Here we are at the last installment of Jeff gets duped. I have been reliving this in my dreams and thoughts during the day. There is more to this story than I can possibly write. Twelve years is a long time. Lots of abuse. Most of it mental.
You may wonder if I fought back. Of course I did, with every fiber of my being. There were two physical attacks that should have ended everything for most logical people. But this was more emotional than logical.
The first one was late at night. We had been up watching horror films, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, those sort of themes . I had already gone to bed, only to be awakened by him standing over me with a butcher knife in hand. I told him it was not funny. And then fear set in because he didn’t end the gag. We struggled and I got the knife away from him. No one was murder that night, but I had a new fear instilled in me. I was genuinely afraid of him.
The second one that comes to mind was in the car. He was a bad driver so I usually drive. After all you can’t primp in the rearview mirror and keep your eyes on the road. We had gone through a drive thru and we’re head to Fran’s house. Something about his food wasn’t right and he wanted me to go back and get them to fix it. I refused. He got angry and smashed his hamburger into the side of my face. I pulled the care over in a rage of my own and told him to get out. We were only a few blocks from Fran’s. I left him there…I should have never come back for him.
Now we move to the main event. I got a great job with a bank in San Francisco. After several jobs, he landed on one that seemed to fit. He was doing well. It was a discount store. I even helped out on weekends with him.
It was all going well. They offered him his own location in the East Bay. I was happy. I thought I had fixed him. Little did I know what was coming.
He was unfixable.
Before you start wondering why I stayed with this man, you need to know there were good times. There were times of great joy. But that is not what this is about. This is about the dark shadow that eventually broke me.
When I made the decision to end it, I got in the car and went to Target. Shopping has always been a calming event for me. This time I just sat in my car in the parking lot and cried for what seemed like a very long time. I am not sure if these were tears of relief or failure. My emotions were all over the place, but this time I was not going to let him win. This was it, we were through.
He panicked about getting his own store and ultimately turned it down. Not only that he quit his job all together. He was home alone again while I worked to keep us a float.
After a week he still hadn’t started a new job. He told me he was going down to LA for a body building competition (to watch) and that he was staying with some guy he met at the gym. I didn’t push for details. This time I was going to give him some slack and see what happened.
After the trip to LA he was different. He was doing something that didn’t involve me. I was relieved. But I knew better.
He was on the phone with this guy all the time. I was worried about the phone bill. But again I let him continue down this path. What’s that saying, give um enough rope and they will eventually hang themselves.
There was a second trip to LA. When he returned he was excited about moving again. He wanted me to transfer to LA. The bank was going through a merger and the job I had was eventually going to be in LA.
I told him no. I wanted to stay in the Bay area.
The pressure for me to move continued for a few days. Then I caught on the phone in the middle of the night. Instant trigger for me. Who was he talking to? He said it was the guy in LA. I bumped the lamp and discovered two hundred dollar bills he had hidden. Where did these come from?
That was it. I confronted him about Mr LA. (Turns out he actually lived in Colton, close enough, but the significance of this is that was where he was headed all those years ago when I offered to let him move in with me.)
He denied any relationship with the guy other than friends. But why would he pay for his airfares and give him money, he wasn’t getting something in return? Two hundred dollars was a lot of money in the 90’s. Heck it’s a lot now!
In away I let all of this happen by turning a blind eye. I needed something tangible. While I really didn’t care about him cheating on me, I felt betrayed. It was more than sex. He had violated the importance of our relationship. He found a new source for his illicit behavior. It was a real person. I was less important as a result. That was what I needed to make him leave.
I was terribly nice about it. He needed me to help him move so we waited for the next three days weekend. We loaded the car and truck with the things he owned or I allowed him to take to his new apartment. It was a six hour drive. I think I cried all the way there, but not in front of him. We unloaded everything, he kept the truck and I drove home.