(Note: I had a few after thoughts, so I made some edits to my previous post.)

When I was 18 one of my younger sisters and I moved into our own place. Although I was happy to have some freedom, I felt so much guilt for leaving my mother and baby sister behind that I cried the first night in our own place. It was during this time that my friend introduced me to one of her friends, I’ll call him John. John was the catalyst for ending the relationship with my first boyfriend. I wasn’t immediately attracted to John, but he did appeal to me in ways no one else ever had. He was older, a very successful farmer, and he seemed to be very smitten with me. I was still broken hearted over my first boyfriend when John asked me to marry him. He drove me to Niagra Falls and proposed in the evening hours during the fireworks show. He told me that he wanted to take care of me. I felt like I would have a good life, and this man loved me. This is what I needed.

About 3 months after we started dating, we were married in a little chapel in Tennessee. My father told me as we stood outside the chapel that we could get in the car and leave if I didn’t want to marry John. I told him I wanted to marry him, and so I did.

It didn’t take long for me to see who John really was. He was consumed with money and pornography lust. My desires went unfulfilled, while all of his desires were met somehow. I never felt at home in our house. It was his house, and everything belonged to him. My appearance was very important. One evening he came to me, kneeled on the floor in front of me and sweetly told me that he was thinking that maybe we could get braces for me sometime. My teeth weren’t straight. I was always very thin growing up, I never got above 135 lbs., I’m 5′ 6″. One morning I weighed myself before church, I had lost a couple pounds. When I walked out, he asked me if I had weighed myself, to which I told him I had lost weight, why? He told me he thought I looked like I had gained weight. After the birth of our child, I did everything to look the way he wanted me to look. I had a personal trainer and even had a breast augmentation done. I had a mole that appeared on the side of my belly button. I thought it was cute, he had me get it removed. Now I just have a scar there instead.

We were in church every time the doors opened. I taught Sunday School, Vacation Bible School, and was in every committee in church. It was exhausting playing family and sitting next to this man that I couldn’t’ stand. I bought the book “Fireproof” and was so disgusted at the thought of giving more to John that I just threw the book out. Please don’t think that I am oblivious to the fact that I was a damaged young woman (for lack of a better word). I was hurt from a young age, and I had no self-worth whatsoever. I prayed and went through the motions, but I was miserable. Money didn’t create a safe haven for me. It was priority over me to John. I have always worked though, and I even got a great job right around the time we were married. One evening very early in our relationship/marriage, we were talking, and he told me once that he always thought he would marry a woman with good insurance. So many red flags that I ignored.

I was also dealing with real spiritual torment. I would see things and things would move on their own, and he wouldn’t listen to me. I begged him to pray with me one night and he said, “Nothing is wrong here!” I began to panic if he went to sleep before me. One night I was alone in our bedroom. I woke up and felt like I should look behind me, he wasn’t in bed yet. I rolled over and there was a baby blanket floating in the air. I hit it with a pillow and curled up and forced myself to sleep. The next morning when I woke up, I thought it was a dream, until I looked on the floor. There was the baby blanket under the pillow. I broke down. I wanted out, the weight of that house and marriage made me feel like I was drowning. I left after about 6 years, I got an apartment, and I wanted him to just beg me to stay, to show me that he wanted me. He filed for divorce and told me he didn’t want to pay child support. I didn’t request child support for a few years.

During our marriage my father was diagnosed with lung cancer. He died 1 month before my first child’s birthday. My mother met a man who turned out to be terrible. She married him 3 months after my father died. She lost everything because of that man (I realize she had responsibility in it all as well).

I’ll stop here. I know this is all vague in some ways. It’s difficult to put your life into words on a blog post. We all could write novels, couldn’t we?

-Amanda