There was this one time about three or four years into our marriage when I’ve been hearing a lot about how he and his family are the best in organizing, the best in styling, the best in designs and I also had always heard about how they use the same kind of hangers they always talk about. They used to say how that all of the hangers in their closets are the same color and style.

So one day, again in an effort to please him, I was out grocery shopping because we were having company and I ended up in a store, saw some beautiful hangers at a very huge discount. I thought that’s not a bad thing to get and organize my closet later so I went home and I was happy to show him all these hangers that I got and thought that this is the thing that’s going to make him happy that I’m following his lead. As soon as he saw them he started yelling at me and it didn’t matter what I said he kept yelling and putting me down and wanted me to go right away to return them.

I will never forget the black hole I felt I was in. I’m circling around and trying to tell him that all I wanted to do was to please him but his insults would not stop.

He diminished me, he made me cry so hard that I my whole face was puffy when people finally arrived they all asked me what happened. I had to lie to them and tell them that I had some sort of allergies or something that made my eyes look like that but it was because I spent $10 buying clothes hangers. Still today when I think about those hangers and say to myself this man just wanted to find anything, hangers or not, he was going to find something so he can demean me. He wanted to hurt me, he wanted to put me down