My Story

In March of 2013, I met a guy at a local gym and we began communicating on Facebook and then I found out that he was married. I asked him about it and he said that they were separating and I explained that I was not going to give him my number until all of that was settled because I wasn’t going to be “that” woman. Not long after, he moved in with a friend of his and we began a relationship. Even at the very beginning of the relationship there were red flags, that I ignored. He painted a very awful picture of his soon to be ex-wife, which he still tried to control at the time but I didn’t see it until much too late.

It was like a fairy tale in the beginning. He said and did all of the right things at the right times. He would surprise me with my favorite wines and would have flowers delivered to my office with a note that said “just because I love you.” I was always the girlfriend with the guys. We were inseparable. I had never been treated this way before so when he asked me to marry him, I did not hesitate to say yes and we got married on a beach in September of 2013.

It didn’t take long for me to see that the person that I married was not at all who he portrayed to be. It was soon to become a nightmare of verbal abuse and control. My once prince charming became something of the devil himself. I was left behind and left alone more than I was invited or included. He would find every reason not to include me. He no longer had to put on the mask to me because I was now his. Not his wife but his property and his servant. Someone that he could control and break down.

I would start jobs because he told me I needed to work only to be told I had to quit those same jobs because he needed me at the business to deal with customers and the books. Then he didn’t want me there anymore and I needed to get a job. This happened with two jobs and almost a third from 2013-2015.

He and I would plan trips or make plans to attend an event and he would agree initially and when it got closer to the trip or event, he would find a reason to fight and it would be his way of not keeping those plans. He even told me once, “I don’t want to be stuck with you by myself all weekend.” I was not good enough in his eyes. He found every possible flaw and made sure that I knew them. One day, during the time I was fighting for my marriage, I wrote a list of the flaws that he saw and became determined to fix each one. I thought that if I fixed them all to his liking then he would finally love me and include me. All of it was done in vein because I wasn’t the problem, he was. I still struggle often to accept myself exactly as I am. 

When the violence started, he broke small objects and that later became larger objects and eventually our property, such as vehicles. What could he possibly break now that he has ruined everything? Me! I was next and even though he had broken me mentally, he had never been physically abusive. Although, at times I would have preferred physical abuse because bruises heal fairly quickly. Verbal abuse on the other hand, doesn’t heal within a couple of days and sometimes not even in a lifetime. I can still hear the things that he’s called me or said to me that were so hateful. 

At the end of January of 2015, he began sleeping at the same friend’s house as in the beginning of our relationship stating that he just needed to get away. I couldn’t understand why. I wasn’t seeing things for what they were just yet. One night, I got a screenshot of a picture that was posted of him and another female at a bar. That’s when the reality of what was happening hit me for the first time. Truly seeing it with my own eyes and no longer being able to deny his infidelity.

During our marriage there were a total of six women that I found out about. These were the darkest times of my life. I became so depressed and I had few people that I could turn to that wasn’t tired of me telling them the same things over and over. I couldn’t seem to get out no matter how much I stood up for myself. He knew that all I really wanted was for him to come home and make our marriage work and he would give me just enough hope to give in to him. Hope that maybe that day was the day that he came home and said that he wanted to be with me and that he loved me. Maybe even apologize for not seeing what was standing on the side of him, supporting him the whole time. Just to be clear…that never happened. His apologies were only for the moments that he wanted his way for something. He knew exactly what to say or do that would make me willing to do whatever he wanted. His motives were never sincere or truthful. 

I was referred to a counselor and for my first session she asked if I knew what Narcissism and Sociopath Personality Disorders were and I did not. It was the first that I had ever heard of it. Following the session, I began researching and learning more about it and what I found was, this was the exact person that I was dealing with. It is ALL about them and what a person can do for them. It is about breaking someone down so low that the person feels like they couldn’t survive without them because they are so dependent upon them to live. They don’t want you to succeed in any area of your life. They don’t want you to have friends or family because that means that you have a support system that you can lean on in times of need. They tend to isolate you. We’ll discuss more about these personalities at a later date. 

I became so desperate to get out and just end the cycle that I contemplated suicide and murder. I’ve watched 48 hours and Forensic Files and I didn’t understand how people can become so desperate to escape a situation that they would take another person’s life. I didn’t understand it until I became that desperate in my own life. Not enough people talk about suicide and we will discuss that at a later date as well. Neither murder or suicide took place but I will admit that for a long time, I looked for his name in every motorcycle death article hopeful that he was finally gone. Today, I forgive him for myself, not for him.

My day of freedom did come and it came at a time when I was ready. It was a day that I saw his truck at another woman’s house, who happened to be on my route home from work at the time. I went home and packed all of his belongings and drove to her house, backed up in her front yard and threw it all out in her yard. He had told me he was at a friends house who lives out in the country, not even close to city limits as she did. He was at a “friend’s house” alright.

That was my breaking point. People can tell you what they think or what they see or even what to do but if you are not ready to be free of the situation, you will stay exactly where you are. You and only you can make that decision. It was not an easy decision for me and it took a lot of support from family and friends to keep me on track.

Very shortly after I decided I would not put up with another day of the psychological abuse, I entered another relationship. Was this too soon? Possibly so, but this relationship allowed to be in a different city and basically disappear. I had changed office location, got off all social media platforms, changed my email, and changed my phone number. I made any way of contacting me very hard.

This new relationship lasted about 3 1/2 years. Were there red flags? Of course there were. Did I ignore them? Of course I did. But I had been through worse…I can deal with that, right? Just because we can deal with things, doesn’t mean we have to.

In February of 2019, this guy started acting strange and out of what I had known to be his character. I had returned from a weekend trip that I had spent at a close friend’s in another state on the Sunday. The whole way home I had this nauseating feeling that something was wrong but I couldn’t figure it out. That evening, he got home and immediately I knew something was off. He had been drinking but he wasn’t drunk. I’ve seen him drunk plenty of times…I knew when he was drunk. He had put his phone in his pocket, which he had never done during our relationship. It was also on silent which he had never done either. He also fell asleep with his phone on his chest and again, had never done that before. From that night on, it just unraveled. I remember we were in the living room talking about our “issues” and he said, “you know, I’m not that much different from _____” and at the time I had no idea what he was talking about. I was still not understanding what was happening.

There were lots of fights, lots of wanting me to move out but not really move out, just sleep in a different room. I did leave for two weeks and went to my parent’s home. He asked me to go back and things would be different and they were for about a week. Then it began again. He had a second job at night a couple of days a week. This one night he told me that he would be sleeping in the city he was working in because he was tired. Now this city just so happened to be less of a drive than the other two cities that he also worked in and always drove home. I asked him who he was staying with and he said he’s getting a hotel and I asked him who was paying for it and he said the company. I asked him what hotel and he blew up. He then proceeded to tell me that I needed to be packed and out of the house by the time he got home in 45 minutes. I didn’t need an explanation, I knew at that moment…it was another woman.

A couple of weeks later, I get a message from someone I know and he stated that we needed to meet up because we needed to talk. It was also at this moment that I knew who the other woman was and had been. A lot of things were confirmed and came around full circle. I now knew what he meant by the statement, “I’m not that different from ____”. He was right, he did the exact same thing. He lied and he cheated.

Fast Forward to August of 2019. I attended a local church and one Sunday and I attended an earlier service than I normally did because a friend of mine and I went together and she attended the earlier service. Afterward, I’m heading to my car and I recognize someone that I hadn’t seen in years. I had him on Facebook so I messaged him and said, “Hey I think I just saw you at church” and he said “At OSC with a bunch of rug rats?” and I said, “yep” and we continued to converse and on August 24th, his birthday, we hung out for the first time. In November of 2019, he wrote me a poem asking me to be his girlfriend and I said yes. On August 4th of 2020, we took vows between he and I to be husband and wife before God and I thought that was the end of that before announcing it to our families and then elope or something to have a small legal ceremony. On August 15th, he took me by complete surprised and wrote me poem and proposed in front of our entire family at one my favorite local restaurants. I said, yes. We were married in a beautiful local venue on November 28, 2020. Two weeks later, I found I that I was pregnant! I was in denial before taking the test and then I was in denial after until I went to the OB and saw the baby and heard her heartbeat for the first time. We’re expecting a little girl and we are so excited and can’t wait to meet her!

Things can and do get better.

Can you relate to any of this? If so, I just want you to know that there is a way out and there are resources to help you get through this. You do not have to stay in any type of abusive relationships, no matter who they are. It is okay to stand up for yourself. It is okay that you are not perfect. Here’s a secret, no one is!!! 

YOU ARE GOING TO SURVIVE!!