Seven

Even though I am now very outgoing and outspoken, very confident, as a teen I was extremely shy. Once approached, I made fast and easy friends, but I never initiated contact with new people. So when I met my first husband (I'm going to call him X from now on- as in "the ex") where I was a temp at his office, I was 25, still living at home with my parents, plus I had never learned to drive a car. I had screwed up self-confidence issues back then, and was scared about getting behind the wheel, so I just didn't want to drive. Mind you, I owned a car, because my parents bought me one when I was 18- a cute little silver sports car with a hatchback and a turbo engine- hoping I would be motivated to learn to drive. As it was, I didn't learn to drive it until I was 30, and my mom would just use it on occasion in the meantime. So when I met X, I was not an independent woman at all. Had never lived alone, never gone on vacation with girlfriends, never spent the whole night at a guy's place, and daddy had to drive me to work. I had just finished going to college, which happened to be in our hometown and I was able to ride the bus there while I lived at home, which foolishly made me feel "independent" in my own way. When I met X, I hadn't dated anyone seriously in about two years, and I think in meeting him I was overly needy and immature and latched onto him because he was interested in me. I had been engaged once before, and after three years I called it off because I didn't want to get married so young. And I had an ex-boyfriend from high school who I would see off and on, whenever he came back to town. But I had never had a serious "adult relationship" in the truest sense. It was not love at first sight with X, and I am not sure I ever really loved him, now that I am married to a wonderful man and actually know what real love is like. X and I only knew each other for a few weeks before we started dating, and only a few weeks of dating led to us moving in together. To this day my mother swears, and she firmly believes, that I did not love him, I was only using him as a stepping stone to leave my parents' house, and that I was scared to live alone so chose to live with him instead. Maybe she is right, and I can say for sure, I didn't know any better back then. He treated me like shit from almost the beginning, leaving me home alone so he could go get high and party all night long, and then expecting me to shut up about it and not nag him or complain. This was right away, from the first few months. I was not used to behavior like that, my dad came home from the office and was always home with the family every night, that was the only thing that I knew. I can remember one Friday night, when X was out and hadn't come home, and it was after midnight already, I was hysterical with crying and certain that he had to be dead somewhere. I called all his friends, the ones he was supposed to be with, but no one had seen him. I started to call hospitals, the sheriff's office, the highway patrol trying to find out if he'd been in an accident. I called my parents, overwrought with fear. But he came sauntering in hours later, and I vented my worries and told him of my visions of his car in a ditch, of him dead. He only grew angry with me for checking on him and calling his party buddies, telling me I was acting stupid. This was how our new home life as a couple started out, and I should have gone running back to mom and dad, but I accepted this as part of growing up and learning to be in a relationship with a man. If I'd had better self-esteem, if I'd been more mature and independent, if I'd had a fucking brain in my head- I would have thrown his junk out the window and told him to go party but he was no longer welcomed to live with me. The townhouse was entirely in my name, he was actually living there illegally anyhow. My parents and their friends helped move me into the place, and he never showed up until three days later when everything was done. All he brought with him was his clothes and a few towels. It would have been so easy back then to kick him out, to send him back home to live with his mother, and at this point I was even working somewhere else so I wouldn't have had to see him ever again. My townhouse was only a few miles from my parents' house, I actually walked there on occasion since I still wasn't driving and X never wanted to see my parents (or his own for that matter). The relationship was a disaster from day one, and it only got worse when we moved three states away, then got married. I was really stuck at that point.