I am living in Germany and I am 27 years old. I always wanted to be a mother, even a young mother. In the past two years I had two abortions with the same partner – my husband whom I loved so much and with whom I really wanted a child. Before I got pregnant things started to change. He became religious, made antifeminist and homophobic statements. When I got pregnant when I just turned 26, I panicked. Not only about him, but also about the changes in my life, the responsibility. Already in the relationship with my husband I took care of everything. He was against abortion. Speaking of it would lead to escalation. So I did it secretly. Still I thought I loved him and wanted to stay with him. From then on he regularly put me down, yelled at me, called me a murderer, other swear words, telling me how bad a person I was, that me and my feminist principles are shit and the reason for everything. A very destructive dynamic evolved. I felt so, so guilty. I blamed myself so much. I cried about the child, and I felt so bad for having hurt my husband.
Then I got pregnant again. The relationship was really bad at that time. Still I decided I wanted to have the child. However, things were so bad at home, that I felt I had to flee from everything cut every tie. I left him, went to a friend’s house. Then decided for abortion again. This time, I thought the pain would kill me. Writing it now is still hard.
And you won’t believe it, I went back to him again. And it got worse and worse to the point where he spit at me, slapped me with my phone in the face and all the verbal violence including telling me stuff like “you killed the little ones”.
My period ever since the second abortion is very weak. The doctors haven’t found anything too worrying, still it stresses me a lot, I really want a child in my life.
It is so crazy. Because of the abortions, I think I am deep down asking myself, if it is my fault that he treats me this way. The blame I put on myself, the grief and regret. He taps into this so well. He always has an argument against me. When I say, you spit at me, he says, well you are a murderer.
I think this guilt (and other unhealthy dynamics, unrealistic dreams) kept me in this relationship.
Is it my fault? I think in other circumstances, with a truly loving and supportive partner, I would either not have had an abortion, or it would not have been such a traumatic experience.
