My favorite movie of all time has got to be White Christmas. DH and I watched it the other night. I know its not always safe having the Knight up on that horse because he can fall off, but more than once I've thought how DH was my Knight. I think from this point on, I will refer to him as My Knight instead of DH(dear hubby)... Here's a synopsis of my life in the past 14 or so years that shows how My Knight rescued me from me and my path of destruction...
Growing up, living on a dairy farm in the middle of nowhere, I often felt alone and neglected... unloved even... because as a teen, I couldn't go places or do things other teens did. The cows came first for everybody whether we liked it or not.
I graduated high school and moved to the MSU campus. 20 minutes away lived close family friends that I hadn't gotten to know well yet (they grew up with my mom). Their son, Joe, was a couple years younger than me. From the moment I laid eyes on him I was smitten. He made me feel gorgeous all the time. Not having felt special to anybody before, I allowed too much to happen and my life revolved around him. Physical things meant love and security to me. And once I let things slide so far, I didn't know I was allowed to make it stop.
So, when the school year ended, I went home for the summer. My sister was getting married after spending a year at Bible College in Canada. Many of her friend (several who I had met and had crushes on) came to her wedding. In that one afternoon I decided I had to get away from Joe and MSU and go to that school in Canada. I needed to find a BETTER kind of love... one without so much guilt.
I didn't break up with Joe until later in the fall while I was in Canada. By that time I had met several local boys there who made me realize maybe I wasn't ready to settle for Joe. Then I met Died're (His full name was Deitrich). He was 10 years older than me and a deacon at this Full Gospel (pentacostal) church. This was everything I thought I needed. A Christian man. A leader. and then it started all over again. Abuse... verbal, emotional, sexual... I wasn't skinny enough for him (5'3" and 125 lbs)... He would try to force me to touch him and would "inspect" me... I always felt dirty around him... He told me it was God's will for us to be together and since he was an older, man of God, I believed him... We were engaged quickly and as soon as school finished I moved home to save money for us to get married and for me to move to Canada.
While working at the grocery store in TRF, I met Elvis, who I mentioned in an earlier post. In spite of his faults, he was a rock for me when I realized things with Died're weren't how they should be and I could do better. It was hard for me to break off that relationship... but it was wonderful to have a friend like Elvis to help me see that I was everything Died're didn't think I was and I had no reason to change.
My relationship with Elvis was rocky at best. We had lots of good times, but things weren't always that way. His family loyalty caused problems (not that I didn't want him to be with his family, but that his family tried to rule his life and he let them)... as did the drugs and alcohol. He gave me my first drink... and although I got lots of buzzes being around him from the pot smoke, he wouldn't allow me to try it because he didn't want me to get addicted. His jealousy was another problem. I realized that the night he had too much to drink and flipped out over a phone number on my list by the phone. He punched a hole in my wall! That was when I knew I had to get out.
I still loved him and wanted him to change... wanted to be there for him... but I knew I couldn't stay in the relationship as is. He didn't want me to leave him and as much as I asked him to stay away, he wouldn't. He sent me flowers at work and left me notes at home. I eventually got a restraining order on him. Then his mom started working where I worked (she was a janitor) and I felt she was keeping tabs on me for him. I couldn't take it any more and moved to Moorhead to live with my 2 brothers.
Throughout this time, I had stopped going to church because I knew I wasn't living right and hated who I had become. I felt judged and pitied by everybody there. But I was starting over. I started going to Bethel (the largest Evangelical Free Church in the area) as it was the same type church I grew up in. It was in the Singles Sunday School class that I met Nathan.
He was nice and funny and kind... but he had kidney problems for most of his life since an accident. I took care of him when he didn't feel well and helped him clean up when he had an accident (apparently connected to the kidney problems). He was really naive in many ways. Our relationship was never physical, which was refreshing to not have that pressure. He got me into roller skating which is where I saw My Knight for the first time (although i didn't meet him until a few years later). I don't remember exactly what happened, but something was definately not right. I remember breaking up with him. I remember him saying something about us women all being the same (don't remember what he meant by that) and I remember telling him that if we all broke up with him for the same reasons then maybe we weren't the ones with the problems but he was! I stopped attending church because that's where he was...
I don't remember how it happened, but I got reconnected with an old boyfriend Craig who had hated me for a while... we worked together TRF but he was married and was convinced I was evil or something. Anyway, we started talking and made up (he blames his wife at the time). Because of my desire to be loved and the feeling that physical love was better than no love, our relationship was faster than it should have been... especially since his divorce wasn't official yet. I won't get into the lies he told me to keep me coming back, they aren't important... but I eventually broke up with him also... like Elvis, he didn't want to let go... I just about got a restraining order on him, too, but he finally backed off.
Well, with one bad relationship after another, I went to chat rooms and tried everything to meet "the one". I even had some one-night-stands for which I'm not proud of. I was constantly trying to fill that void with things that would destroy me. Alcohol was a problem... and depression. I finally gave up trying to find a man which was the best thing I could ever do.
My friend, Laura, who I had met through Nathan, convinced me to go back roller skating with her. It had been a couple years and Nathan had apparently moved to California. So, I did. My first time back and I met My Knight.
to be continued...
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