The story of the 1 year anniversary

As I stated in one of the earlier posts, our mind has a way of protecting us from painful memories. Just blocked. I know that within 6 months I was already staying at my parents house, which luckily was only about 3 miles away. But for some reason, I took him back and we tried to move forward.

It never crosses your mind to ask the person who is driving, if not you, if they have a legal drivers license. I mean, you'd just ASSUME if they're an adult driving a car, they are legally allowed to do so. Well, I didn't ask Bart when we were dating if his was legal. Much less ask how many DUIs were on his record. He never even had a car while we were dating. He just always had a ride. I did end up signing for him a very nice black SUV. But, that's for another story.

Anyway, back to this story. Bart was in jail during the last few months of our first year of marriage. Apparently he got pulled over driving a friend's car while drunk. Apparently he had a very long list before I met him - mostly DUIs. After several weeks in a way-too-nice-and-expensive-for-me home all alone I picked him up on the day he was released...our one year anniversary. I was SO EXCITED. Y'all. I was under his spell. I was EXCITED - to pick up my husband for our anniversary from JAIL. I should've been so pissed that I let his ass walk home from the jail that day.

But, I didn't. Instead, a friend loaned him money for us to have an anniversary dinner. We had like, NO MONEY. I was the only employed one. Y'all know where we went...THE PALM. Ha! We looked so good too. I remember sitting there feeling so special. My husband took ME to THE PALM for dinner the day he got out of jail! I'm sure he would've rather gone out with friends or just sleep in the bed, but he humbled himself to borrow money from a friend so he could TAKE me to dinner... (it really makes me gag now)

That's what the emotional abuse does. I mean, it takes away so much of your self worth! My worth depended on whether or not he WANTED to sit by me on the couch at night instead of sitting on the back deck, in the same clothes he slept in the night before, drinking Captain and Coke, on the phone smoking cigarettes.

I didn't feel like a domestic violence victim. That was the women whose husbands punched them every day. We'd make it days that he wouldn't abuse me in any way! It was fiiiiiine. I could make him better. Nicer. Get a job. If I love him harder, he'll love me more. "He was just tired today." "Just hungover today." "Just stressed today." I can change him.

Even another big slap on the face like this one, wasn't a big enough, flashy enough sign for me. I still went back. And HOPED he'd CHOOSE ME.