Yvonne’s husband hit their daughter (3): ‘I still hear the chatter in her face’

“’One thing must be clear,’ Ivar snorted when we hadn’t been married for a year: ‘Never, ever again will you use such a tone to me.’ His arm was raised, his hand spread. Hit it, I thought. Then we’ve had it. But he came to his senses and strode out of the living room. I breathed a sigh of relief. Fortunately, not more of the same.

Home-situation

I was eleven when my stepdad punched me in the face for the first time. My mother, brother and I had just moved in with him. They had been together for two years, and during that period it soon became the norm for him to roar at the slightest thing. It ensured that I met up with friends as often as possible – afraid that a cheerful atmosphere at my home could change again.

Yet I only really experienced my home situation as threatening when the violence also became physical. My stepfather spared no one. Not my mother, not my brother—although I was the only one he visited at night. In no time I learned a protection mechanism where I stepped out of myself. Whether he yelled at me, hit me, or was sexually assaulting me; I turned myself off. My body was an empty shell, it would never touch my mind.

“Whether he yelled at me, hit me or sexually assaulted me, I turned myself off.”

After secondary school I immediately moved in with a friend. My brother had already left a year earlier, the only person still suffering from the domestic violence was my mother. But I thought he had a choice of his own. Like protecting her children. I thought she deserved that she had never done that and still didn’t protect herself.

My unwelcome tone to Ivar, that day of his raised hand? It was nothing more than the question of how it was possible that there was almost no money left in our savings account. Maybe he had just bought something he hadn’t told me about. I was not angry, not suspicious. One simple question – and my whole childhood passed before my eyes like a blur.

Repetition

Of course it didn’t stop with that one threat. The first time his raised hand did sail toward my face was a month after our first wedding anniversary. I had lost the stone from my ring, his gift for this milestone. Disrespectful, Ivar judged. I suggested having a new one put in myself, but for Ivar there was a deeper message in the loss; I didn’t take our marriage seriously. Was this what I thought about us? Something that was precious, but that I was allowed to handle carelessly?

Well, act normal, I objected with a laugh, right the last time I thought of that. Within a second I felt the burning blow against my cheekbone. I looked at him in amazement. To which Ivar, startled, grabbed my face, crying for forgiveness and promising that this would never happen again. To do it again for two months. And again. More and more often interspersed with insults and discourses in which he twisted my words into thinking I was crazy.

Wolf in sheep’s clothes

The really crazy thing: when I got to know Ivar, he seemed like softness itself. The relationship with the boyfriend at 16 hadn’t lasted long. I was in my second year of senior secondary vocational education when Ivar approached me in the pub. For months he pampered me with meals and presents. A wolf in sheep’s clothing, but I didn’t discover that until after five years of living together I had our butter bill in my hands, and my name was on a mortgage deed for half a million. Not something you just step out of. And more importantly, I didn’t want that at all.

I loved Ivar. At least the Ivar I once fell in love with. Or rather: the ideal picture I had made of it in my head. Because the fact was that he could already be verbally aggressive during our cohabitation period.

tantrums

I pushed my limits every time. Ivar’s tantrums were always unexpected. Or maybe they were very predictable: they always came at pleasant moments. During a Sunday afternoon in the garden. After an evening with friends. He hit on the craziest things. An Instagram selfie where I laughed too seductively in his opinion. A joke that he thought was a sneer. A forgotten message that showed that I thought our life together was unimportant. And I came out of myself before the blow came, every time.

Whenever Ivar did something to make up for it, I thought, See, she’s a sweetheart. Or I blamed myself. Thought I’d have figured it out: I’m just a bit of a blubber, and not always in a subtle way. In between the blows and humiliations, we also had a lot of fun. Shopping together, going to a terrace, holidays to the most beautiful countries – I held on to those bright spots. Even though I was well aware that they could never erase all the darkness that was in front of them. So this was why my mother had stayed with my stepfather all this time.

promises

After every blow came the promise of recovery. And with every promise I bowed. Ivar’s violence also meant a comfort zone for me. I was used to this from my childhood. I simply didn’t know love without abuse, even though I could see around me that it could be otherwise. No one knew what was going on in our house. To the outside world, Ivar was extremely charming. Smart, funny, generous. And I didn’t mind opening my mouth. Not only because I was afraid of reprisals, but above all because I was ashamed. Because what did it say about me that I was treated so badly? I was a weakling. I felt completely worthless.

“What did it say about me being treated like that? A weakling, I was.”

In one of our ups and downs—Ivar had been laying low for at least a year—I got pregnant. Ivar’s work as a construction planner went well, I had a good time as the manager of a clothing boutique. Without weird surprises, I saw no reason why Ivar would ever go off the rails again. So I reconsidered our desire to have children, which had existed for years. Within three months I was pregnant.

Ivar couldn’t believe his luck and treated me like a queen. He thought I was the most beautiful woman in the world. He really took everything off my hands. He served me tea and biscuits, spread cheese and mayonnaise sandwiches in the middle of the night, and was tireless shopping for the layette. ‘My baby, in your belly’, he kept saying, beaming. In retrospect a red flag, because why did he see this as his baby, and not as our child? But I felt very happy. I repressed everything that had happened before.

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Out of nowhere

Milou was one and a half when everything changed. I had just stopped breastfeeding when we had dinner together for the first time in two and a half years. During the main course something went wrong. I had treated him like dirt for a year and a half, Ivar said. With the arrival of Milou I no longer had eyes for him, I always put her first. He had only been good “to the seed,” he said grimly. “Why don’t you just go, if you hate me so much?”

I was dumbfounded. Where did this suddenly come from? With my heart in my throat I stammered that having a baby takes a lot of time. That I missed us so much. But Ivar was on a collision course. The smaller I got, the more aggressive he became. “You were determined to sabotage this evening, and you succeeded,” he noted, asking for the bill before our plates were empty.

We drove home in silence until the car came to a stop in the verge. ‘Do you really have nothing to say to this now?’ he snorted. I wanted to say sorry. Promise get well. But when I opened my mouth, I had already taken the first blow to my jaw. I yelled for him to stop. That I wanted peace and happiness for our family. But Ivar had a blur before his eyes.

Leave

When I tell my story now, everyone yells: But why didn’t you just leave? I could also live without him. Not in the luxury I was used to, but in freedom. No one deserves to be humiliated and mistreated. But I longed for love so much, and knew none more beautiful than the one I got from Ivar, that I kept hoping. That he would repent. That the picture I had made of us in my head would finally become reality.

That would never happen I realized a year after that evening in the restaurant. Milou was groggy and home from daycare for a day. Ivar worked at home, I couldn’t stay away from the store. The moment I put the key in the lock of the front door, I knew something was wrong. I heard Milou cry, with long lashes. Ivar walked stiffly across the living room. ‘That child is driving me crazy, she is just unmanageable,’ he bellowed. Milou cried louder and louder.

“His hand sailed through the air. I can still hear the chatter in her face.”

I’ll take her for a walk outside, I suggested. But Ivar didn’t want to hear about that. It was time for some discipline, he thought. “Up you,” he summoned Milou. In turn, he could only shout ‘Daddy, no’. She was not even three years old. Terrified. And in her last refusal to walk upstairs, his hand sailed through the air. Just as it had always happened to me, and yet I was too late to jump in. I can still hear the chatter in her face. “Not my child!” I screamed. And with Milou in my arms I ran to the neighbors.

Freedom

Our divorce is still not finalized; Ivar refuses any cooperation. From that evening I stayed with my sister for six months.

Now, three years after the last blow, Milou and I live in an apartment that we sublet through someone else. Ivar doesn’t pay a cent. He still sees Milou, but only under my supervision. Then we eat a cake in the city or take a walk on the beach. Awkward moments, because I don’t want her to feel the tension between Ivar and me. She deserves a father. If not a good one, at least a present. She remembers the blow, but not very vividly. Yet she does not ask for more time with her father. Ivar sometimes threatens a custody case. But when I say that I then demand half of all our assets, he cuts back. That way the divorce won’t get any further, but at least my daughter is safe.

I don’t know if I’ll ever trust in love again. Or at least: my image of it. I’ve been talking to a psychologist for a year to work on my self-esteem. And with Milou my life feels complete. I have never felt as free as now. I will never give that up again.”

This article can be found in Kek Mama 01-2022.

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