Restored - Ending Violence Against Women

13:55 / 21 May 10

Hello my name is Natalie and this is my story.  I was brought up in a loving Christian family but was abused by a neighbour from 8 years old until I was 14.  Due the pain of this abuse by the age of 17 I was very depressed and was struggling with a lot of feelings of worthlessness and self hatred and I was dealing with it through self harming and controlling my eating.

It was when I was in this place I met Alan, he was tall, dark and handsome and from the moment I met him, I thought he loved me.  He spent every waking moment with me, suffocating me into believing I couldn’t live without him.   He told me how hard his life had been and how much he needed me. 

Within 12 days Alan had expertly manipulated me into having sex with him.  Within 6 months I was pregnant.  When I was 8 months pregnant, Alan asked me for sex.  I said no and he raped me.  I didn’t say no to sex again for a very long time.   In March 2003 I gave birth to Mia, the most beautiful girl in the whole world, and I don’t know where I would be today without her.

3 months after Mia’s birth Alan and I got married.  I now know that from the day he met me he was abusing me, sexually, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually and sometimes physically. 

Alan had affairs regularly both before and after our wedding day.  But within 6 months of our marriage he started having sex with underage girls.  First a 14 year old and next was a 15 year old, the discovery of this second abuse of power led to him being put on the sex offenders register for 5 years.  

I believed Alan could change, in fact I believed I could change him.  I forgave him whatever he did and tried to forget it, I thought that was the Christian thing to do.  And my life of abuse continued.  He made me hate myself, he made me think I was worth nothing, that I was stupid, ugly, fat and that everything he did wrong was my fault.  He made me do every imaginable thing sexually and I was compliant, knowing anytime I said no, he would probably do it anyway and doing it with consent made it, somehow, not as bad.

He made sexual advances on my friends, some of them said no, others said yes.

My family didn’t like him and he made me believe they were bad.  I couldn’t talk to anybody about most of what was happening because I was so ashamed I couldn’t even think about a lot of the things he had done to hurt me, never mind tell someone about them and people didn’t want to support me when it became apparent their support wasn’t going to make me leave him.

Alan tried to take away my whole life and the worst thing was I let him.  Well actually I didn’t let him; he manipulated me into believing everything he did was because he loved me.  He controlled me and destroyed everything I was.  Doctors placed me on anti depressants, counsellors and psychologists tried to help me ‘deal with my issues’ and each time I had to go home and continue living with my issue, being married to him.  I didn’t have a life, I had an existence.

I became pregnant with my son James and I started to get a bit of strength from somewhere to try and get out.  I started sleeping in another room and looking for somewhere to live.

When I was 6 months pregnant, Alan asked me for sex, this time, the first time in nearly three years I said no.  He raped me and a week later my son James was born 3 months premature, weighing only 2lb 6oz.  He was in hospital for 5 months.

The first hospital we were in was an hour from our home town and this enabled me to separate from Alan successfully.  After James had been in intensive care for a month I couldn’t bear knowing Alan had caused his suffering and I reported him for raping me to the police.   

All the time James was in hospital Mia and I were living on hospital wards with him.  Twice after being released from hospital James stopped breathing and went blue, I had to resuscitate him myself and praise God he started breathing again.

Eventually James was released from hospital on low flow oxygen and we moved to Gateshead.

I was a single parent, living in a place where I knew hardly anyone, trying to cope with a sick baby and a 3 year old.  Most of the time I rang Alan for support.  He had spent 4 years telling me I wouldn’t survive without him and although I lived 2 hours away I still believed that lie.  I had contact with him before the court case and when in May 2006 Alan was tried for raping me, the jury found him not guilty due to the contact I had had with him.

After this I didn’t know what to do.  I shut down.  I stopped feeling anything.  Not happy, not sad.  I couldn’t cry.  I got through each day as a robot.  It was when I was in this place that I got referred to the Freedom Programme, which is a programme designed to help women learn more about the reality of domestic abuse and this programme was one of the things that changed my life.  Firstly I learnt I had actually been a victim of domestic abuse.  

Through the programme I learned so much.  I discovered that Alan’s treatment of me wasn’t because of his bad childhood; it wasn’t because his family hurt him, or because he had mental health problems.  It was because he chose to do it, to control me.  

I was able to see that, in my life I have found it very hard to change myself and if changing me was that hard, how was I supposed to change Alan?
Also, I thought the verses in the Bible about women submitting to their husbands meant I had to have sex with Alan whenever he wanted it.  I re-examined those verses and see that the whole chapter talks of a man loving his wife more than himself and that power and control should not characterize the marriage relationship in any way.

My belief about forgiveness as I mentioned earlier was that I should forgive and forget.  I came to a realisation about what forgiveness is and how, used properly, makes me stronger not weaker.  I discovered forgiving someone does not mean nullifying the consequences.  

Also, growing up in Church had given me a warped concept of what repentance was, I thought that repentance equated with confession and so when Alan admitted what he had done and said sorry, I thought that was repentance.  God has shown me that repentance is actually the turning away from sin, the fruit of which is seen in a person’s actions, not their words.

I have now properly forgiven Alan and feel no anger towards him, but I have cut all contact with him and he has not pursued access.  I am very blessed, as many women in my situation are forced to give access to abusive fathers.  

As I came to the end of the Freedom Programme* God called me to move to Essex and miraculously I became engaged to Baggy, a friend I had know for over 7 years.

Although this might seem like a happy ever after, it wasn’t quite that.  The issues and mess that Alan had caused me were very difficult to deal with.  When I was in a safe place, with Baggy to support me, I fell apart.  I was on anti depressants and I would have black outs and episodes where I became incapable of doing anything, I would self harm and consider suicide.  I would sometimes cry hysterically and sometimes wish I could cry, but couldn’t. 

In September 2007 Baggy and I got married, miraculously, he still wanted to.  It was an amazing day.  Although I was a lot better there were still things that would trigger me to have episodes and difficulties.

Baggy really is the most wonderful husband I could ever have asked for.  He encourages me to go and achieve everything I feel I’m supposed to.  He looks after the children and loves them massively.

God has given me so many amazing opportunities since then.  I trained to become a Freedom Programme facilitator nearly two years ago and run it two days a week.  It is such a privilege to work with some of the most amazing women I have ever met who are still able to laugh and keep going after horrendous abuse. 

Throughout the many difficulties I have had God has been entirely faithful and has healed me and loved me so amazingly.  However the Church has not always been so helpful.  Having grown up with the Church’s teaching on divorce, submission, forgiveness and repentance, I had many wrong belief systems in place and through God’s amazing love and the faith He has given me, He has taught me that much of the stuff I learnt, or picked up along the way is not His heart at all and He called me to set up Faith and Freedom to enable the Church to more effectively address domestic abuse and support those suffering.

I have had the wonderful opportunity to come onboard with Restored and be part of what God is doing here.

Baggy and I have been married for nearly three years and we have a fantastic relationship.  Mia is 7 and is beautiful, well adjusted and happy.  She wants to be an artist and loves gymnastics.  James is a perfectly well 4 year old, he is fantastically cheeky and laughs all the time.  He loves playing the drums and riding his bike.  

Throughout all that I have been through I have learnt that God is bigger than the worst of situations and God’s power is greater than any of the bad stuff that can happen to us.  I am no longer broken and damaged but through Him I am healed and restored.  I have lost a great deal in my life, but through God’s awesome power I have been given back more than I ever lost and all that was meant for harm in my life is being used for good.  

My name is Natalie and this is my story so far, but my story does not end here, it keeps going as God uses what has happened to me to help others.

* The Freedom Programme is a UK based domestic abuse awareness raising programme.

TOPICS: Churches, For corporate members, Men, Peer groups, Women, Youth
LOCALITY: Europe, United Kingdom