October 15, 2024 - The Straw That Broke the Camel's Back
Most of the abuse I suffered at Typhon's hands over the years was emotional, verbal, mental, and financial. October 15, 2024 was the first time that it ever became physical. Until that day, I had told myself that I put up with Typhon's nonsense because it was better for the kids to grow up with two parents at home than not to have their father around. At the same time, though, I had also always promised myself that I would walk away if Typhon ever laid hands on me. October 15, 2024 was that tipping point -- the day that will live in infamy (as they say).
After our three youngest children left for elementary school, Ursula came downstairs to eat breakfast. She was in 6th grade at the time, and the only one in middle school. In this county, the elementary school kids get picked up first, then the middle schoolers, then the high schoolers. (Where I grew up in Florida, it was reversed.) Anyway, Ursula only eats one thing for breakfast: Nutella sandwiches. And when I say Nutella sandwiches, I mean two pieces of bread with about an inch of Nutella stuffed between them. Typhon always screamed at me about how much Nutella Ursula uses on her sandwiches and blamed me for introducing her to Nutella, but he was the one who introduced her to Nutella sandwiches in the first place. I don't even like Nutella!!
Anyway, Typhon emerged from his basement dungeon (that's another story in itself) around the same time that Ursula came down for breakfast, and he immediately started in with her about how messy her hair was. I don't even remember what it looked like that day, but it was probably messy from her having just woken up. She takes her showers at night and waits to get ready for school until after she eats her breakfast. What her hair looked like when she first came down for food really shouldn't have mattered at all.
After Ursula had slathered her pound of Nutella on her Nutella conveyance devices (i.e., the bread), Typhon then switched from giving her a hard time about her hair to yelling at Ursula about how she was putting too much Nutella on her sandwich. I agreed; she was. This was a constant morning "disagreement" in our house.
Ursula sat down next to me at the kitchen table, where I was also eating breakfast. I leaned over to her and whispered, "You do put too much Nutella on your sandwiches. I've told you that before." I didn't say it out loud because that would have lent credibility to Typhon's rampage. Even though I agreed with the substance of what he was saying, I definitely did not agree with how he was going about telling Ursula she needed to cut back on the Nutella.
The whispering backfired, though, and Typhon became even more irate because he couldn't hear what I had said so he automatically assumed I was disagreeing with him or "undermining" him in some other way. (See how much trust he had in me??) Typhon took the full drying rack that was next to the main sink and forcibly pushed it over until it fell into the kitchen sink. Everything in the drying wrack went flying everywhere in the area around the sink. All because he couldn't hear what I had whispered to our daughter and assumed I had "undermined" him when, in reality, I was supporting what he had said.
Explaining what I had said to Ursula did nothing to calm Typhon down. Having lost the whispering as his excuse to yell and scream at me, Typhon turned instead to the mess on our kitchen counters. I'll give him that one too -- I swear everyone comes in the house, drops stuff on the counters, and leaves it there for years until I finally get tired of it and do something about it. Typhon included. The whole bar area along one side of the kitchen was his mess alone, but somehow I was always blamed for how messy that area was too. But of course I was -- everything was always my fault, right? And, of course, I am apparently the only person in the entire house who can put things away. The kids don't do it unless someone tells them to, and God forbid Typhon clean up after himself. Because I had such long work hours, I didn't have time to tidy up the kitchen counters on a regular basis too. The kitchen counters also drove me nuts, and it was Typhon's number one fall back when he had nothing else to scream about.
The night before, Typhon had brought two boxes of spare parts for our range top in from the garage to try to fix something. (I didn't even know then what the issue was.) Unsurprisingly, instead of putting it away when he was done that evening, he...you guessed it...left the boxes on the kitchen island. Ironic, no?
At some point during his yelling fit, Typhon started to finally take the two boxes of spare range top parts back out to the garage where they belonged. Halfway to the garage, though, he changed his mind, came back into the kitchen, and said something along the lines of, "F**k it. If everyone else gets to leave their stuff everywhere, I'm leaving my stuff out too."
But, being Typhon, he couldn't just put the box of spare parts on top of the nearest random pile of crap on the counters. No, he started to use the boxes to push everything off of the built-in desk area in the kitchen onto the floor so that he could place the boxes there. Not only was that totally obnoxious, but there was at least one -- maybe two -- breakable art pieces that the kids had brought home from school just a few days earlier still sitting on the desk area because I hadn't found a good place to put it (them?) yet. I could have dealt with him pushing off a bunch of random papers and whatever. But an irreplaceable art piece from one of the kids? That would be sacrilegious!
Before Typhon could knock over the kids' art piece(s), I rushed over and grabbed the boxes of spare range top parts out of Typhon's hands. Without thinking, I went to throw the boxes, just to get them away from Typhon before he could do any damage with them. He later claimed that I threw them 20 feet or something across the house. That's absolutely not true. It was more like a 3-foot toss just to get the boxes out of arm's reach.
In what he later said was an attempt to try to stop me from throwing the boxes, Typhon grabbed my right wrist and the back of my neck, forcibly pushing my head down. I could kind of understand the right wrist -- I was grabbing for the boxes and he was trying to stop me. But the back of my neck? And pushing my head down like that? Really?
I swear I felt the pressure of Typhon's fingers on my neck for at least 10-15 minutes after he finally let go. Around 6 p.m. on the night of October 15, 2024 (the night of the incident), I still had red marks on my neck in the shape of fingers.
As of October 21, 2024, I also still had bruises on my right wrist in the shape of finger marks.
Ursula had been upstairs while this had occurred, getting ready for school after finishing the infamous Nutella sandwich. She came down maybe a minute or two after Typhon had let go of my neck, and I walked her out to meet her school bus at the end of our driveway like I do every morning. She had heard the commotion, asked me what happened, and I couldn't hold it in. I was still in a state of shock, but I think I did start crying at some point. She heavily encouraged me to go get a protective order against Typhon. She was very sweet all day -- she texted me on the bus on the way to school and a few times during the day to check on me and to tell me that if I needed support, she could come home from school to be with me. I didn't let her use this as an excuse to skip school.
After Ursula got on the bus, I made a series of phone calls before I went back inside the house. First, I called the divorce attorney I had consulted in 2020 -- Atticus. I left him a message and, when we eventually got in touch, I brought him up to speed on everything that had happened since the last time I had spoken to him. Unlike in 2020, there was no chance I was backing out of filing for divorce this time. (I'll eventually get to that story too.) After I left Atticus the voicemail, the next call I made was to my parents. I was definitely in tears when I talked to them. Arthur was ready to come over and kill Typhon right then and there. What a good dad, trying to protect his precious baby girl. It was oddly heartwarming, although I didn't let him actually come over and hurt Typhon. Molly was ready to kill Typhon too, but she was pretty much ready to kill him since about 2013.
In the end, I decided not to seek a protective order that day because Typhon was leaving in a day or two for a one-month "deployment" with his job to North Carolina to help with hurricane relief. Getting a protective order then would only invite more trouble, when I could otherwise have a peaceful month with Typhon away. Instead of dealing with the drama at that point, I used the time Typhon was in North Carolina finalize all the papers to file for divorce. I'll tell you how that all went down in another post.
In all honesty, I often have mixed feelings about this incident. On the one hand, it was awful, and I never want to go through something like that again. And it was definitely the kick in the pants I needed to finally get out of the toxic relationship with Typhon. On the other hand, whenever I tell someone that Typhon "put his hands on me," I can't help but think about all the women out there who have been in situations so much worse than mine. Women who have been beaten bloody or ended up in the hospital. My physical injuries were nothing compared to them. Sometimes I wonder if I can really call myself a survivor of domestic violence at all with only a few physical instances, none of which left me with anything more than bruises like these.
But then I think of all the other things Typhon did to me. The name calling. The insults. The put-downs. Controlling the finances to the point that, even though I made almost double what he did, I had to essentially beg him for money to live on after each paycheck. The walking on eggshells because I never knew what would set him off next. The interference with my job. The way he treated the kids. The way he acted if I paid attention to anyone but him. The cursing. The ranting and raving. The control.
The amount of physical abuse that I suffered was minuscule compared to other domestic violence survivors. But it was mine, and it was not nothing. The abuse I suffered is almost worse because I suffered for more than a decade under its weight, but there were no visual clues to anyone outside the marriage that anything was wrong or that I needed help. Not all wounds are visible, and sometimes those take the longest to heal.
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