Disclaimer: This post discusses abuse and could be upsetting and trigger some people. It’s somewhat intense in places.

I met Keith during my pregnancy and while I was in a relationship with Jared. Keith was living with the mother of his children at the time. I admit even though I had no attraction to Keith, I had a slight envy of the nice, big home they lived in and the way their life seemed “figured out”, what an illusion. I can’t recall which relationship ended first, Jared and I, or Keith and his girlfriend. But one day I was visiting my sister, who was friends with Keith and his ex-girlfriend, and Keith was there. He didn’t try to hide the fact that he was interested in me. He told my sister on more than one occasion how he felt about me. My response was, “He looks at me like I’m something to eat and he gives me the creeps”. Why do we ignore that intuition?!

It’s incredible though how certain types of people operate. Eventually, they will wear you down if you let them, and Keith did. I caved and went on a date with him. We, (Keith, myself, and my youngest daughter), went to eat at one of my favorite restaurants. He was a perfect gentleman, respectful, sweet, acting like a father to my daughter. Physically Keith was quite plain. Buzzed hair, not much taller than me, a little overweight, not my type. Even though I wasn’t physically attracted to Keith so much, he was rapidly gaining my attention with the way he acted. He felt safe.

I still dated other people though. I woke up one morning to a passive aggressive text from Keith because he had driven by my house and saw another man’s car there. Initially, I was done with Keith. I didn’t want to be controlled or spoken to that way. He immediately pulled back from his original tone and asked me to lunch. This is where he played his move very well, he knew my type and what I needed to hear. He told me, “I don’t want to share you”. He said it in such a way that was sincere yet so casually, the girl in me that needed to be secure and wanted was hopeless. We were exclusive immediately and saw each other almost daily. One date he took me to a jewelry store and asked what ring I would pick out if I could pick out any of the rings. I found one that had a fairly large diamond and several diamonds around it, it looked like a family heirloom to me. A few weeks later I got very sick, with a high fever and he was there, of course, taking care of me. We had plans for an out-of-town date, but I was too sick to go. So, Keith proposed at my bedside with the very ring I had picked out. I said yes and we were married about 3-4 months later in late 2011.

We got into a very heated argument on our honeymoon. We had been drinking, and Keith became furious over something that I said. I had never witnessed a man who would become so angry that they would cry, but he did. It made me sick to my stomach, but I still felt in control.

Between the two of us we had a large family. Keith, myself, and five children, all under the age of 10. It was hectic to say the least, but we managed. At first, things were great, Keith seemed to be the ideal husband and father. There were red flags of course, the way he talked about his ex-girlfriend, the way he bragged and joked about demeaning her and cheating on her. I thought he would never do that to me; he loved me too much. I was the one to change him.

Jared and I rarely talked and after about a year I gave Jared an ultimatum. He ended up signing over his parental rights so that Keith could adopt our daughter. I didn’t pressure Keith to do this, he wanted to do this, which made me even more consumed with Keith. What kind of man does this? Who cares this much? We were actually going to have a family and great life together.

It didn’t take long though for the arguments to increase. Keith was so jealous and demanding. I would threaten to leave, he would apologize, and the cycle quickly became the norm. I slowly became more quiet, more anxious. I was still the same woman, I thought, I wouldn’t put up with certain things. The first time he called me a b**** I was livid. He wasn’t going to speak to me that way. But he did and would continue to do so. The language he used towards me wasn’t always in the heat of argument, sometimes he said it in a joking way, and I would laugh.

Fast forward a bit to late 2013, my grandfather was terminally ill, my sister and I, her husband, and Keith took care of him. I found out during this time that I had a miscarriage. I didn’t even know that I was pregnant until the miscarriage happened. It took a long time for me to fully process that loss. I still dream about that baby sometimes.

Fast forward again to 2014-2015, Keith founded a business with a couple of associates in a city that was about 1.5 hours from where we lived. I also found out I was pregnant. I was surprised and initially a bit upset because our marriage wasn’t great, but I love my children so much and it didn’t take long until I was preparing and getting excited. I always thought Keith would be overjoyed if we were pregnant, but he wasn’t really. When I was about 7 months pregnant, he was gone to visit his family, and I got a Facebook message from a man I didn’t know, telling me Keith was cheating on me. I immediately called Keith upset, instead of consoling me he was furious. Our marriage went increasingly downhill from there. He cheated, a lot, with other women, strippers, hookers, I know this because he eventually told me. One New Year’s Eve he went to the bar and did acid while drinking. I had no idea that he did any drugs. He came home and what followed that night was one of the scariest moments in our marriage. He completely lost touch with reality. I locked him out of the house, the police were called, and he left for the night.

There was a night that we went out together at a couple local bars. I am not someone who does any drugs, I drank some but I’m sensitive to even store brand sleep aid and because of my childhood I hated drugs, as you know. But on this particular night we decided to try marijuana edibles. I was ok and just felt tired, until I got home and laid down that night. The room began to spin, and paranoia set in. I couldn’t stop crying and I couldn’t’ move my body. I literally couldn’t lift my arms or move my legs. I was helpless. Keith wanted sex and even though I said no and tried to push him away, he did it anyway. I don’t have words to describe how that feels. Our love life had become an increasingly violent and degrading experience, but this was something else entirely.

I began to work on myself during this time. I have always struggled with self-image. I stared at myself so long in the mirror one night that I didn’t know who was looking back at me. I was a complete stranger to myself. I told myself that night that I was going to love myself and appreciate this body because this is it. This is me for the rest of my life, I had to appreciate what the Lord gave me and stop hating myself. I also began seeking the Lord more at this time. October 2019, I worked up the confidence and moved out.

By February 2020 Keith had moved back in with me. He had sold the business by this point and was attempting to start another business but still did trade work for others in the same city his business was previously in. The cheating continued, the lies, betrayal, abuse all continued. It was a vicious cycle. Something would happen and things would blow up, He would make it better and ok for a short time, then a period of time building up to another blow up. There was a night during that time that Keith got extremely violent with me. If our neighbor hadn’t intervened, I don’t know what would have happened. It was terrifying. But as usual Keith kept me in the cycle and when it was good he made it seem so good. He bought me gifts, took me on expensive dates, made me feel like such a special woman.

I mentioned several times to Keith by this point that I wanted to tell my middle daughter about Jared and his family. She deserved to know the truth. I didn’t want her to miss out on Jared’s parents; they were so wonderful. Keith wanted me to wait. One day on lunch I by chance ran into Jared. I didn’t know it was him so when he spoke, I just said hi and went on my way. A friend later told me that Jared thought I was intentionally brushing him off, and I felt terrible. He was headed to rehab and would be gone for a year. I sent him a message on Facebook to apologize. In November or early December 2020, I again suggested telling my daughter. Keith told me that we would revisit the topic at the first of the year. In mid-December Keith left me for a woman 12 years younger than me. In January, he took her to family Christmas with all of the children, it was gut wrenching.

I will continue this story in Part 2, that is where my life truly began to have a major shift.

-Amanda