I joined the air force in 1985, and 3 years later I was stationed at Sembach AB, in Germany. I was a shy airman who kept to himself, as making friends was impossible for an extremely introverted person like myself. I generally spent most of my time in my dorm room. A two person room I usually had all to myself. Otherwise, my free time was occupied in the recreation hall playing pool with some other off duty airmen, or at the bowling alley bowling. All by myself. I would see the same faces, but never got to know them.

Loneliness was rough, especially when you’re surrounded by a base full of people but could never bring myself to strike up a conversation, or to even offer a simple hello. Once I cried myself to sleep believing I would never have any kind of meaningful relationship with a significant other. The desperation was crushing. A couple of times I would try an awkward attempt at chit chat with females, but it was clear that 1, I sucked at chit chat. And 2, I was too

boring or ordinary. And then one day, I met my future first wife. A blonde German who was married to another airman. But she was more than willing to cheat on her husband with me, along with at least 2 other airmen, and was probably flirting with another.

That was the first red flag I should have paid attention to. I mean I was no longer lonely, so beggars can’t be choosers, right?

The second red flag I didn’t pay attention to was her domineering nature. She was incredibly bossy and demanded things. Like spending the night at her place (on base) while her husband was on temporary assignment. It was exciting and dangerous, but at least I wasn’t lonely. And I was gettin’ some! The domineering was red flag #2.

And then it started getting real interesting, and not in a fun way.

The first time she assaulted me was the weekend right after the Pan-Am bombing in Scotland. She knocked on my dorm room door one night and as soon as I opened the door, she punched me as hard as she could right in the chest. She claimed she had lost friends on that flight and needed to take out her frustration on me. I guess that was understandable. Besides, she was a short petite little thing, so how much damage could she really do? I didn’t realize it at the time, but she was testing my boundaries. Sometime later, I was supposed to meet her somewhere for some such thing, and forgot. I had gone to the bowling alley, bowling by myself as usual, when she came up behind me and started swinging her bony little fists into my back while I was lined up to roll the ball. She was screaming like a deranged person while fists flew, and everyone in the bowling alley witnessed it. Embarrassed, I had to drag this screaming woman out of the building to the parking lot. I don’t remember what happened in the parking lot, but she left.

Escalating assaults was red flag #3

Her second (she claimed) suicide attempt was red flag #4. She took some pills of some sort (I didn’t speak or read German) and I had to call an ambulance to take her to another base to have her stomach pumped. Turns out she did things just for attention and sympathy.

Then I was dumb enough to marry her. This domineering little hell demon was all I had in the world, and stupidly, I believed it was better than being alone again. And even more stupidly, I thought she would lighten up at least a little once we were married. So, after her divorce from her lucky first husband, who didn’t exactly put up a fight to keep her, we moved in together in a small house off base. Things were ok after we got married. We both commented on how well we got along for exactly 3 weeks after our wedding. A short time later, the domineering bitch returned. More assaults

over petty things, lots of screaming, lots of things thrown at me, and then she started putting a knife to my throat. Several times. I went to the base police, and they told me since I lived off base I would have to report it to the German police, which they called for me, and by the time I got back home two German polizei were there. I didn’t speak German and they didn’t speak English, so guess who translated. I don’t know what was said between them but they left. I became accustomed to the assaults and sleepless nights. She napped during the day then picked fights with me at night. I lost a lot of sleep and I believed that was her insidious little plan, for some reason. Months of this went on, and I never once hit her back. I was a much bigger person and dammit, a man should be able to take it. So I took it, because who was going to believe a man gets assaulted by a woman half his size.

We started 1990 being relocated to Mountain Home Air Base in Idaho.

And then the bitch graduated into full blown psycho. Not only was she continuing with the near daily assaults, she informed our nosy neighbors (base housing) or just allowed them to believe, that I was beating her.

I was not. And so far I had never retaliated. Until one day, after a year and a half (estimation) of assaults, threats, embarrassment, screaming, childish tantrums, false accusations, and now animal abuse of her dog, one day she was pissed about something. At this point it didn’t really matter what it was. She began pounding her bony little fist against my arm repeatedly. Over and over and over. I walked away from her to another room, where she followed right behind. Pounding my arm and screaming about…something.

I finally snapped.

I pushed her away from me. One hand, not roughly. But there was a box of something right behind her, and of course she tripped and fell backwards, smacking her head on the closet door jam, and then there was blood. And wailing. And then the ambulance came. And the nosy neighbors gawked as she was gurnied out to the ambulance, probably convinced I tried to kill her. Turns out she needed stitches on her head. My squadron commander, who never bothered himself to ask some questions to find out what happened, decided I needed anger management. Slapping my face would have been less insulting. Everyone who knows me personally will describe me as too quiet, and never gets emotional either up or down. So I went to anger management on base with several other couples. My wife decided she needed to go with me so I wouldn’t lie about her. She used that opportunity to spill the beans about those dirty little secrets married couples know about each other, but don’t rat on each other for the sake of getting attention and sympathy. The two things that she needed more than anything. And for a couple of weeks we went until I got my discharge papers.

Moving day came and the moving van showed up. The movers got to witness another full blown melt down from her. Assaults and screaming. Turns out she really didn’t want to give up the good life, with the free housing and medical care. She was losing her ‘meal ticket’ and the thought of not being able to sit on her ass all day, watch tv, cross stitch, (she taught me how) and gossip about me was turning out to be a real bummer. She had once claimed that because she had some sort of dual citizenship, she was legally banned from working in both the U.S. and her homeland of Germany. I lost count somewhere back on the number of red flags I should have paid attention to. But I was young, dumb, lonely, naive and desperate. And horny. I found out the hard way that horny is the one that causes more problems when you’re young.

After we moved to Oklahoma, and one day short of our first anniversary, her parents came and picked her up. Back to Germany where that country can have her. I thought that would be it, but no, I have to relive every moment from that 2 year misadventure. Just the bad stuff, though. It replays like a high-light reel from hell.

EVERY. DAMN. NIGHT. While I’m laying in bed trying to get to sleep. Sometimes until I literally have a headache, and need to get up and occupy my red-flag dodging brain for a while. I haven’t seen her in 33 years and she still takes up space in my noggin.

I’m not sure how to end this story, but I will say I didn’t come away with nothing. I got a brutally hard lesson in settling for less, how to spot red flags, and how funny female on male domestic violence really isn’t. My experience with her is why I don’t immediately believe a woman’s claim of domestic abuse, and I feel kinda guilty about that.

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