Here We Go . . . I'm Gonna Tell My Story

Holy Cow! It's not actually all that long before Spencer goes to college. 

You wanna know the random thought that floats through my head all the time?  I picture my kids going to college, where nobody knows their story already.  I picture them having to tell a little about themselves in a welcome week group and they start with the framework of their little lives and they say something like, “My name is Spencer. I am from Colorado.  I love soccer, skiing, camping and I play the piano.  I grew up with the best mom in the world (my own words are in italics) and two younger sisters. One of my sisters is Ethiopian and was adopted when I was five.  Sadly, my dad died while jogging to work one morning when I was six years old and then a couple years later, my mom married another guy. He ended up being pretty abusive.  But we got out of that and life just went on from there.”

It just doesn’t feel real that that is the story of MY kids???  The Aldridge kids???  That can’t be me, he is talking about to his new college friends!!!  A mom that got into an abusive marriage???  Only really weak, not well, messed up moms get into relationships like that, right???  It’s so embarrassing and still so shocking that that was me . . . in a totally, completely, dysfunctional, destructive marriage, dragging my kids through the whole deal.  While it is embarrassing to share, I will share, because it was two girls from college, actually, who shared their story and gave me the strength to face my reality.  They were NOT messed up girls.  They were strong, they were leaders, they were so kind, and they were beautiful and they were both very brave to share their stories and were a critical part of me understanding my reality.  They took away the myth about who marries these types of people, for me.

Part of not getting out earlier, a HUGE PART, was desperately wanting to bring our marriage to some state of health and normalcy, so that I didn’t have to sit here, like I am in this very moment, at Starbucks, and be not only a divorced woman, but an abuse victim (which I’ll talk more about in a second). The countless hours pleading with God to turn our marriage around, revolved so much around just the shame of getting a divorce, the belief that divorce was some unpardonable sin and, also, that a divorce would jeopardize my reputation as a good Christian and as someone who would simply just never get a divorce (as if I am better than people who do get divorces). In addition, I pleaded for a normal marriage, because I wanted my kids to have a step dad who loved them, a husband who treated me like he loved me and because marriage can be so much fun and so many wonderful things. I desperately did NOT want my reality to be that I was in a destructive marriage, so I worked so incredibly hard to make that not true and believe that is was not true.  To no avail, of course. 

It may sound like I am being hard on myself.  I don’t believe, anymore, that I was just plain stupid to get into a relationship like this.  I was maybe ignorant about the fact that people like this really exist. And let me tell you, they are everywhere and they are sneaky and they are hidden and they are tricky. That statistic feels IMPOSSIBLY HIGH, but once I was on the other side, I can not go anywhere, without meeting people who have been in relationships similar to mine.  It's just that now I have ears to pick up on it and I'm not afraid to start asking questions. I truly believe it is an epidemic. 

I was also very trusting and why shouldn’t I be???  I was married for eight and a half years to Dave, the most straightforward, easy going man. It never even crossed my mind to not trust Dave - even once.  OK . . . maybe once for about 6 seconds when he was all giddy about running the Ragnar overnight race with pretty much all cute, younger women from work.  I was like, “don’t act that excited as all these cuties are pulling up in our driveway.”  But, honestly, I actually thought it was cute.  I just didn’t have it in me to not trust him.  I just trusted him and he trusted me.  All that to say, these people that manipulate and control and lie in these types of relationships don’t discriminate.  In fact, sometimes they target strong women and Christian women, because they know strong women will fight to make the marriage work and their Christian beliefs will also keep them trapped in a marriage. And strangely enough, after my last post a million months ago, I had a decent number of women who had lost their husbands and then found themselves in a marriage like mine, next. I don’t know how to explain that one, but it was weird.   

Some people will give me an excuse and say that I was in a vulnerable position when I met Tony.  And I was, no doubt!  I had only lost Dave a little over a year, when I met my ex.  I was also in a lot of physical pain for many months, with a herniated disc. But that is NOT why I got sucked into this marriage.  Maybe, those things had a little to do with it and maybe he targeted me, but mainly,  it was that I, literally, knew NOTHING of this type of person.  Plain and simple.  

Earlier in this post, I wrote that I was an abuse victim. I honestly don’t know how I feel about that label. There was, FOR SURE, financial abuse, where I was clearly a victim and could do nothing about some of it.  So, I will take on the victim label there, but the rest . . .  I don’t really know.  I chose to stay, even though I knew it was JACKED UP!  I could have left earlier and I almost did at a mere 3 months and again at two years.  However, I didn’t understand what I was dealing with at those points and I was too afraid to really look.  So, I don’t know what to really say about that, but that every time I think of myself as a victim of spiritual and emotional abuse (which is a term now that almost makes some people say, “whatever,” but I don’t know what else to call it) I don’t feel comfortable with it.  Maybe because I don’t want it to be true, or maybe, because if I had the choice to get out, then how could I be a victim?  In fact, I guess I do believe that I was no longer a victim, when I took off my blinders, got educated with articles, counseling and books and knew what I was dealing with.  Once I knew what I was dealing with, I was making a choice to stay and I was no longer a victim. Anyway, thanks for talking through that with me!!!!!   

What really blows, is that when I finally got real, and left and told the truth about it all, there were people that simply didn’t believe me or wanted to diminish my story for some reason.  In my case, the people that flat out didn’t believe me, were mostly men and they were also people that interacted with my ex a decent amount.  This phenomena will, to the end of my days, baffle me. This was far, far, more shocking to me than almost anything my ex did. 

Nothing became surprising with my ex, because he was not well, but people that I have known for a long time and do not seem to have mental illness, their responses to me leaving were either no response at all or opposed to me leaving.  

Sidebar:  TO BE CLEAR, there were a few men, that did see through my ex and would not entertain his victim playing.  Of course, my ex wouldn’t interact with those few men who wouldn’t entertain my ex’s games and fake humility. I really can’t tell you how much I appreciate those few men, though. They have been and continue to be an important part of my healing, just knowing that they stood up for me and that there are men like that out there. 

Anyway . . . I have about six hundred more sidebars to share that I just feel some need to share them at this time.  My goal is to share my story.  Over the past 14 months, since I have left the marriage, it has actually become somewhat of a distant memory already, which I feel is an incredibly tender mercy from God. For a while, I thought I’d never be able to think of anything, but that messed up-ness. I was so consumed by it. Now that I'm not consumed by anger and survival, but the memories are still there, I want to write about a few things, that relate to being in a destructive marriage.  Maybe my story will help someone else who is trying to understand their own crazy in a relationship, or maybe it will only help me to move through what is still hanging on me, from all of this.  These writing may accomplish nothing, but I just feel compelled to write at this point.  So stay tuned, if you want.  I plan on writing some more.