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When I Stopped Believing in ‘Happily Ever After’

Once upon a time, not so long ago or far away, I had a completely different life. Once upon a time I was married. There, I’ve said it; the hardest part is over. He was smart and funny and charming in his Big Blonde Teddy Bear kind of way, and I fell for it. I fell for all of it. We dated for a year and were engaged for seven months. A few weeks before the Big Day I started getting jitters – not the “I don’t know if I can go through with this” jitters, but the “I am so excited for this new phase of my life!” jitters. Our wedding was lovely; both our families were there, the weather was beautiful, my dress was exquisite, and I was happy. I have the pictures as proof. As we left the reception friends and family showered us with hugs and good wishes and I had all these wonderfully excited feelings that are typical and even expected of newly-married brides. I am married! This is the happiest day of my life!

How quickly things change. Within days I had written an entry in my journal that I knew it would not last. I was positive of it. While we were on our honeymoon X actually told me that he had intentionally hidden several aspects of his personality – because he didn’t think I’d like them. Major things, personal things, significant things. Within a month I was miserable. I tried to chalk it up to an adjustment phase, and kept hoping that things would take a turn for the better. A few months went by and I had become one of those empty shell people; I had huge, dark circles under my eyes, I rarely smiled or laughed, I kept to myself most of the time and stopped answering my phone. I made excuses for my bruises. I cancelled lunch-dates with girlfriends because I knew they wanted the scoop on my sex life and I didn’t know how to tell these giggling, religiously conservative girls that my “sex life” constituted of my being raped by my “charming” husband. I stopped going to church, I stopped loving God. I found it impossible to believe that a loving Father that could stand by and do nothing while His daughter was yelled at, ordered around, humiliated, hit, slapped, and worse. But I kept my fear, hurts and shame to myself; I didn’t want my family or friends to know. I was afraid of the hyper-conservative, very religious, small-town response of: “Well, YOU got married in the CHURCH! You have to MAKE. THIS. WORK. You are married FOREVER!” Looking back, I know my family would not have responded that way – but I wouldn’t risk it. I was afraid they wouldn’t understand if I only told part of the story, and I wasn’t strong enough to tell them the whole truth, not then.

A few more months went by and things got worse. I tried everything I could think of or imagine to improve my marriage; I read books on relationships, I went to counseling (but kept the abuse a secret), I tried to do things I knew X would like. And he just lashed out more often, and with more force. One day while he was at the gym I packed up all my clothes and personal items and checked into a hotel. I didn’t say anything, or leave a note, I just left. I knew I wasn’t brave enough to leave forever, but I desperately wanted to see if I could, if I was strong enough. I wanted to see what he’d do when he thought I was gone forever. I didn’t sleep that night, he never called. Two days later I went home and that big, fat, slob was sprawled out on the couch watching ESPN. He didn’t turn the TV off, he didn’t move, he just told me he was hungry and needed dinner. I was speechless, he hadn’t even realized I was gone; I made my decision.

It wasn’t until I had moved into my own apartment that I found out the rest of the story. It wasn’t until I was starting to rebuild my life independent of his that I received the most crushing blow of all. I found out about the porn addiction, thousands of dollars of addiction on our credit card that I had been paying off every month. I found out that he had lied for three semesters about being in school, that he’d been kicked out for bad grades. He had told me about his classes, his teachers, his tests, & his homework. He even had books and papers scattered around with all sorts of equations and mathematic mumbo-jumbo, which to a non-math person like me looked completely legit. Turns out the money that I gave him to pay for his tuition and books was really spent on who-knows-what (porn, pizza, more porn). While I was working to support us he spent his senior year eating Doritos, calling 1-900 numbers, playing Grand Theft Auto, ordering “literature” and watching ESPN. I trusted him, I believed what he told me. I cannot describe the feelings of fear and violation to discover that the man to whom I was eternally bound was a complete stranger. After living with him for 14 months I felt like I didn’t know him at all. It was not in my nature to investigate and research my husband, not then.

Six months later my divorce went through and I was finally free.

…A year and a half have gone by, and here I am. I do not believe marrying X was a mistake. I don’t regret it. I wouldn’t do it again for a bazillion dollars; but I do not think it was a mistake. I believe it was a temporary situation that allowed me to learn and grow in countless ways, and like any crash course in life, there are scars that may never heal. But I believe that my short, horrible marriage made me a stronger person, a more faithful and prayerful daughter of God, a more charitable woman, a more compassionate friend and a more sensitive soul. I also believe it has inspired me to obtain a full back-ground check before going on a third date. Do I hate X? No. I don’t. I could, but it takes too much energy, it’s just not worth the effort. I long for a return of the parts of me he methodically destroyed; my innocence, my regard of love, my desire to trust, my ability to expose the most vulnerable parts of my personality, and my belief in “Happily Ever After”. However, even though I hope otherwise, I am afraid some of those will always be lost; innocence cannot be restored. But, even so, I do not hate him. I hope that one day, when he grows up, he’ll realize what he threw away. I hope that one day he will have to meet his Creator and explain himself, and his actions, and I believe that God will judge him fairly. And I hope that if he ever gets married again, she will keep a baseball bat under her pillow.

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