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After my abuser made his official Alford Plea at the Peoria County Courthouse, he made
a social media post that stated that although he would always maintain his innocence, but he accepted the plea and sentence to protect his family. I didn’t make a statement on social media or to any news outlets. I didn’t want to. My attorney, who was representing my interests through my abuser’s trial and court proceedings, made one on my behalf. The last thing I wanted to do was speak on the topic anymore. I wanted to move on. That night, we went about our lives, I stayed home for the evening and my abuser went to his favorite bar with his friends just as our nights had always been.
Over the next few months, I tried my best to get back to life and “start fresh.” I struggled
a lot with my mom’s passing and although I knew things had to change within my relationship, I didn’t know where to start. We were currently in couple's counseling, as we were through a majority of our relationship, and I was getting frustrated that things seemed to be falling back to the same patterns. I strongly desired to find resolution and acceptance from the traumas that had occurred within our relationship through the years. I had a strong desire to deal with and understand the reasoning behind the years of infidelity, alcohol abuse, and emotional turmoil. I wanted to talk through these things, I wanted him to express regret, to take accountability, but he didn’t.
I was very honest with my struggle within the marriage and wanted to work through everything, but it takes two people to have deep and honest conversations while in therapy and I couldn’t do it on my own. While I was at treatment, my therapist helped me create a list of boundaries that were now non-negotiables for me within my relationship. Our couple’s counselor, my abuser and I talked about these boundaries on many occasions in our therapy sessions. My abuser often let me know how he wasn’t a fan of the word “boundaries” or the idea of them, but I didn’t back down on holding them. Our counselor was very supportive of, and I appreciated that support. The list of boundaries included many things, but two big ones on the list were abuse of any kind and any sort of infidelity. I made my expectations clear as well as what the repercussions would be if either occurred. The consequences would start with sleeping in the second bedroom, then to separating again, living in separate homes, and finally, divorce. There were certain boundaries that if they were violated, would jump the step of sleeping in separate rooms straight to separation, then ultimately, divorce.
The first holiday season since my mom's passing came and went, and my mom being gone left such a vacancy in my heart. My family came together and supported one another but not having her to talk to everyday or not having her here to give me a hug, broke my soul. This was the first holiday season without either of our mothers and we both struggled a lot. We made it through, supporting each other and I thought that this was a major turning point for our relationship. I thought to myself, "We have gone through so much. So much hurt and pain. More than most marriages would ever see. We were able to come out on the other side. We were going to make it through this!" Certainly we were on the same page and we both fully understood the expectations of one another. He promised me that nothing that had happened in our past would ever happen again and I believed him. I wanted to stay together. I wanted our marriage to work. He promised me there would no longer be any infidelity or abuse, we finally had it figured out.
In February of 2021, we drove to a friend's home in the outskirts of town for a party. At this point I was still very wary of drinking and had been since I had left treatment. I was very cautious and would only consume alcohol if I felt completely comfortable with my
surroundings. That night at that party, I was comfortable. I was having fun and I was slowly
sipping on a High Noon cocktail, and as the night went on, my abuser drank and drank and drank. After that first drink, I chose to not have any more because we were going to have to drive through the country to get home. I was not going to let him drive, it made me too nervous. As the night went on, my abuser got louder, and was being aggressive and unkind towards me. I was being told constantly to "lighten up and have a good time" and "stop being such a downer." I was getting upset being belittled in front of our friends and I eventually became fed up with it. I looked at one of my friends that was sitting across the table from me and told her I was going to head home. His drinking was making me anxious, upset and I was feeling very hurt. I asked her to give him a ride home. I grabbed his keys and quietly made my exit. I thought that maybe if he stayed out and had a good time and he would just go to sleep once he got home and then the next day would be better.
I began the drive home and because I was upset and crying my nose was runny. I
opened the center console of his car to feel around for some napkins or Kleenex to blow my
nose. I didn’t find any of those things, but what I grabbed with my hand caused me to pull over and turn on the light. When I realized what I was holding, I was upset, angry, and shocked. What I found were intimate items that belonged to another woman. These were not mine. I took a deep breath, shut off the dome light and slid the car back into drive. I knew at that point, every promise that had been made to me was a lie. I got home, let the dogs out, and sent my friend a text and asked her to call me. I told her what I had found and asked her to have my abuser stay at her house that night and let me figure out what to do. This was a massive boundary violation, and I knew that this meant immediate separation. She thought it would be easier if I went to her home and slept over so I could talk to her and her husband (who was also a therapist) about it in the morning and they would help me figure out what to do. After we spoke, I made sure the dogs were okay, grabbed a few things and headed to her house. She suggested that I turn off my location tracker so he wouldn’t know where I was and I did.
That night, my phone rang nonstop. I didn’t answer because I had no idea what I was going to say to him. I felt so defeated and my heart was broken all over again. I felt like such a stupid woman for believing what was promised to me, for trusting him again, for thinking things would actually be different this time. After a long talk with those I trusted, and after reaching out to my therapist, I told my abuser that he had to leave, he was not to live in our home for the foreseeable future. To say he wasn’t pleased would have been an understatement. A lot of very unkind things were said to me, I shed a lot of tears, but I held my ground. I told him that I didn’t care where he went but he needed to find somewhere to go and I didn’t want to speak to him until we were in the counselor’s office. I felt as though I couldn’t trust a thing that he said, and I didn’t want to be talked into letting him stay in our home again.
Later that week, we spoke in our counselor’s office and when asked where he was staying, he responded (my father’s) home. I was astonished. How could he go there? That
was MY family. That was supposed to be an extension of my safe space. Of all the places that he could have gone, why was it was there?? I felt like I was never going to be free of the cycle of manipulation that I was going through. I was supported by our couple’s counselor in holding my boundaries and standing my ground. My personal therapist and I met two times that week and we did that for a while. I knew I had made the first step in changing my life by standing firm within my boundaries and could do so thanks to having strong support.
Over the next few months I did things very differently than I did in prior times when my abuser and I were separated. I usually focused on having a good time with friends, going out, being social and enjoying the company of other men. This time I focused on myself and the core of who I was and who I wanted to be. I spent a lot of time alone, which was great for me. I cleansed my home, life, and mind. I knew I needed to rid myself of all the clutter that surrounded me. I focused on what would make me a healthier version of myself. I spent a lot of time continuing to work with my therapist on the topics I worked on at The Refuge. We also started to dive into my failing relationship and the trauma that came from it. That night in February, when I reached into the center console of his car and found someone else's undergarments, was a huge slap in the face. When I got home from The Refuge, my therapist was proud of the work I had done, but after the court proceedings ended, I allowed our cycle to start all over again. I was back in the mode of just trying to survive and I am now, so thankful that I found what I found in his car that night. I wonder if I hadn’t if it would have taken me even longer to be able to open my eyes, to be able to start the trauma work that I needed to do, to be able to eventually break free of the relationship that I was in?
I started to do EMDR therapy with my therapist and began to work through old traumas that needed to be worked through before we could move onto the trauma from my marriage. Every session we talked about what was happening day to day in my life and relationship and the support I received from her was more than I could have asked for. Between she and our couple’s counselor, I kept to my boundaries. I didn’t back down and continued to work though the separation. As we worked through the old traumas, I began to understand how I was falling into these cycles with my abuser. I, like so many others, wanted to feel good enough. To feel accepted. To feel like I meant something to someone.
The EMDR phrase that my therapist and I used (and still use) was “I’m not good enough,”
and the positive phrase would be “I am good enough.” Through the cycles of abuse and
infidelity in our relationship, I always wanted to feel worthy of the love that I desired. I would go through these massive waves of depression and anxiety because I felt as though the trauma that was happening to me in our relationship was my fault; it was because I wasn’t the woman that I needed to be for him. I must have done something to make him angry, because I just wasn’t good enough to be treated any better than I was being treated. Right now, in this present moment, as I write that out, I almost feel a sense of dissociation as I type. It hurts my heart deep inside that I thought I was the reason why I was being treated that way all of those years. That I was the reason why he needed to find comfort in other women. That I had deserved so much anger, force and hatred. The fact that I understand now that I was a victim and it wasn't because of who I am, or how I looked, my inability to have children, how I handle my emotions when I am being hurt, depression, or anything about me, is comforting. In the Spring of 2021, I hadn’t learned yet that it wasn’t my fault. I hadn’t learned yet that I truly am and always was good enough.
Continuing through the spring of 2021, I made it a mission to learn how to love myself. I
accredit a lot of that to the continued twelve step meetings that I attended for Sex and Love
Addiction. Sex and love addiction is much different than sex addiction and I would like to clarify that. SLA is about the addiction to feeling wanted, loved, needed, safe, not alone, etc., where SA is more about the physical act. I learned through that fellowship that I needed to be happy by myself and with myself and I needed to do things that made me feel good. I took those suggestions to heart. I began to cook myself meals that I would truly desire and enjoy. I turned my love of flavors into a cooking hobby that was full of fun, and experimentation and I learned to love to eat in a healthy way. I learned to use food as a fuel not just for my body, but for my soul. For the first time in my life, I was beginning to develop a healthy relationship with food. I wasn’t worried about calories or fat grams; I ate what my body needed and desired in the moment and I learned how to love food as an entire experience. I practiced yoga and meditated on a daily basis. I began to draw and color when I needed a creative outlet. I continued my love of reading and would get swept away in a good book. When it got warmer out, I spent a lot of time in my garden, with my hands in the soil, remembering helping my mom weed the vegetable garden as a child. I tended to my flowers and shrubs and felt the sun on my face. I took time to learn how to be in the moment. Before I left for The Refuge, I used unhealthy outlets to be able to survive my life, trying to escape the reality that I lived in. Learning to love myself and love being in the moment became a key in my recovery, both from trauma and abuse. I had to learn how to feel my feelings and be okay sitting in my feelings on my own.
In May of 2021, we finally held a funeral for my mother’s passing and a celebration of life
a year after she had passed. I missed her terribly and this was a very, very hard time for me. It still almost didn’t feel real that she was gone. It was as if she had gone on a long trip and forgot her phone so we were unable to communicate. As the funeral approached, my boundaries started to fall. I was sad and lonely and missed my mother so very much and I missed the comfort that came from having my spouse at home. If there was one thing that he did well, it was handle loss of life and he was there and supportive when I needed it. He held me as I cried and begged to come home and so I let him return.
There was a lot of hustle and bustle through the summer and we both were busy with our own things. I continued the work I was doing on myself and I was getting stronger everyday and began to stand up for myself even more. This became disastrous. The circle of friends that surrounded my abuser and I were used to seeing my abuser talk down to me and laugh and make jokes of it and everyone around us would join in. There was one afternoon at a friend’s pool that I got so upset and frustrated because of the provoking and cruelty I was receiving from my abuser that I snapped back, angry and hard. A few of the women recognized that I was very hurt, but not all of them. The others in the pool that afternoon just saw me have a ridiculous reaction and my abuser was able to look at all of them in front of me and simply say “see what I have to deal with?” I sunk into my body and was so hurt. Some of them agreed with my abuser and the things that he was saying and even our friend that was a therapist literally called me “crazy.” That afternoon when I walked away from that pool party, I vowed to myself that I would not be going back around any of my abuser’s friends. Being called crazy by a mental health professional was more than I could tolerate. I know that everyone was drinking and having a good time, but that cut me to the core and I knew that the things being said about me by my abuser and the things that he said to me in front of people had hit a point that I could no longer handle. When we got home from that pool party, I was quiet and kept to myself. When he would mention wanting to hang out with his friends I told him he could go alone, I didn’t want to go. I knew that I was struggling again with the state of our relationship, that I was manipulated again into taking him back and letting him come home. I again felt like I was stupid. When I saw my therapist again that week we broke it all down and discussed my safety plan for my home again and what the steps were I needed to take. I remember asking her when I would know that enough was enough, and she told me that I would know when I was ready to know.
As the end of the summer grew near, we were getting ready to head on a vacation that we were really excited about. We hadn‘t been on a vacation with just the two of us in years and I was excited about the trip. The trip began and was honestly so wonderful. We were both in great moods the entire time and it was like it was years before the abuse began. As we headed home, I was positive and felt happy and light. When we finally landed at the airport, I asked my abuser a question. A simple, honest question, and expected a simple answer. The exact opposite happened. The answer that my abuser gave me wasn’t just with his words, but it was with his attitude, his eyes, and the sharpness of his voice and it cut deep. I remember my heart sinking so fast into the pit of my stomach. I took a deep breath and held back tears so I wouldn’t get yelled at for crying in public. I knew, at that moment, that our marriage was over and there was absolutely no way it was ever coming back.
The next day I had a therapy appointment scheduled and I went in there with my journal
that I continued to write in after I left The Refuge. The night before, I wrote a letter to my
abuser, as we would have done in treatment. I knew that doing that would be the best way I could express what I needed to express and be able to fully organize my thoughts. I sat on the couch in her office we exchanged a little bit of small talk and then I told her that I wrote a letter that I wanted to read to her. I read it, and cried through it. Once I was done reading I took a deep breath and I told her what happened as we were departing the plane and I told her that I knew our marriage was over; that it had been over for a very long time and that I needed help. I needed to be able to leave and I wasn’t exactly sure what to do. My abuser told me many times over the years when he was angry that I would never be allowed to leave him, that he wouldn’t let me leave. That if he didn’t get to have me, then no one would be able to.
I told my therapist about a time when we were driving on the highway from Lincoln, from a visit seeing my family and he was yelling at me. He was driving and threatened to drive the car off the road and kill us both, because that was what I deserved. I told her about a night in June of 2016 when we were coming home from a movie in the north end of town and he got very angry not even halfway home. He drove incredibly reckless, sped at top speeds down crowded city streets, me crying and begging for him to stop, to let me out of the car. How he tore around the corner into our neighborhood and screamed at me and told me he was going to drive us into the house and kill us both. About him slamming on the breaks and me hopping out of the car into the driveway and running away as fast as I could. I told her about a night at my sister’s home in May of 2017, when he became drunk and violent towards me in front of my family and then got in his car and drove off, only to come back to continue to berate me in front of my mother, sister and brother-in-law. I told her of multiple events just like this. These experiences were being told because these were reactions I received when I told him I couldn’t do this anymore, that I wanted to get divorced. These were just some of the examples why I feared for my life and why my safety plan was created with my other therapists. These were the reasons why I could never leave, because I was not only afraid of things like this happening, but I was terrified of what he said he would do to me on a social and professional level. Threats he made about taking everything so I would be forced to live in a homeless shelter. The threats that he made to me that I would leave empty handed and that I needed to remember "50% of zero is zero." Threats to take away things that I enjoyed and loved in my life. The threat to take away every dollar that I helped us make, to take away anything that meant anything to me. These were some of the reasons why I always gave in, why I always stayed or let him come back home; because living in hell at the time seemed like a better choice than no longer living.
The next few months were made to plan. I made sure I was always safe. I tried to find
any sort of job. I started trying to research our finances, to gather anything that I could find and learn as much as I could because I was never privy to any of that information. Towards the end of the year I had some health issues pop up and had to have two surgeries, one of which was fairly serious and left me recovering for quite a while. Once I was stronger, about mid-January, the plan was to tell him that he was leaving, for good. When I was trying to gather information that I needed, I began to look at our financial accounts, and I started to find proof of more infidelities that had occurred after he told me nothing was happening anymore. I used that information as the evidence I needed to move him out of the house. He resisted, he was angry, but by the first weekend of February in 2022 he was gone.
I remember sending my therapist an email that night and telling her what had occurred.
This was something that I would to do on a regular basis when things would get bad at home, starting way back in 2020. I wanted to tell someone, in writing what was happening in my relationship with my abuser so that if anything bad happened again like it did in July of 2019, there would be a paper trail. There would be something to back up my claims so I couldn’t be told that I didn’t remember what exactly happened. I knew what happened and for close to two years, nearly every time something really bad happened I would write an email to my therapist so someone would know what was happening at home. I began to make a video diary, to talk about my feelings and how I felt about them in the moment and what I remembered so if I was ever told again that I was not recalling properly, that I didn’t know what actually happened, that I could prove to myself what did happen and that I was recollecting correctly. I would no longer allow myself to be manipulated, controlled, or abused. Enough was finally enough.
For months, my abuser claimed to be better, to be a changed man, to have done it this
time. This time would be different, he said, this time he would make us better. He had no
longer wanted to see our prior couple’s counselor in late 2021, we had been without a
counselor since that time, and I was fine with that. My abuser decided he wanted us to go to therapy, that he would be honest and do it the right way this time. I eventually agreed to see a new person, not to get back together but to figure out how to support us coming apart. When we met with our new therapist, I told her this. I was very honest that things had never gotten better, and I knew he was using this as just another way to hold on. I was honest with her when I wanted to start dating again. I was honest when I said that I was beginning to pursue the search for legal representation. I continued to do these things through spring of 2022. Early summer, I had worked to gather enough funds to hire an attorney, met with one and slowly paid my retainer. I continued to work on myself and my therapist and I were very much deep diving into the trauma within our relationship. It was hard and I did the work, and I still do the work each day.
In early July 2022, my family traveled to New Hampshire to release my mother’s ashes
at the top of Mount Washington. I still remember the moment and I remember walking off on my own and talking to her. I was wearing her cross around my neck and I had her ring on my right hand. I sat on the rocks on the edge of the mountain, and I looked out over
the valley. I held onto her cross with my right hand and I closed my eyes and I cried. I wept for having lost her. I wept for being on the top of that mountain where I had spent so many happy moments as a child. I wept at the storm that was ahead of me as I would begin to navigate divorce. I talked to her. I told her that I was finally strong enough to leave. I told her that I was so sorry that I wasn’t strong enough when she was alive. I thanked her so much for the strength that I felt she was bringing me in that moment. I cried and cried. I grabbed a grape tootsie pop out of my bag and put it into my mouth, I focused on the flavor to make sure I would continue to stay present in the moment. I looked at the wrapper and I laughed. I had never in my life been so obsessed with the flavor grape. While I was at treatment and when she passed, they suggested I use some sort of hard candy to suck on and focus on the flavor to keep myself present and to not disassociate. I remember choosing the grape Tootsie Pops in the little shop at The Refuge, not because I loved the flavor, but because they were the color purple and that was her favorite color. For two years, everything in my life was becoming the color purple. It was like it was a little gift that she left me so every time I see that color I think of her. While I was at the top of Mount Washington that day, I looked out over the valley and the sea of green and granite below. I looked around at the rock underneath me, and in the light the granite shimmered. I continued to talk to my mom, to feel her presence with me. I knew that she was helping me gather the strength to free myself from my unsafe and toxic relationship. I remembered the lessons she shared with me of her own experiences in a similar situation. I looked around and took it all in and said out loud, “Thank you, Mom. I miss you so much and I love you but thank you so much for being my angel and my guide.”
After I arrived home from New Hampshire, we had another appointment with the therapist. I made it one hundred percent clear that we were never getting back together and that I no longer wanted to attend these sessions. I told him my plans for divorce and what steps
I was planning on taking. He pleaded with me that he had another election coming up and he didn’t want this to end up in the news. I told him that my attorney and I would be open to
working outside of court and filing the judgement when it was over, I just wanted out. He
begged me to change my mind but I was firm in my decision.
Over the next several months I worked with my attorney and got him as much information and as many financial documents as I could. I continued to pay money towards my legal fees slowly so I would have more than my retainer built up. I continued to ask my abuser if he had retained council and he continued to tell me he was working on it or he would just work with mine. I consistently expressed that I didn’t want to happen. The plan was to work outside of court and live our lives publicly together as he wanted so he would continue to look good for his election. He promised me that if I did this, he would make sure I would be taken care of in the end and after he would be sworn in in late spring of 2023, we would quietly file our divorce settlement and go on our separate ways. I believed him that he would hold up his end of the deal and it would all be final and over with by Spring of 2023.
Over the next few months, I quietly tried to live my own life, privately. I spent time with
others but was very cautious about being anywhere in public because I didn’t want to have any negative repercussions. I had a lot going on between volunteer commitments, taking care of myself, working out and trying to be healthier. I had been asked to participate in a local version of Dancing with the Stars and I was thrilled. I was starting my own projects and I was starting to make my own name for myself in Peoria. I started to go by Heather Bean Oyler on a professional level so I could continue to grow into myself and my future as an individual.
Unfortunately, things were not working out “per our deal.” My abuser was sitting outside
my house at night and calling at all hours, yelling at me angrily. When I told him to not sit outside the house, he said he didn’t know what I was talking about but I had the proof on the camera system that I had installed when I decided we were going to be getting divorced. My abuser would find ways to wiggle his way into my daily life and interfere with it. He would call repeatedly and say cruel things. The constant harassment was too much to bear, and I began spending a lot of time away from home. I didn’t want to be there; I didn’t feel safe.
I continued to work with my therapist on the trauma from the relationship. I was feeling so much stronger, and I was standing tall in my decision for divorce. I was under a lot of stress as I was continuing to rehearse for Dancing with the Stars and was also dealing with a concussion that I had gotten the prior spring. I could only handle so much, and I couldn’t take a single bit more of the abuse that was thrown my way. I spoke with my attorney, and we decided the best thing we could do would be to formally file for divorce in court on public record. He reminded me that my abuser had not kept up with his end of the deal and let me live my life peacefully and this was all starting to negatively effect my health. We made a plan to file in court on November 7, 2022—Election Day. If my abuser was so worried about this hitting the news, we would do this on a day when every journalist would have something else to do and frankly, I just didn’t care anymore. I purchased a plane ticket and my dog, Wrigley, and I boarded a flight to Boston. We then drove to northern New Hampshire to stay with my grandmother for the week while the filing happened and my abuser was being served with the divorce papers. The last thing I wanted to do was be in town when this happened. Before I left, I changed all of the locks, changed the codes to any exterior doors, alarms and any passwords to access any of my information. I made sure that I had some money pulled aside in case he decided to try to pull everything away, so I would have something to live off of for a little while. That Tuesday afternoon, my phone started to ring, and ring, and ring. My text messages were lighting up. I called my attorney’s cell phone and was in tears. The things my abuser was saying terrified me. He [my attorney] told me to shut my phone off, take a deep breath and told me he would help me through it. I enjoyed the rest of the week with my grandmother, boarded the flight home and got back to Illinois. I didn’t go home right away; I didn’t want him to know where I was because I was afraid. I stayed with a friend and was quiet through the weekend and the following Monday, drove home to my house, pulled in the garage, immediately shut the door behind me and clicked the lock. I did it. I was finally going to be free.
Thank you so much for being apart of My Recovery Journey. My journey is ever evolving and will never be finished. I am not perfect as no one is, and I will always continue to embrace change and my recovery will continue to change with me. Being a survivor of domestic violence is a group that I never thought I would be a part of. As I have shared my story and so many have shared back, I have learned that no matter how different our stories are, that we hold common bond. No one gets married thinking that they will ever get divorced, but also no one gets married thinking that the person that they vowed to love forever in front of God, family and friends would put them in situations where they feared for themselves or the lives of their family members. It took me a long time to understand that my marriage ending wasn’t a failure. I tried my best to keep it together because you have to work at things that are hard. Everyone tells you that no marriage is easy, you can do this, keep your chin up, keep your family together. When a victim of abuse makes the decision to leave their relationship, it isn’t done lightly. It is done after more work than you could have ever imagined. You have to relearn how to think for yourself, you have to relearn how to survive for yourself, you have to learn how to manage finances that maybe you were never allowed to be apart of. You have to work each day to survive, even once you finally leave and are free. I want everyone out there that feels as though no one understands what they are going through to know that I am here for you. I hear you. I see you. I believe you. I will always stand with you. I vowed to myself, that I was going to take a horrible situation and turn it into something good. That I would help others and that I would help give others a voice and I would stand with them. My mom told me years ago, if you are able to give back to others in either time or financially you should, and that is something that I live by. Now I am going to add another layer to it, and I am
going to give back with my voice and I know that she would be so proud of me. I am so thankful that she is my angel guiding me through all of this. This isn’t the end of My Recovery Journey, this is just the beginning.
I love you mom. This may be my journey, but I dedicate it to you.
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