For my devoted followers, this post is not about motherhood. So if that's all you are here for feel free to skip this post. But if you'd like to know the story of how I became who I am today, grab a drink and enjoy the story.
I want to preface this by first saying that I am sharing my story because it is part of the healing process for me. I am not interested in vengeance, nor do I have the desire to take action in any way. For the past year, I have contemplated whether or not I wanted the world to know my story - the whole story. But as I prepare for what I hope to be my “happily ever after” with my fiancé and son in a few months, I know that in order to move forward with my life I need to let go of my past. And to me, that means no secrets. I want my son to grow up knowing that his parents are honest people, who own up to their actions and their mistakes, and are not ashamed of who they are. So here we go.
Most of you know that my father passed away at an early age. I was thirteen years old. And while life continued on, there is no doubt that a huge hole was left in my heart. Every girl needs their father, regardless of how amazing their mothers may be. Somehow, during this final year of my dad’s life I’d found comfort in one of my teachers, my band director. For the next three years, I began to get close to this teacher and his family. I’d go out to dinner with them, babysit for them, go to performances and local art festivals with them, or just hang out with them at their house on the weekends. I was very grateful to have them, as was my mom who was learning how to be a single mom to two teenage girls. They’d even moved away for a year and he still remained in close contact with me, texting at least once every few days. I went to a small private Christian school, and it was not necessarily uncommon for students and teachers to become friends between church memberships and just being in a smaller community of people. But truth be told, I started having feelings for this teacher. It is ALSO not completely uncommon for a high school girl to become infatuated with a male teacher, especially one who made himself VERY present and available to her after her father died. It happens.
My senior year of high school, time with his family started to become time with just him. We were both Miami Dolphins fans so for our birthdays (which were two days apart), he treated me to my first pro football game. We’d spend hours after school just chatting in his classroom, just the two of us. Texting every few days turned into texting all day every day. There was even a time or two where we’d be sitting on his couch, just the two of us, and he’d put his arm on me. But he would quickly pull it away if anyone else came into the room. Times he would drive me home after babysitting, we would stop at the marina nearby and sit for another hour just chatting. And then he held my hand intimately, as if he wanted more. I remember it was Valentine’s Day. What started as a friendship (or even as someone trying to be a father-figure to me) turned into an addictive, inappropriate relationship. But of course I was enjoying the attention and truly felt that it was all out of love. Who doesn’t want to feel loved, right?
Two weeks after the close-call on Valentine’s Day, my mom went out of town with her then boyfriend for the weekend and I stayed behind. Early that Saturday morning (5-6am) he texted me saying he wanted to skip the gym and asked if he could come over, and I of course said yes. I remember it was during the Winter Olympics, and there was nothing to watch on tv other than curling. So we just sat and watched. The next thing I knew we were cuddling, and looking at each other. And then we kissed. More than once.
When he left the house, I was giddy. I knew I was in love - almost instantly. The next hour or so I was on cloud nine, and he acted as he was too. And then he said I couldn’t tell anyone. It hurt but I thought it wouldn’t matter if people knew as long as I could keep him. You see, he was my first real relationship. I’d only been kissed maybe 2 times prior. I’d never had sex. And I definitely never felt so strongly about another person. So much so that I - someone who wanted to wait til marriage - gave him my virginity less than two months later. I was 17, he was 34. But I promised to keep his secret. He’d managed to completely sweep me off my feet, and to this day I still don’t know if he meant any of it or if it was just something that he did because he was bored. It wasn’t until now that I ever admitted to anyone that this relationship, while very inappropriate in so many ways, was also very much illegal.
A relationship with him carried on for the next ten years, but by no means was it healthy or even good. I was so deep into it that I chose to go to college an hour away from home rather than five hours away. He made me swear that I wouldn’t tell a soul that anything happened between us and that we didn’t even start communicating romantically until I started college. And I kept that promise, for a decade. So much so that I almost forgot when it actually began. That’s how brainwashed and manipulated I’d become.
His wife found out about us early on, six days before my 18th birthday. Less than three months later caught us in bed together. The amount of times she found out about us is hard to count, but it was always the same pattern: she would confront him/us, he would cut me off and swear to her/us that he is choosing his family over me, and a month later would tell me he loved me and couldn’t live without me. And then the cycle would begin again. Because I truly believed that he loved me and if you know anything about me, you know that I don’t give up on people (or anything) easily. I figured he was worth it.
Throughout the relationship, he would tell me lies about how awful his marriage was. He’d painted a completely different picture than reality, which made it hard to be upset about his difficulty in choosing between us. I’d catch him in a lie through social media or a mutual friend, and in return I would be berated and called crazy for confronting him about it. He’d blocked me on social media, refused to text me and insisted we used email, and he decided what information I was allowed to know about his life. He called me a stalker every time I brought up something I saw on his wife or son’s social media about their relationship, as if I was the one doing something wrong. It was an extremely emotionally abusive mess that I could not find the courage to escape from. Throughout that time, I’d turned down so many good prospects - guys that I really did like and some I even had feelings for - because I was stuck. There were a handful of times down the road that I did make mistakes with another man, to which I admitted almost immediately, and as a result was met with judgement and berating from this same man who was carrying on a sexual relationship with his wife throughout the entirety of our relationship. I was told I was a whore and didn’t deserve him, he’d tell me he wanted nothing to do with me, and then a week later made me feel like I was lucky that he was taking me back. It was unending psychological abuse and I saw no light at the end of the tunnel.
I took a job in Tallahassee and followed him here, because he made it seem like he wanted me around and he was in grad school while his wife stayed behind in Miami. He told me this was his first step towards divorce. It was a job that I was very unhappy with but I stuck out for 3 years because it meant being near him. But of course his promises never happened, and the cycle of lies and deceit (and catching him in said lies) continued. He stayed married throughout the entire time they were apart and then when he accepted a job in Arkansas, he told me this was his chance for a clean break because she loved her job and would never leave Florida. He specifically told me he told her not to move with him. I told him I wanted to go with him and he told me he’d think about it. It wasn’t until I looked at his son’s Instagram page that I learned he was taking the whole family with him. And then I saw his dedication to his wife on his dissertation that he’d signed for me “with love”.
I really thought his move would finally give me the courage to leave, and it did for a short amount of time. But he somehow found a way to weasel back into my life and two months later, I found myself visiting him. I drove 10 hours to see him for 6 hours. And then had to hurry away before his wife came home. I spent the next two years or so blowing my money on flights or rental cars to visit him, whether it was at his home city or at some destination because he had a work conference to go to. He wouldn’t introduce me to colleagues, we couldn’t go to certain restaurants where he frequented with his wife, and when I attended sporting events he wouldn’t let me sit anywhere near him. He wouldn’t even walk to the car with me and would make me walk out alone. He’d bring me on trips with him and then leave me in hotel rooms for hours, while he was off at concerts (which I would also have enjoyed) or out having drinks with colleagues. I was so unhappy but I loved him. What else was I supposed to do?
After much begging, he finally signed separation papers and got an apartment for himself. I’d spent weeks trying to find apartments for him and he of course chose one down the street from his wife’s house (again called me crazy when I made that connection). For the next 6 months or so he told me they barely spoke, meanwhile she told me they’d just gone out to dinner the night before. He had no idea that it got to the point where I hid nothing from his wife. When she would text me asking if I was visiting that weekend, I’d send her pictures and text conversations for proof. Anything she would ask me, I would answer (when in the years prior he would instruct me on what to say to her). I’d decided that if she chose to stay with him after everything, she needed to know the truth and I wasn’t going to protect him. She deserved that, at the least, from me. I spent the last ten years of my life feeling guilty for getting in the middle of a marriage. To the point where I couldn’t even feel comfortable sitting in a church service for years due to my guilt. I knew what I was in the middle of was wrong but I didn’t know how to get myself out of it. I was stuck.
Shortly after he moved away I befriended someone (James) and we quickly became best friends. We spent our time off playing tennis, going on hikes, exploring abandoned locations around town. We became close enough to open up to each other about our issues in our own relationships. I encouraged James to work on his marriage and James, while unhappy with the way I was treated, supported me in my decision to work on my own relationship. He was VERY unhappy with this new friendship of mine, always accusing me of cheating on him and blaming any disagreement we had on the fact that I had a new friend and I MUST have feelings for him. I’ll be honest, at the time I didn’t. I was attracted to him but never even had a second thought abut a romantic relationship with James. I was in a relationship and so was he, there was no question. But the more my partner accused me of wanting James, the more I realized a relationship with him would be so much healthier. Ironically, he’s the reason why I’m with him today. He was so threatened by James that he told me to drop everything I had in Tallahassee and move to be with him, and told me I could live with him and not have to work and can just be a stay at home girlfriend. He belittled my job at the music store and told me I had nothing going for me that was worth keeping me here. I told him I would move when he could show me the divorce paperwork, and I was again berated for my “not wanting to commit to him”.
It all started to come to an end when we went on a trip to Vegas together, a trip that I had paid for. I was miserable the whole time and the moment I got seated on my flight home, he ended it. The next few months we kept in contact but I’d decided I was ready to give up. He’d promised to come visit me for two weeks around Christmas, and that two week trip turned into one night that ended in a final breakup. In February of last year, I began a relationship with my best friend James which quickly turned into the start of a family together. The next month we found out we were pregnant, and I felt the need to tell my ex-partner as a courtesy. He then had the audacity after everything to tell me that I should leave James and that he would raise my son with me - this being the same man who told me for a decade that being with him would mean giving up my dream of being a mom because he never wanted to have another kid.
Getting pregnant with my Benjamin is what saved me from this abusive relationship. Even with the amount of love I have for James, I don’t think I would’ve been able to pull myself out completely without the promise of a son. The moment that pregnancy test showed positive, I knew that every decision I made needed to be about my future child. And I swore to never let a toxic person like that anywhere near my child, ever. So the decision was easy. Just like that I’d escaped. But emotionally, I needed more time.
It has been a year and a half since I made my decision and I am finally at the point where I can see how brainwashed and manipulated I truly was. I was groomed, gaslighted, controlled, and strung along for a decade. By a predator. I may have believed I loved him, and maybe part of him loved me too, but there is no denying that I was taken advantage of by someone who was supposed to educate and protect me. I know I am not innocent in all this but I know for a fact that I was a KID and he was an ADULT, and even though the relationship carried on into adulthood for myself - I was never treated like we were both adults in the relationship.
I share my story not to place blame. It takes two to tango, I know that. I share my story because I needed it out there in the open. I needed my truth to be told. Because now I can truly let go. I no longer will feel guilty. I will no longer feel the need to hide anything about my past. I will no longer protect a man who preyed on a vulnerable 17 year old who just needed a father to guide her and love her. I will no longer allow thoughts of him to enter my mind. From this day forward, he does not exist to me. I am finally free. And I am so thankful because all that he put me through is what led me to the beautiful life that I have now. So I guess I should say thank you to this man.
Dr. Ken Goff: This post was for you. Thank you for freeing me. Thank you for destroying me... but then freeing me. Good luck to you. I have a feeling you're going to need it.
Shit crazy