Surpassing the Nightmare, continued

After spending about a month and a half at Casa de Misericordia, she decided to move in with a nephew who had recently arrived in Laredo. The next seven months were surrounded by stability and love. Then the unimaginable happened. Yet another attack on the psyche ensured. “My nephew told me that he could no longer help me and that I was going to have to move or start paying rent. I was eight months pregnant with no money and no where to go," said Cleotilde. “By that time, my husband was looking for me. My nephew located my husband and told him to pay my rent or to take me. My own family.”A brother and sister

And once again, Cleotilde decided to give her husband a chance. “It seemed like a normal marriage,” continued Cleotilde. “A week after I moved back with him, I had our baby. From that point on I have no complaints about him until about a year ago, when I received my immigration papers allowing me to work [in the U.S.].” It was then the nightmare returned.

“I started working and tried to help him because I wanted our family to move ahead,” she explained. “But everything bothered him. Then he accused me of spending his money and not mine and that I was hiding my paychecks in a bank account. He didn’t understand that it was our money.”

“He called me the worst things that I had ever heard in my life. He always called me a prostitute,” said Cleotilde. “Then he took a night job and after that we hardly ever saw each other.”

Looking for a silver lining, Cleotilde admits that at least this time the abuse was solely verbal and psychological.

Seeing her husband depart also made her realize the importance of providing a loving and stable home for her some and herself. “I thought, first I need to be a mother and then a woman. That’s what motivated me, because Jesus gave me this child,” she said.

After trying so many times to make the marriage work and displaying incredible patience, Cleotilde decided that she and her son could no longer live under these conditions. “Then the ninth of May arrived. It was a very important day for me because I was graduating with my GED,” said Cleotilde. “But he didn’t give me one word of inspiration or of support. I told him that I had finished school and he reacted as if nothing. Our son thought we were arguing again and began making noise, turn off the fan, turned off the television—anything to distract us from fighting.”

"I reached the point where I admitted that I was wrong for submitting my child to this, and asked God to please help me make a good decision," continued Cleotilde. "I said, 'I think it's time for you to leave.' He replied, 'why are you running me off, is another man moving in?' I told him that they only other 'man' I was thinking of was our son."

 

Thus, May 9 became a bittersweet day for Cleotilde. "It was the hardest day of my life when I saw him grab his things and prepare to leave and I was beginning to run late for my graduation," she lamented. "And the dream that I had of attending my graduation with my husband and my son, the two most important people in my life, vanished into thin air."

However, seeing her husband depart also made her realize the importance of providing a loving and stable home for her some and herself. “I thought, first I need to be a mother and then a woman. That’s what motivated me, because Jesus gave me this child,” she said. “The sad thing is that I still don’t know what a relationship is supposed to be like between a man and a woman.”

Perhaps Cleotilde knows more than she realizes. The mercy displayed, and still evinced, throughout her unstable marriage remains as something that married couples and families struggle in discovering and understanding. It’s the ability to forgive those who have hurt you the most. In this sense, Cleotilde may understand love better than nearly everyone. The question is not one of love between a man and a woman but the love of God.

Cleotilde now lives on her own in a humble home filled with love, faith and stability. And even now with the patience, hope and mercy that only God’s love can bring, she’s forgiven him.