Page 3 of Love You Madly

When I met a guy named Johnny through a mutual friend, it didn’t take long for me to uproot my life and move to Ohio to be with him. I wanted to escape from the reputation I had built for myself, which was starting to catch up with me.

I thought Johnny was going to be my redemption arc. Have you ever experienced that part in a book or movie where a character you detest suddenly turns into a respectable human being? This was going to be my fucking moment.

Except it wasn’t.

Johnny proposed to me on our six-month anniversary in front of a crowded restaurant when we went to dinner withfriends. I thought he was just the greatest ever. I’ll never understand why on earth I thought it was a good idea to get engaged at barely twenty years old to a free-loader who couldn’t hold a job for twenty-four hours. A month after Johnny proposed, I found out he had been cheating on me the entire time we were together.

I’d say, “Fuck you, Karma,” but I don’t think I want to risk pissing her off further. I can’t take much more of it at this point. I went from being the walking Red Flag to collecting red flags like it’s my fucking job and I need a pay raise plus commission.

After I moved back home to Hawkridge from Ohio, Adam and I reconnected through social media after not talking in years. He told me he had gotten discharged from the military and had just gone through a major surgery and a divorce from his first wife two years before that. When Adam offered to buy me a plane ticket to Seattle a few days after we reconnected, I jumped at the opportunity to get the hell out of Hawkridge for a while, fully expecting our relationship to remain platonic.

I was a shell of a human, and he was offering me a safe haven. I thought he was picking up the pieces to make me whole again. You know… because it had been six weeks since my sister and her husband, Nick, were picking me up in Cleveland. Why wouldn’t I hop my dramatic ass on a Boeing seven-eighty-seven to Seattle on a whim?

I was supposed to return home after two weeks, but instead, I skipped the flight home as Adam promised stability, a family, and everything I thought I wanted. Blinded by desperation and my deteriorated mental state, I was married to Adam within six months of moving to Seattle.

Do you see a pattern?

You know how the definition of insanity is repeating the same thing over and over and expecting different results? Nailed it!

I was thousands of miles from home (again), and all my friends were Adam’s. I hadn’t yet realized the more I was fused into Adam’s world, the more I lost touch with reality. I didn’t even know I’d stopped talking to most of the people from Iowa shortly after I moved to Seattle to be with Adam.

In hindsight, I made a foolish and hasty decision when I married Adam almost two years ago. However, I convinced myself our story was some exceptional romance back then.

Despite his promises of the world on a silver platter, I was unable to see how Adam took advantage of me, blinded by my deteriorated mental state. But when you’re twenty years old and don’t know any better, a guy flashing nice cars, a motorcycle, a house, and money when you were just with someone you had to be the provider for, I thought THIS was how it should be. He was the total opposite of Johnny. So, Adam must be the answer to my prayers, right?

The fucking crotch rocket he owned but never actually rode should have been my first clue. But it wasn’t.

Red Flag #87.

I was so delusional, but Adam seemed like everything I needed. He was financially stable for someone in his mid-twenties, unlike Johnny, who stole from me and didn’t have a job for the entire eight months we were together. So, Adam seemed like a dream.

Adam was supposed to be my knight in shining armor who rescued me from my evil, thieving ex-fiance. And we would live happily ever after.

Turns out…

The bar was on the fucking floor. And he was theGreat Valueversion of the Tin Man.

At first, everything seemed to be perfect. Adam was attentive and caring. He showered me with gifts and nice dinners. If only I knew what love-bombing was back then. Once theexcitement of the pregnancy wore off, his true colors showed. He didn’t want me to work, claiming the stress would hurt the baby.That’s rich coming from him.I reluctantly quit my job even though it was the only way I’d made any friends who weren’t already his friends in Seattle. At this point, I’ve been without work for two years.

After a couple of months of marriage, he made jabs at me about me not contributing and “his money.” It was his fucking fault I didn’t have a career in the first place, but he had no trouble blaming me for money woes.

Red Flag #127.

Months later, he slipped up and told me he didn’t like where I was working at the time because he thought something was going on between me and one of my coworkers… even though he was the one who showed up to my place of employment with one of his female “friends” on the back of the motorcycle he owned for a very short amount of time. I guess he rode the stupid thing after all, just not with me.

Oh, the hypocrisy.

I knew I shouldn’t have stayed with him when he begged me to after yet another screw-up. I should have taken Sara and gotten the hell out of this complete fucking joke of a marriage. But I didn’t. He rattled on about how he’d made mistakes and vowed to make it right. All things I’d heard a million times before. I was tired. So, he wore me down again, just like he always had. I brushed off all the red flags even though they were so glaringly obvious that they could probably be seen from freaking Jupiter.

I’m grateful to be back home in Iowa instead of Seattle, where I was when Adam and I learned I was pregnant with Sara.

Now, I’m standing here, staring at this goddamn test, and I feel like the universe is playing some cruel joke on me.Am Ibeing Punk’d? Because that’s what it feels like! How did I let it come to this? Like a complete moron, I wanted to believe he could change, that he would be the man I needed him to be for Sara. But deep down, I knew it was a lie. I knew he was never going to change.

As I stand here, the realization that I’m carrying another one of his children sinks in. I don’t want to raise another baby with a man who only brings me pain—my mind races with the possibilities and the consequences. I have no idea how I’m going to get through this. How the fuck am I going to explain this to everyone? And, more importantly, how am I going to protect my poor babies from the catastrophe known as my husband?

Maybe I should just run… Yeah, right. Where the fuck would I even go?

I take in a deep breath, trying to steady myself. I have to be strong—not only for myself but also for Sara, and the new life I now know is growing inside me. I am going to have to make a tough decision. I wish I had done this a long time ago. I can’t keep letting Adam dictate my happiness. This could be my chance to break free, to build a life for my children that won’t be overrun by his toxic presence.

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