The Wrongs that lead to Mr. Right – Husband #1 Part 1

I’ve been putting this one off for a while. Maybe because it was so long ago. Maybe because it was an 11 year relationship so it will probably have to be told in parts. Maybe because it was such a dark time in my life I’ve really not wanted to revisit it much except to be proud of the life lessons. However, the story is an important one. It’s important to me because it was instrumental in me becoming a strong independent woman. It’s important to tell because if it encourages just one person, letting them know that their dreams can come true despite bad choices and seemingly insurmountable challenges, I will have been successful. I finally feel as though I can tell the story in such a way that there might be a bit of humor as well as a message and not just the Jerry Springer sort of entertainment!

Let’s start at the beginning and let’s refer to him as FT (F**ktard) – I’m sorry…it gets the point across, I think. I was 16 when he just showed up one night at my parents’ home to ask me out.

I hadn’t dated much. The town I lived in was so small it didn’t even have a stop light. My senior class was all of 26! So, there weren’t many choices for dating. He was good looking. Okay, it kinda makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit to say that now, but at the time, I thought he was attractive. {You know how it is when you think of one of your ex’s, you either admit you were attracted or that you had bad taste.}

So we started dating. My parents were less than thrilled. He was out of high school, not going to college, and hanging out mostly with high school kids. {Red Flags I failed to see}

During the school year, FT was a very attentive boyfriend. He came to every single game that I cheered at and to every school function I had. I thought “Wow! This guy really likes me!” This irritated my parents even more. They felt he was not giving me any space to enjoy my senior year of high school. {Damn I hate saying my parents were right}

During the latter half of my final year of high school, he started suggesting that we get married, like get married right after I graduated, again and again!! I had been looking forward to going to college. I wanted to be a doctor after all. I really didn’t want to get married as soon as I was out of high school. I don’t really remember my thought process at the time, but somehow I decided to apply to start college summer semester instead of waiting for fall and I did not tell him. I think my brain was trying to make me do the right thing while my heart was preventing me from breaking it off with FT. I had forgotten I’d kept it from him and, in my excitement, blurted out that I’d gotten my acceptance letter one evening when we were seeing each other. This caused a major fight as you can imagine.

We got through it, sadly, (i.e. he realized I was slipping away and he backed off a little) and I did start college that summer. I moved into the dorm with all the other freshmen. What did he do? He came to see me every weekend until he got an apartment in the same town as my college. I thought it was so sweet that he wanted to be near me! {Seriously?? Couldn’t I do anything by myself?} I was missing the fact that he was not letting me enjoy my freshman year of college, no parties, no gatherings, no study groups, no girl friends to hang out with, nothing. While other girls were pledging, I was pleading…pleading with him not to be mad that the guy in my dorm elevator said hi. Pleading with him to believe that I didn’t do anything but go straight to class while he was at work. Are you getting this picture?

Once he had the apartment near me, he also wanted me to stay with him at his apartment. In fact, he wanted me at his apartment anytime I wasn’t in class. Needless to say, I had lost the friends I made in the dorm. I became isolated.

Finals came around and I had lots of studying to do. I also had research to do for my term paper.

One day, during finals week, I came back to his apartment to find an eviction notice on the door. He said it had been a mistake. He said that he and his friend had rented the apartment together as roommates but shortly after moving in his friend moved in with his girlfriend. FT took it upon himself to only pay half the rent each month since his roommate was supposed to be responsible for the other half. It turned out the roommate never signed the lease so FT was solely responsible. Nevertheless, we were being evicted during finals week! So instead of writing my paper and studying, I stayed up all night long helping him pack up all our belongings: clothing, hand me down furniture, his mega stereo that he charged on a credit card, and the hand-me-down console tv which had been antique white but he painted black and hot pink. Class! [insert vomiting sound]

I had worn my hard contact lenses the entire night and ended up with a corneal abrasion. The next morning I went to the campus clinic and came out with a patch over my eye. I still needed to finish the research for my term paper. It was the last thing to complete for the semester. So here I was at the library, patched eye, FT glued to my…..side, trying to quickly find five references for my paper. We had to finish moving all our things by midnight so my research was cut short by him, who insisted WE had to go back and finish packing. We had no where to go as he had no money to rent another apartment. He had bad credit with the eviction and all of his maxed out credit cards. My parents were beyond mad at him so, while they would allow me to come home, he would not be welcome and for some reason, I was sticking with him. {I know!!!! Hindsight is 20/20}

We had decided to move all our stuff to his parents home and I would type my paper there that night and drive back to turn it in the next morning. Sounds all good except that it was after midnight by time we pulled out with our little make-shift trailer behind the car. This was one of those trailers made from the back end of a pick-up truck! Literally, it was the bed of a pick up cut off from the cab and a trailer hitch put in front. Class! (Hanging my head in shame) He had put all our things in it and laid our clothes (somehow it ended up only being my clothes-still on hangers) on top, then covered it all with a tarp and some bungee cords. We had an hour and a half drive, in December, with no heater in the car. Once we were about 20 mins away from his parents, he noticed in the rear view mirror that the tarp was flapping. When we got to his parents, at 2am, he checked the trailer. All of my clothes had blown out of this makeshift trailer and all over the highway. He left me at the house to type my paper and he went back to see if he could find any of my clothes.

Mind you, this was before everyone had computers and printers. I had a Brother typewriter with ribbon and correction tape and all. I was typing frantically when, at 3am, I ran out of ribbon, of course. There was no 24 hour Walmart or Target or anything like that. I had no time in the morning as I needed to turn the paper in by 9am meaning I needed to be on the road by 7:30am. So, I hand printed the rest of my term paper. At 4 am he returned with a handful of my clothes, most had tire marks on them or had been ripped by the wire hangers they had been on. I had lost most of my wardrobe. I had a half typed, half hand written term paper with 3 of 5 references quoted, and I was still wearing a patch over my eye. He had to drive me back to school the next morning because of my pirate eye. I will never forget my professor’s face when I walked in to turn in my paper. I’m sure I looked as bad as I felt. I briefly told him it had been a rough night, I apologized for the substandard work, and told him I understood that it was no excuse. I guess he had mercy on me because I ended up with a B for the course.

I had already enrolled for spring semester and we were staying with his parents over Christmas break. As I was getting my things together to go back to school in January (and live in the dorm for real this time) FT decided to be a true romantic. He gave me an ultimatum- marry him or we had to break up. Not only marry him or break up….marry him AND drop out of college or break up. I can only suppose that I was under tremendous duress because somehow I agreed to marry him.

Stay tuned for Part 2

Thoughts? Have you ever been given an ultimatum? Have you ever been in a relationship which was toxic but yet ou were blind to it? Did you friends or family try to warn you? Please share you stories!

XOXO

Kkatch