There was something different about him this time, he seemed more confident, had a little swagger. We chatted a bit, he told me he was a marine now and he would love to take me out. I accepted, and was immediately intrigued by him. He took me places I had never been, made me feel “full grown”, so grown that I went out and got a job, me, someone who never had to work a day in my life…
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He went out and got his own place — this impressed me even more. My mother warned me about him from day one. She didn’t trust him and felt he was distracting me from my goals in life. Eight months into the relationship I decided he was going to be my first. It was not as enchanting as I expected it to be. I changed my mind and he still proceeded to “take it”. I was so disappointed and hurt. We didn’t talk for a while after that and my father suspected something had changed about me, but I denied everything. After a while I gave in to his begging me to still be with him, against my better judgment.
Although it’s painful to admit it, we stayed together for another year and a half, and even though there were signs he was cheating on me it wasn’t until he told me got another girl pregnant that I woke up. I moved on with my life, although he did stalked me for a while. He sent me messages about what I was doing on certain nights, called my parents whenever I wasn’t at home trying to track me down — it got real ugly, so much so that my dad had to get involved.
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I’m happily married now. Last year the marine called just to let me know that he was getting divorced. He told me that marrying that girl was the biggest mistake of his life; they fought, called the police on each other, accused each other of witchcraft (yeah witchcraft!) and even turned their only child against each other. He started to tell me that if we had stayed together we would have made it and he knows we could rekindle what we had, with no regard to my marriage, but I cut him off. I told him not to call me ever again. It was very sad to hear, but in a way I felt like I dodged that bullet. I thank God for protecting me and getting me away from the pain and saving me from it all. I truly feel like I was too good for him and there is no way we could have ever been happy together.
If you’re a victim of domestic abuse you should seek help. The National Domestic Violence Hotline is available to help you 24/7.
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