Well it's come to my attention that my attacker is denying responsibility for his actions, so here is my side of the story. Believe what you want.
My now ex-boyfriend is an alcoholic, and a mean one at that. My first discovery of this was a few months after we had started dating. He got drunk, picked a fight and then went a little berserk, threw his expensive electric razor shattering it into pieces, kicked the bathroom door causing the door handle to go through the wall, chucked a lighter so hard at the office door that it actually put a hole in the door, and then hoisted a wooden outdoor glider chair over his car smashing it into several pieces. I had never seen a display of anger of this magnitude before and it not only frightened me, but I was worried about what else he was going to damage and had called the police to be present while he got his things and got out. I should have stuck with my gut and let that be the end of it, but he called me all day the next day once he had a chance to sober up, telling me how sorry he was, and how he knew he had an alcohol problem and that he couldn't believe he let it get the best of him again... promising that he would never do it again. He had even bought me a new glider chair and promised to repair any damage he had done to the house.
Like a sucker I took him back. He came across so sincere and promised that he was going to quit drinking. And he did, for a few weeks, and things were really good. Then it started slowly back up. A beer here, a few there, until he was drinking on a near daily basis. If I brought it up, he'd make me feel like I was nagging him because he had it under control and wasn't getting drunk. Until of course, he did again. And again another fight erupted... This is where my portion of the blame comes in. In various angry drunken episodes he showed that he not only had the capability of damaging property, but physical violence towards me. He had pinned me down, hit me across the face, of one time I actually hit him back and almost broke his nose, not something I am proud of nor had I ever experienced before, just an instinctive defensive reaction.
Anyway, I should have made him leave. I should have felt self-worth and acknowledge that I deserved better, but I didn't. So here is how it ends:
On Thursday, Jan 19th, I came home from work. My boyfriend wasn't home and my son didn't know where he was. I had to take my son to a school function, a little annoyed that he hadn't been in contact with me to let me know where he was or when he was planning on coming home, I decided not to bother letting him know where we were going. I turned my phone off during the school lecture. Apparently he had decided to spend his day off binge drinking and arrived home drunk at 7pm around the time that the lecture began and texted me to find out where I was. Because I didn't have my phone on, I didn't answer right away. In the 45 minutes that I was in the school lecture, he had texted me 4 times, called about 10 times and left 4 drunken voicemail messages on my phone. I checked my voicemail at 7:45pm and knew right off the bat that he was drunk. I called him back to find out why he was freaking out and let him know why I hadn't taken his calls, but he was too drunk to understand what I was saying to him.
As I was driving up to the house I noticed trash strewn across the street, then as I approached the driveway, I saw the mailbox in pieces at the foot of the drive and realized he had run over the mailbox, caught the trash that was on the curb, and dragged it down the street. I immediately went in the house and began packing his things. I was done with the relationship. I was not going to tolerate any more drunken episodes and I hadn't been happy for some time anyway, so I was ready for him to be gone.
He showed up minutes later at the door and I invited him in to get his things and asked him to leave. He was drunk and rambling and arguing with me. He claimed that he hadn't called and texted my phone in the short time I was gone and denied leaving me 4 voicemail messages so I played them back for him on speakerphone. I told him again that it was over and he needed to get his things and get out. He wasn't listening so I kept repeating it over and over. Finally he hit me across the face, to which instinctively I hit him back. I wish I hadn't because that only angered him more and he hit me 3 more times quite a bit harder. At this point I was VERY fearful and started screaming at my son to call the police. My son took his phone to the utility room of our house to make the call.
As soon as he realized my son was calling the police, he shoved me, knocking me over a TV stand in the bedroom and went after him. I started screaming "Don't you dare lay a finger on my son" and caught up to him a the doorway of the utility room where I tried to position myself between him and my son. He shoved me backward, into my son and then both of us were shoved all the way against the furnace at the back of the utility room where he had us pinned against the furnace. He was shouting and I was shouting back, he took my son's phone and threw it across the room knocking the back and battery out of it. Then he took me by the throat and began choking me. He choked me so hard that I couldn't breathe and I couldn't even call out for him to stop because I couldn't get air. I thought to myself "This is how I'm going to die." Then I thought about my son and between my son fighting back from behind me and me gaining strength from my fear, I was able to turn my head just enough to catch a breath.
He backed off for a moment and said "I'm don't want to hurt you" to which I responded, "YOU ARE HURTING US" and he came at us again pinning us both back against the furnace. We were yelling back and forth at each other and my son kept yelling for me to shut up hoping that if I stopped arguing he would back off again. I did, and he finally let up, giving us a chance to escape from the utility room. He began asking me questions "Why didn't you talk to me? Why didn't you tell me you were unhappy?" I tried to explain to him that I was trying to figure out how to let him know without upsetting him... My son had sneakily grabbed his phone and reassembled the battery and back and slipped off to his bedroom to try to call the police again.
As he realized what my son was up to, he went after him again. I chased after him trying to grab him to stop him from reaching my son. He shoved me hard and my face hit the doorframe of the front door. I immediately got up and tried to get between him and my son again. He pushed both of us against the side of my son's bed and started screaming "I'm not going back to jail. I'm not going to jail" to which I told him, "Then get out! Just leave!" at which time there was a knock on the door as the police arrived at the house. He was startled for a moment which gave both my son and I the opportunity to slip out and open the door to let the officer in. At first he was calm calling out mocking to the officer, "What are you going to do? Arrest me?" The officer began to approach the bedroom door and could tell that he was going to take a physical stance against him so he grabbed his taser. The moment he saw this he slammed the bedroom door and barricaded the door with my son's dresser.
The officer kicked at the door but could not get it open. Meanwhile, my son yelled out "He went out the window! He's outside." To everyone's surprise instead of trying to run away, he came back up to the front door to taunt the officer, laughing mockingly at him. By this time the backup officers had arrived and wedged him in the entryway of the house, got him down on the ground and arrested him.
So that's it. He went to jail, I got a huge swollen black eye, excessive throat pain from being constricted so tightly, along with other bruising on my arm and shoulder, and my son had scratches on his face and arm. All caused by a drunken monster who attacked us for no reason other than not responding within 45 minutes and asking him to leave.
I actually almost felt pity for him because outside of his drunken episodes you could see so much effort to try to become a better man, but he just couldn't give up the alcohol. I even considered appealing to the prosecutors to see if there were any other options besides criminal charges, such as rehabilitation, AA, counseling, etc. But then on Saturday afternoon I spoke to his father who had talked to him from jail and said that he was apologetic but said the charges against him were solely for resisting arrest and denied ever doing anything to myself or my son. This made me lose any sympathy I had for his situation. I thought at least if he felt remorse, or sorrow for what he had done... but to straight up deny any responsibility relinquished any guilt I felt for taking the necessary legal actions against him.
So believe what you want. My son and I have to live with the memory of what REALLY happened for the rest of our lives.
:O
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