I
was born in Oregon to my biological mother, who I was told, gave me up for
adoption to her mother, my biological maternal grandmother. I knew my
biological mother, saw her from time to time, but I identified her as my older
sister even though I knew she was my biological mother. I viewed her as “the
cereal box that the prize came in” for me, as the prize. I was always treated as older, smarter and
on-par with adults as a child. My mother would take me to fancy restaurants, to
plays, to museums and other places that are typically not for young children. I
feel it helped me behave better and learn social skills.
As
a child we lived in Provo, Utah and I had a very charmed existence. My mom he let me have my way basically
all the time, I was taken out of school just to spend the day with my mom. We
had several foreign exchange students and one invited us to come visit her in
Germany. We took a trip to Germany and while there we traveled all over Europe
and were spoiled by our hosts. I was maybe 5 or 6 at the time, and I only
remember fragments of it now. My mother spoiled me, I remember specifically my 5th birthday
party I had a pony for my invitees to ride. I remember at 12 I got $100 to spend at Toys’R’Us. During my childhood I wanted a sister badly and prayed often for one, and when I was 7 my biological mom had another daughter, who my biological grandmother adopted at birth.
The kids I went to
school with were all from perfect nuclear families, not one was from a divorced
family. It
was a surreal experience looking back, that no one but me was from a single
parent household in my elementary class. I suppose a great part of the reason I
was in that situation was because we lived in “Mormonville, USA”, and family is
#1 priority among the Latter-Day Saint population. I was raised in the Mormon
church, and it influenced a lot of the guilt and shame I felt as a teenager. I
bloomed in Utah, I had many friends, I felt secure. I felt safe there, I would
walk alone to my friends’ houses and to and from school. It was a bubble of
safety and security there. One oddity was that I was absolutely boy crazy from
birth, but in Utah and among Mormon culture, dating is exclusively for 16-year-olds
and older. I felt shunned by the boys in my class early on, but looking back,
it may have been that the boys and girls did not associate due to our ages in
elementary school and typically children choose members of their own sex to
associate with. Still, a classmate or two I recall as having friends of both
genders, I was just not among that number. I was hopelessly awkward around boys
and doomed to have a crush on any boy who gave me the time of day. Towards age
12 and on, boys and girls matured a little and a crush of mine was returned
(finally in my eyes). I got a “boyfriend” in 6th grade, which meant
we talked and wrote notes to one another, but more than spending time together,
we did not ever even touch.
As
I matured and went to Middle School I made even more friends and felt even as
if I were “popular”, not as in being part of the in-crowd, that was never my
goal, but that I was friends with a very diverse population at school, I
accepted everyone as a friend if they wanted or needed a friend I was that
friend.
I
was in “Drama Camp” the summer before 7th grade, I took it with a
friend from my elementary class. We had a lot of fun and I met several girls
that I became friends with. In 7th Grade I took several “artsy”
classes including drama, art, chorale, guitar and I participated in every
school play there was and a talent show (where a friend and I sang “Leaving on
a Jet Plane” while I played guitar). I submersed myself in cultural and
artistic things, just like I was raised to do apparently. My mother instilled
in me a great love of the arts, performing and theatrics.
My entire 7th
Grade experience was a pleasant one, and then we had to choose where to move.
My mom gave me the choice, I got to pick where we lived from that point
forward. The choices were to stay in Provo but find a new home, move to
Illinois where my mother was from, or move to Clovis, NM where my biological
uncle and his wife and kids lived. I do not remember how long I took to decide,
but my cousins drew me here. I wanted them to grow up knowing me and my family
so the summer before 8th Grade we took a U-Haul truck and moved to
Clovis without a backup plan and without a somewhere to live in place.
Upon
arrival in Clovis, we stayed with my brother (biological uncle) and his family
one night, and then I left to church camp. One nice thing about the LDS church
is that it is everywhere. I went to camp, not knowing anyone, and feeling very
much like a fish out of water. I had been popular, I could make friends easily
before, but I had always had some other friend there too. I had no experience
being alone and having to have no common experiences to share in order to make
friends. I did not have a good time at camp, I felt different, and out of place
to say the least. My church experience with those set of girls went much that
same way ever after. I was always the outsider, they were always the close-knit
click. My struggle to attend church before Clovis was nonexistent, but once
here I did not want to go, even though I did for a long while.
At
school I gravitated to the arts again, I took art and choir, but was not
allowed to take drama because it was a class only for 9th graders I
was told. In choir I had a church friend, so I became friends by default with
all of her friends. Boys and girls
associated even more here in Clovis than I had ever dealt with before this, it
was new but I welcomed it. I was so in love with boys that the chance to talk
to them was terrific fun! I had attempted to make male friends in Provo, and I
chatted with several boys during my classes but I inevitably had feelings for
every single one.
I
had my second “boyfriend” in 8th Grade for about a month (my first
boyfriend and I broke up over the phone sometime previous, after at least a
year of supposedly dating). My new guy was just like me, very academic, was in
choir and full of yearning to love and be loved, we were kindred spirits. His
family made him break up with me because of religious differences, and it broke
my heart. It was the first time I had been judged for my religion in my entire
life. He and I wanted at least to remain friends, but he went into homeschool
after that year, and we did not stay in contact.
In
9th Grade I met a new beau, in choir once again. My first boyfriend was also teased and socially inept, I became a
sucker for the downtrodden. This boyfriend was the first “real” relationship,
which involved holding hands and I even got my first kiss from him. We stayed
together for 1 ½ years but my eye wandered when I moved up to high school and
he was still in junior high. I broke it off with him even though he was pretty
much the perfect standard of what girls dream of having in a suitor. I was
young and naïve, I thought all men would treat me this well. Boy was I in for a
shock!
I
had a good high school experience, it was filled with me hitting my stride once
again. I was better at making friends, I accepted everyone once more. I floated
between stereotypes and groups within school, I did not fit any category and I
had friends from a myriad of groups. I met my future ex-husband during my
sophomore year, he was great friends with my best friend (who had stalked me
all the summer before until we were inseparable). Of course, a love triangle
ensued, as it had to in our situation. Our trio broke when my ex-husband chose
me over my best friend. I was self-absorbed and I failed to notice her
feelings, I failed to see how much it hurt that I was chosen. I simultaneously
spent more and more time with my future ex-husband and drifted away from my
best friend. I was blissfully unaware I was doing so, I was so wrapped up in
the new relationship. I regret my selfishness immensely.
So
my new guy was a wreck, the biggest project I have undertaken to date. He had a
bad family situation where everyone blamed him for everything bad. He was very
reactive as well, and I see that he brought on a lot of the criticism himself
due to his lazy habits and his selfish behavior as well as being combative. I
was blind, as one inevitably is when falling in love, and I ignored all his bad
behavior and was staunchly on his side about everything. We were together a
little over a year and a half when we more or less eloped. Well, we married in
my mom’s living room with my family and our mutual best friend there, but none
of his family was told nor invited. That was a mess, for sure. I made so many
mistakes in regards to everything about him. I should have been solely friends
with this poor broken soul, I should have supported from a distance, and not
entangled myself in his wreck of a life. I should have not married him at 18 in
the middle of our senior year of high school, let alone at all. I should have
learned to be single, but I was not single more than a month at any point from
age 12-20, and even after my divorce I did not stay single long, I jumped into
a new relationship not 6 months after it imploded.
I
married him as much because I loved him as because I held a great deal of guilt
over having pre-marital sex with him. I cannot even begin to tell how much I
cried, how I kept it a tainted secret from everyone I knew. I felt horrible and
filthy. My religious background made me have incredible remorse and shame over
this fact. I had the silly thought that marrying him would make me feel okay
about the decision to sleep with him. I practically forced him into it just to
alleviate my guilt. He was not good for me and tried to deter me from going to
church and school (college). We were not happily married for long before I
discovered his pornography addiction. I was young and naïve, I had had no idea
that he harbored such a secret. I did not have experience handling conflict let
alone something he saw as fine for the most part, and something I saw as 500%
wrong and disgusting. I could not abide that he would have it in our home, and
numerous times he or I would throw out his smut, but it did nothing. He always
brought back more.
Perhaps
my hatred of it drove a wedge between us, he may see it that way, but to me, it
will be his disrespect for me and my feelings. I do believe he had a genuine
addiction from the reactions we both experienced through our troubled marriage.
He could not stop himself, and I had no way to help him. It was a sad situation
but I would have died for him, and I dug my heels in and would not have let him
go for anything in the world. He spent more and more time outside of the house,
he did not have a cell phone and there were many days a week I had no idea
where he was and he was unable to be located. He did no respect me or how I
felt, he did not want to spend much time with me. I was torn up by how he
played with my feelings, but he did not seem to care how I felt because it only
served to make him feel guilty.
My
ex-husband and I stayed married a year and nine months before he cheated and
left me for her. Long story short his cheating was a deal-breaker, but I did
toy with the notion of forgiving him because I loved him so immensely. I was
firm about getting a divorce within 2-4 weeks and I filled for divorce on his
birthday, and it was final in under a week. I threw myself deeply into church,
and it filled the void. It made me feel whole and happy, but I was there, at
least partially, for the wrong reasons. I wanted a new man, that has been my
never-ceasing goal all my life. I do not feel it has anything to do with not
having a father because I have never really felt I was missing one. I have
always felt this void that could only be filled with a companion. I longed for
a twin sister all of my life as well, I have ached for a consort always (starting with my deep hope for a sister),
regardless of gender, though it seems I usually sought a male.
So
I went to church fervently and found not one date, and I still enjoyed going
nonetheless, but my hope was “someday” I would find a mate again. My current
husband came along fairly quickly, and as much as I was definitively only
looking for a friend a long last, he wanted a relationship. I acquiesced
quickly, I am not great with willpower.
My
husband and I had a blissful relationship for a year, and after that it had our
share of super high highs and very dramatic lows. We had a surprise pregnancy
after over a year and a half together. She brought us back together when we
surely would have been at an end of our relationship. It was not planned, but
she made the world of difference in our relationship. I definitely would not
recommend having a baby to try to salvage a relationship, it only worked in our
case because it was a good relationship that only failed because we gave up. We
got engaged when she was 8 months old and married when she was 20 months old.
It all happened backwards, it was at times a complete whirlwind and others it
was dreadfully slow going. We are happy together, we laugh often, have two
little daughters and it ended up working out, but it was a complete learning
experience. If I had not been hurt like I had, I would not have appreciated
what I have now. Not only that, but my clinginess in my past relationships
would have worn out my present husband if I had not learned to rein them in.
I
have learned to rein in the suffocating need to be needed to a great degree,
but under it all, it is there still. I can also see that in my family we need
to be accepted, we bend over backward for others to be liked. It strikes a hard
blow to be rejected and we take it harshly.
My mom instilled in my
sister and me that the world is a scary place full of dangerous and untruthful
people. I feel that impact strongly, I do feel afraid of ever being on my own
in public, that I am in constant danger, but at the same time I think it is the
only truly rational way to think. To believe that you are safe, or feel like
nothing bad can happen to you is naïve and irresponsible. My poor daughters
have to deal with me telling them we cannot go to the park, the store, or any
place that is not behind a locked door unless I have my mother and sister or my
husband with us. I would always rather be prudent than reckless so we all
suffer for it.