The second time Tom hit me, Warren was eight months old.
Tom grabbed me by the hair and smashed my head against a door. I lay dazed on the floor while my baby screamed his head off. There were no tell-tale signs of the assault – no blood, no marks, just searing pain. It took me an hour to see one of everything again.
We had been arguing about my family. When we migrated to Australia from South Africa, Tom had promised that I could visit my mother and siblings every four months or so. Either that, or he promised to send plane tickets for them to visit us in Sydney.
Now that they wanted to see my baby, my mother’s first grandchild, Tom wouldn’t let me go to South Africa, and he flatly refused to send my mother a plane ticket.
My mother, being a pensioner, couldn’t afford to pay her way to Australia, something Tom was aware of.
Seeing my misery, he said, “You want to go to South Africa, go! But you are not taking Warren with. Go yourself.”
Of course I wouldn’t leave my baby and go off to South Africa. But I had been diagnosed with postpartum depression and desperately needed my mother’s help with the baby, even for just a little while. I felt isolated and alone in Australia, I was jumpy all the time and I cried easily.
In my heart, I knew that I wasn’t a model mother – I wasn’t serene and smiling beautifully like the moms in the Toddler S26 ads. Chewed-up nails, disheveled hair, sweat pants, dark rings around the eyes – that was me. (Bet you’d never see Victoria Beckham looking like that.)
Tom became a tyrant to live with. He was a neat freak and a perfectionist, and of course the house had to be a certain way, or he’d go ballistic and throw things around. I could cope with that when I didn’t have a baby, but things had changed.
Tom refused to understand. It didn’t matter that I had sleepless nights and that I was recovering from a caesarian section – everything had to continue being immaculate, organized, and perfect.
A place for everything and everything in its place – that was one of Tom’s many mottos. (He had about sixty mottos that he lived by. That I eventually had to live by.)
My life became increasingly miserable.
The part I hated the most about my miserable existence – the bedroom. I hated the way he demanded sex just about every night, forced me into perverted positions, and the fact that he was insatiable.
I hated the way he roughed me up during sex, grabbed me by the hair, twisted my neck to kiss me; the way his hand fastened around my throat while he thrust vigorously into me; the way he took total control over my body and my soul, and dominated me in the harshest possible manner.
I hated the way he demanded I orgasm in record time, then got irritated when I didn’t, the way I had to fake it just to please him, the way I broke down and cried in the bathroom so many times after I had sex with him – the man I had chosen to have and to hold.
That video of Pamela Anderson giving Tommy Lee a blow job – he forced me to watch it with him.
“I want that,” he said, pausing the video at a certain point and pointing to Pam. “See that look in her eyes? See that? I want that. That babe, she likes it. She wants it. She’s begging for it. See? See? I want that, you hear? You better shape up, Arena, ’cause I expect nothing less than that. Basic Instinct, 9 ½ Weeks – now that’s what we should be having. You have to sweat, Arena. If you don’t sweat during sex, you might as well be fucking your …wife. ”
Everything he said didn’t always make sense, but I never questioned him. I didn’t care to; I just wanted it to be over. And … never once did I sweat during sex. Not even a slight slick over my body.
If, while we were having sex, Warren cried, which was often, Tom wouldn’t stop so that I could take care of our baby.
“I come first,” he’d declare in an angry voice. “Always. He must understand that. I am the man of the house. This is my house. I always get priority. Always. You have to teach him that early in life, or he’s gonna get spoiled.”
Once, Warren cried so pitifully – I just couldn’t take it anymore. In the middle of sex, I broke down and wept.
Tom got so mad at the sight of my tears; he withdrew from inside of me, stormed over to Warren, and yelled into my poor baby’s face for about five minutes. “You just want attention all the time! You are such an attention seeker, you little wuss. Grow up, be a man!”
Warren got so scared, he started trembling and sobbed without a sound.
When I tried to protect Warren from Tom, he shoved me so hard, I fell back and bruised my tailbone. As I lay on the ground in agony, he grabbed Warren by the scruff of his neck. “Do you want to sleep on the balcony tonight? Cry one more time. I dare you. See how dark it is out there? That’s where you will sleep all night without your mom.”
Warren didn’t make a sound after that. Not even when I took him in my arms and tried to comfort him.
I knew I had to leave Tom. But how, I wondered? Where do I go? I had no money, and I knew that Tom would cancel my credit cards when I left. I had no family in Australia, no friends, and I was so young and green, I didn’t know where to start. It was easier to just stay, so the idea of leaving Tom was shelved.
To keep the peace, I did everything I possibly could to please Tom. But his beatings, verbal and physical, took their toll on me. Day by day, my spirit slowly eroded. I became really unsure of myself, and I existed under a cloak of shame.
Shame that I was the kind of woman who allowed a man to walk all over me and to beat me. Shame that I wasn’t strong enough to tell him to take a hike.
My confidence was almost nonexistent, and I felt fat, unattractive, stupid, and worthless.
How did I get to be like this? I kept asking myself.
As for sex – I hated it. If I never had sex again in my whole life, I would be the happiest woman alive, I concluded.
Just about every woman I knew would hate it if their husband had an affair, a mistress. Not me.
I prayed that he’d find someone, have a torrid sexual affair so that he could leave me alone.
All I wanted was to be a mom to my baby, and to not have to live in a state of constant stress.
Even though it was easier to stay with Tom, I kept thinking about leaving him, and I just couldn’t get the thought out of my mind.
I realized that if he divorced me, he would have to give me half of everything. Then I remembered the prenup I signed. I didn’t have a copy of it; Tom had it tucked away in his safe at work. But I knew clever Tom would make sure I got nothing from him. I was certain of that.
My future seemed bleak, uncertain – and feelings of hopelessness sapped away all my energy.
One day Warren was watching a television commercial for some pasta product. In the commercial, the father arrives home and says, “I’m home!” and his three kids rush to jump into his arms. They hug and kiss, after which the wife hugs and kisses the husband. The family appeared loving and so happy.
“Mom,” Warren said, his eyes fixed on the family.
“Yes, honey?”
“Do daddies really hug their children like that?”
I stopped what I was doing and looked at Warren. Tom never hugged Warren. In fact, he barely acknowledged Warren, and when he did talk to Warren, it was to scold him about something or berate him for being a sissy.
“Look, Mom.” Tears filled my eyes as I watched my son rewind the commercial and watch it again. Each time the children dived into their father’s arms, Warren chuckled. “See that?”
It was the saddest moment in my life. I scooped up my son and held him to my breast as fat tears rolled down my cheeks. That was the moment that broke me. That was also the moment that I decided, come what may, I was going to leave Tom. He didn’t deserve me or Warren.
It may have been the saddest moment in my life, but once I made a decision to leave Tom, I felt so much relief that it also became the happiest moment in my life.