 |
| You've been warned |
I wish people would stop minimizing what he did to me.
I get that what I did was horrible. I truly get it and I'm so sorry. I didn't have the strength to leave. I didn't have anywhere to go. I still loved him, but I needed to feel loved back.
I remember nobody wanted me to marry him. Nobody but our 3 shared friends. And his bro seemed a little supportive. But nobody else. In fact my best friend of 15 years didn't talk to me anymore saying I "deserved better" (spoiler alert: she was right. As always).
But my parents seemed overly concerned with the fact that he didn't have a phone or car. Much more so than the fact that he had cheated on me. Not only had he cheated on me (while I'd be at work supporting us), but he never told me until 6 months later - AFTER taking my virginity and just before getting engaged.
Oh yes. My virginity.
I'm not sure how to explain it to someone who didn't grow up in the same household I did, but premarital sex was akin to murdering a newborn baby. Not acceptable at all and the worst sin by far. It was something I'd been heavily guilted into protecting with my life and something I'd been brainwashed into thinking was the "most precious gift I could give", only reserved for the man I'd marry.
So who better to give it to than my long-time friend who I'd fallen madly in love with? Who I now couldn't seem to breathe without? Who I was woefully obsessed with? Who made me laugh and enjoy life for the first time ever?
Of course this isn't to say he was deserving of all that. He was a terrible boyfriend to me, turns out. Yes, we played games and watched movies and he made me happy, but he didn't give me affection, really. He didn't want to kiss me sometimes, instead diverting to whatever show we were watching. He was pressuring for sex constantly, but was otherwise uninterested in me.
Oh and he had been messaging with his ex in front of my face. Which I allowed, because I was naive and felt secure in my first real relationship. Bonus, he was also sleeping with her behind my back.
I don't even think he knows how many times he did or why. Just because he wasn't getting any from me? Oh, but he was.
Slowly, I'd be letting him lower my standards more and more. After all, this was the first guy who had ever showed interest in me, a girl with lower-than-dirt self esteem. I didn't really know how to say no, and half of me really didn't want to.
After about 3 months together, and after so much pressure, I felt like God was telling me it would be okay. This is the guy I'm going to marry.
He took it, knowing full well what I didn't - that he'd been cheating on me. The last time being, at most, 2 weeks before.
He took that "most precious gift" knowing something I didn't. Knowing he didn't love me. Knowing he had been cheating. Knowing I didn't know. And knowing how big of a deal it was to me.
I had no idea. In fact, I messaged his ex after realizing they kept messaging eachother and I told her she deserves the best and that she's beautiful. This was 9 months after they'd "broken up", and I figured she was still so hung up on him and she might feel he was choosing me over her. LOL - joke is on me!
Side note: she never responded to me, but frantically messaged Stephen asking if he'd said anything.
Nope! He wouldn't say anything for 6 months. Right as we were looking at engagement rings. Those 6 months were ignorant bliss for me except for the permanent, extreme health issues that cropped up after using a Plan B pill thanks to Stephen's mistake. 8 years later, I'm still experiencing health problems because of that pill.
But anyway... We'd been looking at rings for a few weeks and I think I'd picked one out when he finally told most of the truth: he'd cheated on me.
Now, he'd told me earlier that he merely groped his ex one night. I was crushed, but willing to forgive and move on. I had, in fact. But now it was that he'd cheated on me once. Which was also not everything. He'd cheated multiple times. Three that I could uncover with the obsessive email and messaging sleuthing that would follow.
I digress.
My world was shattered. I can't even begin to explain how hooked I was on this person. He was my favorite human being and my reason for living. I couldn't get myself to walk sometimes because the grief was so immense. I cried and cried and cried.
He only cried when I demanded he delete her. I'll never forget: "But I don't want to hurt her feelings." He protested. What about mine?!? Does anyone care about mine?!?
That should've been it. I should've left right then, but I didn't care enough about myself to leave. I didn't even want to leave because I loved him so much. I couldn't leave because I was supposed to marry him, I made that choice.
And that's how I justified all the pain I'd go through. I consciously and confidently made the decision to sleep with him. To sin. I deserve everything I get.
Shattered inside, I would read his messages to her. Here I'd been worried for her when they were mocking me behind my back the whole time. Once telling her: "Her body is nothing compared to yours." I felt ill. How could he let me make such a fool of myself? Messaging this girl who had been planning this all along? Who had apparently hated me since middle school for no reason??
Meanwhile I, pathetically, defended him to everyone. Basically every. single. person I knew was against us to some degree. They all knew better than I. There is and always has been good in Stephen, and that's what I chose to see.
Because I couldn't process what was happening, I just kept up with the plan. We're getting married, it's what I want to do. Its what I need to do.
He was doing other things I didn't like behind my back a lot. He wasn't buying me flowers or doing anything special for me. You know... All the generalized things that show a guy doesn't give af about you. But I didn't realize. He was my first boyfriend afterall. I didn't know what a good one was like.
What a lot of people don't know is that I actually did try to leave him once. I don't remember when it was, but I came to his house after work (as always), to find out that he'd been doing something he knows not to and I lost it. I threw my ring off, and was leaving, he grabbed me and I ripped his shirt (on accident, but he deserved it lol). He held me while I sobbed. He didn't want me to leave. I begged for a break at least. To "start over" and be in a new relationship that he hadn't cheated on me in. He refused.
I wish I had the strength to stay gone. For both of our sakes. He didn't deserve what would happen, and I didn't deserve any of that.
Years of psychological anguish would follow. Years of feeling completely unloved and worthless. Years of trying to make myself feel better. Years of trying to heal our relationship.
Early after we got married, I went to his ex's house (TWICE) to bring her flowers and talk things out. I honestly am looney for that...I thought it would help me forgive. And it really did. I forgave Stephen easily. After all, he was some horndog teen making selfish decisions. Not unheard of. But it just kept hurting anyway.
That was a big BPD tip off to my psychiatrist. I kept telling her (this was 2 years later) that it still feels like it happened yesterday. He's forgiven. I'd forgiven his stupid ex... They've both definitely moved on, why do I still have to suffer?
I obviously felt so completely ugly and worthless. I always had, but something about your sun and stars imploding so magnificently like this just brings it to a whole other level.
The last thing I'd written in my journal before I met Armando was: "I don't feel like I matter to anyone".
What I did was so awful. What I did to Stephen, especially following Armando was horrible. I never felt like I was doing the right thing, I just wanted to feel better. I was putting myself first for the first time in my LIFE not caring about anyone but myself.
Nobody but the mental health professionals ever saw me as a victim, but I was. Especially during the divorce (which I initiated because I wanted him to stop being hurt by me), I am the bad guy and what he did is not nearly as bad because he and I didn't have a certificate of marriage yet. I don't understand those people. It's still us. Our history. Our relationship. How does what happened to me not count?
It never did...nobody related to me gave a single d*mn. The most anyone could verbalize was: "He hasn't served a mission yet" (not that he was EVER going to) and "He doesn't have a cell phone or car." What about he cheated on me and didn't tell me for 6 months? What about I'm so miserable and sick I've lost 50 pounds?
Sometimes it just feels like I am completely invisible as a human being with feelings, and people only see and acknowledge the physical shell/body.
What I did was completely awful. I feel horrible for it and always have. But that doesn't mean he is innocent. What happened to me was awful too.
