I am going to attempt to write this from my phone. It will require a lot of patience and that's one area I have in abundance, so I suspect it will work out fine. However, my real concern is my phone doesn't underline misspelled words...
So, as I said previously, we were married on a Friday. We went to the courthouse, then I went to a baby shower wherein I told no one I was married (yet another clue I shouldn't have done it), before we set off to Orlando for the weekend. We got there late and it was nothing special -- I really hope my prince comes one day because I really missed out! No wedding is one thing, but no wedding night is just tragic.
Anyway, the next day is when I really realized it was a mistake. When we did lunch I ordered a coke. Now, I know it's bad for me and I ought to avoid it, but any of you who have been following this blog know how much I love it. Anyway, in front of the waitress S says I can't drink it. Words cannot express how humiliated I felt. I have never been one to get embarrassed easily, so the level of discomfort I felt was crazy high. I took a few seconds to compose myself and ordered water, which I didn't drink in protest. S then informed me I need to avoid coke because of my health and because of my weight. I was dumbfounded and asked why he married me if he didn't like how I look and I don't remember what he said because I was too busy feeling sorry for myself.
I don't have weight issues exactly -- I recognize I could be thinner, but I think I look fine. Plus my boobs are so stinking big I think it helps make me look proportionate. I've often wondered what I would look like with a smaller stomach, because to date when I lose weight it's never in my boobs. The thing is that the majority of the guys who I've dated have all made demeaning comments about my body. Not everyone -- there were two who haven't -- but most have. So, for him to say that was a huge slap in the face.
Anyway, he insisted on telling me what I was allowed to order and what I couldn't order and I picked from the choices he presented me with. Luckily what I wanted was on my approved list. Then we went to animal kingdom. After a couple hours I wanted a snack, but he wouldn't let me have one. A bit later he wanted to do Mount Everest and I don't do coasters, but encouraged him to go. To his credit he didn't want to leave me alone, but I assured him I would be fine. As soon as he was in line I found an ice cream and loved every bite of the cone... until I dropped some on my shirt!!! My heart started pounding. He was going to know. I literally started crying hysterically and took fifteen minutes to pull myself together. Then I called a friend and told her I had made the biggest mistake of my life.
When he finally got off the ride he didn't notice the spot on my shirt or the fact my eyes were puffy with huge bags under them. I felt such relief. Nothing else happened of note that day.
The next day we stopped by the outlet malls. I needed new work shoes because mine were getting holes. I found some for 50, but he wouldn't let me buy them. In hindsight I say he wouldn't let me and I roll my eyes. How could he stop me? However, at the time I was going to my cult wherein we are taught the male is the head of the household and we have to do as they say and I believed it. Truth be told, I still do believe the man is the head and "in charge", but his duty is to love his wife, so when my prince comes I have no doubt he will be an excellent leader because he will love me and adore me and not tell me I can't have coke or ice cream on special occasions.
Anyway, we return and he spends the night. I tell him I want an annulment, which he says no to, so I ask the church, and they say no as well. They pointed out we had had sex so it couldn't be annulled. I pointed out we had sex long before we were married, but it didn't matter. We met with a marriage counselor at the church who is the only leader there worth anything. He said we couldn't do an annulment, but he also hated hearing what geno had said and done and he thought the church was in the wrong. He didn't say it because he has to support his church, but he made it clear. He also told me I reminded him of his daughter and I know he felt sorry for me.
During this time S informs me he is losing his scholarships and financial aid because of his grades (basically failing everything for multiple semesters) and since I'm his wife I will have to get a loan for him. I didn't actually fight with him on this -- I just asked why he told me he got all As. Don't remember his response, just that he had already pulled up a loan application for me. I was trying to figure out how to say no (any of you who know me at all know this is a word I am not good at saying) when I notice on the application you have to have held your job a minimum of three years. Well, this was my first year teaching, so I know I'm going to be denied on the spot. So, to avoid a fight I applied and feigned disappointment when I was denied. He then questioned my credit history and the answer to my earlier wondering about how he was failing everything became crystal clear -- he has no reading comprehension. I literally skimmed that application for less than a minute while I was talking to him and I knew I would be denied. He had read it thoroughly. To this day I firmly believe this answers my question as to why he married me -- he thought I would get him money.
So, I don't know how to say what I'm about to say without looking like a huge snob, but intelligence is important to me in my significant other. I don't care about money -- I grew up poor and had a happy childhood. Sure, I don't make much but I alone make way more than my family did when I was a kid, so money is irrelevant. I don't care about looks because they fade with the passage of time. I care about intelligence, conversational ability, and if they can make me smile. When I realized his intelligence was not anywhere near what I had been led to believe I felt so betrayed.
That same week I started having chest pains and thought I was having a heart attack. This could be a long post on its own, so maybe I will do a short story on it sometime, but the basics are this had happened before, I had gone to doctors and had tons of tests run, and everything always came back fine. This time I thought, and honestly hoped, I was dying (so I guess this is important because it was the first time I wished for death. Sadly it will not be the last.) so I went to the ER. I went back quickly and ask S to wait outside because i didn't want him with me. While I'm back there he is texting and after not even 15 minutes he asks if its ok for him to go hang out with his friends. First I lied and said sure when in reality I was pissed. I couldn't believe I was back there possibly dying and he could not even wait 15 minutes in the waiting room. I texted Juanita and Natasha and tell them, which led to me getting madder and madder before I finally told him no, he could not go.
Long story short, my labs all come back fine. While they were discussing it another doctor happened to overhear and interrupted. He said he had seen a few people with the same problems and it has to do with the valve. It is called mitral valve prolapse -- one of my valves closes the wrong way or something. It's not a problem and has no real side effects other than sometimes random pain. So, I was released and S was there, so I forgave him. Only when I got to my car it had been moved. When I questioned he he admitted that he did leave. He said I was in the back and would never know so it wasn't a big deal...
Anyway, we continue fighting constantly, we never live together, we can't stand each other, and so I tell him it's over. Nope -- that's not how it goes. He leaves me. He tells everyone I left him, but like so much else it is a lie. I wish so much that I had left him, even more so after reading how he treated me. And honestly this is just a portion -- he was so controlling about how I could spend my money I started giving my sister money every few days and having her pay for anything I wanted to hide.
I don't remember how long we went before it was over. It was over before school ended, so at most three weeks. I am thinking it was even two. When I tell the story I only include the weekend because that was the only time we were ever together really. The rest of the time we were together we were fighting. I guess I lie to everyone. It's just so much easier to say a weekend than it is to go into this whole story. I know we were legally married, but what does that really mean? To me it means nothing. I am beyond ashamed I have to tell people I was married and got a divorce. My whole life my dreams were so simple - to get married once, have it be forever, make babies, cook, clean, and be a wonderful wife.
My friends point out how good I have it -- I have a job I love going to, I have my own house, I have an amazing son who is healthy and wonderful and perfect, I have my family, etc. I have more than so many people. I am blessed. But on those bad days (which luckily are rare -- I can only think of one in the past two years and honestly it was recently) I can't help but feel that it's a really fucked up punishment and a big joke: I have so much and am happy, but I am still short on my dreams which can now never be achieved. Don't get me wrong -- I have absolute no doubt I will have a real marriage one day, as honestly I think I'm too good of a catch not to get married. My pros greatly outweigh my cons too. However, it will be my second marriage and I still will always know I failed at the only thing in life I ever really wanted... to get married once and have it be forever.
I have never had to learn how to deal with failure. I have exceptionally high expectations for myself. In school once my freshmen year was over I never settled for anything less than an A. By my third year an A wasn't even good enough -- I had to get at least a 96. By grad school I settled for no less than perfect scores on everything and guess what? I did it. I set goals for myself and I succeed -- I've never failed at anything. Unless this.
Soooo, going back to the whole S leaving me... imagine my surprise when I found out I was pregnant. I realized after he stopped talking to me that I hadn't had a period and convinced myself if was due to stress. When school ended I was signed up for a two week long course at the Florida museum of natural history. It was in one of the classrooms downstairs and the little restaurant was beside it. I could smell it as soon as they started cooking and it made me feel horrible. Although I never threw up, for hours I would sit there feeling like I was going to. It was there that I realized I was definitely pregnant. I waited a few more weeks to take the test. Natasha and Juanita went with me to buy it. I didn't have to wait long -- within seconds of peeing it came back pregnant. Juanita right away told me S didn't have to know. At the time I thought she was crazy, but in hindsight she was right. Unfortunately for me, I'm far too honest to keep something like that a secret. It's funny because I don't even remember telling him. Know who I remember telling vividly? Two people -- my mama and my best guy friend. I only remember telling my best guy friend because after I told him (on the phone of course. There are exactly two people I told in person, both coworkers, and with the exception of those two there was no one else in the whole world I could look in the eyes to tell. Far too ashamed for that.) his response was to tell me I was going to have a hard time dating guys because my value as a woman was going to plummet as a single mom. I was so offended and mad at him, but in hindsight i am so thankful he told me that because it turned out to be the truth. Sometimes people are so caught up in trying to say what other people want to hear that they forgo telling the truth. And I am lucky to have people around me who will tell me like it is as opposed to merely saying things to make me happy.
Telling my mom was hard. I called her one more while I was still in bed. I started off the conversation "mom -- I have completely ruined my life" and then launched into the story.
I emailed my boss in case she didn't want to rehire me since I would have maternity leave. I know it is technically illegal, but since I wasn't on contract yet she easily could have said there was no available room and I didn't want her to give me the job and regret it. Luckily it didn't matter.
I waited until September to tell my friends and I did so on Facebook. I wrote a note entitled "a HUGE update". I made the note private before I gave birth, but have made it public again as of this week. So, any of you are welcome to go to my profile and read how I told the world I was pregnant.
So, you often hear about mamas being depressed after giving birth. Know what is also super common, but talked about far less? Pre-natal depression. Three guesses who had it...
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