***trigger warning***
( for talk of emotional abuse and manipulation)
I was never the girl who dreamed of becoming a mother her whole life.
I wasn’t against the idea at all, I just knew I only wanted to be a mom if I met the right guy 🤷♀️ There were a couple of guys from my past who I could have seen myself having a kid with if we were older or if circumstances were different, but when I met X in 2010 neither of us had children.
I was actually already married at the time to a marine I met when I was training in Oceana, Virginia. He was also headed to Beaufort, SC just like me. We hit it off at first because we were both so new to military life and we both mistook that for a more substantial connection and reason to get married… needless to say this relationship/”marriage” didn’t last more than a few months. If he wasn’t deployed we would have been divorced by the time I met X, but the rules with deployment and divorce are odd and vary by state.
When I first met X, I thought he was weird. I ended up getting to know him better when our squadron moved from South Carolina to California and we made half of the trip out west together. I was completely myself with him and felt comfortable telling him more than i probably should have 🤷♀️ (I still struggle with oversharing, largely because I want to be honest and transparent. I think I probably felt comfortable with him because I was in no way trying to start another relationship and I wasn’t attracted to him). I started to have dreams about him after the first couple of nights of the trip and it made me look at him differently, which was amplified by the fact that I was very comfortable being myself around him.
Since we were traveling together and we spent so much time with each other, he knew what my current relationship status was and everything that led me to that point. In my mind, I was the last thing a single guy needed in their life with my relationship status 🤷♀️ I guess that didn’t matter…
There was a night in Vegas that reduced the probability of staying friends, and when we got to Lemoore we spent a lot of time sneaking around after work to be together. One of the most memorable things he told me in the beginning was how he loved how self-aware I was. I thought it was so cool that he noticed and appreciated it. It was nice to be acknowledged for more than my looks, but for my personality and values. (I still struggle with where this part of my personality fits in my life now because of everything I’ve been through. I know self-awareness is a great quality to have and I’m grateful I do have it, but it’s also one of the many things that led me down this very traumatic and painful road I’m still on 🤷♀️ and I haven’t really figured out how to harness this quality yet).
There were red flags along the way… majority of them were forgettable, though when I look back some things are pretty clear. It started with simple stuff like movies… I’m not a big movie person (I typically fall asleep) but he was, so I usually just let him pick whatever he wanted to watch. There was one night where I thought I would surprise him with a few things I picked to watch and he just made fun of them before he even attempted to watch any of them. I realized then that if something wasn’t his idea, then he wouldn’t be into it 😔 so no more movie suggestions from me. I see now that even though I didn’t want this to be an issue, it is. I wish I could say that movies were the only thing he was controlling and closed-minded about, but sadly, it isn’t. It was just foreshadowing of how unless something is his idea, it’s garbage… which to me is the antithesis of being open minded (and staying open-minded is something that’s very important to me).
Then there was the time I got my first NAM (Navy Achievement Medal) and instead of congratulating me or being happy/excited for me, he commented that he didn’t get one 🤔. (For reference: I went into the Navy before him-2009, was at our command longer, held more collateral duties, accomplished a lot with said duties and was not recognized for it until the time I got the NAM 🤷♀️) but that’s not how he saw it… I received something he didn’t. (When I think back on this moment I sometimes wish I could have seen just how troublesome it is to be with someone who is incapable of being happy for you. I blamed myself for a long time for dismissing these red flags and choosing to focus on the good. Seeing the good in people is another one of those blessing and curse traits. I’ve gotten myself into trouble more than once for choosing to focus only on the good in others. I haven’t quite fine-tuned this trait yet).
Then I got orders to Jacksonville, Florida. I knew I wouldn’t be stationed back in Lemoore again because I developed valley-induced asthma when I was there. X hated where we were stationed, and I was his ticket out. We had been together for 3.5 years by that point, but he still never proposed 😔. I knew getting engaged wasn’t realistic, we were both determined to keep our relationship out of work. I tried talking to him about getting married and transferring and he wanted nothing to do with discussing the future (this is something else that continued to cause issues in our relationship, especially once I had Maddie). I have blamed myself for accepting this trait in him- I knew it was there from the first few weeks we were together. At first I thought it made us a good couple because I love to plan so I assumed we balanced each other out in that way. I also believed his line of “what we have isn’t broken, why change it?” and in some ways it did make sense. I was still his ticket out of the central valley. At the time, I wouldn’t have been able to wear a ring at work, or share it publicly so I focused on that, instead of his lack of enthusiasm and inability to plan 🤷♀️.
When we returned from RIMPAC and he realized that he would soon be in his window to select orders we decided to get married. We explained our situation and got permission from our command to get married before his window for orders opened up. I was on temporary duty in Nevada for most of my remaining time with the squadron so I was able to plan a unique but awesome wedding.
I wish I could say that some of it got better, but it didn’t. Having Maddie highlighted all of our relationship issues and amplified them. There really aren’t words for what becoming a mother does to you (or at least what it did to me), but the closest explanation is that it rips you open and spills everything out, the good, bad, ugly, hidden… it exposes everything. It’s the most beautiful, rewarding, traumatic, punishing, eye-opening, soul-changing experience I’ve ever had. I had no idea what to expect and it tore down the confidence I spent my pre-mama life building. I imagined that having Maddie would bring us closer and give us something beautiful and pure to bond over, but sadly it didn’t. Any attempt I made to express this was either met with complete denial of my feelings or the “temporary” dismissal of my feelings and concerns until “I calmed down enough to not say something I’d regret”. Only the later date never came. Turns out there was never a good time to have feelings or need to talk about them with my husband.
I started to realize that I couldn’t be myself around him anymore. Everything that was happening to me was unacceptable to him. He still kept demanding what he wanted from the marriage, but turned a blind eye to what I was going through.
After I gave birth and he pretended to not remember my request that the 3 of us spend the first hour of Maddie’s life together uninterrupted I started to see that we were not a team. It seemed like I was just a vessel to provide his parents with the beloved grandchild they always wanted. Whatever sense of support and love I got from him before I had Maddie completely dissolved once I gave birth as he started putting his parents before Maddie and I.
#emotionalabuse #manipulation #savingyourself #redflag #PeterPanSyndrome #boundaries #beyourself #saveyourself #beaware #help #strength
Of course there’s plenty more to unpack from the time I gave birth to when we separated, but that will be posts for another day.
Once Upon a Lifetime 