Background #2

To my in love, naive, sweet self, I never in a million years expected Chris to be cheating on me with the worst whore there is - drugs. I knew he had flirted with her in the past. I knew he had tasted her and lusted after her, but I thought I had satisfied his needs. I thought he had grown too old and too mature for that kind of "love."

I was wrong.

We went on our honeymoon. It was a mixed bag. It was great; it was awful. It was miserable. One of the days in the middle of the 5 day stay, he found a bag of pot behind a picture on the wall. Funny, looking back on it. His paranoia of flushing it, then throwing out the baggie far away from our room. I understood it originally, but looking back on it shows a completely different reason for his fear.

We got back from our honeymoon on Saturday night. And it went downhill from there. From then, September of 06 to February of this year, he would leave at weird times. He would say he had to go to his parents for something and he would not be back for hours. I would text his brother or his dad, and they would say he hadn't been there for an hour, sometimes not even at all.

We would get in huge fights, huge blowouts over something stupid, and he would leave. Often after a physical fight. Other times, I would grab him, pull him, crying and sobbing. Hanging onto his arm, his sweatshirt as he headed down the stairs. I would sit at the top of them, tears streaming down my face, screaming for him to come back. That we shouldn't leave like this. That we should work things out. That we shouldn't have fights like this. That he promised he wouldn't leave me during a fight anymore.

I would scream his name, sobs in my throat, even after the apartment door was closed. Futile efforts. For what seemed like a futile relationship.

Some days, most days, he would text me saying he had to work late. Late meant, not 5, not 6, but 11 or even 1am.

I am not stupid. I knew he was not working. But it was so much easier to live in the easy ignorance. The ignorance that is really knowledge, but fear of having to deal with it. Of having my marriage end at the age of 22.

I would spend hours making elaborate, beautiful, delicious dinners. I would spend money from our dwindling bank account to buy the ingredients. I would wait for him until 8 or 9pm before I would eat myself. And then his portion would sit on the stove, in the cold stove, in the microwave, in the fridge, until he got home. I would eat these meals of chicken and mashed potatoes and bread by myself in front of the TV.

I would go to bed at 12am. I would go to bed at 1am, by myself. Three nights a week. Sometimes more. At first, it was hard. It was so hard. I could barely sleep. I had so much anxiety. My stomach was in knots.

But after awhile though, I got used to going to bed by myself. I got used to turning off the lights (it didn't make it any less scarier), got used to climbing into bed. I got used to tucking myself in, and used to calling him incessantly, hoping, daring him to answer. I got used to praying myself to sleep.

I often woke up at 3 in the morning to pee, and would hear a key turning in the lock. He would make his way upstairs. Always with a different excuse.

I tried so many things. Ignoring him, ignoring his apologies. Slapping him straight across the face. Hard. Breaking down into more waterfalls.

Nothing changed. I thought it would. I thought whatever he was doing, whatever he wasn't doing - if there was a remote possibility he was at work - he would see my pain and my anger and my sadness and my complete loss of anything close to respect and happiness and he would change it. He would do something to make it right.

He didn't.