Though Carla was a busy mother, taking care of her daughter and working, she still longed for a relationship. When she met Bill online, they immediately connected. It took some time, but they eventually decided to meet in person, and it wasn’t long before they moved in together close to his hometown. 

Things in their relationship felt perfect, at first. Bill had a stable job and allowed Carla to stay home to care for her daughter, who he treated like his own. It wasn’t long before they decided to have another together.

“It was when I got pregnant. He changed,” she recalls. “He wanted me to take care of the kids. I was fine with that; I was the woman of the house, but as time passed, I realized that was not okay.”

Bill worked long hours, and Carla tried to be understanding. She stayed home to care for their two daughters, but his two-sided personality took its toll on her and their marriage.

“He became verbally abusive. He never talked; he screamed. It was like being punched but with the things he was saying. He bullied me and made me feel less. He didn’t let me see my family. He didn’t let me socialize, and he made me delete my social media.”

Carla was careful not to talk to any other men, even strangers in passing, for more than a moment or Bill would accuse her of being unfaithful. Bill would sometimes break Carla’s phone if he suspected she was talking to another man.  

The alienation from other people and constant tension with Bill wore Carla down sometimes.

“I would go away all the time I could,” she says. “I would go to the park and cry. I wanted to tell my family, but I didn’t tell them for a long time. It got to the point where I was another person. I was numb and wasn’t thinking.”

It happened gradually, not all at once: violence started to creep into Bill’s treatment of Carla.

Carla remembers one Mother’s Day afternoon, she took Bill to work, and he asked her to stop and buy a soda for him. She bought a 2-liter bottle for him because it would be more, but when she gave it to Bill, he yelled at her for bringing him a warm 2-liter instead of a chilled bottle.

“It was like he was crazy because I bought the wrong soda for him. He hit me with the bottle in my leg. I had a big bruise, and this was Mother’s Day.”

The instances of abuse continued to increase the longer they were married. Carla loved Bill, and she was confused about how he could go from being a supportive husband and loving father to a man who made her feel unsafe, uncomfortable, and unloved in an instant. At one point after their marriage, she even called Legal Aid of WV (LAWV) for advice but told the attorney she did not want to move forward with a case.

Finally, after a blowout fight where Bill threatened to kill the family’s dog, Carla’s friend urged her to get help.

“I told my best friend what was going on. I was crying,” she says. “She said to me, ‘Call the police.’ My friend gave me the support to go through that step because I wasn’t strong enough to make that decision, to do anything myself anymore. But she said to me, ‘This isn’t going to stop. He’s going to kill you. You have two children. Do you love them? They are in danger.’”

Carla filed for divorce on her own and got a Domestic Violence Protective Order (DVPO) through guidance from the local police department. They also referred her back to LAWV for help with the divorce and a child custody agreement.

After Carla filed for divorce, Bill moved out in anger, leaving her without financial support. She filed for benefits through WV WORKS and SNAP (food stamps) to take care of her children while she worked through the divorce with her LAWV attorney.

“The most important part of the process with Carla was getting custody of her daughters,” Carla’s attorney says. “We started out with a divorce case, but we barely got started on it.”

Less than a month after LAWV took Carla’s case, Bill suddenly passed away in a car accident. Carla was devastated and didn’t know what to do.

Carla’s attorney switched gears and got to work helping her with Bill’s estate. Fortunately, Bill had set up life insurance for both himself and Carla. As a result, she received an immediate lump sum payment, followed by monthly installments.

“The way I look at it, she is in a better position than we could have expected,” says her attorney. “She went from a bad financial state when we met to buying a much-needed new car. I gave her a referral to a CPA to help with her financial future. She has full custody of her kids. It was a terrible situation that ended with no closure, but we put her in the best position she can be to raise her children and have a really good life.”

Carla calls her attorney her “angel” and insists he has done more than she could ever imagine.

But her story continues.

Carla is still grieving her husband—both as the person she thought she married and as someone in her life. She is in therapy and working toward new personal goals.

“I realized after Bill passed away that I was like a zombie. I wanted to keep trying because I loved him, and we were family. But now, well, I’m the type of person who loves progress. He didn’t want me to go to college, so I didn’t go, but now I can.

“This will never happen again. My feet are on the ground now.”