This is a hard article to write, to say the least. I’ve thought about how to approach it, a lot, but nothing seems right. I wanna start with me, because the only thing that matters about him is that I survived.
I could tell you about being a latchkey kid to a single mother who survived horrible abuse herself. I could tell you about the constant moving, which meant few friends. Or how much my mom worked and that if I wasn’t alone I was with her. I could definitely go on and on about my heavy ugly duckling vibe. I’ll wrap it up like this; growing up wasn’t awful but it was damn lonely.
I will say that it made me independent. I kind of, finally, hit a stride somewhere in college. I lost a lot of weight, learned about polishing my looks, and started drinking. But I used my newly minted carte blanche to make bad decisions. I still ended up working on film sets like I had always dreamed. Yet I was floundering.
By grace, I finally dropped in with a crowd that would get me on the straight and narrow. However, even then, I nearly lost my footing and it took me almost a year to find my place. Then I gave it all up for a my first ex. I felt like everyone was faking it in life and I at least deserved some sort of happiness. So I told myself I was choosing love and that was my right.
As it turned out, there was no love there. Just two hurt people hurting each other. Even still we had two kids who made things clear for me. I wanted to be better and do better for them. I began to start a company but when my first ex found out, it was dead within a month. So then I decided to leave and move out of state.
He broke down, saying he desperate to make things work. He told me if I wanted to go at least take him with me. I agreed, because I was told that if I didn’t – he could drag me through family court. A month after the move he got really volatile. By Christmas he physically abused our son.
A new year would see us split and I would now begin the life of a single mother. At this point my boy still couldn’t speak and would have accidents around his dad. My girl would finally started growing hair. I worked hard at being amicable with their dad and started healing. But I had no idea how emotionally and mentally raw I really was.
So when I met a new man I also had no idea what I was walking into. He was 6ft, slim with short white hair, and piercing blue eyes. He would bump into me at work, to say hi, and I would avoid him like Vince Vaughn with a dodge ball. After a while I asked who he was.
The lady I asked said she was his wife. Thus started a month of drama revealing that she wasn’t his wife. However she still tried to outright forbid us from being together. Neither he nor I was going to oblige her and we even got pregnant. But this turned her into a siren and me into a fragile ship headed for the rocks. She found my first ex, who still loved me, thus they banded together and I was destroyed. My entire pregnancy was marred by lies and games.
In the beginning I thought I knew what I was doing. I decided this new man really had my whole heart and if I had to weather this storm for us, I would. So I endured being stranded, pregnant, and with two small children during a natural disaster. I endured my first ex abandoning all financial and visitation orders regarding my older two children. Lastly I endured being smeared at work.
I endured it because I knew I had done all I could; I was ready to leave. That was when the world got back its color. If you connect the dots you can see this is a classic scenario of getting love twisted. All of us do this at some point or another but we can’t see it when its happening. In the end, I learned so many life lessons and I’m writing this now to share the one that meant the most.
Love can be the mess you make when you start to straighten up. It is OK to make mistakes in love, to not know what love is to you, or how it effects you. But love is not an idol that will complete your life. If commitment is confused with obsession it can leave an everlasting ache. If desire is confused with belief it can bind a persons view forever.
I had to learn this lesson a few times as I already felt like this man was the one. When I said it’s time for us to split he said he was ready to commit and that night we truly bonded in love and fulfillment. The next morning… we learned his car had been stolen. It was back to awful for another two months till we found out I was pregnant again. That news came when I had a tooth ache that swelled up half my face almost closing one eye.
After that we crashed into chaos. He’d cheated on me, for the entire duration of my first pregnancy so I struggled with trust. I realized he treated my kids like he wasn’t sticking around. In fact he was really comfortable with not helping or being apart of. Now the world not only had color, but it was in focus. I was devastated and scared, which he responded to by shutting down through actually staying away.
So one Saturday morning I finally let all my ache, my disappointment, and all my grief just spill out. I sobbed like someone died and when I got up to walk away, every bone in my body cracked. It was as though my spirit had broken and left me hollow. I couldn’t be around him anymore so I went grocery shopping in the one car we shared.
When I got back he’d packed all his stuff and wanted the keys. I said no but he said it was his car and I should’ve thought before I spoke. To which I responded no again and said he would just have to forgive me. That’s when he started wrecking the house. I managed to get us separate from the kids but that’s when he beat me.
I think my son crying scared him and he left. I was in shock, yet thanks to his sister being on the phone when it happened, she convinced me to call the cops. A week after that I lost our second child during a scary miscarriage. All in all I had exhausted this experience for the good and bad.
I really mean it when I say I felt hollow. It took so much to rebuild but I finally wasn’t doing it on my own. During all of this I was connected to a church and growing within the community. My best friend stood by me and helped when I couldn’t even get out of bed. This was that love I was waiting for, from that man I thought was the one.
So all this time later my family is tight knit and vibrant. My heart is clean and I forgive him. But it wasn’t it easy and it changed me a lot. I was actually able to heal not just from this man but from so much heart ache that I’d felt over my lifetime. Even still that didn’t stop him from forcing his perception on me to push for control.
He came back awhile ago to be in our daughters life. I proceeded with caution out of a fear I may still love him or he could still hurt me. It didn’t take long before I was triggered by his same old antics. Which he quickly used to clarify that I was crazy and had D.I.D. His diagnosis gave me confirmation about the lesson I’d learned.
I have straightened up my views of love and life and connection and commitment. I can now quickly and easily see how we both did things wrong but I got better. I am not what he sees me as though that doesn’t mean I am complete. I thank God nonetheless for a love that helped me find me. They say ‘Nothing that’s worth it is easy’ to which I agree.
There's A Whole World Out There 