It Didn’t Hurt

Or So I Was Told

TW abuse

This post is in response to the January 2, 2025 poll. Be sure to get your votes in for this week’s poll.

In the photo below, taken in early 1978, I am trying to wash dishes. It is shortly after I got home from the hospital after being severely beaten. During that beating I lost a child to miscarriage. I had a broken hand and wrist. I’m not saying a word before this shot, just moving gingerly.

Because I was moving slowly, ex grabbed my camera and snapped this photo. He said “just getting a picture of your whiny self.” I didn’t respond. He said “I wish you’d quit acting like a baby. It didn’t hurt.” I had a cast on my arm. I was still cramping, although they had gotten the hemorrhaging under control. But yes, the person who did this to me said. “It didn’t hurt.”

It may seem odd that in my last post, I talk about letting go of hurtful words. Yet, I once again bring up new hurtful words. There is a difference. These words were not off the cuff. They were his mantra. And they were intended to hurt me.

He often said these words or some variation after he beat me until I cried. Then he’d start in on me with some version of the mantra. “Oh, shut up, it didn’t hurt.” “Damn, you’re a wuss, those were just love taps.” “Why can’t you just shut up and take it?” And the ever popular “You know it’s your fault I have to hit you, why can’t you do better.”

For years I didn’t blame him for how he treated me. I blamed myself. I kept thinking if only I was a better person, he wouldn’t do those things to me. But that’s not how it works. Because the fault wasn’t ever with me.

When I was in labor with my second child, at one point, I broke my silent labor with a grunt. “Get your fucking TRs in,” my husband angrily hissed at me. After the midwife had left, he made it a point yo bring up that grunt. “You’re acting like that was hard. We both know it didn’t hurt.”

I became a master at pretending. I learned to never say anything. But pretending gets you nowhere. It doesn’t make it not hurt. It looks like you’re okay outside but inside it just builds up. What he said to me did not make him better. And it certainly didn’t help me. It made everything worse. And eventually it broke me. Then I somehow got the courage to end it.

But that was then, this is now. And here is the good part. I no longer care about it. What he did to me, what he said to me happened in the past. Its over. These days he has no power over me. It’s been over 40 years since we divorced. It’s been over 26 years since my youngest turned 18. That means for 26 years there has been no reason to have him in my life.

I don’t hate him. I certainly don’t fear him like I used to. He has become a nothing in my life. I don’t pity him for who he has become because I really don’t care. The only reason I know anything about him at all is because he is the father of my children.

I could not write this post until my granddaughter told me that her father no longer talked to his father. My daughter hasn’t talked to her father for about a dozen years now. I didn’t consider it fair to interfere with my children’s relationship with their father. They have never heard from me what went down in our marriage.

But, the good news is, that’s my past. What he did to me was in no way acceptable. But I’ve moved on. These days I fight back. I’m not afraid to say what I think. I refuse to let someone belittle me. I like myself. And do you know what? In this photo taken in 2024, nearly 50 years later, it shows. He didn’t win. Do I guess in the long run he was right, it didn’t hurt.