Pepper's Story

“Pepper” (names have been changed) married her high school sweetheart, expecting to have the same loving marriage she saw between her parents. Her father was in the services. He kept the bills paid, and he treated his wife and four sons and tiny daughter Pepper with respect. They were good times. “And you think that the same thing will happen to you,” she said.

So in 1976 when she met “Carl,” he certainly seemed to fit the bill. He was in ROTC at high school and looked so good in his uniform, with an afro and all. She was new at Washington High, as her father had just been transferred to Lowry Air Force Base, so she didn’t know anyone. But one charming boy always had the biggest smile whenever he saw her, and asked for her number. They went out on a date, and then another. It was puppy love. He was hard working and responsible. He fixed things around home, and worked a steady job, plus ROTC and school… and bought her flowers, and took her to the senior prom. They dated for three years, and she thought she knew him. They got married and moved to base housing in San Diego. And then he hit her. “You can feel it building up,” she says, “but you never think he’d hit you.”

Pepper did what she’d always been able to do in a real bind – she called her father. With Pepper and Carl on the line at the same time, he told Carl that if he ever laid a finger on daddy’s little girl again, he would personally come to California to set things straight. And Pepper thought that was it. But unfortunately, abuse is seldom a one-time thing, and it usually gets worse. And “not only the bad girls get the men that wanna beat up on them,” she says.

“And the second time it happens, you hit the floor,” she says. This time Carl begged her not to call Dad, and promised he wouldn’t do it again, and begged forgiveness. She’d never see him so sincere.

She didn’t know that this was just part of what’s called the Honeymoon Phase – the period after a violent incident when the abuser makes up, apologizes, becomes more loving, and does everything he can to keep his victim around. Once he’s won her over again, the tension starts to build, and then he explodes, and finally they return to the honeymoon phase. The explosion could be a fierce emotional attack in which he focuses on the very things he knows will hurt her most. It could be a verbal attack in which he shouts at her for hours on end. Or, as in Pepper’s case, it could be physical.

The third time it happened Pepper called home, but this time Mom answered. “You made your bed, now lie in it,” she said. And that hurt more than the blows.

So she stayed. Today she berates herself, saying, “How stupid could you be? You didn’t walk out the third time!” Most victims of domestic violence blame themselves, and often society does too. But she’s not the one committing a crime – he is.

Pepper took on a job to help out. Then came the second baby boy. With two kids in the picture, Pepper really felt that she had to make things work. But Carl said it was too much pressure, so he drank even more. Eighteen months later, Pepper gave birth to the little girl she’d always wanted. With all the strength she could muster, she told herself, “I’m gonna be strong enough to hold my family together, whatever it takes.”

Carl wanted all the control in their home, but none of the responsibility. And when he got mad, he didn’t just hit her… he smashed things. He busted the turntable, and Pepper had to work extra hours to replace it. But it was all her fault, he said. Her fault for being busy working, for having babies, for “nagging” him, for gaining a few pounds. Knowing what hurt her most, he fixated on her weight. So in the end it was her fault he hit her. And sometimes she truly felt guilty, and forgave him. After all, she loved him.

Their oldest boy was the apple of his daddy’s eye. He looked just like him, and played on the football team. Once he finished school and left home, Carl’s temper grew even shorter. The youngest was daddy’s little girl, but the other boy, their second child, was more of a mamma’s boy. So Carl lashed out at him.

One night at the kitchen table, Carl was drunk and angry at his young son. A knife sat on the kitchen counter. Pepper’s anger boiled all up inside her and she grabbed the knife and jabbed Carl in the chest. He came after her screaming that he was going to kill her, but the boy grabbed his mom and sister and ran to the bedroom. There the three of them huddled together while Carl banged on the door trying to get in. Finally he gave up and drove himself to the hospital, where three stitches closed up the shallow wound. Later that night Pepper was arrested, and she spent the next seven days in jail.

The jail was split into two main sections, with the minor offenders on one side, and the dangerous ones, murderers and rapists, on the other. Pepper was in with the killers. When Carl bailed her out, she didn’t know that her mother had sent him the $1500, so now she owed him big time. And now he threatened to call 911 anytime she stood her ground. The next six months were hard. Pepper pled guilty, and was court-ordered to domestic violence perpetrator counseling and one year probation.

Finally Carl found another woman who would drink with him. After the divorce she and the kids moved to Colorado, and started over with nothing. It was hard on the kids too. There were a lot of things they didn’t have without him. “What do you mean, mamma, we gotta have Top Ramen for dinner?” they said. And “What do you mean there’s no heat this month and the lights were turned off?” At times they blamed their mother for it all, just as they had seen Daddy do all those years.

When she moved to Colorado, her probation officer called for proof of one year domestic violence counseling. So she looked all over, but everyone she called wanted $35 a session. As a last resort she called Gateway Battered Women’s Shelter, which has sliding scale fees. Pepper came in and met a counselor named Marilyn. Her first women’s group gave her an awesome feeling. Marilyn and the women in the group didn’t judge her as a criminal, and their stories were much like hers.

The putdowns still echo in her head sometimes, but Pepper and her children are happier today than they were all those years. She says that as women, we want love so much. We want someone to hold us and say, “Hey, baby, how was your day?” But since she left Carl, she’s learned that she is truly loved. She has God’s love, and her children’s love, and many loving people have supported her along the way. She says when you’re with an abusive man, “You think that person really loves you, but beatin’ isn’t love.”