Unanticipated Love

I found out about the cheating on October 13, 2019. That was the day after he came home from his first work rotation. I put it behind me. He swore, he cried, he pleaded, that it would never happen again. I let it go. I enjoyed the week because I hadn’t seen him in two months. We carried on shopping and visiting family and friends like everything was normal but deep down I felt the change. This had been a debilitating blow to the relationship.

He worked in Maine. I was living in his home state of Mississippi after a messy end to my previous 12-year relationship and divorce. I missed New Orleans with all my heart and so any chance I had to go home was a treat. His flight back to work was out of Louis Armstrong in Kenner, just outside New Orleans.

I dropped him off early on October 18 for the flight. I was cool and unbothered at his departure. He felt it. I visited my family in the city, took myself out to dinner, and hit the highway that evening back to the country. The next day my mind was getting the best of me about the infidelity. I still had access to his Instagram via my spare phone, which is what he had been using while at work since his phone was broken. He had gotten a new phone and brought mine back on his week home from work. I looked in his messages. He was an idiot. He had failed to log out of any social media. He had not deleted anything. From the moment I dropped him off up at the airport until that very moment, as I looked in his Instagram messages, he was messaging women again. He was telling them to call him. He had been trying to get in contact with one all day, so on and so forth. He was talking to so many women I couldn’t keep count! He was propositioning them for sex but saying he didn’t want to pay them. Most of them were escorts. He was too naïve to realize that all they wanted was his money. I was disappointed at his actions and shocked by his ignorance.

He had pursued me for three years via social media before I gave in and finally went on a date with him. He was pursuing me even before I left Louisiana, but in a friendly way. He knew I was married first and then healing from divorce and I would not entertain anything romantic. He portrayed himself as a nice guy, deeply religious, a junior minister in his church. He had everyone fooled. As I read old messages, I realized he was also pursuing two other women over the same amount of time he had been pursuing me! He messaged so many women that it that was impossible to keep track. So many of them simply ignored him. He was an inbox creep. I was disgusted.

As I sat on the back porch looking at the rain, the trees, the beautiful pasture, I knew the relationship was over. Between the seasons changing and this, I slipped into a depression. The thought of moving again took my anxiety to an all-time high. I needed a full-time job, and fast.

I dyed my hair blue that night and got in the bed. For six days I only got out of bed to go to the bathroom and to the liquor store. I drank whiskey, wine, and vodka and I slept. I didn’t answer the phone and I didn’t check my messages.

October 24

My lifelong friend from childhood came to the house and let herself in. She walked into my bedroom and demanded to know what was going on. Reluctantly, I told her that I caught him cheating. She flipped. She was angrier than I was. I cried. She lamented. She couldn’t believe it because of his image and demeanor. He was soft spoken, quiet, shy. She took me to the store to get food for the house and essentials. I went home and got back in bed.

The next day I woke up and I actually got up. I took a bath and got dressed. I cooked. I decided I was going to do something to make myself feel better. “Now, what exactly makes a heart feel better,” I wondered. I thought about it all day. That evening I was scrolling Facebook and I saw a post from an old coworker of mine, and it said “Don’t heart my shit unless you’re single or ready to cheat...” The post had two laugh reacts and a like. He wasn't popular on social media, but I remember him being very smart. He dressed like a trap rapper with skinny jeans. I giggled to myself, "Kids these days." I remembered hugging him after he quit when he used to come back by the job. His chin didn’t even touch the top of my head when he hugged me back. He was so tall. He was light skinned which was not my type, but handsome. Funny. Smart. We had similar ideas on religion. Gun enthusiast. No kids.

*heart react*

We will come back to that heart react...

Nov 22

Fast forward a couple of weeks. Before leaving to go back on work rotation, my boyfriend and I had planned for me to spend Thanksgiving up north because he could not get enough time off. He flew me up and things were okay for one day. We started arguing on the second day because it seemed like he could not live without drama. He and three other guys lived in a house together and he talked to me like shit in front of them. One evening I was in the kitchen and I was talking he put his hand over my mouth and nose and smothered me in front of one of his housemates. I was so angry I went upstairs and cried for about 20 minutes and then called a cab to come get me in the middle of rural Maine in an impending snowstorm. But I didn’t leave. We finished out that week and a half shopping, eating, acting like nothing was wrong. Then it was time to go to Boston to see my friends. Truth be told, that was the only reason I didn’t cancel the trip when I found out about the cheating.

I was so excited as we drove through New Hampshire. It was beautiful and I was in a great mood but the closer got to the hotel to check in, he began bickering and arguing about parking. I only had one hour to get dressed to meet my friends and he fussed as we got ready to go. I stopped, looked dead at him and I told him that if he planned on ruining my night to please stay at the hotel because these people were (are) extremely important to me and this is the first time we would all be together. Of course, he was not going to let me go alone.

Everything was fine during dinner. The turning point was when my 300lb 6-foot-6 friend showed up. Although his partner was there, who is also my friend, that was a huge issue. When I ran up and greeted my huge friend and we hugged, my boyfriend, D, immediately stopped interacting with us for the rest of the meal.

Nov 30

We left the restaurant and went to a club where my gigantic friend was a bouncer. He was feeding us round after round of drinks. We were laughing, taking pics, dancing. I had to save one of the guys from an aggressive guy making advances and grinding on him. We were having so much fun. Most of us were switching between water and Hennessy but D wasn’t. He was drinking Henn after Henn. He’s 135lbs... I kept offering him water, but he was refusing. He was drunk. I ignored him mostly. I looked up at one point and there was a girl trying to dance on him and then he called me over and slurred “this is my girlfriend”. I just walked away and continued to have fun with my friends. Toward the end of the night, I looked over and saw D throwing up in the corner. I told everyone I had to go and my friend, the strongest and most sober one of our group, had to physically bring D to the car and put him in. He roused and began yelling at me as I was trying to park at the hotel. I ignored him. I was just done and over it. And him. It was 2:30 AM and we were back in the hotel room. He continued to scream and ramble about his supervisor at work and my gigantic friend. He was incoherent, agitated and aggressive. He was talking about homosexuality and slurring nonsense. I went downstairs, heated up my food in the empty bar area, sat and ate it. I was trying to give him time to cool off. When I got back upstairs, and he was still flipping out. I told him to calm down and be quiet because the room was ridiculously small, and people were asleep around us. At that point he began punching me in my head, still mumbling something about his coworker and my friend. I was stunned. I could not believe he was actually hitting me. It took me a moment to gain my composure and I picked up the Hennessy bottle off the floor, bashed him in the head with it, pushed him down and ran out of the room into the hallway and stairwell.

Dec 1

I walked downstairs and remained in the stairwell trying to figure out what I was going to do but it was too late. Several people on the floor had already called the police. I saw the lights flashing outside as I opened the exit door. I gave it some time and I went back to the room. He was gone, arrested. A few minutes later the police knocked on the door and asked me first statement. I told them I was fine, but I knew how it worked, if I did not press charges then the state would.

The rental car was in my name and it had to be returned to Maine. I was alone in Boston. My flight home from Logan International was that evening. I couldn't drive back to Maine and get back to Boston in time and I refused to involve my friends so, there was no choice left. I had to get him out of jail so he could take the car back to Maine.

I went to sleep for about 2 1/2 hours and woke up at 6 AM that Sunday morning in a city foreign to me, and went to go find out how to bail him out of jail. When I finally figured it out, I tried to get the $540 out of an ATM but my debit card was frozen on fraud alert from trying to Cash App a firend my portion of the dinner bill the previous evening. I eventually got the cash and when he got in the vehicle, he started asking me what happened. He pretended like he did not remember hitting me. We got a room to try to rest before I flew out. I ordered food and took a bath. He could feel that everything had changed between us. He laid in the bed and faked crying and I felt nothing but contempt. I went to sleep alone in the other bed, woke up, and flew back to the south with no intention of continuing the relationship.

Back to October 25

That heart react made its way to the inbox somehow and later that night, I asked that former coworker, Yella, to bring me some Hennessy and a pizza from the store. He came within the hour and I fixed myself a Henn and Coke, then another. I told him about the cheating. He told me I should have just chosen him because I knew him first and I wouldn’t be going through that. Shocked, I told him I had no idea he was interested. We talked and it was natural because we used to work together every day so there was no awkward period. Then he asked me what he was getting in return for the Hennessy and food. I crawled in his lap and kissed him, and he laid back in the bed... thirty minutes later I realized I just how terrible the sex had been since I left my husband. But that was all over now. I had intended on using him for the night, but it was too good for that. He was too good for that. Would we be together? I doubted it. He was 23 and his age was a huge factor, but I had more pressing issues. I had to move because I was living in D’s empty house. And soon. I knew I was still taking the Thanksgiving trip, but I also knew I would never trust him again and I had to move on with my life.

Dec 2

My plane landed in New Orleans at 12:35am and a friend dropped me at my mom’s to get D’s truck. I had been driving it while my car was being repaired but the repairs were lasting months. I’d had little to no service up north, so I called Yella immediately. He was unhappy I had seen D. I had not yet told him about the physical abuse. I made it home and continued to look for a new job and figure out where to move. I wanted to move back home to New Orleans but rent prices would not allow and the two people I kept asking to go in on a place with me were dragging their feet. In the meantime, Yella was seeing me every night. I was seriously falling for him and in the process realizing how much of D’s drama and antics had made me lose my feelings for him. D felt like a job. Yella felt like a vacation. The more I was with Yella, the ease of his presence, the way he held me close throughout the whole night, the way he kissed me deeply, the way he looked at me, the way he touched my face, the way he did exactly what he said and when he said it, the way he never yelled, just everything about him made me realize how hard I had to try to be with D. I was not trying at all to be with this young man. I was just enjoying it. One day I was anxious & crying, and he just pulled me in his arms and at that moment. I remembered that every time I cried my ex-husband used to just yell at me to stop crying and D would just stand there and look at me. Yella was different. But what was I even doing? I was not even fully out of the other bad relationship, but he was seeing me through it. He was truly there for me with no expectations. The concept was foreign to me. I started realizing that maybe it was the familiarity of the way my husband used to treat me that made me comfortable being uncomfortable with D. I do not think I was ready for relationship yet so soon when I got into one with D. I still had some healing to do but my willingness to walk away from him let me know that all those wounds were healed. I just wanted to be happy and from that point on, I was not going to let anything stop me from doing that.

Before the incident in Boston, our plan had been for me to fly up with D for Christmas and look for a place to live for a permanent move in January. That wasn’t happening now obviously. I wanted to buy time, so I waited until right before my holiday flight to tell him I was not coming. My family had made plans to come spend Christmas with me in the country. After the holiday, I planned on moving out. When I told him I wasn’t coming, he told me he was flying home last minute. I was angry. I did not want to see him. I wanted to cut ties smoothly, but he was not going to allow that. I told Yella reluctantly, but it was almost over.

Dec 21

The very first night home, he went through my purse while I was asleep. He called people from my phone and deleted some of my Facebook friends, including my bouncer friend, who is very dear to me. He realized I had a gun in my purse (Yella gave me one after I told him D hit me). He took it, went outside, started shootings it then threw it in a creek outside the house. I called his parents and told them to please come get him. They came and sat us down and said some nonsense about people needing to have more in common than sex and other unimportant religious rambling about being equally yolked. She basically said that I wasn't good enough for her son, but in a sweet condescending Christian way. At that point, I knew they just wanted us apart because I was showing them who he truly was by telling them the things he was doing to me. And they didn’t want to hear it. They felt like because he is a Christian and I’m an atheist that it wasn’t working out and if he could just get back in church, everything would be OK. Never mind the fact that he’s a goddamn sociopath. Totally irrelevant, apparently. They had an image to maintain in the community and the church and getting him serious help was the last thing they were going to try to do.

Dec 31

D had been home for 10 days and I was so ready to be away from him that I rented a car for New Year’s, picked up Yella and we went to New Orleans. I was immediately at ease when we checked into our hotel. I took him uptown to get daiquiris and wings. We went out and walked the Quarter. We ate late on Decatur. When we crawled in the bed, I was asleep instantly. I felt safe. I had missed him. I was in love with a boy 14 years my junior and it was going to be okay.

Jan 4

Finally, the day came for D to fly back up north. I took him to the airport, and he told me he didn’t have any money, so I gave him $100. When his plane landed, he called me yelling at me and asking me where I got money from. I told him that I had money set aside to move out and he proceeded to yell until I hung up. This money I had not gotten from him and he was terribly angry about it. We had a joint bank account, but I kept a stash in cash hidden from my self employment. I had $3500 to move. He demanded to know how much I had. I refused to tell him. His next payday I looked at the account and realized that he moved all the money to his other account he had joint with his mom. I called him and told him that bills in the house were due and he told me to tell him what was due because he would pay them and since I had my own money set-aside he wasn’t going to be looking out for me anymore. He told me if I gave him half of my money, he would put money into our joint account again. I had no formal job at that point, and he made about $2000 a week and was paid biweekly. I decided the best way to exit would be by telling his that went to jail for hitting me and that the reasons his only other girlfriend had a restraining order against him were valid. I had spoken to the ex, so I sent his parents pics of her restraining order, which included threats of physical harm and rape. I also told his mother about his drinking from the moment he gets up until the moment he goes to sleep and that he smokes weed. I wanted to shatter a little bit more of the perfect Christian boy image he portrays while he walks around feeling superior to everyone else. I wouldn't have done that had she not made it clear she felt he was better than me because I was divorced and an atheist.

Jan 5

I talked to Yella and told him that I really had to get out of that house immediately before D had an option to come back. He said fine and told me what area to go look for a house in. The dilemma was that I was still driving D’s truck and I was about to move out. I had purchased a new motor for my vehicle and D was supposed to have had it replaced a month and a half prior, but it was not done. He was procrastinating on paying the mechanic. I’d had his truck since August when he left and went up north. Anyway, I told D I was about to leave, but he did not believe me and said I could have anything I wanted if I did leave. So, I took the furniture. But I will get back to that.

Since I had gotten back from Massachusetts, D had been stalking my family and friends online. I was not really communicating with him at that point because I was focused on moving and finding a job because I was baking and selling cakes, but it wasn’t enough to live on. The cyber stalking got worse. I would block him from calling because he would call me 40 or 50 times a day. He would call from fake app numbers or unknown numbers. He would call my mother, my best friends, and my spare phone. He was finding anyone he thought I was connected to online and stalking their pages, including liking photographs of me from five and eight years ago that friends had deep in their albums online. He would go down their pages and like every single status. People would take the screenshots of their notifications and send them to me because he would be doing it at 3 and 4 AM. He was having his cousin spy on me and follow me. I told everyone to block him, but he kept finding ways. Yella refused to block him, though. He was also one of the people D called when he went through my phone back on December 21.

Jan 14

I had already spent two days looking for a place and I found a few houses. I showed Yella and he told me his preference. I paid the rent and deposit, got the lights and water cut on. I found a job and got settled.

It was a Wednesday; I rented a 26-foot U-Haul and filled it up with everything in the house. It was muddy outside, and I got the U-Haul as well as D’s truck stuck in the mud. I didn’t care. I paid $150 to get the U-Haul unstuck and Yella’s mom’s friend got the other truck out. It was me Yella, his mom, his brother, and their cousin. We got everything loaded and moved into the new house by that night. D flew home within two days and went to his mother's. On the third day he realized I had taken everything, and his dad started calling me and texting me telling me to bring the stuff back. At that time, I mentioned that I had a text message from D telling me that I could take whatever I wanted from the house. I started getting texts saying they were going to call the police on me, and I told him to go ahead.

I told him that he could have his truck back when my vehicle, which he had, was repaired. After several days of threats from him and draining conversation, he finally sent the money to fix my vehicle and to have it towed. I dropped his truck off in the Walmart parking lot and locked the keys in it.

Jan 25

8:21pm, I text him and told him where he could pick it up. I ended the message with “have a nice life” and I blocked him.

10:26pm. We were asleep. My phone rang from an unknown number. I knew it was him, so I picked it up and gave it to Yella. He said hello. D said hello. Yella asked what he wanted. D asked for me. Yella told him he had the wrong number and hung up. I turned the phone off. We wrapped our arms around each other and went back to sleep.

October 2020

It has been one year since that happened and I am still with Yella. This is the best relationship I have ever been in.