My Ex and I had known each other most of our lives, our dads have been friends since they were young. He was my first crush, I used to make up excuses to tag along with dad so I could see him. Before he finished grade 12, he joined the army, so we didn’t see each other often but we stayed in touch and he was always the one I’d call when I was having problems. We would talk for hours on the phone and he would make me laugh, always knew how to cheer me up. After A. we would go drinking together when ever he was back in town and we would dance, it was our thing. People would come up to us all the time and say things like “aww you two are so cute together” or “I wish I had a connection with someone like that” yet we would always respond with “we’re just friends.” After I called off my engagement to M. He told me “I have loved you for years and thought I’d missed my chance.”
What a fairy-tale, my childhood crush professing his love for me, something I had only dreamed about happening, but I was resistant to take that step. My ex was a very dear friend, the one I turned to when times were hard, I didn’t want to lose that… besides, he had left the army by now, had no job, no license, no car and living with his mother, wasn’t exactly a “smart choice.” I put off my answer for weeks until I was given an ultimatum, either I go out with him or I’d never see him again… should have been my first warning sign, you shouldn’t be with someone who has to manipulate you into being with them in the first place. But foolish me thought well, if I’m going to lose him anyway, may as well give it a shot.
Once we took the dive into being together it was actually going really well. All loved up, it wasn’t long before my ex started saying things like “I’m going to make you my wife” and “I can’t wait to start a family with you.” Those comments turned into… “I know you’ll be my wife, we should just have a baby now.” Here I was, feeling like I am honestly in love, not just going through the motions, like I had in the past, and with my two greatest desires (to be a wife and a mother) dangling in front of me. Then 3 months later came 2 little pink lines… I had never felt joy like I did when I saw that I was pregnant, tears streamed down my face as I told him we were expecting. Unfortunately, that joy didn’t last long, everything, and I do mean everything changed and I do understand pregnancy is a hard time for both parties, but I was barely 3 months in when he decided to tell me “he had made a mistake” and “he wasn’t ready.”
After that, our relationship turned sour, arguments turned into screaming matches and he began using his size to stand over me and push me around. Then the verbal abuse started, name calling and putting me down. He once said “I would have to lose 10kgs before he could call me fat” and that was only the beginning, to go into detail of all the horrible things he said and did to me would take far too long to write all out to you. Every incident pushing me deeper into the quicksand of depression I had always been fighting to stay on top of. Once our son was born my ex had gotten a fly in, fly out job 2 weeks at a time and well… if he wasn’t around there wasn’t much to fight about. Things looked like they might be getting better, we got engaged and we were trying to make it work for our sons sake.
But this wouldn’t be my happy ending…
Managing Mayhem 