Is it morally wrong to celebrate a person’s death? I always felt it was. But now I find myself joyed by the death of my ex-husband, on the inside if not publicly. When I was married to him, he abused me and tormented me for many years. I was stuck with him or else I would have had to share custody of my kids with him. I finally left him when the youngest kids were in their teens and there would be no custody battle. All but one of them never contacted him again. All the time we were married, few in the community suspected anything. Everyone who knew us thought we were just like any other couple and family. We had many Shabbosos with friends, bar mitzvahs, and weddings of our grown children as we walked them to the chuppah. People thought we were wonderful hosts. Everything seemed normal on the outside. Behind closed doors was another ugly scene. It was very hard to end our marriage. There were rabbis who convinced us to stay together and work things out. They wanted us to remain married for life. To his dismay, I ignored the rabbi of our shul and made my move to my own apartment when I felt I could. After I received my get, he continued to stalk and taunt me. This went on for many more years, so much that I had to call 911 more than once. The police kept warning him, but never made any effort to stop him. He died several months ago, and I’m the happiest I have ever been now. I feel so much at peace because I don’t have to worry about him constantly tormenting me at random unexpected moments. He always wanted me back, and he unrealistically believed I would change my mind someday. I was afraid he could kill me or harm me some other way until the day he died. More than 40 years of my life were consumed with my fear of him. I feel no sadness that he’s gone and I don’t miss him.