When I was a little girl growing up watching my parents I thought that love surely did last forever. That nothing was more important than that "one special person". My dad always treated my mom like a princess and still does today after almost 41 years of marriage. They have the type of marriage I always dreamed I would have. Little did I know then that sometimes dreams don't come true.
Let me start at the beginning, I met Terry right after Christmas 1985, cruising the Boulevard at Myrtle Beach SC. The first time I saw him I thought "wow" this guy is really something! My friend and I kept cruising around and finally Terry and I hooked up...we spent a lot of time together while I was vacationing with my parents even sharing that "special New Years Eve kiss," then the only thing I could see wrong with the relationship was that my vacation was up and I wondered if I would ever see him again.
On the very day I returned home he called and we started making plans of when we could see each other again, we finally decided that he would come up in two weeks and meet my parents. I was so happy to see him again that he started coming up a lot on the weekend until finally he just decided to move to NC, I was so happy. Things seemed to be good but my mom "being a mom" noticed right away that he had an attitude problem, you see we both had the flu and instead of Terry being the "caring boyfriend" he started kicking me and acting real hateful about the "afghan" we were laying under, he wanted it all for himself. Being the naive person I was I didn't think anything of it.
Terry didn't like any of my friends, he always had something negative to say about them, trying to turn me against them...he kept on until all my friends hated him...he ran them all away but still I didn't think anything of it...I blamed them not him. Along about the time I graduated from high school in 1986 I got a little sick of him being around all the time so I broke up with him before I went with a friend of mine to the beach, but he kept on until I told him to come to the beach and meet us...we ended up getting back together...big mistake! Things seemed to be going pretty good, I mean we fought but nothing really physical....Another problem arose around November of 87...we were at the beach and I was staying with my parents and he was staying with his and I couldn't find him on Thanksgiving...I tried all night and no one knew where he was....well he claimed the next day he had been in another room sleeping and no one knew he was there...I believed him but then when we returned home I noticed all these long distance phone calls and I found out he cheated on me...he swore it would never happen again and once again I forgave him and said I'd marry him.
Terry was actually the first guy I had ever really dated...that shows how naive I was....we dated for almost three years before we got married. I remember when our wedding day arrived ...it must have been one of the saddest days of my life...I didn't have none of the "happy bride" feelings....what I felt was a sense of doom maybe...like I was dreading something but I really wasn't sure what it was...my mom kept telling me you don't have to marry him but I said No...I love him I want to marry him...Oh how I wish I would have followed my first instinct and ran the other way!
The first year of our marriage was a struggle...we fought but the fights rarely turned violent. Close to our first anniversary I returned home one day and found that my husband...the man of my dreams had walked out on me...needless to say I was devastated. In my mind our marriage was to have lasted forever...I mean thats just how things are...but something had definitely gone wrong. For the first three or four days I wouldn't eat or drink anything...I didn't care if I lived or died...I ended up in the hospital depressed and dehydrated...where I stayed for about three days and my husband never came to visit...that should have told me something then but being the dumb blonde I am I didn't figure it out. Well on the day I was released from the hospital my cousin invited my parents and me to a gospel concert to see "The Talleys"..I think that was the very thing I needed...I realized that night that no matter what happened I would be alright. When we returned home that night my husband called wanting to return home...we left that night at 11 pm to pick him up, it was a five hour drive one way but we got him and we ended up celebrating our first anniversary together.
It was after our first anniversary that things got worse instead of better...I think he thought that since I let him return that he could treat me any way he wanted and he did. For the next two years our relationship escalated into violent confrontations. He started out verbally abusing me, he had me to the point I felt that I was a worthless pig....not worthy of love or anything else he really destroyed my self esteem. Well then the fights started turning physically violent...he started out slapping me once in a while...then the shoving, all the while being verbally abusive. I can't count the number of times I would wear long sleeves to hide the bruises on my arms...the excuses I told my parents and such about how things happened knowing that deep inside that they really knew what had happened. You can cover up the bruises of the violence I found but the thing is you can't cover up the bruises that he put on my heart...this is something that will never heal. He started downing my family and trying to isolate me from everything. The final straw came on the day he threw a glass candy dish at my face...the dish shattered with a piece hitting my face and blacking my eye and cutting me...I realized it was time to get out. I thank God that I finally wised up...I know he probably would have killed me if I hadn't. I can still remember him saying that he would never let me go...that if I ever got with anyone else he would kill them and me...that if he couldn't have me then NO ONE else would either....to this day I still have nightmares about him killing me....even though I know we both have moved on the thought still nags at me....Please if anyone reading this finds themselves in a similar situation please seek help and get out before its too late! Even though it has been a few years since my first marriage broke up sometimes I still find it hard to foget what he did to me...and forgive what he cost me...I can never regain the innocence or the trust that was lost during this turbulent time all I can do is go on and heal slowly each day...that is all anyone can do...but with the faith I have in God and with what happened next I can HEAL and most of all I can and I WILL SURVIVE!
After my first marriage broke up I wondered if I would ever be able to ever trust anyone again.. I was so afraid that I would end up in another abusive situation...But thank God I did learn to trust again and I found the man I truly deserve. Terry not only abused me but he took away my dignity, my self esteem and my innocence... I don't think I can ever forgive him and I know I will never FORGET what he did to me ....please follow the link and read what happened next!
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