He took my confidence. I’ve reclaimed it now. I’m finally happy for the first time in years.

​My husband sexually assaulted me on March 16th, 2019. Today marks the one year anniversary of my telling him that we were getting a divorce. It took me six weeks to convince myself and gather the courage to pursue divorce.
 
I described what happened to me to a therapist and she said it was physical and sexual assault. He attempted to force himself in me and he hit me when I resisted. After, he explained to me why it was my fault. I made him feel that he “was not a man”.  A week later he hit Pepper, our dog. It’s sad that it took him hitting our dog for me to truly take action. The week in between, I tried to figure things out. One should never have to google “should I stay with my husband if he hit me?”.
 
With therapy, I can now say that he sexually assaulted me prior to March - he would push inside when I told him to wait, and it hurt. Because being intimate with him hurt. I’m sharing this because this is a type of sexual assault that is not often shared.  
 
We were married for 5 years, 8 months and were together for 8. The previous 2-3 years were emotionally abusive.
 
For previous years, he diminished me in so many ways, including my femininity. He convinced me that his love was dependent on my weight, and that broke my mind. I could not process it. That’s not love. It’s not the kind of love I wanted. He even diminished my business decisions. He couldn't understand why my startup didn't have a successful exit in 2 years. Meanwile, he was making just above minimum wage as a journalist.
 
We went to couples counseling and he ignored the therapist’s feedback. We stopped going. We would talk about it again and again, and I felt carved out and in agony. He would stare at skinny young women and would deny it when I noticed. He took my confidence. I’ve reclaimed it now.  I’m finally happy for the first time in years.  
 
He decided to go to AA and to get a psych evaluation. He hoped for a bi-polar diagnosis, but the psychiatrist said he wasn’t, and in not so many words, said that he was just an asshole. That’s how Scott described it. I didn’t think it was the alcohol, but other things, such as self loathing and anger that surfaced when his inhibitions were lowered.
 
I told him I was going to file for divorce on May 5th and paperwork was filed on June 2nd. We agreed to our asset split in August, sold our condo in September, and the divorce was finalized on December 2nd.   Scott Lucas is a journalist and editor at Buzzfeed. 


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All of this occurred  while I worked at Tesla full time,  supporting the Shanghai factory, inventory control, and  pilot builds for Model Y. It was not easy.  I'm thankful to the teams I was a part of for their understanding.  Early on in the divorce process, I would stare at my screen and want nothing more than to crawl under my desk.