We met at work. I was a year out of college and excited for my first "grown-up" job working in corporate events at a nearby resort. He was the director of another department that we worked with all the time. I moved for the job and was already dating someone else. We were friends for a year, and pretty much right after I broke up with my boyfriend of two years we started dating.
We didn't have much in common, but he showered me with compliments and gifts and I felt adored. I turned 25 a few months into our dating, and my celebration I can now see as a massive love-bomb meant to pull me in even more. As a big fan of the show "Sex & the City", I had mentioned in the past an episode in which the main character, Carrie, receives a gift of a designer dress packaged in a large box with a massive bow and how fun I thought it was. On my birthday, I returned to work from a celebratory lunch with friends to find on my desk a large white box with a massive bow. Next to that was the biggest arrangement of roses I had ever seen. I lifted the top of the box off to find a new dress and a note telling me to be ready at 5pm. What 20-something wouldn't be excited by that? It felt like a movie. He picked me up that evening, drove around for a while, and then pulled into a nearby marina where my parents and my friends were waiting on a sailboat for a sunset champagne cruise. After the cruise, we arrived for our dinner reservation at a local fine dining restaurant. As we approached our table, a floral arrangement for my mom was waiting for us. I thought I had found a sensitive, thoughtful man. My mom later told me that she thought, "Well, they don't have much in common, but he seems like he would never hurt her."
The first part of that was correct. He was eight years older, divorced, and had three kids. Not exactly what every girl dreams of, but the person he sold to me was a good person who married someone not interested in the responsibilities of marriage and parenthood. None of that was true. He played the card that his kids were everything to him and he had an awful ex to deal with. I will set the record straight on that immediately that his first wife is a wonderful person, has worked her tail off for her professional accomplishments to provide for her kids, and has been an amazing emotional support to me through all of this. Sometimes I wish that 25-year-old me had been bold enough to sit down with her before I got married, but then I wouldn't have my three wildlings or my three bonus kids - all three of whom I am incredibly grateful to still have good relationships with after all of this.
We dated for a year before getting engaged. He did make the effort to talk to my parents first, who understandably grilled him and he had all of the right answers. They were completely valid in their concerns. Growing up, I attended private school up until high school, was a classically trained dancer, graduated from a liberal arts college, was presented in several debutante balls (welcome to the South haha), and had a large family with whom I was very close. The grilling wasn't only about financial status, and now as I parent I know that all we want is to give our children a life as good as or possibly better than the one we had growing up. His past was always somewhat muddled in nailing down specific timelines, locations, etc. He graduated from high school and claimed to have been in the Navy (even cited his two tattoos as happening during his Navy time), and then had a complicated series of job opportunities in multiple states to work his way towards his current employment. He now worked at the hotel alongside his childhood friend, who gave off massive red flags right away. I told myself that just because his friend seemed shady didn't mean that he was. DO NOT TELL YOURSELF THAT EVER. We are absolutely aligned with the company we keep. Instead, I was convinced I had found someone working hard to better himself due to life experiences beyond his control.
We were engaged for a year; right before getting married, he convinced me that "we" should buy a house but would put it in my name because he had bad credit. I knew about the credit, but yet again, there was a story to explain away any of the negative associations. Well, "we" did get the house. I have lots of memories in that house, most of them good, but ultimately it was the start of his financial control over me and tearing down my credit. After we got married, the next few years involved multiple moves. He was fired from the resort and worked a few jobs locally until getting a job in New Orleans. He came home on weekends for about 9 months until I was able to find work over there and we relocated. After less than a year there, he received a job offer in Houston that moved us again. We stayed in Houston for two & half years before moving back where we started. Throughout all of this, he controlled the finances and I trusted that.
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