Rachel and her husband were married for five years. They had been in a loving relationship, raised two older children from prior relationships together, had a son together, and supported each other while they each went into recovery for opiate use disorder. Rachel was doing great, and over the years, had opened and grown a small business.
But as Rachel continued to improve, her husband struggled. He found it difficult to stay clean and would disappear from their home without notice for long stretches of time. Whether he was clean or using, however, he was never abusive to Rachel. That changed when she became pregnant with their second child.
“He really started to fall apart. The way he treated me changed a lot,” said Rachel. “At first it was just like verbal type of abuse, financial abuse, stuff that I could write off or rationalize or think that it was temporary.”
“He was not well, he needed treatment,” Rachel said. “I felt like when I married him, I made that commitment to stay with him while he figured things out. But it got worse and worse. The abuse got physical and the verbal abuse really escalated to a frightening point as well.”
Rachel was no longer allowed to have any privacy. Her husband would rifle through her cell phone and put a tracking device on her car to monitor her whereabouts. Rachel knew that his behavior had crossed a line.
“I was very pregnant and that’s a scary place to be. It’s not a time when you want to uproot your entire life,” Rachel said. “I started thinking in the background like, okay, I have to start putting together some kind of plan to leave. I was to just save up money or figure something out and not need to go get help. And I tried that for a few months.”
When Rachel gave birth, she thought long and hard about leaving the hospital and going straight into Women’s Center & Shelter of Greater Pittsburgh’s (WC&S) emergency shelter. She was afraid to go home, where she wasn’t sure she could keep herself and their four children safe, but she was even more afraid of the unknown.
“I chickened out. I wasn’t ready. That’s a scary thing to do with a new baby,” Rachel said.
Rachel went home, but never stopped thinking about making her escape. After three months, her husband disappeared again. She packed up as quickly as she could, sent her older children to stay with family, and, with her young son and newborn, made her way to WC&S’ emergency shelter. “I was super scared to go. I think we all maybe have an idea in our head of what a shelter might be like and it’s maybe not the best place to go visit. I was nervous to leave my home and commit to staying at this place that I knew nothing about, but oh man, once I got in there and felt safe and protected… just the relief in those few days was massive.”
Find the rest of Rachel’s incredible story here.
