One of my favorite quotes is “there will be a time when we must choose between what is easy and what is right.” Standing up here today is not easy. Every step of this process has been heartbreaking and excruciating. I have been mind-blown, and not in a good way, how I have been treated by the system. I am not speaking today because it is easy. I am not standing here today as an opportunity to speak badly of my abuser. I am standing here today because it is what is right.
Danielle, you have taken every opportunity to slander my name to anyone that would read or listen. My response to that is I am so sorry. I am sorry life has mistreated you so severely that you project blame onto the people that you hurt because you are not healed enough to take self-accountability for your actions. It makes me truly sad for you that you can twist a narrative so grotesquely that you actually blame me for the charges the City has pressed against you.
With that said, I do not claim innocence in our story. Even within the depths of your abuse and manipulation, I still made choices. But here is the thing, you had a choice too. You had a choice to stay and try to work on things or to leave. You had a choice to respect my wishes when I begged you to let me go. What you did not have a right to do, what absolutely no one has the right to do, is put their hands on another human being with pure intent to inflict harm.
You may not be aware, but it took me months to stay in my house alone without fearing I’d be killed sometime throughout the night, by you. You may not be aware that I had nights where that almost felt easier. You probably don’t know that I was afraid of going anywhere on the small chance our paths were to cross. That every room I walked into I scanned frantically, terrified that I might see you there. Just the thought of it sent chills down my spine. That even when I did not find you, my body still could not relax as you had taken from me all sense of safety. You probably don’t understand that my greatest wish would be to not have to stand here today. That when I got the text message you sent that you were going to kill yourself, my heart genuinely hurt for you. You may not realize that the dozens of times you slammed my head into the floor and then repeatedly punched me in the back of the head, that it damaged my brain so severely it is still not fully healed from the concussion you inflicted. You do not know the feeling of hopelessness I felt in my entire body as I watched your eyes grow cold that night and turn solid black.
I have had flashbacks and nightmares and cried more tears than I can count. The words you said to me as you cowered over my defenseless body, pinning me to the floor, they were “you will have to kill me if you ever want me to stop.” Those words still haunt me on a daily basis. So, I do not stand here because it is easy. I stand here because it is right. I stand here not only for myself, but for Victoria. I stand here for every woman that has been abused before me and every woman that will sadly be abused after me. I stand here for you Danielle, as I know that you have also been abused – and for that I am sorry too. But someone has to stand and say this isn’t right. Someone has to make it stop. Someone has to be the voice. And in the moments I want to give up, because every step of this process has been un-bearingly painful, I remind myself that someone has to care enough about you, Danielle, to end the cycle of destruction you were on. I am not the first person you have abused, but what I do hope is that I am the last.
Sometimes I think about what you would have done had you woken up in that hotel room to find yourself lying over your dead wife. I still get paralyzed by fear when I think of what would have happened had my sister not been there when you broke into my home and lunged, armsextended, straight for my throat. My dreams turn into nightmares as you find your way into them, wrapping your hands around my neck. Did you drive to my house to finish off the job? Did you want me dead? It’s hard to imagine any other intent.
But still, I do not wish anything ill toward you. It would be very easy to hate you, but I do not. My wish for you is that you take this as an opportunity to heal. That you can take accountability and admit what you did. I hope you grow enough to understand that the consequences of your actions are no one’s fault but your own. I hope that you feel shame and regret for beating your wife, so that you follow those feelings to the root cause and never inflict on anyone else the insurmountable pain you have caused Victoria and me. I hope that one day you can be thankful that I chose to stand. That today changes the trajectory of your life and that you never experience waking up next to the lifeless-body of the person you claim to love because you chose violence once again.
I choose to stand.
Even when it’s hard.
Especially when it’s hard.
I will always choose to stand.
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