It wasn't always bad.

 Some people ask why I stayed so long if it was that bad... well, it was not always bad. We had our good moments. In fact, it was after we got married when things got worse.

We met on myspace of all places. Well, at first. I loved the search features of myspace. They had so many options! I was looking for boys in my area between 15 and 18. (I think that was it. I was such a boy crazy teenager). I came across his profile and thought he was cute. We met in person by accident.

We dated for 5 years before we got married. Some of it was rough. There are some signs, looking back, that I should have seen but nothing can be done about it now. We were mostly happy. We would spend time together, we would go on trips and just have fun. 

A lot of our marriage was a lie. Like our proposal. We had a conversation, like adults, and decided to get married. Well, sort of. I did basically give him an ultimatum at that point. 5 years we had been together, 5 LONG years. We were talking about it and he said he wasn't ready. I should have listened, but I am stubborn to the core, so I told him that was fine, but if he did not want to marry me, I was wasting my time and he had to move out. 

Now, this was when I lived in the Sunset Lodge. My very first place completely on my own. If you asked him, he didn't live there. He just visited, all day every day. I paid all the bills, I bought the groceries, I cooked, I cleaned and he played World of Warcraft and slept all day. I still wanted to be married to him. I knew after 5 years that we were already married, just without the paperwork. I told him if he couldn't see himself being married to me then he had to leave. I was ready to settle down and build a family and a life. (Or so I thought). This was one of those life lessons I learned the hard way.

He was upset, but he started packing his things to leave. I was ruthless. While packing, he found a ring and wrote that he did want to marry me but at that point, I was over it. I was done. He kept telling me loved me and he wanted to marry me, but I was so mad and upset because it took me telling him to leave before he realized this. 

Looking back, I should have realized that this was a bad co-dependent sign. He didn't really love me (Or maybe he did) but he was scared of being alone because I was all he knew for the last 5 years. I still told him to leave. I let him grovel for a few weeks and then gave in because I was the same. He was all I knew. I was comfortable with him. I put in so much time and effort to be with him. Up to this point, things were not that bad. Just your normal teenage stuff. 

That was the end of October. I decided since we were going to get married, I was not waiting an entire year for our date, so we planned our whole wedding in less than 2 months. on December 18, 2010, we were wed.

After, I tried to get along with my inlaws. My father in law was no issue, he loved his son that much that no matter what he did, no matter if he was in the wrong, he is on his son's side. That still stands to this day, unfortunately. As long as his son was happy with me, he was too. My mother in law on the other hand... It was a long and hard battle with her.

I tried to be the perfect daughter in law. If I did things EXACTLY how she wanted, I was in the wrong. If I tried to do them my way, I was still wrong. My husband got way more addicted to video games. Our first terrible fight started on our first married Valentine's day. I tried to plan a nice day for us, and he would rather play his brand new XBox on his brand new flatscreen than spend a romantic day with his brand new wife. At one point, he even invited the neighbor up to play. Later on, my best friend came by and she and I had a great time. After she left, he decided it was time to be romantic and at this point I was over it. I had tried repeatedly, all day, to make that a romantic day and he kept ignoring me or blowing me off. I was upset and did not care. It ended in a huge, physical confrontation. He threw things at me... a picture frame, a champagne flute, an entire FULL bag of garbage. There was yelling and screaming and I am surprised no one called the cops honestly. 

Things from there started to get worse. He isn't entirely at fault for the next few years, I should have conducted myself better. I was hurting and upset. I was trying and tired of being ignored. I started a relationship with someone else we knew. It started as harmless flirting in the middle of the night while I was upset when he spent all day playing WOW or something similar while I was at work. Instead of cleaning or doing the laundry or helping around the house, he would play games or sleep all day. So I took advantage of this seemingly harmless flirting with another man. It eventually progressed into a physical relationship. I am not proud of this. Looking back, there are so many things I could have and should have done differently. Unfortunately, that is not the path I chose. I messed up. I take full responsibility for this now as I did then. 

When he found out about it, things were awful as you'd expect. He found out his new wife had been cheating on him. Now, he didn't want to take any responsibility for why, he didn't care. I probably wouldn't care either. We did not have healthy coping mechanisms, neither of us. We did not have healthy outlets or even try to reach out for help in a healthy way versus us doing whatever we wanted. We let our emotions control us, both of us. Naturally, he was pissed, to say the least. The person I was involved with was also in a long term relationship. My husband nearly outed him to the world, but since the man was honest ans straight forward with him, he decided enough damage had been done between us, he would not involve anyone else.

That's when hell really started. After that incident was the start of the controlling and abusiveness. I was not allowed to do anything without my husband's permission. Read that again, I was not ALLOWED to do ANYTHING without his permission. I was not allowed to work. I had to stay home. I was not allowed to go to the grocery store unless he was there. I had to ask permission to see my own mother. I was not allowed on the internet unless he was home and could effectively monitor what I was doing. I had to delete all my social media apps, he took my cell phone and I was not allowed to use anything that could private message anyone. This went on for months. I was not even allowed outside to see my neighbors when he was not home. 

I allowed that to happen. I let the guilt of what I had done to overcome me in such a way that I allowed him to control me like that. I feel like an idiot, but at the time I had no job, no money, no way to get out. I am sure had I gone to my mother and told her what was really going on, she would have helped me. Unfortunately, that is not what happened. I allowed myself to stay because of my guilt. I started thinking I deserved it. I did something terrible and I deserved this punishment. 

It took a very long time before I was allowed to leave, to work and to even have my phone and social media back. I was able to start working again at my favorite pizza joint in town. It was starting to feel normal again.

We stayed at the Sunset Lodge for years before moving. We wanted out so bad. The landlord was always losing his receipt book, constantly telling people they owed money when they did pay their rent. He would show up drunk and ready to party, getting very aggressive, and just overall being unpleasant. We were over it. We found this seemingly cute place on craigslist, a pool house someone was renting out. We wanted it. We had the money for it and decided the only way we wouldn't take it is if it was completely trashed. We were ready to move in that day. We packed up our entire place, returned our keys and the guy never called or showed up. 

Now, that was not smart on our part looking back. When I moved into the Sunset lodge, I was approved the same day to move in. I did not realize not all places are like that. We prematurely jumped the gun and put ourselves in a pickle. We were homeless. Well, a friend of mine decided that since I helped her out so much while her son was in Kuwait, that we could live in her spare room until we could get on our feet again. It was such a blessing at the time. I loved the house and the area, Cindy was wonderful, it was perfect. Until the habits got worse... (to be continued.)