I said to myself, this is my ex-husband. I knew it was him.

20:10And so I

20:11started pulling me down from the waist. Pulled me the first time. I still laid there. He pulled me the

20:18second time. And he says, your ex-husband is not dead. And that third pull, I started screaming and

20:25kicking and hollering, please, please, please, somebody help me. Somebody help me. There is a

20:31steel fence that is mounted to the ground. I went under the fence. I looked behind me and he couldn't

20:40get

20:41under the fence. He jumps back in the car and puts it in drive and puts his foot to the

20:47pedal,

20:48trying to ram the fence. But his wheels got stuck in the dirt. And I went down a hill and

20:57it's the,

20:58uh, it's the highway. And I go over the guardrail because in my mind, he has gotten out of this.

21:08He is coming around to hit me with this car. He never showed, but I'm running and trying to flag

21:14down trucks and cars and everybody kept going. But they were calling 9-1-1 and finally a man stopped.

21:22And he was like, what's going on? And I jumped in his car. I jumped in the man's car so

21:26fast.

21:26I scared him. I said, my ex-husband is trying to kill me. Come on, we gotta go. We gotta

21:30go.

21:30And he was like, no, no, no, no, no. We're just going to wait. I'm going to call the police.

21:34I'm like,

21:34no, no, no, no, no. We have to go because he's coming. He's coming. Finally, the police came,

21:39the ambulance came and all of that. And my only concern was for the police to get to my children.

21:47I'm giving them my address. They took me to the hospital. They had a police officer outside of my

21:54door and they found him about two hours, three hours later. They found him walking in the opposite

22:05direction on the turnpike, intoxicated. They arrested him and he went to jail and he, um,

22:14plea bargain down to, I believe it was aggravated assault. And so he had nine years for that.

22:23I go to my son's basketball game and I leave there and I had no idea that my ex had

22:30followed

22:30me. And the next thing I know, I am being hit with a car, 3000 pound automobile. Initially,

22:39they didn't believe that I crawled over the fence, but my finger was slit by the barbed wire under the

22:48fence. And I had 16 stitches put in the finger. I also had a meniscus tear on my knee and,

22:58uh, bruises.

23:01Uh, my, my body was bruised very, very bad. And, um, I hit the windshield of the car and thank

23:08be to God that,

23:09um, the only nick that I had was on my nose and it looked just like I had busted a,

23:17uh, a pimple and the glass

23:20of the car was shattered and my face should have been cut up and it was nothing but the grace

23:26of God.

23:27Oh, when he was finally locked up, I felt free. I felt free of him. I felt like I didn't

23:36have to look

23:36over my shoulders. So it was very free and it was very liberating. Well, now since all of that is

23:43gone,

23:43I am 59 next year. I will be 60 years old. I am happy. I am remarried. I have the

23:52best husband in the world.

23:54My three sons are doing fine. I am the Gigi of four great granddaughters. They are my heartbeat.

24:03I am an author. I penned my story, my true story in the book entitled The Unloved Wife.

24:11If you're dealing with, um, domestic violence on any level, you know, you have to come to the conclusion

24:18that you cannot change that person. It's nothing that you can do that will change them from hurting

24:27you. I'm not saying leave today, but begin to, to put a plan in place so you can leave. And

24:34please

24:34understand this. We cannot cover enough for our children. They will be affected by it and affected

24:41by it. After you get out, don't be afraid to go to therapy so you can get a better perspective

24:48on you

24:48so that in the future, you will not choose the same individual that you chose before that abused you

24:58and hurt you.

25:00you

25:03you

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