On Saturday, the third of June, mine and my girls’ lives were turned upside down. I was assaulted by my wife.

During an outing with the four of us. My wife’s trauma from the past surfaced and she started to assault me verbally while I was driving us to a property that we decided to go to after meeting some new friends. She thought I was doing something inappropriate behind her back. She didn’t believe me that nothing was going on. She continued to yell at me and then hit my leg, all while the girls were in the back seat watching and crying. Many dangerous things were happening in the car, and I was finally forced over to the side of the road when she put the car into neutral and pulled the keys from the ignition while I was driving on a county highway. We all ended up out of the car where she finally knocked me down with full force and proceeded to kick me and strangle me with her hands, nearly ending my life. Thankfully she finally let go. This was all done in front of the girls who had been scared and crying through the whole experience.

I finally made it home by some miracle. My mom and sister were waiting for us at the house when we arrived, and after looking me over, took me to the hospital where they took CT scans, x-rays and blood work. Thankfully, no internal damage, just lots of bruising, abrasions and pain. My wife was taken into custody early the next morning while I was still at the hospital.

The girls and I made it out of a very bad situation and are now free of her. There has been a protection order and no contact order in place. Unfortunately, that leaves us without an income, because she got me fired from a job I loved about a month before this happened.

My name is Caitlyn, I am the mother of two young girls, 7 and 9. We live in a small town in Washington State. We moved here from Florida. I started dating and after some time I thought I had found the perfect person. I didn’t see all her problems, but of the ones I did, I thought I could help her with. Even though there were rocky times, she and I ended up married. We purchased a home together and had been married for three years now. She had been in bad relationships in the past which caused trust issues. She abused drugs and alcohol in the past but wanted to turn all that around. I never realized how bad it could get. We had our handful of fights, but they never got physical. She put me and the girls down verbally and mentally. I tried over and over to repair what we had, and things would appear better, until they weren’t again.

I will be using any money that you can graciously donate, to help pay for the mortgage and utilities until I can get another job. I’m afraid to lose our home. The girls have been through enough, and I don’t want to add even more stress to their lives.

We have been staying at my parent's house since the incident for the support me and my girls needed, and now we are ready to get our lives back to as normal as possible. Your finacial help would be a huge help to meet that goal.

I want to thank you for anything you can offer. If it is not possible to help monetarily, please share this with as many people as possible, it would truly be appreciated.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart,

Caitlyn