"Why did you stay?"
That is the question I'm asked most often. I stayed for many reasons that I don't recommend now. The reasons also changed over the years. In the beginning, I stayed because it was my second marriage so I already felt like a failure and I was going to make this marriage work...no matter what. Raised as a "good Christian girl" I made vows to stay with Michael through thick and thin. Marriage is work. I knew it wasn't something to be thrown away lightly. The problem is I wasn't taught that sometimes the right thing to do is leave.Within the first week of being married Michael showed me a side of himself I never met while dating for a year. He knew that because I grew up with drug addicted brothers I was hard core anti-drugs. I can still see him standing in our rented house in Orange, CA reaching for something on the top of the entertainment center. He brought down a baggie of pot with a huge smile on his face. He was very proud of himself for hiding the fact that he was a pothead. I can only imagine the look of horror on my own face as he says, "Yep, I smoke pot. I've always smoked pot. And I'll continue to always smoke pot. I know how you feel about it, but this is me so deal with it." Part of the game is to pull something over on the victim. He certainly had me fooled. It broke my heart. It was the start of breaking my spirit that kept me with him for seven years.
That was the first incident where I wanted to walk away. Hindsight shows me that I should have, but this niggling voice in my head back then pointed out, "Your parents just paid thousands of dollars on a wedding. You're pregnant with his child and you have a 3 year old...what are you going to do if you leave? Suck it up and stay. You're being too quick to judge." Had I told my parents they would've paid a fortune for a divorce if need be, but I was afraid to tell them. No, I made my own bed...I was going to work on this and make it right.
The handwriting was there on the wall to a future I couldn't yet see. A future where after our divorce he would teach our daughter how to grow pot and to lie to me ...not just about growing pot, but about the bruises she received from her dad...she thought it was her fault. No my sweet. It was mine for not leaving sooner.
What I learned
From this I learned that when the person you marry misrepresents themselves...don't leave...RUN away. What brings a couple together should be their strengths. How can you built a solid foundation on lies? You can't. If you are loved, truly loved by another...they are concerned about your well being. They want you to be happy. They will not purposely manipulate you, pull you away from your family, use your religion against you or make you feel bad about yourself.From the point Michael revealed this critical piece of information about himself that was anathema to my own feelings the marriage was dead. What I didn't see at the time is that he already broke the vows of our marriage that I was so concerned with myself. He did it without caring about me whatsoever. Love cannot exist in this type of environment. Love is the opposite of everything Michael did and continues to do.
My Christian upbringing pre-programmed me to not only accept the abuse to come, but to believe I had to stay to be a "good Christian". Bullshit! Michael used my religious upbringing against me. "You're a Christian! You can't leave me. You made vows before God." I did. And so did Michael. The problem was Michael saw me as a possession, not a person. I was a toy for him to play with...nothing more.
No comments:
Post a Comment