I used to believe in fairytales
Not the Disney kind with singing birds and glass slippers, but the quieter kind—the belief that love meant someone choosing you every day, that arguments could be resolved with honest conversation, that a partner's job was to build you up, not tear you down. I believed that red flags were obvious, dramatic things that reasonable people would spot from miles away. I was wrong about almost everything. Seventeen years. That is how long it took me to finally wake up and see my life for what it truly is. Seventeen years. When i tell you that you learn something new about your spouse everyday, believe it. Because for the last five of these seventeen years the man i have been eating, sleeping, telling all my secrets to, and raising children with is not the man he claimed to be for so long.
For the last five years i have learned that you dont really truly know who a person is. I mean how can you really know a person for who they truly are if the person they say they are is a lie? When i met Manuel in 2008 i was fresh out of myt first marriage, i had two toddlers 1 and 2. I was working and finally getting used to being single. Going out with work friends regularly, experienceing things i had never experienced because my first relationship started when i was 14 and lasted til i was 19. So i really didnt know much about life. My take on relationships werent any better. I was raised by my grandparents and growing up i never saw them argue or heard them raise their voices to each other of anything of that sort. so i was a little naive. When i say life aint all sunshine and rainbows...i mean its really not. Its crazy how you can spend so much time with someone and still not know who they are. The first 12 years of my relationship were, tumultuous. The fact that i was so blind to everything that was going on around me was asinine. When i met Manuel, I was immediately smitten. He was handsom and in the instant that we locked eyes i just knew i was gonna be with him for a long time. The night we met we talked for hours. We had both expressed to each other that neither of us were looking for a relationship. I didnt see him again for about two weeks. And when i did see him again it was like we had been together forever. Over the next year there were dozens of red flags. The time he strangled me in the car when he was drunk, the time he did donuts in the middle of the street while i was 6 months pregnant. The time i caught him texting an ex on my cell phone.
I ignored them all. I made excuses, I hid from family, i even made him feel like it was my fault entirely. I would laugh about it with him and make jokes about it. After we had our first son i started to drink more, we did cocain recreationally. We had family outings and took the kids to di things often. To anyone on the outside we were a happy normal family. But behind closed doors the person he was during the day was very different.
Have you ever ignored the signs? Have you ever thought "that would never be me"? What do you think about the signs i ignored? Would you ignore too??
My first red flag wasnt a physical act. It was what he said to me once we had made things "official". I was pregnant with our first boy and one night when we were on the phone he had asked me what i was getting into that night, and i said nothing cuz i was a little tired. His response was "good, thats where your ass needs to be from now on, at home." After that i started to notice little things when we would talk on the phone. Especially when he was out drinking with friends. he would start to tell me things like the baby wasnt his, or he would call me a slut or a hoe. He would even go as far as telling me that he didnt love me. Then he would hang up on me and call back later laughing and telling me i was a crybaby. The first time he physically put his hands on me, i cant remember the exact date, but i remember him showiing up at my grandparents and he was drunk. He was angry when he got there i could immediately tell and my stomach went to knots and i remember getting this scared, panicky feeling when he started calling me a hoe and told me he knew i was fucking around. I immediately started defending myself and telling him how much i loved him and that i would never cheat on him or hurt him that way. He grabbed me by the throat and squeezed till i couldnt breath, now let me tell you that i am terrified of not being able to breathe, i have asthma and i was constantly in the hospital between the ages of 4 and 14 growing up. So i would panic when i couldnt breathe. Anyway, as he was strangling me he was telling me that i was his and no one elses and that i better not ever cheat on him...so i agreed and told him i loved him more than i could handle and he let go. He didnt even apologize, he just made a smart ass comment and left. I stood there shaking and crying quietly while he smirked called me his bitch and drove off.
when he finally called me the next day i confronted him about what happend and he claimed to not remember anything. So i brushed it of telling myself maybe he was just really drunk. It went like that my whole pregnancy. He would accuse me of cheating and tell me he didnt love me. And 2 weeks before i went into the hospital to have our son...he caught me going through his phone and broke up with me. I thought he was asleep, i found out later that he would pretend to be asleep just to try and catch me doing stuff i wasnt supposed to be doin. It took me a few years to catch on.
The first time that he really and i mean really beat me up was christmas 2009. We were at his moms celebrating, drinking, having a good time and he we disappeared. When i found him he was laying down in one of her bedrooms and i asked for a ciggarette he of course pretended to be asleep. So i asked a couple more times, at this point i was becoming aggitated. So i got a little brave ane being drunk didnt help, but i kind of snapped at him and he threw the cigarette at me, first of many, well i said im not your ex wife bitch....he got up so fast and before i knew it i was laying on the side of the highway, we were in merkel, and he was kicking me in the stomach. my face was covered in blood and i couldnt believe what was happening i begged and begged for him to please stop, when he finally did he didnt even bother to pick me up off the ground. his sisters and mom helped me to our car and as i sit there bleeding and crying trying to wrap my head around what just happend....his mom says to me " i told you not to make him mad."
We moved into our first house together in 2010. We lived there for 6 years. During that time the abuse was getting worse. at the beginning of our time at the bowie house, i tried to kill myself by taking pills because of the verbal and emotional abuse. instead of going to the hospital with me, he decided work was more important. I started to drink heavy, and between the accusations and him not coming home at all sometimes the beatings were getting worse. The little things that normal people are allowed to do, i wasnt. I wasnt allowed to have a phone, or look out the window of the car while he was driving. I wasnt allowed to ask him where he was going pr who he was gonna be with. If i saw him looking at other girls i had to keep my mouth shut. The one time i did comment on it he slapped me hard across the face in the united parking lot. Throughout or time at "The Bowie house" We had family functions and celebrated holidays with our familys. One year my grandparents were coming for the 4th of July and we went out drinking that weekend and the night before my grandparents were to come stay with us, he beat the shit out of me. i mean he hit me with a heavy stick that had thorns. he beat me with a belt. Both of my eyes were black and swollen shut. and my boys watched it all. when he was done so i thought he walked out of the house and i thought he was gone but he wasnt he came back in and i was already laying down with the boys i was on my stomach and could barely move, when i felt him straddle my back and he just started punching me hard in my head, in my , back, i managed to grab the boys and pull them into me till he was done then he left. I had to call my gma the next day to warn her what she was gonna see when she saw me, i had to spend the whole weekend with my granparents looking at me beat up that was one of the worst times.
did i mention i have 2 older kids from my previous marriage, my Joshua was born in 2005, and my Aubrie was born in 2006, they are one year and one day apart. I remember one night in the kitchen he was tearing into me and Joshua grabbed a knife and stood between Manuel, and me with tears pouring down his face he told him to leave me alone. And Manuel just said "do what you gotta do lil nigga" and walked away....all 4 of my kids helped me to my bed and layed with me. When Josh and Aubrie were 11 and 12, they moved out of my house and in with their Nana (dads mom) and thats where they have beem since. I havent seen or talked to my oldest son since 2021. My daughter has come around and we have a good relationship but i miss my first born. The day they left took a big part of me and i started to change...i started to drink more
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