My Life Sentence

I left y’all with a declaration in the last post, lol.

I didn’t mean to sound mean. I have to be careful when talking about this person, because Shanes brought it to my attention before while talking about them that I sound really mean. It can sound like I hate them sometimes, and I don’t. I think the thought of him just reminds me of that time and it reminds me of me back then. That old version of me. And ohhhh I hate her. I have nothing but hate towards that old version of me and that’s something Jesus and I are working through. As it stands right now, though, I haven’t made much progress in that department. I can’t show myself grace because I feel like that lets me off the hook in a way.

And I don’t deserve to be “let off the hook”.

I mentioned something to that extent in one of the last posts.

I deserved so much worse than what I got.

I deserved to be left.

And I think because Shane didn’t leave, and because he did forgive me…it makes me want to hate me enough for the both of us.

It’s like I have two me’s. One is the old version, the mean version, the version of me that is so cruel. And the other me is me now. The one who would do anything for Shane. I’d lay my life down for him in a millisecond. I’d do anything that man wanted me to. I’m hooked. He has me wrapped around his finger. I hurt when he hurts, I’m happy when hes happy….when hes mad I want to make it better.

Those two versions are like night and day and there is so much conflict there.

I think I don’t let what I did go because I’m the me now. And I want justice for what was done to my husband.

The hardest thing is wanting justice for the hurt he endured, but I’m the guilty one.

How do you navigate that?

I wish I knew.

I just feel like I have to hold on to all of that because everyone’s let it go. And I don’t feel like that’s fair. I destroyed him. I DESTROYED him.

A lot of you are so loving, and show me so much grace in this area. I’m grateful you don’t judge me for who I was and what I did. I judge me for the both of us though lol.

I understand I have to move on. I try to make Shane think I’ve moved on just so he doesn’t have to relive that nightmare all over again and again.

But I have not moved on.

It’s easy to tell me to move on when you’ve just heard us recount the events. I think if you all had been there in real time, there would be less grace shown towards me. Understandably so.

I know that because I remember him collapsed sobbing. I remember the hurt in his voice when he was begging me to change. I remember how I continually manipulated him and emotionally tore him down til he was a shell of the boy I married.

I can’t unsee any of that.

And THAT is my life sentence. The death penalty would’ve been too easy on me. I have to live everyday with myself and what I did to him.

Every day that I see his drop dead gorgeous face, I’m reminded that at one point I broke him. I broke this mans absolutely beautiful soul.

I’m squalling while typing this right now because that is. So. Hard. To. Live. With.

And don’t get me wrong, I’m not a victim here. This isn’t woe is me. It isn’t “oh my gosh feel sorry for me” sort of thing.

When I tell you all this stuff it’s never for pity. I just try my best to convey how I feel about what I did.

I hope nobody ever mistakes that for me fishing for sympathy.

If you feel sympathy for anybody, feel it for Shane.

We are at the point in the timeline where Shane and I are newly married, new parents, and really just starting our life together.

I told you I came across the boy who I thought was literally dead on facebook. Not him in particular but a photo of him shared by a mutual friend.

I didn’t have anything to do with him then. There was no contact whatsoever. But somewhere in that time frame something in me went south. I went off the rails. I was losing the morale I had worked so hard to have. I had worked hard to build my conscious. I had put in the effort to be a good mom and wife and then boom. It all blew up.

I began playing with fire. People I used to date and talk to were finding their way into my life and I was beginning to entertain people I should’ve never given the time of day as a married woman.

On the other hand, Shane wasn’t allowed to even breathe in the direction of a woman. I was so insecure and he lived in constant fear of me making a mountain out of a mole hill. One time we were at the grocery store and a woman he had known was our cashier. They had never been romantic or anything, they were just friends, and I started a war because he said hi to her and asked her how she had been.

A knock out drag out fight.

I would shove him out of the way and get up on his face and act like a complete and utter fool.

He would never be out of the way with me and he’d just stand there and take it while trying to calm me down.

I don’t know why he was and still is that way with me. He never loses his temper. He never talks hateful to me. He is always genuinely so kind to me all of the time. Even back then, while I was acting so ridiculous, he kept his cool and did his best not to escalate the situation.

The problem is I wanted a fight. I wanted to make him mad because I couldn’t figure out why he wouldn’t get mad at me. In my mind passion was love. Even angry passion I guess you could say. So when he didn’t act a fool like I did when he saw I was talking to someone…to me that said he didn’t care as much as I did.

Is that not the most ridiculous thing you have ever heard?

It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard lol.

But that’s how my 19 year old, 20 year old brain thought.

I can only guess its because every form of love I had received had been warped. I wasn’t sure what love really looked like. A healthy form of love anyway.

So he kept forgiving when I would do stupid stuff and i kept messing up. I purposely pushed his buttons to see how far I could push him and I would get so angry when I didn’t push him over the edge.

I was doing some hardcore projecting. Because If I was the only one losing control something must be wrong with me so I needed to see him lose control so I could sleep at night.

The thing is he didn’t lose control. Ever.

I didn’t do a whole lot in this time frame before Camron. I hovered around the line but wouldn’t cross it.

Eventually, we got pregnant with Cammy and nanny gave me the trailer I had grown up in. My dad had been living there and our relationship struggled heavily during this time because he didn’t think the trailer should be mine. He wanted to keep it.

But he wasn’t paying the lot rent and the trailer was about to be taken by the landlord so he didn’t put up much of a fight.

We moved in and we began raising Colton in the trailer I was raised in which was really bittersweet. It was the trailer my papaw died in so living there again really brought back memories.

The only thing was…I knew we wouldn’t be staying there long. I had come back to the lions den, surrounded by all of these people who hurt me again, and this time I had someone other than myself to protect. So we stayed for only a little while, brought Cammy home to that trailer, had some issues with the trailer (it was falling apart and literally caught on fire late one night). It was going down hill because it hadn’t been taken care of so Shane and I began looking for a new place.

We found this house a few miles down the road that was entirely too expensive for us. It was owner financing and the payment was ridiculous, but it was in a good neighborhood and it was ideal for raising a kid.

In order to keep it we both had to work, though.

Shane would work mornings and I would work afternoons. We didn’t see each other a lot and that was becoming a problem. While living in the trailer I had built up my resolve and had been doing better. But we moved to somewhere we really couldn’t afford and were stressed all the time. We weren’t getting to see one another a whole lot and we didn’t get to spend much time with the kids as a whole family.

It was all a a recipe for disaster, but then the ghost of Christmas past pops up.

Again.

I can’t remember how we came to be in contact with one another again. I can’t remember who reached out to who. All I remember was it wasn’t long before I became the very person I did not want to become. And before long, I crossed the line for the first time as a married woman.

And when you sear your conscious for long enough, it becomes easier to ignore it.

That’s what I did. I ignored my conscious for so long that I couldn’t recognize its voice anymore.

That’s a position I never want to be in again.

That’s a dangerous position to be in