Let's Start at the Very Beginning

 It has been 37 years since I met my ex-husband.   My decision to share my experiences has not been made lightly.  I had written my story out a decade ago with my husband's blessings, but the pain of reliving the memories and the concern for my children kept me from publishing them.  I had written two other books only to put them on the back burner for other reasons.

Lately, I have pondered whether God is happy with me and if I am fulfilling my purpose. A friend once called that feeling "divine discontent."

With the discussion at the Hope on the Hill Meeting - see "What Charity Suffereth Long Does Not Mean" - I felt like I had my answer.  I needed to share the abuse I experienced during my first marriage.  Abuse is wrong but also happens far more than anyone realizes.  The abusers don't want anyone to know they are guilty of it and abusees don't want anyone to know they are putting up with it.  I am embarrassed to admit that I did.

I have shared some of the details with a few close friends.  Even my own mother had not heard the worst of it.  Those who have heard have all responded with a version of:  "Why did you wait so long to leave?"

For years I've referred to myself as stupid, too trusting, too loving, too idiotic.  I've wanted to keep that part of me tucked neatly away so that no one could see my stupidity despite being judged harshly by many who thought they had the right to.

As I've re-read my journals in order to verify my memories, I've rolled my eyes and stifled a gag more times than I care to admit. 

Just last night, I finally found some mercy for my young self after beating myself up for decades.  I hope you'll also have mercy;  Mercy for me, but also for my ex whom I've decided to refer to as Brennan.  I chose this name for two reasons - 1) I cannot think of anyone I know of a close nature and 2) the name means "sorrow" and I shed buckets of tears over "Brennan."

I hope we have both learned from our mistakes and are better people today.  I admit, I know very little about Brennan nowadays.  I used to have a recurring nightmare that I was back in that marriage.  I would wake up with night sweats, a racing heart and so much fear, so relieved seconds later to realize it was just a dream.

My Senior year of high school started out with promise.  A boy I had a crush on in 10th grade had come to work at the Casket Company I had been desperate enough to take a job at my Junior year.  He and I had become friends, playing racquetball and working out at the Sports Haven Club in Taylorsville, UT.  I loved his blond hair and brown eyes. I loved spending time with him.  He would show up at the oddest places.  I would look over on the freeway off-ramp to see him in the car next to me.  I would pull into the library and there he was.  I even took the day off work  to go to USU two hours away to test for a scholarship only to run into him outside the dorms they had put us in.  He was visiting a friend and had taken the day off as well.  

Miss Thayne, my 10th grade English teacher, had overheard my conversation with Kelli about a different guy I liked.  Miss Thayne said, Brad (name changed) is not the guy for you.  Do you know Matt ___?  Matt was a football player and a senior at my high school.  I didn't know him but I had heard of him.  I went to the yearbook room and looked up his picture and that was enough to catch my attention.

I took a work release from school to work at Nielco Sheet Metal Winter semester of my Junior year after receiving a referral from my Computer Science teacher, Judy Hurd.  Several months later, Gary Nielsen decided to hire someone full-time (something I could not do as a high school student) and I was without a job.  I saw the ad for a secretary on the school job board and applied out of desperation.  I needed to pay my car payment and have a grade for my work release classes.  Imagine my surprise, when I learned that Matt would be working that summer at the casket company.

I came so close to telling Matt of my feelings one night at Wendy's after some racquetball.  He was treating me to a frosty.  I just didn't have the guts to put my heart out there and let him know I was interested in more than just friendship.  Besides that, Matt had received his mission call to Ireland and I knew that we would soon be leaving.  I hoped that when he returned from Ireland, we'd be able to pick up our friendship and maybe there would be more. 

I began working at the Sports Haven and  quit working at the Casket Company just as Matt was leaving on his mission.  One of my co-workers introduced me to Brennan who came into workout occasionaly during my shift.  I trusted Troy's opinion of Brennan and he had nothing but good things to say.  

Brennan's way of flirting was cringe-worthy: he wrote his name next to mine on the tanning booth and said we'd share the cost. In hindsight, a red-flag for sure, but I figured he was kidding.  Plus, he drove a really nice, new Bronco II and worked a full-time job as a cop.  When the guys at high school were working minimum wage jobs, a guy who knew what he wanted to do was very appealing. 

I had my own faults.  I had developed an eating disorder after my sister died. With feelings of inadequacy, body dysmorphia, and shame, I had found it hard to attend church.  After moving in with my grandma, I attended Sacrament meeting with her, but had opted not to go to 2nd and 3rd hour.  The kids in Grandma's ward also went to the same high school I did.  It was easier not to go, than to deal with attending church with kids that knew of me from school.  I took the easy way out.

Still, I never stopped wanting a temple marriage.  I asked Brennan about that on our first date.  He said his parents were married in the temple and that he wanted his future family raised in the church.  He ordered milk on our first date for crying out-loud.  

Salt City Jail - Now the location of Anniversary Inn on 500 South

 

Our courtship was romantic.  He took me out to fancy restaurants: the Salt City Jail, Seaman James Bartley's and Pardners, encouraging me to try the most expensive items on the menu.  I fell for him fast.  It was so nice to have someone tell me I was beautiful.  

Brennan joined me for Sacrament at my ward when he was not working and even took me to a ward activity in his ward before we married.  He taught me to shoot a bow, took me fishing, and signed us up to learn the Western Swing.

It was there that another red-flag was exposed.  One night at our dance class, I was taken by surprise when he threw my hands down and angrily muttered that I had taken the wrong step.  I was sure the couples next to us could hear him too.  I was humiliated by how he was speaking to me and honestly wasn't sure that I had taken a wrong step at all.  I was concerned enough by the outburst to tell myself that I would not be signing up for another dance class with him.  

 One night he was supposed to go with me to a friend's wedding reception and didn't show up.  I ended up going with my girlfriend.  He called late that night.  I was angry at being stood up.  He was upset with me for not asking why.  He had cut his finger while sharpening arrows for his bow and ended up in the Emergency Room for stitches.  I had been in the E.R. and suspected he spent a bit of time in the waiting room with a pay phone handy.  He said his housemate, Ken had taken him.  I asked why Ken couldn't have called me and told me he wouldn't be picking me up rather than having me left wondering and worrying.  The conversation quickly deteriorated to him saying he wasn't good enough for me and that I should find someone else.  I agreed.  We broke up for 24 hours over that one.

One night after he wanted me to come over to his house when we would be alone, I told him I didn't think that was a good idea.  He went to a bar instead to find someone willing to make-out with him.  He called me at work the next day to tell me all about it.  Red, red, red flag.

Somehow I didn't see the big picture.  I thought if I avoided dance classes, or once we were married and marital relations were a thing, I would avoid his wrath.  There was something missing in my logic.

Sifting through the things in a relationship and deciding what things are deal breakers is difficult and it doesn't end at marriage.  Looking backwards, there were clear things I should have seen, but chose to continue seeing him for all the good things about him and because I loved him and eventually because I couldn't see me with anyone else. 

Brennan and I dated a year before we got engaged. He told me that he had some things to work on and wasn't ready for a temple marriage, but if I would marry him we would go through the temple on our one-year anniversary.  I believed him.  I still believe he meant it when he said it.

We married 6 months later - a year after I graduated from high school and not long before my 20th birthday.

I began to question my decision a few days later on the honeymoon.