After the wedding I thought transitioning into married life was the hardest thing I would ever have to do in my personal life. I had never lived with a man before and nothing could have prepared me for the treatment I would succumb to over the next 12 years. I endured an array of verbal abuse ranging from the color of my hair (which was the same since the day he married me) to my apparent lack of intelligence. The degree of physical abuse was minimal but unforgivable and strangely he was most hurtful when he was sober, because then I knew he was aware of what he was saying and really meant it; though the details of the marriage don