My First Marriage: I Grew To Like Him As My Cousin But Not Really As My Husband

It's hard to start off a marriage, and even more so to maintain it, under far less than ideal circumstances, which was how it was with my first husband, Jim, my half-first cousin on my mother's side. While it ultimately wasn't due to his actually raping me, only because, as it tragically turned out, I would end up losing my virginity to him AFTER we were married [reference my Blog post https://ascentthroughthedarknightofthesoul.blogspot.com/2019/05/nothing-happens-in-vacuum-why-i-dropped_29.html for more background on this relationship], it certainly came about as a result of his sexual assault on me. That devastating violation of me, by him, had caused me to conclude that I had no choice but to marry him, since I was left believing I was now significantly Damaged Goods. 

It had seemed, at the time, that he had taken my virginity from me, on that one night when he opportunistically took advantage of me when I was passed out drunk, unable to have any say in the matter. He had basically given me alcohol to drink for the first time in my life. I wasn't a teenager that had ever been in a partying clique, at all, or exposed to that directly in the home I grew up in. Back then, my father apparently drank some times, rarely, but no liquor was ever kept in our home as I was growing up there. In so many ways I was still an innocent, at age 18, when all of this happened to me. I had never before experienced the effects of alcohol in my body, to have any idea what it would do to me, but Jim knew. He absolutely knew what he was doing to me. 

I had ended all interactions with him, previously, which he well knew, after he had quite suddenly stolen a romantic kiss from me, as I thought that was improper between us, as cousins, and for me I didn't see him in that way, in our relationship together. So, this was his second chance to be in my life, but apparently he had only wanted to be with me for romantic reasons, all along. As a female, only weighing somewhere around 100 pounds at the time, what he gave me to drink would hit me so fast and so hard that I was rendered completely unconscious for most of that night. The blacking out, going unconscious, throwing up, being queasy and hungover, were all aspects of what resulted from this first real exposure to alcohol, for me, but they were not the primary problem I was left with after that. 

The blood stains on my panties, when it wasn't my period, and Jim's admitting to me that he had undressed me, put me into his bed, and penetrated me, while I lay there completely unconscious, was the main issue with what had happened to me that night at his apartment. I felt like my 'nice girl' status was gone forever because of what Jim had done to me, something which to my mind was required for me to be able to bargain for a better future for myself with someone I might really love, later on. Across cultures throughout the world, and in biblical Christianity, which was an important part of my life, it was of utmost importance that a young woman gave herself as a chaste virgin to her husband. This moral expectation can't be interpreted through the current, pervasive, social lens and still have this degree of significance be deeply understood. It was quite simply the bottom line of what a bride was expected to bring to the marital union; no pun intended.

Because Jim had so readily and frequently taken me out to eat at restaurants, and to movies, when I was enrolled in college, he seemed to me to be financially stable. He had told me that after being in the Navy, he had become a police officer for the city, for awhile, but when I was there at school I can only recall him doing some security jobs then. Although he drove an older car, he dressed neatly, kept himself clean, and the apartment that he and his roommate Harvey shared as bachelors was an attractive place with amenities. At age 27, he had also seemed, through my 18-year-old eyes, to already be old enough to become settled, in his life, on some kind of career path. So, in my naivete, I saw no Red Flags as far as his ability to make a living, and provide for me. 

Ever since I was a little girl, shaped by things in my childhood, both good and bad, I had longed to be a homemaker, in a Christian home. It was, and would always be, the desire of my heart! There were various factors contributing to this, including my growing up watching the Andy Griffith show, about Mayberry, seeing all the women cooking and baking and being the heart of their homes. In fact, almost everything on TV modeling the family unit within its plot line showed the wife being a homemaker, so for me it was even more social conditioning, like the impact that being raised on the Disney movies of that era had on me. A woman in this role was a sign of the times in which I grew up. More women, overall, were still homemakers than not, then, and in many social circles it was still expected and encouraged. At church, the women were the heart of that, too, loading the long tables with their pleasing and palatable home cooked contributions to the church picnics. 

My grandmother worked as a seamstress, but out of her home, and by the time I was in high school I was already sewing many of the outfits that I wore, enjoying that ability. My Aunt Gladys, who was my most favorite role model of what a good and godly woman should be, and several other aunts as well, were homemakers. As a little girl, I had always been most drawn to the toys having to do with household tasks, cooking and baking, home decor, and so forth. And finally, my being expected to do household chores, from a young age, growing up, caused me to develop a large degree of my personal identity around those skills and the emotions and self-esteem which I associated with them. 

Even though the Women's Lib movement was just coming into being in the late 1960s, as I was growing up, I felt it shouldn't only support women inclined toward the opportunity for careers outside the home, if they wanted that, but it should also give respect and affirmation to those women who still wanted to work in the home, when that resonated with who they were, and because they truly enjoyed that, as I did. While that wasn't the case, with the Movement, I looked back over all of human history and saw that women, bringing their heart to the home, made significant social contributions that left a lasting impact on the quality of life for their own families and for their communities. 

Additionally, I hadn't come to the marriage with Jim with any financial debt of my own; and few needs. It never occurred to me that he could and would struggle so constantly to get, have, and keep employment, usually taking jobs that were considered General Labor. We lived in a very modest manner, and I didn't ask for a lot from him. Still, as he demonstrated that he would only be able to do so little, I was seeing that meeting my most basic needs simply seemed to be too much for him. There was no lack of the type of jobs which he would be hired for, only a lacking in Jim being able to keep one for very long. If I worked outside the home, it would mean to me that my identity was again compromised, due to my relationship with him, in another negatively impactful way, so I chose not to, for most of our marriage. When I did finally do so, for a while, in Greensboro, it was a disaster for me, which would end up costing me more, by far, than it would ever provide.

After my finally getting a job, as a waitress at a diner, from which I walked home after work because Jim had the only car that we had, with him, I accepted the offer for a ride home one afternoon from a regular customer whom I waited on every day. He never spoke much, while he would sit there in the diner eating his lunches, but I felt that I knew him because he was always in there, and his offer seemed genuinely helpful. He had pulled up in the diner parking lot just as I had left after my shift and was now starting my lengthy walk home, leaning out the window of his pickup truck and saying he would be glad to give me a ride. I climbed in to the truck, thanking him. As I gave him the directions, where to turn right, and then left, headed toward the apartment Jim and I lived in at the time, nothing at all seemed in any way out of the ordinary. I appreciated not having to walk home, again, after being on my feet at work for my shift. 

Everything was fine, all the way up until I pointed out my actual apartment, finally, just ahead, and was telling him he could drop me off right there at the stop sign, when he suddenly sped up and ran it, not stopping then or at all, until he had driven me out into some weeds, somewhere off road, parking his truck. He jumped out of his driver side door, pulling his pants down, and exposing himself. Then, he started dragging me toward him and yanking my pants off of me, as I kept trying to pull myself back away from him by grabbing onto the steering wheel, which kept turning and causing me to lose any leverage I had hoped to gain from holding onto that. As he pulled me to the edge of the bench seat in his pickup, gravity kicked in also to pull me down toward him. I noticed the gun rack in his back window, then, and wondered if he were also going to kill me and leave my body there in the weeds, after he raped me. 

All he said to me, during this, was, "I just want to know if you can love!" Can you imagine that? A man saying that to a woman he has now kidnapped and is raping! After I couldn't get any more leverage by holding the steering wheel to try to pull myself away from him, I kept trying to at least cover my vagina with my hand, to keep him from getting his penis inside of me. He still managed to, though, and quickly he was done with his dirty deed against me. Immediately afterward, almost as a reflex, I again put my hand over the opening to my vagina, but this time it got some of his semen on it. Instinctively, I pulled my pants back on me, while simultaneously wondering if I were going to die now, too. Instead, he pulled his own pants back up, got back into his pickup truck, and drove me well past my apartment, again, after going back toward it, but this time he pulled up in the parking lot of a large shopping center, and simply told me in a very matter-of-fact voice to get out. 

I scrambled out of the passenger side door, and looking at me he simply said, "Don't tell anyone", and he drove off, leaving me to walk home, from there. As I headed home, grossed out and extremely upset, I realized that he had wanted to first see exactly where I lived, as kind of a threatening aspect of his crime, so that I knew that he now knew where I lived. So, I never told the police. I did wonder if he would ever show up at my apartment, or break in, to rape me again. It was all so terrifying to me! Jim was still at work when I got home, so I called my mother after I came in the door, and had locked it behind me. I was sobbing, and I told her I had just been raped! She responded that she couldn't talk because she had something in the oven that she didn't want to burn, and she hung up. When Jim got home, I told him, but by then I was so hysterical that I don't even recall much more about that but me crying as I described what had happened to me. 

One day, awhile later, Jim and I were eating out somewhere, and I suddenly saw that man, who had raped me, sitting in there as a customer! Shaking, I pointed him out to Jim, but, he never did anything. There is one more thing about my working at the diner: On top of my getting raped, by the customer from there, the man, that was the owner, never paid me, for my work, taking the employee payroll and skipping out with that money, never to be seen or heard from, again.

That rape so traumatized me that it left me with sexual dysfunction. Jim and I were never able to have sex again during the rest of our marriage, after that happened. Any time that I even tried to, with him, I would immediately have to sit up, audibly gagging and retching, as my stomach began convulsing in waves and I would very nearly vomit, right then and there. We had already been having problems in the bedroom, right from the start, before this had even happened to me. In fact, our sex life was a big disappointment for me, all the way around. He didn't last long at all, during intercourse, and he wasn't skilled at knowing how to make it feel like something that I would look forward to, or get enthusiastic about doing with him. I had never enjoyed sex with him. 

It was distressing to me, in itself, even before, and in addition to, my being raped by the diner customer. I thought that was because something was wrong with me, since women usually get the blame for any problems in the bedroom, Jim clearly blamed me for it, and I had no sexual experience prior to my marriage to him to know that he was actually just really bad in bed. All I knew for sure, at the time, was that it was always over with fast, it didn't feel good, and I didn't enjoy it. 

I wouldn't realize until later on, when I would finally have really great sex with someone, joyfully discovering that there was nothing wrong with my sexual responsiveness at all, that Jim was deficient, not proficient, in the sack. That new man, who happened to also be named Jim, became like my own personal sex therapist, consciously working with me, on it, after I told him that I had been raped, until he was able to bring me out of the frigidity, to the other end of the spectrum, with us becoming sexually insatiable together. But, that would happen a few years later, in my life, after I enlisted in the Air Force, and is another story for another time, here.

Jim also snored. LOUDLY. Every night! All night! If you want to become supremely annoying to someone, try sleep depriving them, continually, so they are NEVER really rested! Some nights, when he was especially loud, I would just lay there staring at him, soundly sleeping away, while I was unable to sleep at all, from it. Feeling tired, irritable, and resentful, I would often shove him over onto his side, to quiet him (with him never waking up, even from that), so I could get some rest! Of course, even after I got to sleep, once he would roll back over, during the night, he would wake me, as his snoring started up, again. 

I swore to myself, then and there, that I would NEVER marry, or even sleep with, another man in my entire life that snored (and I didn't)! For me, that alone became a bad enough issue to become a deal breaker in any intimate relationship. A person HAS to have some SLEEP in order to have the energy, and the right frame of mind, to accomplish what they need to, on any given day. Sleep is a necessity! Having a man in my life, and in my bed, is not. Countries that are at WAR with one another even use Sleep Deprivation to wear out and break down their prisoners. >sigh!< 

While I did try to make the best of a bad situation, in my marriage with Jim, it just wasn't going to be nearly enough of an attitude adjustment, on my part, to ever get our relationship to a good place. If everything else in our relationship had been EXCELLENT, which NONE of it was anywhere NEAR, Jim's loud, nightly, snoring was enough to cause me to really start to HATE him, after awhile, because it was exhausting me! There wasn't anywhere, in the places that we lived, that I couldn't hear it. There was also nothing I tried that was enough to block it out, so that I could finally have some peace and quiet at night. 

So, bed was in NO way a pleasant place for us to be, together. It's just as well, that we weren't meshing, or merging, much in bed. One of the reasons that genetically close marital relationships, like ours was, are frowned upon, and even, legally, forbidden, in places, due to certain degrees of kinship, is out of concern for any offspring resulting from such inbreeding. Jim never said if that concerned him, but I also made sure that I was not able to get pregnant during this marriage. 

Not just for that reason, but because I continually daydreamed about leaving him, even as early on as when we were in Fresno, only I didn't know how I could accomplish that without my having to go back into some close proximity with my own childhood family, whom I was not at all comfortable with. Especially if you are a man reading this, and it jumps out at you that I sound self-serving, to put things the way that I have here, in my honest description of what was going on in this marriage, and how I truly felt about it, I will point out that neither Jim nor I were without blame in the situation that we found ourselves in. I will also remind you of the fact that this entire thing started solely because of Jim's extremely self-serving thoughts and behaviors, toward me, which left me with devastating consequences to deal with in my life! I will not try to 'paint a pretty picture' here, or in any of my Blog posts. I am simply being as honest and transparent as I can about the events of my life. IT IS WHAT IT IS.

For Jim to have wanted to possess me so badly, and to finally have me as his wife, it was remarkable how little effort he made to make any part of that be better for us. I am sure that he was hearing some negative feedback, about us; likely through his talks with his mother, who was probably voicing to him the opinions of our other relatives about this particular family scandal of us marrying one another. He never seemed to be at all strong in his convictions that we should even be married at all, and I never was, either, which certainly didn't help matters any.

While we lived in Fresno, which he had chosen simply because his best buddy from his, Navy, service days lived there, Jim only took me to visit him and his wife a couple of times. From things his friend said to me during those visits, which were overtly hostile toward me, it was clear that Jim was communicating with him much more frequently than both our visits there together, and apparently in a way that made me the villain in this story. This further alienated any possible affections I might have had, or been able to develop, toward Jim, because it furthered my feeling of disunity with him. 

When we eventually moved back to Greensboro, North Carolina, his home town, he would visit his family but never took me with him, except for once, when I pointed out to him that I was married to him now, after all. Even that one time, he pulled his car up in front of his mother's (my aunt's) house and parked, and never went in. She came outside to speak with us. She was always a pleasant acting woman. I never, ever, saw her be mean, cold, or rude in any way, like my own mother would get. When she came outside to meet us, at the curb in Jim's car, apparently her cat got out of the house, with her, and ran into the street, getting hit by a car, and killed, right in front of us! I watched, in horror, as this woman walked into the street, to pull the dead cat out of the road, and then, seeing that I looked so upset, by that, and her being so compassionate, she reached through the open car window to touch me to comfort me, with the same hand she had just dragged the cat by. That also horrified me, and needless to say, my one visit wasn't a good memory at all. 

I never understood the mystery of my never being allowed into her house. It was Jim that kept me out of there, for whatever reason. It made me very curious, and a little bit scared, about what actually went on inside that house causing it to be Off Limits like that! I never did know. A couple of times, Jim's siblings, my cousins, came to the door of our apartment, to speak with him, but they would never come in, and they never spoke to me. Because this particular group of people, within our family tree, had always been socially isolated, including during the large family reunions, I attended, growing up, I didn't think that all of this unusual behavior of theirs was about me, specifically. 

It did become clear to me, though, that Jim had complained to his mother about me, as well, which, again, does not breed any feeling of closeness or intimacy with one's spouse when that is done. While his doing that was unfair, toward me, partly because, he was never speaking directly, with me, about any of the things we needed to address, with one another, truthfully, that wouldn't have helped us, anyway. With all that had and was going wrong, between us, our marriage never stood one chance in hell of making it.

Adding to the issue was the fact that all of his relatives were also all of my relatives, so that anything that was leaked, about either one, or both, of us, to our family tree, from either one, or both, of us, would likely make the rounds of being talked about, by everyone, of, familial, significance, in both our lives; causing these people, most of whom cared about us both, to then possibly feel the need to start taking sides, about us. 

This in fact happened, with one aunt and uncle that we stayed with, briefly, while we were married. This uncle had always been especially affirming, and supportive, of me, as I was growing up, which had always been deeply appreciated by me, especially, since, my father, had not been. Now, he was scolding me, and even snapping at me, as if I were to blame, for Jim's problems, rather than the other way around; if, in fact, he, even should have (as the uncle, of both, of us) assigned blame, between Jim and I. I cried, over that incident, one which also further alienated me from Jim, since it happened in front of him and he did nothing to set it straight, causing me to feel that something he had actually told them might have prompted this, sudden, and complete, change, toward me. 

It was all rather surreal to me. This marriage between my cousin and I. While I was certainly part of the problem, of Jim and I being married, to one another (which I am sure, was very awkward, for everyone, to say the least), I did try very hard, never, to tell the relatives, about our marital problems, because I didn't want to put any of them in this position of, feeling, uncomfortably, caught in the middle, of that, or of having to take sides, in some way, regarding, the two of us. So, I never even told any of them what had caused Jim and I to get married, in the first place. Not one single relative. Not even to defend myself, which most people, in my position, would have certainly felt, they had a right, to do, especially when being chastised for it. 

Even when that uncle, whom I had always been so close to, before this, clearly took a side, which was Jim's, deciding I was the one at fault, for the situation, and being hostile, toward me, because of that, without knowing the facts, I never spoke up to defend myself. It would have put Jim in a very bad light, with our relatives, who would never have approved of what he had done, toward me; some of whom, had helped raise him, when he was small, and his, then single, mother, was trying to get on her feet. I felt that, I couldn't defend myself, when doing so would have hurt everyone. It was very hard on me, though. 

I comforted myself by knowing that God, Who is my one, true Judge, knew, the truth, and that, if anyone decided to turn on me, in that way my uncle did, as simply a biased show of loyalty, toward Jim, which had nothing to do with the facts, that it was, on them, not on me, for their doing so. 

Years later, after Jim and I were divorced, I was about to enter an aunt's house, for one of the family reunions, when Aunt Gladys ran outside, to meet me, just as I arrived, at the house, and, taking me aside, warned me, in a loving way, that Jim was inside, with his new, second, wife. Aunt Gladys was being so sweet, about it, and showing such concern, for me, that, I almost told her, the facts, about how Jim and I even ended up together, at all, to ease her mind, about me. But, I didn't. Not even, with her; because she was also Jim's Aunt Gladys! With such concern, for me, showing on her face, as she 'prepared' me for what she sincerely thought would be a difficult situation, for me, to see inside the house, I truly fought back laughter, while simply reassuring her, that I was absolutely fine, with it; never telling her that, in full disclosure, I couldn't care less! In fact, I felt sorry for the second wife, knowing Jim, as I did, and, how little, he was capable of, as a husband. I bet to myself they wouldn't last, and, I heard, at some point, that she left him, leaving their child, with him, too, I believe, since I had heard they had a son together. Maybe more. I truly didn't keep track. I was well rid of Jim.

Jim had some, inner conflicts, which, outwardly, displayed themselves, in sometimes, interesting, and other times, irritating, ways. He once went to see a pastor, about our marriage problems. Knowing our situation, full well, as cousins, and how our relationship had come about, in the first place, I doubt that he was honest, enough, with the minister, in any way, that would shed real light, on why, things weren't going well, between the two of us. He didn't even tell me about it, until afterward, and, he didn't ever go back, or take me, as, the other person, in this marriage, to seek counsel together. We never attended even one single church service, anywhere, the entire time we were together! 

The day he came home, and told me, he had been to see this pastor, I asked him, what advice, if any, he had been given. Jim told me that, the pastor had told him, that he needed to come home, and bed me well, and that would take care of any, and all, other problems, in our relationship. I was amused, by this, for several reasons, but I simply replied, that, he, should tell the pastor, if he ever saw him, again, that, there was no way, that would ever, be able, to work, for us. (I stopped short, of saying "because my husband is so bad in bed", as I not only never said that, to Jim, but I also didn't fully realize, how true, that was, until after our divorce, and I had moved on, sexually, to see, there was a big difference, between what he did, between the sheets, and what, a different man, did there.) 

Being, a virgin, coming into this, with Jim, and because he seemed to blame me, for it, I had no idea what great sex was, or even good sex, until after our marriage was over, and someone, with some talent, taught me the difference. Jim seemed to be incapable, of seeing his responsibility, regarding any given 'cause and effect' within our relationship. Going all the way back, to Adam, men have complained, even to God, Himself, that, all the fault, really lies, at the feet of, "This woman, that Thou gavest me." (Genesis 3:12)

Another, odd way, Jim had, of handling things, apparently in order be able to live with himself, was that he cursed, all the time, within, our relationship, at least; once we were married. Yet, he never said a curse word! He constantly peppered his sentences, to me, with "Down" this, and "Down" that, as some acceptable (to himself) form, of the word, "Damn". He never seemed able, to acknowledge, to himself, especially, that he was hurt, frustrated, and angry. 

One day, knowing this wasn't good for him, and tired, of the silliness, and the hypocrisy, of him, saying, "Down" for "Damn", all the time, I took the sentence, he had just said, and asked him, "So, Jim, is the car on the road, or is it going DOWN? You, JUST SAID "the DOWN car", so how is it doing that? Going DOWN? If you MEAN, the DAMN car, which YOU DO, then why don't you JUST SAY the DAMN CAR; because you, me, AND GOD all KNOW that you MEAN the DAMN car, NOT the DOWN car!" 

Especially, once he became embittered, by our relationship never fulfilling any of his fantasies, about it, after he had forced the issue in the first place, Jim manifested more, and more, anger, in his personality; only, he couldn't, or wouldn't, own up, to that. Some internal message, that he told himself, which he never articulated, to me, caused him to think that, he couldn't feel, he was the 'nice' guy, he considered himself, to be, and still, either, swear, or admit that he was, really, pissed off, by how, his life, was turning out. 

As a result of that, he was always, outwardly, pleasant, as a person, but he stuffed so much anger, deep down, within himself, during his lifetime, that he died one month before his 63rd birthday. My youngest sister had emailed me, about it, at the time, saying that he had passed away, suddenly, of a massive heart attack. I replied, back, to her, that, while, I had known him, he had, always, been an angry person. Because of his, always, behaving, so pleasantly, that may have surprised her; or, she may have, doubted, what I was telling her, about him, having never seen that side, of him, herself. 

But, I knew, that all the anger, within himself, that he always kept stuffing, in there, had to, eventually, blow, in some way, or other. Especially, after, I had heard, that his second wife, had left him, as well. I knew, that Jim, over time, had become a very angry man, even though, he hid that, from others. That will manifest, itself, in some way, at some point, even, and especially, if it is not dealt with. Anger, and other intense emotions, HAVE TO have AN OUTLET! Otherwise, those, strong emotions, will implode, in a person, destroying their health, and possibly, like with Jim, ending their life. Or, they will explode, very possibly in some violent, destructive, or aggressive, way, targeted toward another being, such as a person, or an animal; or, even some, inanimate, object, that may, or may not, have been part of, the cause, of those intense emotions.

While, Jim made sure, that he thought, of himself, as a nice guy, and that others thought that of him, as well, I had gotten to know, more of, who he really was, underneath the façade, of that. He never yelled, or ever raised his hand to me. There was no domestic abuse, in our marriage; no threats, no violence. But, I do think, you have to question, whether a 'nice' guy, does things, to a, teenage, girl, to, emotionally, manipulate, and, physically, take advantage, of her, like those things, he did, to me, when I was a college freshman. Including, because of, my being married, to Jim, though, I saw, a side of him, that, perhaps, others--- especially, others, in our mutual, extended, family tree--- didn't ever see, or know was there. Just like it had been, between, my father, and I, as I grew up, being related, to someone, even, in a close way, doesn't mean, that, you, really, even know, that person. Who they, really, are.

Jim and I lived in a, tiny, rented, cottage, that was, actually, one side, of a duplex, with our landlady on the larger side, when we were in Norfolk. Right by the water, near the large Naval Air Station, there. One day, I had my head, leaned forward, over the bathroom sink, brushing my teeth, while Jim was sitting, close by, in the other room, waiting for me, to finish, getting ready, for us, to go somewhere. I started hearing a loud noise, and, I asked Jim, what it was. He told me that it was "nothing." I kept on, hearing it, though. It sounded like someone fighting. It seemed violent, too, based on the sounds I heard. 

So, I asked Jim, about it, again, asking him, to look, and see, what was going on, with that, and he, again, said, that, it wasn't anything. That didn't make sense, to me, based on, what I was hearing. Finally, I heard a, woman's, pained, scream, and, I threw my toothbrush down, right into the sink, and ran outside, where we lived, to see, what on Earth, was going on! 

Directly across the street, from where we stayed, in full view, of Jim, at our place, was a large apartment building, with, almost every window, full of faces, now, watching, what was happening, right outside on the sidewalk. A young man, was, literally, kicking this woman, down the sidewalk, as she screamed, and cried, for help! Jim, was working as Shore Patrol, for the Navy, in Norfolk, and had, formerly, been both, a police officer, and, a security guard. But, he had done nothing; and, worse still, to me, he had TOLD ME, that it was "nothing." 

I knew, now, that, he knew, exactly, what was happening, and he let it continue, doing, nothing, to stop it, or, to, at least, summon the police. That disgusted me. I ran over there, myself, and got, in between, the man, and woman, as he stood, over her, where she was down on the ground; ready, to kick her, hard, in her body, yet again. For, a very brief moment, it didn't seem, he would stop, even though I was now intervening, because what he was doing was, clearly, so wrong. But he did. Maybe, because a woman, out of all the people, watching that, had come to stop it. Even if he had hurt me, too, which he didn't, I still believe that, someone, needed, to put a stop, to that! Nobody else, had stepped up, or stepped in, in any way; not even my husband. 

The police, never came, because, nobody called them! I was, repulsed, by this whole thing! I was, already, so disillusioned, with Jim, that his, allowing, this, to go on, for at least several minutes, and then, telling me, that, it was "nothing", when I kept asking him what I was hearing, that didn't sound right, to me, didn't lower, my opinion of him, much more, than it, already, had become. I asked him, afterward, what kind, of man, would, beat up, his own woman, like that, especially, out on, the public sidewalk, with all those onlookers. He, told me, that this, was common behavior, when sailors finally came back, to their home port, after months long deployments at sea; if, they knew, or simply thought, that their woman had not been faithful, to them, while they were away. 

However, he admitted to me, that, many, of these men, were not faithful, to these women, when they had Shore Leave, at their Ports Of Call, during their cruise. He was describing this, to me, as being an acceptable double standard. I, wasn't, accepting, of it! He didn't seem disturbed, at all, by any of this, that he was describing, to me, causing me to feel that, his deepest, or truest, values, did not match, those, of a 'nice' man. I guess, I was still naïve, at that age. Or, maybe, idealistic. I, too, would find myself, compromising, my own values, and, looking the other way, about things, myself, in later years.

There finally came a point, that, neither one, of our hearts, was in, making our marriage succeed, anymore; for any reason. I think, we had always been extremely ambivalent, about our situation, up until then, as it was, and, for many reasons. Not the least of which, was, our each, having, close ties, to members of our, mutual, family tree, and, our being aware, of their wariness, with this relationship, that we were in, together. 

Jim and I had even tried a marital separation, at one point. Only then, I was right back, in the same situation, I had grown up in (before I eloped, with him), with my family, which I simply couldn't bear! I. Hated. Even. Being. In. That. House. Or with them. At all. Ever. It was, almost always, acutely uncomfortable, for me! 

I tried going back to school, to at least escape them, again, that way, but that still linked me to them, which drove me back to Jim, again, even though that was only marginally happier, for me, by that point. I have no idea, why Jim agreed, to get back together; but, he didn't hesitate. He knew, how much I hated, being with my family. I do think that, of the two, of us, he had really loved me, and deeply. Until he finally couldn't, anymore, because, not being loved back, in the way, that he had wanted, me, to, had left him, so resentful, toward me. While I didn't cruelly flaunt it, in his face, he, undoubtedly, always knew, from one thing, or another, with us, that, I was not, ever, in love, with him, romantically. I had never, really, gotten past, seeing him, as, my cousin. His bitterness, over the situation, eventually, eroded, his love; but it took him awhile.

Near the end, when we had left a theater after seeing a romantic movie, and were sitting in the parking lot in the car, he said something unlike anything he had ever said to me, before, or after, which was shocking, in that way, though his words did not surprise me. He said, to me, "I've felt such a hatred for you!" A man, in love, experiencing, that love, die, a slow death, because, it wasn't nurtured, by being reciprocated, would, come to feel, that way. If only, from, the disappointment, of that. I didn't have the heart, to say, to this man, who, finally, told me, to my face, what was going on, inside him, instead of, only running to complain, to his friends and family members, during our years together, that, I had, plenty, of reasons, to feel, that way, toward him, as well. I just, sat there, looking at him, receiving, his hatred, toward me. Understanding it, from his perspective. Although, it was equally, clear, to me, that he had, never managed, to see our relationship, from mine! I didn't need to tell him, that I harbored hatred, toward him, as well. Somewhere, inside him, I think he, must have, known that, even, from the night, that he virtually raped me. People, normally, don't, or can't, build love, on, such a start, as that. I was 18, when, he did that, to me. Just a teenage girl. He was 27.

We had lived in, Fresno, California, Greensboro, North Carolina, and Norfolk, Virginia, during our marriage; with Jim, always, chasing some, ultimately, temporary, job, and us, seeking a life, that, we would never find, together. While Jim, who had remained, in the Navy, as a Reservist, was now back on active duty, in Norfolk, temporarily, we began to, finally, share the same goal, for our relationship. But, that was: to help me get situated, and stabilized on my own, so that, we could finally get our divorce, from one another. 

So, Norfolk, Virginia, was the last place, Jim and I, lived, while we were married. This was also the first time he had a steady job, since he had become involved in my life, when I was at college. However, it was a, temporary, active duty assignment, as Shore Patrol, for the Navy, and it would be ending, as well. 

I would be gone, before that happened, though, to move into a brand new, very small, studio apartment, in Hickory, North Carolina. I was finally going out on my own, for the first time in my life. I wasn't sure how I would do, but, I still never doubted, that I would, absolutely, be better, on my own, than I had ever been, with, either, my family, or, with Jim. 

I was now, 22 years old; and because of what he had done, in my life, and, to my life, I wasn't holding, a college diploma, in my hands, like I should have been, and, that, my friends were. I was holding, my (very first) divorce decree, instead.

While, I did end up, back, in Hickory, North Carolina, where, my family of origin, was, I didn't have to live under their roof, any more; where I had, almost always, felt so ill-at-ease, and unhappy. I had my own apartment, for the very first time in my life. I got a job, to start supporting myself, in a textile mill, learning to make elasticized yarns, which went into creating pantyhose. I did that, for a couple of years, until I joined the Air Force, hoping to find a career, for myself, instead of the, blue collar, shift, job, that I had, in the textile manufacturing plant. 

But, that is another story, for another time. 

Jim's legal Separation Agreement, that his attorney drew up, was in effect for a year, leading up to our divorce, because there was a legal requirement, for us to be separated, for that long, before the divorce could be granted. It, included, providing me with a year's worth of Spousal Support, which really helped, while, I was getting on my feet, in Hickory; job hunting there, then waiting for my first paychecks, to start coming in, after I was hired, and, finally, building up some, financial, security, for myself. 

I felt, that was, a very, decent, way, for Jim, to end, something, with me, that, he had started, in, a very, indecent, way.

My Father: Almost Always In The Home But Almost Always Absent From My Life

In my conversations with men who sadly seem to be absolutely clueless about their intense impact on the lives of their daughters, I have noticed a definite pattern of these men adamantly refusing to accept responsibility for their actions, and inactions, toward these girls that they fathered. Almost anyone can have sex and bring a child into this world, but in the wake of all the damage done by indifferent and uninvolved dads there is a deluge of offspring that can attest to the fact that not being properly parented has had a definite lasting and negative impact on their lives. Because of my own experience with this, as a daughter, and my firsthand knowledge of what the consequences of this have been, for me personally, it disgusts me when these men tell me, very unapologetically, that they are absolutely dismissive about anything that their daughters have ever conveyed to them regarding the various types of harm done because they were not there as fathers in many, or sometimes any, positive ways.

These men simply shrug off their being told these things, often even displaying an obvious annoyance directed toward their child as they describe to me their being confronted by their daughters in such a way, saying that these girls are simply shirking their own responsibility for their own messed up lives, which has nothing whatsoever to do with them as their father. They also devalue both the communication and the daughter doing it, by saying that this type of 'tantrum' solely comes from the emotionalism with which females are often stereotypically branded, to be discredited, thereby conveniently providing these dads with a sort of perceptual permission to simply not take their daughters seriously about this at all. (Somewhere within them, though, I suspect that these men counter these daughterly divulgences in this way only because they feel that they then won't have to change or remedy what they refuse to acknowledge, something which would take real effort on their part, that, already clearly lacking from them, is at the very heart of this matter anyway.)

As it seemed with my father, men often tell themselves that if they stay with the woman they have impregnated, bringing home a paycheck, which contributes to the residence, food, and clothing that their offspring partake of, that they have therefore fulfilled their 'manly' duties within the family. However, any GOOGLE search quickly brings up no shortage of sites describing in detail the pervasive influence that dads have on their daughters, regardless of their level of involvement in their lives, while also documenting the need for these men to be helpfully involved in the lives of their children, and, the many areas of a daughter's life that are damaged if he fails to do so. Men are good at letting themselves off the hook, where this issue is concerned, forcing their daughters to have to live their lives with the consequences of their fathers failing them, while also getting the blame for what comes from that, which in large part should lay at his feet. She pays the price, for this.

I have memories of my father going back to when I was a toddler. The first few years were good memories, about him. He and my mother seemed to be happier together, in those early years of their marriage, than they would ever be in all the years following, up until my father finally divorced my mother late in life. Because they were a happy young couple back then, with my brother and I being the only children in the house at that time, all of our lives were happier. I remember a home life with a lot of shared smiles, in those days. Although I also felt lonely, and ignored, at times, almost invisible, when everyone else would settle in front of the TV in the evenings, while I sometimes chose to play with one of my toys instead, and, my brother was occasionally violent toward me, regarding all that was 'his' before I came along, I would still say that overall I had a happy home life, at the time. This included my having a real feeling of emotional closeness with my dad, which is so important to a little girl who depends on her father to be there for her, both physically and emotionally.

I can recall sitting on his lap, as a toddler, and sitting beside him in his chair (of course, watching TV) in the den, later on. When that suddenly stopped, and was simply gone for good, then, between us, by my dad's decision, I couldn't understand why. It was very confusing to me, as a small child, but also deeply traumatizing because it impacted me as being a rejection by him. My father was the very first person to ever break my heart. Beginning around the time that I was 6 years old, I remember him being a man that began to stop smiling as much, which only intensified, with him, as the years passed. He seemed to become resigned, in a way that left him bitter, resentful, and even cold. He also seemed to become increasingly escapist, within the home, being visible there in physical presence but that was about all. He was shut down, emotionally, most of the time, and when he did speak it was usually to express his displeasure or even anger.

Although 2 more girls were added to the picture, after my brother and I, completing the family, a lot of ongoing stresses and strains, primarily between my parents, but due to other things as well at times, seemed to always be tearing at the marital bond that was tenuously holding my parents together with one another, with us children caught in the middle of that in various ways. Ways which were hard to understand, if not impossible, for a child in the home.

When I was 6, my dad told me that I was too big, now, to sit beside him anymore in his big, cozy chair, where he spent most of his time when he was home. Instead, without further ado, he sat my younger sister there, in my former seat alongside him, and eventually he had both of my younger sisters sitting with him, one on each side. I recall looking down at my waist, pulling the top I was wearing tightly enough around me for me to see my actual girth, and I compared it with my younger sisters. We girls also often bathed together, back then, so I could easily see our size. There was very little difference, and more perplexing to me was the fact that both my younger sister and my baby sister could fit in the chair together, with my dad, and I knew that I wasn't wider than the two of them combined! If he had meant that I was 'too grown up' now, at age 6, to want or need to sit close beside my daddy, he was sadly mistaken, although I was never clear as to exactly what he meant by it since he never explained. I only knew that I had suddenly been replaced, as a skinny 6 year old, by two other bodies.

I felt like I had been literally cast aside, by him, and replaced by my two sisters that I resented as I saw them sitting in my spot while I wistfully looked on from a hard wooden chair across the room, alone. He did nothing to ease the transition, for me. If I had still received some acknowledgement or attention from my dad, despite this change in seating arrangements, I most likely would have felt less alienated from his affections, but he rarely paid me any mind from then on. It almost felt as if I had suddenly been banished to the other side of the world, rather than to the other side of the room, given that I seemed to fall almost completely off his radar from that point on.

However small this incident sounds, it sent an emotionally powerful message to a little girl, who didn't know why her father had no interest in spending time with her, anymore. Around this time, there were other signs that I had somehow gotten on my father's bad side, only I was a good and loving child, so I just couldn't comprehend how this relational nightmare had happened to me! When we were putting up the family Christmas tree one year, my baby sister was there in her bassinet. Wanting to include her in the festivities, as I had acted as a miniature surrogate mother to her ever since her arrival in our household, I placed a few of the silvery strands of tinsel above her, on the handle of the bassinet. My father snapped at me, scowling as he scolded me to "GET THAT OFF OF THERE!" While his concern was likely that the tinsel might fall in to the bassinet, and perhaps become a choking hazard for the baby, I would not have had any awareness of this type of potential danger to her, when I was so small myself. He never explained any of that to me, anyway, or simply directed me to remove it in a more kind or understanding way, which wouldn't come across to me as if I had somehow just committed an inexcusable crime of some sort. My feeling of always walking on eggshells, with him, began.

Once, he was lying on the couch in the living room and playing a made up game with us kids. It was special because my father didn't do a lot of this type of thing with us, and every child wants to interact with their dad, especially in a fun way. He was pretending to be a kind of monster, like a giant octopus, catching us in his clutches and holding us captive briefly by our arms before letting us go. We would then run back to the other side of the room, squealing with delight that we were free, before each of us, in turn, would run toward him another time, and be captured all over again. This went on for several cycles, with my dad as much into the game as we children were, making monster-like noises as he caught us in his grasp once more. After awhile, he apparently got carried away with it, though, because on one of my turns, he held me so tightly by the wrist that it hurt me, and I reacted to that by crying out in pain. Seeing my discomfort from that as being displeasure with him, he let go and flung my arm away from him.

Running back to the other side of the room, as my siblings took their turns, I felt my wrist stinging from the grip he had held me with, that last turn I had with him, and my skin was very red there as well. The next time that I ran up to him, confident that he would simply be more careful about how hard he was holding me, he wouldn't even look at me, and he would no longer play with me at all. He just acted as if I were invisible to him. I tried to continue with the others, in the game with him, but because I had said "Ow!" when I had been genuinely hurt by his roughness with me, he would no longer let me participate. So, I finally quit trying, and left the room, with tears welling up in my eyes, both from the pain I still felt in my wrist and from his shutting me out of the fun with him and my siblings.

I have always remembered that incident, because it sent an extremely strong signal to me, as a little girl. The message that I got, which my father had communicated so clearly to me by how he had treated me, after I spoke out from being hurt by him, was that I had to allow men to hurt me, without speaking up about it, beginning with him, in order for me to receive any attention or affection from them at all. I was also being taught to believe that I was merely treated by a man as I deserved to be, which meant that there was no problem then, unless I made it in to one by using my voice to protest, on my own behalf; something which apparently put me in the wrong.

What my dad taught me that day, when I was 7 years old, would affect my relationships with men for the rest of my life, and be something, deep down inside me, that I would have to consciously and conscientiously counteract. It influenced how men were allowed to treat me, and my remaining in a relationship with them in ways that weren't good for me. It affected whom I would end up marrying, and why, with me always settling for men that in some way or other had not, and were not, treating me very well, from my feeling unworthy of better, based on what I was raised to believe about myself. It left me feeling uncertain about my being entitled to hold men accountable to respect and value me, from my being taught that I had no chance to be loved if I did not go along to get along, as my dad had shown me I had to do, with him, all those years ago.

What I experienced on that day, with my dad, when I was just a little girl, had far-reaching effects on my life, and especially in my relationships with men. What my father had taught me, by his behavior, seemed to come up in every one of my attempts to find and have a loving relationship with a man. Studies have shown that a girl often ends up with a man much like her father, whether for better or worse, because that relationship was the primary one forming her view of what a husband is to be like, and how she is to be treated by a man in that relationship. It is not surprising at all, then, that I was married to 4 different men, and was not treated well by any one of them, in various ways, before I finally gave up trying altogether, realizing that I had been too damaged, especially in my parentally undermined sense of self-esteem, to be able to have that work out for me.

How I had been taught to see myself, due to my upbringing, was not serving me well at all. My parental role models weren't healthy ones, either! I wasn't raised having any idea how to maintain a happy marriage, since my parents were miserable for most of their marriage. A father is a daughter's first relationship, and her learning experience, with a man. That day, during the grabbing game, my dad taught me I must accept it when a man hurts me, and that I was to keep my mouth shut about it, by his demonstrating to me that it was the man, and my maintaining the relationship with the man at any cost, that was important; not me, or how I felt about how I was being treated. Children are always learning from their parents, lessons that are very impactful in their lives. This one certainly was, for me. My father's behavioral threat, that day of the grabbing game, and many, many other times, later on, of withdrawing all his interaction with me, and with that his attention and affection, as well, was scary, and quickly squelched my using my voice on my own behalf, both then and for many years of my life afterward. While this became the main weapon that my father used in his relational arsenal, throughout his life, I did finally find, and use, my voice, to speak my mind, to him and to others, and to stand up for myself, about things affecting me.

When I was a third grader, my parents were frequently fighting with one another that year, and one of those times was even more frightening for me to hear--- and see, some of it--- than usual. It was yet another late night, when I wasn't able to sleep because of it, listening to their voices arguing in their bedroom. Even though their door was closed, I could still hear this going on, with accompanying sounds that seemed to be slams and thuds, and brief silences, in the midst of all that. It was terrifying to me, as an 8 year old!

This particular night had seemed just like all the others, with this, up until the door of their room flew open and dad came rushing out through the den, headed toward the garage, with my mother close behind him, screaming, "Johnny, don't! Stop! Johnny, don't!" They both went out the back door, leaving it ajar. I could still hear their voices, outside now, and the sound of a car engine starting up. I crept out of my bed, getting to the open back door just in time to see dad taking off down the driveway with my mother just barely able to get herself into the passenger seat before he was gone. I could still hear her screaming for him to "Stop! Don't do it! Johnny, don't do it!" (whatever "it" was, which seemed too scary to think about, given the scene I was seeing), as I watched him weaving the car crazily along the driveway, as if he were trying to wreck the vehicle, with them both in it. Standing there in my nightgown, I wondered if I would ever see either of them again, especially alive.

Then, I started wondering what I would do, and how we kids would even survive, if they never came back, and the end had finally come, for them, from all this destructiveness in their relationship with one another. It appeared to me that my father was trying to kill himself, someone else, or both he and my mother now that she had left all her children behind in this house to jump into the car with this out-of-control man. Did they EVER think about US, when they were acting like that? >sigh< I recall still standing there, at the back door of our home, as the taillights from the car zigzagged down that long driveway, and then disappeared onto the road.

They were gone for awhile. I don't think they ever knew I had seen them acting this way; and heard them, that night, and so many others. There seemed to be some strong, unwritten law, within our immediate family, that nothing was to ever be talked about openly. As I stood there for a few minutes more, after they had driven away out of sight, before going back inside and closing the door, I found myself wondering if I would be able to cook anything for my siblings and I, to feed us, if our parents were gone, especially if they were gone for good. I had no idea if I would ever see either one of them again. This is not the kind of thing that any little girl needs in her life, and you better believe that it deeply affected me. Never being allowed to talk about anything, but having to just 'stuff it' all down inside me, continually, added insult to injury, for me, increasing the stress and strain that I felt from these things going on in my life.

My father started working out of town, in Oxford, for awhile, and he lived there during that time, for the most part. It seemed to me, because of that, and other things I saw, that my parents may have been separated from each other at the time. While I saw some things, one stormy night, that caused me to believe my mother was having an affair with someone, in our house, in my parents' bed, my dad's sister, my aunt, once told me that my dad had also developed feelings for some woman where he was living, as well. Mom drove us to Oxford, then, to see dad playing on the summer ball team there, perhaps for his company, parading all 4 of us kids around as if to make some kind of point to whomever. I was never sure whether his move out of town, during that time, was for economic reasons, marital reasons, or both. However, eventually, dad was back home with us again.

Once, mom told me to go out to the garage, where my father had been working on his car, and call him in to lunch, but I found him lying there unconscious, or possibly dead, I thought, on the hard garage floor, near an oil slick, with blood oozing from his head, and mom called an ambulance which took him away on a stretcher. Another time, mom came in the house, after being outside talking to my dad, and she was sobbing in a way that I had never heard her do before then. She began preparing the meal in the kitchen, as she kept crying, and she continually touched her hand to one of her cheeks, causing me to wonder if he had struck her.

I have mentioned, in my Blog post, "More Of My Memories Of My Mother", dated 5/8/19, the escalation of marital tensions between my parents during these years that I am describing here now, and I have spoken about my father in several of my posts as well, all of which is helpful as background information here, as far as filling in some of what exactly was going on. However, much of it always remained a mystery to me as a girl growing up in the midst of all this. Between the parts that I did know and those that I didn't, I was left feeling very uneasy. All of these troubling things had a real effect on me. Just growing up is difficult enough to do, even under far better circumstances than I was caught in.

While we were growing up, we were disciplined by my father in one of several ways. We would be spanked with his belt, or with a rose bush branch, a flyswatter, or his hand. He once broke a flyswatter, from spanking my brother with it so hard as he ran around the room trying to escape the pain of that, due to my brother taking a piece of candy from a store. Sometimes the belt would leave a welt on my leg, or the bush branch a mark, for awhile. I couldn't see my behind to know what the flyswatter did back there. The most interesting punishment, for me, was when my father struck my little leg with his hand as hard as he did, because for several days afterward there would be a big, red, raised welt, exactly in the outline of my father's large hand, that I would often place my small hand into, in the same position as his had been there, until it healed. My mother would rub Vaseline into it, for days, until it finally disappeared. We were not bad kids at all, though. We were very well behaved, most of the time. Apparently the small percentage that we weren't called for this type of 'basic' discipline, by my father, toward us.

Since he often seemed so grouchy, in general, and wasn't a very physically affectionate father, as well as the fact that he stood over 6 feet tall, which was intimidating in itself from where I stood as a little one, it didn't take much on his part to scare me or stress me out. Anything that he said had a huge impact on us, because he appeared silent and sulking, most of the time. This explains why, after him saying nothing directly to me for weeks on end, even though we were in close proximity to one another in the home, I would go from feeling absolutely invisible, to him, to wishing I were, when he would suddenly snap at me, as we all sat around the dinner table together, saying "GET YOUR HAIR OUT OF YOUR FACE!" No one would say a word at the table, usually, with everyone just looking down at their plates, causing this interjection of his into the silence to be even more startling. Being singled out like that, before everyone, in a negative way, felt humiliating to me. 

This type of thing, that he did to me, also eroded my self-esteem, since he didn't ever compliment me for or about anything. He was either silent toward me, or critical of me. There was never any affirmation from him! Needing that so badly from him, though, and only getting this other, negative and hurtful, attention from him, caused me to simply burst into tears when these things would happen. The only sound at the table would then be my uncontrolled sobs and sniffles, coming from my deep heartache, as we all ate our fried chicken and vegetables. It seemed in this family that we were learning to never be there for each other. That, in this type of environment, it was survival mode in the sense of "every man for himself." This atmosphere in that house was primarily due to how my father behaved.

On a family vacation trip, one summer, headed to the beach in the car, we pulled into a gas station to fill up the car, and have a rest stop if we needed to use the bathrooms. Not very long after we got there, I lost sight of any of the other 5 of them, and as I walked out to where our car had been parked, I saw that it was nowhere in sight! I stood there alone, with nothing. No ID, no money, NO FAMILY. Nothing. Several minutes later, they returned, driving up to where I was just standing there, all laughing at how funny they thought it was that I had been left behind by them, there. I just opened my car door, sat down, and stared out the window, showing no reaction to their hilarity except for the annoyance that my firmly set jaw likely gave away. 

I have a great sense of humor! People that interact with me have always said that about me, going back to when I was a child, at summer camp and on church retreats, et cetera. However, I didn't see this stunt or oversight, whichever one it was, as being very funny at all, because I was growing up in this family already truly feeling that I was invisible, to my parents especially, as it was, and feeling disrespected and diminished, by them, due to the ways that I was being treated, some of which I document in my Blog posts about my mother. So, rather than seeming laughable, it simply came across to me as an event which simply accurately depicted, and further underscored, my place, or lack of it, within this family. Sometimes my parents were insensitive, and sometimes they were just ignorant. I didn't even need or want to know which one this was; the result was the same, as far as how it impacted me emotionally.

In this house that we lived in, in Mebane, North Carolina, the most alarming of the sights and sounds, for me, that I, as a child, would ever witness in our home took place. I was ages 5 to 12, there. From my bed, I could see into the den, where dad would sit in his chair, and I could hear my parents talking together, about adult things, once they were alone. One night, they were having a conversation in which my father was describing to my mother that he had gotten into an actual fistfight with a subordinate at work, whom he seemed to be the supervisor over, in some machismo clashing of wills between them. Apparently he lost his job over that incident. For awhile after that, he would be gone most mornings, while my mother was at work, but there became an increasing number of times when he would show up during the afternoon and watch TV with us kids. He seemed out of place there, that time of day. 

I recall he worked very briefly for a headstrong, successful, and well-to-do uncle, who was married to one of my mother's sisters, that seemed to be trying to help him out by giving him this job. But my father didn't look comfortable working as a subordinate himself, especially for someone he spent family reunions socializing with. He appeared to feel awkward and out of place, for many months. We kids were totally shut out of what was actually going on with all this, since things were never talked about openly in our home, and my siblings seemed oblivious to these things, whether they were or not.

Once, relatives dropped by with bags of groceries, which had never happened before. We had vegetable gardens in the summers, and a freezer with the lima beans, corn, and other things we had grown, in it. I don't recall us ever being without the usual meals to eat, during this time, by any means. My dad's job situation strained things, though, apparently. I likely won't be able to get the sequence of events chronologically, here. I can only describe what I did see and know of them. 

During the long weeks that my dad would show up at the house during what used to be work hours for him, sometimes watching cartoons with us kids, there was one day that was very different, and very scary to me. He walked in literally looking and acting like a zombie, staring straight ahead, walking stiffly, and breathing in a very strained, hoarse, gasping way, that was very frightening for me to hear. He walked past us children in the den, into my parents bedroom, and laid on his back across the bed a short while. Then he went back outside, looking and acting the same scary way, walking right past us children, again, without any acknowledgement of whether he saw any of us, or, that my siblings were observing any of this going on with him, at all! I often seemed to be the only one noticing these things, for whatever reason. I was a very aware, and a very concerned, child. My father was gone for awhile after that, days, maybe weeks. It seems to me that one of the relatives told me later that he had a nervous breakdown at that time. It was unnerving, to me.

I came home one day, from high school, after being at choir practice, where those of us in the school Chorus were preparing to present the Christmas Program to our families. I told my mother that one of the boys in the Chorus had a real problem that we could help him with, especially since we lived relatively close to the high school. His family was poor, and lived far away on the other side of our town, where he went home on the school bus each day. I asked my mother if he could come home with me, on the day of our show, so that he could be back at the school in order to participate in our program. He wouldn't be able to get there, that evening, by bus, and, his mother would meet him at school after she got off work, see him in the show, and drive him home with her afterward. Mom agreed, putting some steaks from the freezer into the fridge to thaw for when he came, to honor him as our guest for dinner that upcoming evening. However, as she and I continued to discuss Dale, she soon realized that he was black. Except for housekeepers we had, in years past, all of whom were black, and the little boy of one of them, which she brought with her to work in our home because of no other option, my parents had never had a black in their home; and certainly not as a guest! Telling me that he likely wouldn't be used to steak, and that she didn't want to make him feel uncomfortable, Mom quickly put the steaks back in the freezer and pulled out hamburger, instead. She said that she felt this would be a meal which he would likely be used to having. 

So, Dale came home with me after school, and we ate supper, on the night of our choral presentation, and afterward he and I sat on the living room floor, playing a game of Chess, near the large, brightly lit, Christmas tree, which had presents piled underneath it. Things had gone well, overall, and since he hadn't known, as he ate his burger, that steak had been denied him, he seemed very appreciative of our hospitality to him. The den, where of course my father was sitting watching his TV, was adjacent to the living room, and the door was open between the two rooms. My father called me into the den, to question me for no good reason, since he was already well informed about the situation, and the plan to help Dale be there at school to sing that night. 

It was about a half hour, at that point, until Dale and I would need to leave the house to go over to the school to get ready to perform in our Christmas show. Dad glowered at me, saying loudly, easily within Dale's earshot, "How LONG is THAT BOY going to be in MY house?" Looking back at my father, mortified by his behavior, I replied, staring him right in the eyes, "Dad, you KNOW that we are leaving for the Choral Concert at school in just a few more minutes!" Then, with my dad wearing kind of an arrogant expression of having made his point, by what he did toward Dale, I shot my father a look that said, "Do NOT say ANYTHING else like that while my friend is in this house", and I went back into the living room. Although Dale did the best he could to stay upbeat, it was obvious that he had clearly heard my father. I was so ashamed of my dad for his acting like that, and, for his other bad behaviors over the years. I just did not have a father that I could feel proud of, or good about, although I wished that I had, and that I could!

Not long after, my friend Dan, our high school newspaper editor, stopped me in the hallway one day, saying he needed to speak to me about Dale. He told me that Dale had submitted a very hurt and angry letter, to be published in the school paper, which seemed to directly come from the situation that had happened at my house with my father. We both felt that Dale was entitled to have a forum to have his say, especially since my father had so hurtfully had his. Dan published the letter, and what Dale expressed in it so resonated with our black students, what they were going through and how they were treated, that an actual race riot erupted at our school from that, which was very frightening. Teachers had been scratched, trying to restore order, and the school was closed down briefly due to it. When we went back to classes, ministers from many of the local churches were positioned in the large open area on the main floor of the school, to be accessible and available for any of us to talk to, since everyone at the school was feeling pretty upset at this point, from a variety of perspectives and reasons. All Dale had needed was my family's kindness and a little help, for one short evening, just a few hours, so that he could make it back to school to be able to sing songs about the joy of the Christmas Season, and my dad couldn't even give that to him.

My father could be quite cruel at times, displaying behaviors which absolutely qualify as abusive. This went beyond his trying to control and punish us, the members of his own family, by giving us the silent treatment, as if it were, stupidly, somehow a sign of his honor, to his way of thinking, whenever we were doing or saying anything which wasn't pleasing to him for whatever reason. We always had a cat, or cats, in the home, primarily because my mother was very fond of them. While Dad allowed it, he seemed to have some sort of rivalry with them, and at the very least a real resentment toward these small, sweet creatures, which wouldn't or couldn't harm anyone. Whenever one of the cats would get underfoot at all, or even when they were simply going through the room that my father was sitting in, in order to get to their dishes in the utility room, he would snarl at them, stomp to startle and scare them with that noise, and even take his big foot and literally kick them! It was so hard for me to watch that, and see these animals quickly learn to become, and stay, terrified of him. I lost respect for my father, for several reasons, over the years, and this is on that list. These animals were a comforting and affectionate presence in our home, which God knows we needed there, and which my father certainly wasn't. For him to torment them that way was absolutely inexcusable. I hated it.

In so many ways, and for so many reasons, I am ashamed of my father. His cruelty didn't stop with helpless animals or black boys. He was also callous toward me, his own daughter. When I was in my last marriage, the one that was so pervasively abusive that I felt as if I were literally married to the Son of Satan, it was cycling in a downward spiral, from my husband's abuse toward me, to the point that my counselor was telling me that my life was now in danger. Part of how he controlled and punished me was to make sure he isolated me, and kept me from having access to resources (which could help me escape him) such as the car or any money. I was in a desperate and dangerous situation.

In a phone conversation with my friend, Judi, she naturally asked me if my going home to my family would be an option for me, and she simply couldn't comprehend my saying that it was not, especially given the circumstances that I was in. Shortly afterward, she called me back, and was apologizing to me, for something that I was unclear about, at first. Finally, I understood what she was saying to me. She was the head nurse of my OB/GYN doctor, as well as my friend, having access to my medical record, so she obtained my parents phone number from that. She said to me that she then called my parents, and that she explained the situation I was in to my father, who had answered the phone when she called. She told me that she simply couldn't believe me, or understand that it was true, of a family, when I had told her earlier that they were not an option for me. That they were no help to me. So, she took it upon herself to call them, on my behalf, only, my father said to her, about me, "Well, she can go to a homeless shelter, but SHE IS NOT COMING HERE!" Judi said it took her breath away to hear that. It didn't shock or phase me at all, however. I was used to all the various types of coldness that came from my father at times. I had to console Judi, in her shock and grief, about it, after she heard it firsthand with her own ears, but I wasn't surprised by it at all.

This father, of mine, was the same man that would later tell my relatives not to provide me with a plane ticket they were offering on my behalf, so that I would be able to come home for my brother's funeral, after he had committed suicide, because my dad DIDN'T WANT ME THERE! I told my father, after he did that to me, that I would not be at his funeral, when he died. And, I USED MY VOICE to tell him how he made me feel by treating me the way he has.
       
Sometimes my mother tried to bridge the gap between us kids and my dad's lack of effort to form a real relationship with us for himself. Months would go by without my dad saying a word to me, even though we lived in the same house, and usually on Sundays and Holidays ate at the same table. But Mom made sure that we had a couple of conversations a year, at least, by requiring that he be the parent to sign off on our school Report Cards. So, I would go through the obligatory conversation with him, for that, each time, while knowing full well that it was never going to lead to him suddenly becoming conversational with me on any regular basis, or spark a real relationship between us that nothing else had ever seemed to, at any other time throughout each calendar year that passed. It just felt odd, and incongruous, to me, to have to do that. For 99.99% of the time he didn't want to be bothered, and made no effort at all to interact with me. Now I have to go before this stranger, holding my Report Card in my hand, and a pen, and discuss with him why I got a poor grade in math class, and so forth. It took all I had, many times, to be respectful toward a man who wasn't someone that I had a real high opinion of, as the years and the things that I endured in that household wore on me. I always seemed to be the one that Mom recruited to try to correct the relational lag between dad and his offspring, which he himself created and was to blame for, since I had tried, and been shut out, so many different times.

He always made sure that nothing much was ever required of him, relationally, but then sometimes he, and especially mom, on his behalf, felt bad that he was left with as little emotional closeness as he had between his children and himself. Late one night, after I was already in bed, along with my siblings, Mom woke ME up (not the others) to come downstairs so that Dad could give me a children's bracelet that was too young for me, which he had bought while flying home from somewhere. As she later told me, he had been momentarily inspired to show some affection and appreciation for his own kids, because some man sitting next to him on the flight home had struck up a conversation, and was apparently enthusiastically telling my dad how great his own children were. My having to go through the motions, after being woken up, on this night, while I already knew Dad would never be different (and, he wasn't), felt as hypocritical to me as every Christmas Eve did in that home, when we children were each required to give some kind of a devotional presentation, before presents were opened. Neither of my parents ever led by example with that, themselves, and besides going to church on Sundays nothing religious was ever demonstrated in our home otherwise, except for various ones of us being asked to say grace, when we all sat at the dinner table together.

I developed a real aversion to anything feeling fake in relationships that I involve myself in, as a result of these things. I. Just. Won't. Do. It. Now. 

Dad did make more of an effort to have a relationship with his only son, my older brother who ended up committing suicide at age 40, but even with that, I don't think that my brother truly felt emotionally close with him. It seemed no one really did. Over the years, largely due to these experiences in my family, I lost my taste for my having to go the extra mile to have a relationship with anyone who isn't also expending equal effort. The return on investment, for that, emotionally, just isn't worth it, to me.

There was one afternoon, when we were still living in Mebane, that my mother took all of us children shopping for new clothes, and when we returned home, she sent us to our rooms with our bags, as soon as she saw dad sitting in the living room, with a couple of relatives from his side of the family. It seemed to be a surprise to her to see them there, that day, and it was unusual that dad was in the living room, and not in his chair in the den, watching TV, as he almost always was. The whole situation seemed strained, to me, and strange, including that my mother had brought us into the house through the front door, when she normally drove the car into the garage and entered through a back door of the house. As we came in to the house, that day, dad's voice had a tense tone to it, as he looked directly in my mother's eyes, saying emphatically, "Doris, you are NOT taking MY children out of this house!" It seemed, by the circumstance and conversation, that she must have been on the verge of leaving him, and taking all of us children with her. My parents remained together, following that, and for many more years, but my growing up in the midst of their troubled relationship with one another was not a happy or healthy position for me to be in, as a child.

By the time they were divorcing, dad wrote each of us kids a token letter from him, the only one ever, to me at least, stating how much he cared about our mother, while he and his lawyer argued back and forth with her and her lawyer over the financial arrangements in their final split from one another. Because he was the one divorcing her, I thought that letter to me was rather disingenuous, for that reason and because he also used it to say something negative about me, to me; not surprisingly, given the fact that he had ONLY done that to me for my ENTIRE life! He wrote that he felt I had wasted my life and talents, by not continuing with my artistic abilities, which he also stated in the letter had made him very angry toward me. I was in my late 40s, by the time my parents divorced, and I had long before this grown cynical about my father's behaviors. So, my reaction to what he said was that (1) he was trying to come off like the 'good guy' in their divorce battle, and (2) my "talents" he referred to never took root in my life because I was NEVER ENCOURAGED BY HIM, at ANY time, to EXPRESS MYSELF, through my art, or in any other way! THIS was the ONLY time he had EVER said to ME anything AT ALL about me even HAVING "talents" or "abilities". He had NEVER ONCE said or done ANYTHING to praise me, compliment me, or tell me ANYTHING GOOD ABOUT ME AT ALL! Literally. I felt angry that he was now taking THIS opportunity to say anything, well PAST the YEARS that I had SO NEEDED IT from him, and as the most backhanded compliment, by FINALLY bringing up something that I apparently did that he thought was a GOOD thing, but ONLY for him to state he was also UNHAPPY with my wasting that "talent" that he was only NOW saying he thought I even HAD, making it just ONE MORE THING that he was CRITICIZING ME for! GEEZ!

Nothing Happens In A Vacuum: Why I Dropped Out Of College And Got Married

In previous posts I described some of what I was feeling and going through as I went off to college. In my 4/24/19 post, titled "Why, For Me, My Mother Went From Dearest Mommy To 'Mommie Dearest'", I wrote "I tried hard to avoid being directly involved in the family dysfunction, as much as possible, keeping to myself all I could due to how unhealthy it always felt to me emotionally in that home. As soon as I reached an age to be able to escape it, I did, which was when I went away to college, attending both summer sessions right after my high school graduation. Once I was finally out of that house, I dreaded ever going back into all that misery there, again." In my post titled "More Of My Memories Of My Mother", dated 5/8/19, I wrote: "Of course, the issues I had with my mother weren't just limited to my not being properly protected from the illicit intentions of males, or her so openly playing favorites among her children, with me always being the Black Sheep. For example, before I went away to college, I shared my amazing news, with my mother, that I had received a Calling from God! Because of that, I told her, I was going to pursue some kind of Christian ministry position through my course of study. While she had always seemed quite impressed by pastors of the churches we had attended as a family, and was even very admiring of the female Director of Christian Education in our church, she simply looked at me with a very unhappy, unimpressed look, and said with some disgust in her voice, "Ministers don't make any money!" 

Once she dropped me off at college, my mother never called me, even just to see how I was adjusting to such a new lifestyle, or how I was doing, or what my classes were like. She didn't even approve of my career goal. I felt NO EMOTIONAL SUPPORT, actually, then or for the entire time that I was growing up. All these things were very daunting and confusing, for me, affecting everything in my life, large and small. It seemed that NOTHING I specifically did ever impressed her enough for her to be supportive toward me--- something every child greatly needs from their parents, as they are growing up and going out into this world, trying to find their place in it." Also, this post is fraught with examples of what I meant by what I said in my Blog post dated 4/3/19, titled "If You Love Someone, Set Them Free , , , ", which was that "We suffer from the pervasive consequences of Original Sin, the sins of others, and our own sin, and we must acknowledge all of that, at some point." This background information needs to be combined together, in this post, along with more about my family, but this time including more about my extended family, in order for me to describe the 'perfect storm' that would ultimately sink my college studies and launch me into being a bride at the age of 18.

While I was growing up, there were several family reunions that occurred, on my mother's side, which were attended by a fairly large number of relatives. (I even recall being led into a room to meet my great-grandmother, once, as she lay frail and old in her bed, at one of these gatherings.) These get-togethers were usually hosted at my grandmother's house, and always included an assortment of aunts and uncles with their children in tow. Almost all of us kids would gravitate toward one another and visit together, enjoying eating all the homemade goodies and playing games of tag between the two big trees in the front yard, despite the humidity and heat of the Carolina Summer. One family, though, always seemed to be, and to be treated like, the outcasts from the family tree. I was never completely clear as to why, but it seemed to me to be equally thrust upon and embraced by them. 

The mother, my aunt, was always smiling and very pleasant whenever I saw her, or briefly interacted with her at these family events. Unlike my mother, there didn't seem to be a mean bone in her body. Her boys seemed to be rascally mischief-makers, though, unlike the rest of the cousins who were all more social and civilized in their behavior. Her daughter was very pretty, quiet, and thoroughly antisocial, never having anything at all to do with anyone there, but keeping entirely to herself. I never really got to know this particular family very well, among all my relatives, as I grew up, as they were the only ones that my mother never had us visit, or vice versa. Except for the rest of us children running to the grown-ups, at times, at my grandmother's house, to urgently tell them things such as those boys were in the backyard shooting at things with their BB gun, and such, in order for there to be an adult intervention of what we saw as disturbingly violent acts on their part, none of us really had very much directly to do with them. I recall seeing the oldest of these boys wearing his white, U.S. Navy, sailor uniform, later on, one of the times that the extended family had assembled at grandmother's house as usual, but I never really paid much attention to these 'troublemaker' cousins. 

My mother never encouraged us to interact with any of them, either, which was a marked contrast to how she made sure that we knew all our other cousins very well. Over the years, as we would visit back and forth with all the aunts, and the associated cousins, except for this one (the mother of these rakish boys), I would ask my mother why this was the case. All she would say about it was that THIS aunt, one of her sisters, was a VERY DIRTY person, and that her house was never clean. (I always wondered how she knew that, since we literally NEVER visited there!) The only other thing mom ever said to me about her was that this aunt had gone on a train ride as a young woman, and had met a man there and gotten pregnant out of wedlock with her oldest son, Jim. Apparently she eventually met and married another man, who then became his stepfather, and she had her other children with him. I don't think that Jim's biological father was ever in the picture except for getting her pregnant on that train.

One year, when I was a sophomore in high school, one of the family reunions took place at a great-aunt's home, which was a long drive from the city we lived in. After we had all eaten and visited, my mother wanted to do some shopping while we were around a much larger city, before we headed back home, but was not familiar enough with it to be able to get around there on her own. As evening approached, she asked one of her nephews who lived in this larger city, who happened to be Jim, the oldest of my roguish cousins from this one family which she never seemed to approve of (or want us to get to know, or to be involved with in any real way), if he would lead her to the main shopping district in his car, with her following in hers. He helpfully obliged her, and then she told him that since he was doing her that favor, she didn't want him to be all by himself in his car, just leading us as we followed behind him. So, she offered ME up, to be his companion, alone in his car with him. I felt so strange and uneasy, as we drove along, while I did my best to make polite conversation.

I didn't really know him, or his own family, well at all, except for the bad impressions of them that my mother had taught me, from her own, and my observations of them being unnervingly unruly, as we grew up. He was 9 years older than I was, so I was 15 at the time and he was 24 years old. That was THE ONLY TIME that ANY member of my own family had EVER DIRECTLY VISITED with ANYONE in HIS family, the ENTIRE time I was growing up, except for whatever cursory chats took place very occasionally during the family reunions. Now, I was ALONE with him, in his car, driving through the dark streets of a large and unknown city, so that my mother could go shopping. After we got to the store that she wanted, my mother told Jim goodbye since she no longer needed him, then I rode home with my own family. Because of the mindset my mother had taught me about that family, as I grew up, and the fact that we NEVER even visited them AT ALL but DID with EVERYONE ELSE in our family tree, it was the furthest thing from my mind that I would ever in my lifetime have any other direct interactions with Jim besides that one very uncomfortable car ride which I endured because my mother gave me no choice.

A couple of years later, my high school graduation was taking place right on top of my starting college out of town. I had begun my freshman year in college before the typical starting point of the Fall semester. While most of my motivation was to finally be able to get out of that acutely uncomfortable home environment of my upbringing, some of it was due to that 'ALL IN' enthusiasm that young people have at that age as they go forth toward their goals and aspirations. Because of my recent Calling from God, I realized that I might have more years of study ahead of me than just the 4 years of college, to prepare for that. It must be said, though, that when God Called me, I had responded to Him with "What exactly does that MEAN, You are 'Calling' me?", and I wasn't at all sure what form that would actually take, for me, back then. Women weren't seen in pulpit ministries at that time, and with the various limitations on what women were allowed or enabled to do, I couldn't get any kind of a clear picture or sure direction as to where I was headed with this. I simply signed up for the classes which would or could be helpful toward this course of study, as foundational preparation, even though I was attending a state university and not a religiously-affiliated school. I took classes like New Testament Greek, Philosophy, and Public Speaking. 

Being Summer school, the campus was largely deserted, and very quiet. I went to classes, then back to my dorm room to study, and in between went to the dining hall for meals that turned out to be the same, unimpressive menu day in and day out, which could keep you alive but never satisfy you. It was very basic and fairly unpalatable grub. Besides being on a college student's budget, I couldn't go off campus to eat anything better due to freshmen not being allowed to keep a car on campus, and mine being parked so far away. The old car my dad gave me when I was 16 that I still drove now had to be parked in what was cynically referred to as 'the South Forty', which an online urban dictionary defines as "Way the hell out there; far away." To walk all the way there, including through isolated areas, to get to it, then walk back to campus from there, after parking it, was time-consuming and prohibitive, besides being discouraged simply by the Summer heat and humidity bearing down. The two Summer sessions I attended each covered a whole semester's course curriculum in a few weeks, rather than months, causing me to spend most of my time sitting at the desk in my dorm room, hunched over my books, studying. I had never had backaches before, but now I was almost constantly in real pain, in my neck and shoulders especially, as I sat there, once classes were over each day, reviewing my notes and reading.

The dorm provided a couple of phones at the end of each hall in a closet-like booth, for all the girls living on that floor, where you would go to receive incoming calls that were announced over the speaker system by a girl at the desk downstairs. Times were not like they are today, in many ways, including that there were only landlines then. There was no such thing as cell phones. I had stopped paying much attention to the speaker alerting various girls to their incoming phone calls, as I sat at my desk studying alone in my room, because none of them were ever for me, anyway. I had gotten used to the fact that no one in my family ever called me, and no one else knew I was there; or so I thought. One afternoon I vaguely heard the speaker announcing an incoming call for some girl. They kept announcing it rather persistently, so eventually it broke through my 'study fog' as I was sitting there in my room, and I suddenly realized that IT WAS FOR ME! I had to ask someone where to even go to answer it, because I had never had a call before this one for me to even know what to do! 

As I answered the call, some guy's voice that I didn't recognize kept telling me who he was, but even with that I still had NO IDEA AT ALL, almost finally hanging up on him in annoyance after I kept responding to him several times that "I think they paged the WRONG girl to the phone." I had interrupted my studying, for this 'wrong number' call, which now was also reinforcing my emotional let down that, sure enough, my own family STILL had never called me at all. I literally had the phone halfway down to being hung up, on this guy, finally, when I suddenly realized that this might actually be someone that DID know me! Putting the phone back to my ear, I told him that I had just now begun to even make the connection as to who this was. It was Jim. That cousin, that I really didn't know at all, whom I was forced to ride with in his car, by my mother, that one time years before this. The university that I was attending was in the same large city that he lived in. It would surely be due to my mother that he even knew that I was there. I wasn't sure why she would put me in this position, again, with him. SHE couldn't be bothered to call me even ONCE, or anything else, but she managed to interject this near-stranger-relative into my life, once again, at a time in my life when for so many reasons I was very vulnerable. WHY HIM?!? My mother created problems for me.

He invited me to go to a restaurant for dinner, and the food was way better than the campus chow, plus it was All You Can Eat of one of my favorite Southern meals: fish, fries, coleslaw, hush puppies, and sweet tea. The place was packed and lively, and the food was great! Because it was the Summer session at school, there wasn't a roommate in my dorm room with me, either, so I had essentially been alone for weeks at this point. It felt so good to be off campus for awhile, and to feel like I was 'out among the living' once again! I really perked up, having some of my various needs met, from the long list of those that had been ignored for too long. Jim treated me well, kind of like my Welcome Ambassador to the city, and we began to get to know one another finally. As time went on, I ate more meals off campus, in restaurants that he treated me to, and one weekend, we even ended up going to the beach for a few days, after I had expressed how much I missed having a Summer vacation that year, since my family usually went to the beach every Summer but I was in school now instead. 

He was always nice toward me, and rather protective it seemed, which was something I wasn't used to at all, since I had not had that type of treatment from my family. Eventually he invited me over to swim in the pool at the apartment complex where he lived with a friend of his named Harvey, in a 2 Bedroom unit they split the rent on. The pool was so refreshing and relaxing, and afterward Jim offered to give me a back massage after I mentioned to him how much constant back pain I had now, that seemed to come from my long hours of sitting at my desk studying. I had never had a massage in my life, and as I lay on my stomach on his living room floor, so he could rub the knots and the tension out of my sore back, I was lulled into a deep state of relaxation. It felt so good! When he finished, I rolled over onto my back and just sighed deeply and contentedly. That's when, suddenly, before I knew what was happening, he kissed me. Not like a cousin of mine. Like a guy kisses a girl--- that he really likes. Uh Oh! I realized he had crossed a line that we simply couldn't cross, and he suddenly didn't seem so much like the nice, fun, protective, 'big brotherly' cousin, to me.

I stopped being around him, doing anything with him. Yet I missed him, because I had grown attached to him by this time, and he had made my life feel so much better than it had before he came along. Still, I told him this was not happening, but he kept coming over to the lobby of my dorm, not taking 'NO!' for an answer. I kept telling the girl at the desk, who paged me about him showing up there, again and again and again, that I was not going to come down because I had already told him not to come around me anymore. She told me that he was sitting down there actually crying, refusing to leave the lobby, and that I would have to tell him, again, myself. He would not leave me alone! I didn't know what to do, and I didn't think I had anyone to turn to, about this. It was tainted, and embarrassing, because he was my cousin, and because I had thought of him that way; until this happened. I had long ago learned that my family was not there for me, so they were not an option. The Summer sessions ended, but then the Fall semester began. I had new problems to deal with then.

With all the students now back in school, I suddenly had a roommate, after getting very used to not sharing that small space with another person over the Summer. We were oil and water, from the start. She was really a jerk, this girl. I had gone shopping for things I needed for the semester, including some better food to keep handy in my dorm room, and had parked my car behind the dorm just long enough to go up and down all the stairs to unload this into my room. She was hanging out the window of our room, like a spotter, and she did let me know when Campus Security arrived back there to see my unauthorized freshman vehicle parked there on campus, briefly, but she didn't call down to tell them it would just be there long enough to unload, and she didn't call me over to the window so I could tell them myself. She waited until after they wrote me a ticket, and THEN she let me know they were there at my car, laughing about it as she told me. She insisted on continually playing the very same, distracting, music album over and over and over, which I hated, saying that she absolutely could not study without it on. Always. No compromise at all. I, however, was used to having total peace and quiet, which is how I needed it to be to really focus on what I was reading for my classes. So, I ended up walking clear across campus to the library to study, every single night, leaving her our dorm room as if she were living there without a roommate. >sigh!<  

I felt weary, frustrated, demoralized, and because I had not taken any real break between high school and this point, I felt pretty burned out by then. My studies started to suffer, my grades started to slump, and I felt myself slipping into despair. I didn't feel that anyone cared about me, or what my needs were, in my life. The way that Jim had been there for me started to look very appealing by contrast. As silly as it sounds, someone had also drawn a heart, in part of the concrete sidewalk when it was newly poured, with "Jim + Deb" written in the middle of it, which was right along my path as I walked between the dorm and my classes every day. There was no getting around it, and my seeing it became a constant reminder to me of how much better some things in my life had felt when Jim was around and I had someone there for me. I was sad and stressed out. His persistence, in trying to convince me not to shut him out of my life, on top of my not having any other real support system than him, eventually drove me back into being with him again. 

I still didn't want to be involved with him, or any guy, romantically at that point, though. I already had a lot in my life to deal with. And, he was my cousin. And, I was studying for the ministry. And, I was a virgin. I didn't really have any idea how to cope with all the things going on in my life, both my ongoing family problems and all the new experiences I was having now that I was away at school for the first time. I had one college friend confess she was gay, and come onto me in a very aggressive way, which was an entirely new thing for me to deal with, and shook me up, while another coed blithely told me that she had just gone to get an abortion, from her boyfriend getting her pregnant, which was a harsh reality, to me. She was upbeat, telling me about it just before she drove off in her green convertible with the top down, smiling as if the world was her oyster. This was the first time in my life that I had ever been exposed to either controversy, for me to try to deal directly with them. 

Because things weren't talked about or discussed, in my family, I remained an innocent in many ways. I still would often wonder what the pictures or words that I saw scrawled in bathroom stalls even meant! I had also been trained by my parents to feel that my own thoughts and emotions about things were not valid, were always to be subjugated to those of others in a deferential manner, and were not to be expressed by me openly, all causing me to feel that I had no right to be assertive at all, even and especially on my own behalf, such as with my selfish and inconsiderate roommate in the dorm. I. was. losing. it. now. I had nowhere to turn, and nobody to discuss these things with. Except for Jim, who was also one of my problems; and soon he would become an even bigger problem for me. One of the biggest of my life.

Jim had been a Machinist's Mate in the Navy, sailing around the world on the aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea, going to exotic ports of call during the ship's cruises. I had gone from my parent's house into the girl's dorm at college, and never been too many places more than the beach for summer vacations with my family. Jim also had 9 more years (nearly a full decade) of life experience over me. When I went off to college, I was still a teenager. I had ended up allowing Jim to be back in my life, especially since he made it so clear that he really wanted to be, and really cared about me, when it seemed that nobody else did.

With my dorm room being so unpleasant for me, now, because of my obnoxious roommate, I avoided it all I could, and began staying over at Jim's apartment more often than not. However, I was still a virgin, and we were not 'going there'. I thought he didn't want to cross a sexual line with me, again, like he had when he kissed me that time, and risk never being allowed back around me, again, after that. He wanted to be in my life, in whatever way that I would let him be.

Sometimes Harvey had a girl staying over with him at their apartment, from what seemed to be an assortment of them that he knew. He and Jim were such a contrast! Harvey was every inch the hard-partying playboy, while Jim lived a quiet, conservative lifestyle. I even asked Jim once if he was still a virgin, and he told me he wasn't, but only because he went so late in life, compared to his guy friends, without knowing a woman sexually, largely due to his shyness, that his buddies took it upon themselves to send him a woman, one night, to 'teach him the ropes'. I can't recall whether they paid her to have sex with him or just got her to do it with him for some reason, but he said that was his only sexual experience so far. Some nights Harvey didn't come home at all, apparently staying with one of his ladies. He had a full bar set up in their apartment, though, and copies of Playboy and Hustler sitting around for his . . . reading material. Jim wasn't really a drinker or a partier. I had virtually no experience with alcohol, and had never partied except birthday and church versions, growing up. The mother of one of my friend's in high school once gave me a small paper cup with a couple of sips of Cold Duck in it, to celebrate my friend's horseback riding event which I had been invited to watch.

One of the times that Harvey stayed out all night somewhere else, Jim started showing me all the variety of liquors that Harvey had in his bar. He was explaining about them all having different flavors and things, which I knew nothing at all about, and he began to give me tastes of them as I became curious about what he was telling me. There were quite a few of them.  After that, I could only vaguely remember lying naked in the tub shivering from cold water splashing down on me from the shower head, at some point that night, and I thought I recalled both leaning over the toilet and lying on the cold bathroom floor. That was about it.

When I woke up the next morning, feeling sick, I was laying next to Jim in his water bed, and all I had on then was my panties. I went to the bathroom, feeling really nauseous and queasy, and noticed that there was red blood stains inside the crotch of my panties, but it wasn't my period! I went back into Jim's room, and asked him about it. He told me that he had gotten me drunk the night before and had taken my clothes off me, putting me in his bed. He said that he then started to penetrate me, while I was passed out, but he stopped himself, he said, and didn't go all the way in. He told me that he likely tore the hymen before he stopped, though, since there was blood, which is the membrane covering the opening of the vagina--- the main thing proving a female's virginity.

I was hungover. I was devastated. I was ruined, to my way of thinking, because these were still times in America when things were MUCH more black and white! For example, almost no one was divorced, back then, and if they were, they were whispered about, but NO ONE EVER said the word "divorced" out LOUD. Back then, a girl had every right to expect love and marriage, and a future in that way, as long as she was a 'good girl'; a virgin. If she wasn't a virgin, her value was greatly diminished, and her chances of ever having wholesome happiness in a marital union was almost nil. She wouldn't be able to hide the fact that her hymen wasn't intact, to be broken on her wedding night by the groom, either. So, she would have to tell him up front, beforehand, to be fair, knowing that it would raise questions with him about what kind of a girl she was, and would put her at risk of being rejected by him altogether. Because my cousin had done this to me, whom I did not love in that way, I was left feeling that NO man would ever want me, NOW. I was damaged goods. Always. Jim was the ONLY man that would EVER know that I WAS in fact undisputedly a virgin, when HE first had me; or took me. No other man would be able to know that, now.

By this time it was late in the Fall semester. My grades had been decent in both Summer sessions, but now they were seriously dropping. I felt like my life was in free fall. I called home and told mom that I needed to come there NOW, to talk to her about something VERY IMPORTANT, which couldn't wait until Christmas break! Then, I drove hours to get there, and could barely get through dinner before seeking her out to try to have this very difficult conversation. She had gone into the den and was reading the newspaper, as I found her there and said again to her, "Mom, I NEED to TALK to you!" She held her paper up higher, then, fully opened, between us, totally blocking out any sight of me. I pleaded, "Mom! PLEASE TALK TO ME! I NEED to tell you something IMPORTANT!" She simply replied, from behind her paper, "I am reading the paper now." I reminded her that I had called ahead to tell her I would be driving home tonight because I had something urgent to discuss with her, but she just kept holding her newspaper high, shutting me out.

My frustration, rejection, and sadness finally exploded in me, then, and I slapped the paper right out of her hands with a sharp, sweeping gesture of my arm, saying to her, "I'm just going to go back to Greensboro tonight, then; but YOU WILL REGRET that you NEVER LISTENED TO ME, some day." I drove back, on the dark highway, tears running down my face. I just wasn't important to my mom. [A good reference resource link for this is here:  counselingoneanother.com/2011/07/21/25-ways-to-provoke-your-child-to-anger/  which you can copy and paste into your browser. The article is titled "25 Ways To Provoke Our Children To Anger", where Dr. Paul Tautges, a pastor, author, speaker, and blogger himself, cites this list as being from one of his Top 10 Recommended Counseling Resources and parenting book The Heart Of Anger, by biblical counselor, author, and speaker Lou Priolo. As a child, I experienced 20 of the 25 things on this list, from my parents, provoking me to anger.]

The next day, I told Jim that I needed to talk to him, and asked him to meet me at my dorm. When he arrived, I said to him, "You have always shown me that you care about me. I won't be able to have any other man have what you had with me, since I am no longer a virgin now. If you want to marry me, then, I will do that." He did want to, but as we began to talk to a minister, at a church in town, about marrying us, and prepared to get our Marriage License, we realized that in some states it was not even legal for us to marry at all, because of the close tie between us in our bloodline, as relatives of one another. It was LEGALLY considered to be INCEST, between us, in many states. We did end up discovering that there in North Carolina, we were JUST BARELY able to wed one another, because of us only being HALF first cousins, rather than FULL first cousins. It was this way because my/our grandmother had been married 3 times. Her first husband fathered Jim's mother, and her second husband fathered my mother, making our mother's half-sisters.

It was just Jim and I and the minister, at our simple wedding. Then, I left college, two weeks before the end of the semester, just before Christmas break, having to go to each one of my professors as a part of that process to explain that I was dropping out, and get their signature on a Withdrawal form. By the time I got the last signature from my last professor, after they all had something to say about it to me, I met up with Jim to tell him that it was done, and broke down and cried.

Then we left North Carolina, driving across the country to Fresno, California, where Jim's best friend from the Navy lived, whom he had called before we went out there. We drove as far as we could go from all that we were leaving behind us. We heard, from Jim's mom (my aunt), when he called her, en route, that my dad had come looking for us, to try to stop us, but it was too late; in more ways than one. I felt I had NOTHING to go back TO, as far as those people were concerned. They couldn't be bothered with me before now! I thought at the time, rather cynically, as I heard about it, that my dad had NEVER LEFT HIS TV shows for ANYTHING to do with ME before, going all the way back to when I was born, since he had bought the family's first TV while mom was in the hospital from having me. It had always clearly been placed above me, in my father's affections.

He would snap at me, if I were talking in the room when the TV was on (it was ALWAYS on!), as if my very existence was doing nothing but interrupting and interfering with what he truly wanted to spend his time on and be involved with--- his TV. He had never really gone out of his way to talk with me, or to get to know me, or affirm me, as I was growing up under his roof, causing it to feel really bizarre to me the FIRST AND ONLY TIME he had EVER come to my room, as I packed to leave that house for college, to actually say something to me, before mom drove me there and dropped me off. I don't even recall what he said to me then, because it wasn't anything particularly memorable, word wise, and by then it was really just 'crumbs' from him, anyway, to me. Too little, too late. I just remember looking at him standing in my room, strangely, and wondering who this man even was. I knew he was my father, but we had never really gotten to know one another, because he normally just didn't want to even be bothered with or about me.

During our drive across the country, Jim and I stopped to see some tourist attractions, and generally enjoyed the trip. One night, when we had stopped to sleep at a motel, I was lying in bed while Jim was taking his turn in the shower. I had my eyes shut, praying, and when I opened them, I saw above where I lay, but also kind of coming through the wall behind the bed itself, bending over toward me, a very tall angel in a blue velvet robe! He appeared to be at least 9 feet tall. It REALLY SCARED ME, causing me to quickly pull the covers over my head, saying "Lord! PLEASE don't SCARE me like that!" I have been able to see my Guardian Angel at other times in my life as well, and even interact with him sometimes. Eventually, after learning his name, I nicknamed him "Heebie", as in 'Heebie-Jeebies', because it reflected his actual name, Hebrium (not sure of that spelling), but also because he had scared me so, when he had materialized above me like he did that night in the motel. After I recovered from the fright, because it was unexpected, I realized that God was making sure that I knew I had my Guardian Angel diligently on duty with me, keeping me in his care, on my Father God's behalf. That angel and I have gone through a lot together, over the course of my lifetime!

The trip across the country was long and tiring, for Jim and I. Once we finally got to Fresno, and got an apartment and unpacked, we began our marriage together there. We put up a Christmas tree in our living room, and I cooked us a Holiday dinner. Now being settled in to a place of our own, alone at last, and no longer on the road driving long hours, we were finally having our first intimate night since we had gotten married and eloped. As Jim penetrated me, it hurt so badly that I thought I might pass out for a moment, literally seeing stars, from the vaginal blows I was feeling from his thrusts, but not in a good way. Suddenly, I felt something give way, and momentarily he was finished. I realized, all at once, that I had married a man, my cousin, that I didn't love, because I had felt that I had no choice. He had taken my virginity from me, it seemed to both of us, back in Greensboro, but apparently my hymen had NOT been FULLY torn by him then, meaning at THAT time I was still a virgin! Only now, he really HAD just taken my virginity. Hurting in my torn vagina, and in my broken heart, I turned my face away from him, to the wall, and wept. We were off to a bad start. It wouldn't get better for us, either.

There is too much to cover in this post, as it is, to also go into the details of what our actual marriage was like, so that will have to be another story for another time here. I felt cheated by him, though, and he grew bitter toward me, because the woman, the 18-year-old teenage girl, that he had so loved and wanted for himself, resented him, and could not love him in return. We remained civil to one another, for the most part, largely because we were, after all, still related to one another as cousins, sharing our complete family tree with one another, as well, which involved some other people that we each loved dearly and that cared about both of us. With OUR marriage, we never had to meet any in-laws, because ALL of our relatives were ALREADY each other's relatives!

Jim and I came to loathe one another, by the time our marriage ended, because neither one of us would ever be able to fulfill the other's needs in that marriage. For me, from the night in Fresno when I realized that I had married a man whom I didn't love that I hadn't actually had to marry, as it turns out, I was left with a marriage that I never would have chosen for myself, otherwise. For Jim, he got what he had wanted from me all along, except that my heart wasn't in it, with him, and would never be, therefore keeping it from ever really being what he had so dreamed about having with me. I was an 18-year-old girl married to a 27-year-old man that I didn't respect and didn't want. Even with all that, he STILL seemed to me to be a BETTER ALTERNATIVE than my family had ever been. He was, for me, the lesser of two evils; sad to say. And, at the time, I didn't feel that I had any better choices, or even any other choices, in my life. I wasn't happy with him, but I still wasn't as miserable, with him, as I had been with my family, either. That's how badly it felt, for me, to be with them.