Bullet #2

Okay peeps, it’s been a while.  I have a bunch of posts rattling around my head, but have had zero time to sit down and do something about it.

This one in particular, though, I’ve been putting off intentionally.  It’s hard to think about.  It’s been eight years, but I will still occasionally get nightmares about it.

So, without further ado, the story of the second bullet I have dodged.  This one was a doozie.

I meet The Bible Thumper on POF.  In retrospect, I think my “thing” for men in uniform really messed with my judgement.  Had he not been a medic, I probably would not have given him the time of day.

He was a single dad from Cornwall with three kids from two different women. The younger two lived with their mom. The 18 year old hid in the basement 24/7.  I normally stayed away from guys who had young kids.  I know, it’s hypocritical, but I had such a hard time with my own prodigal when he hit the teen years.  There was no way I was going to willingly jump into that fire again, so the fact that the young ones were not there full time worked out just fine.

The first red flag that waved in my face was what he said to me on our very first date.  He wanted me to know that “sex is very important to him”…..really.  Who says that first thing off the bat?  I let it slide.

On our second date, he wanted to know if we could be exclusive.  I agreed, but felt it was a little soon to be talking of that. I let it slide.  That very night, he jumped on to Facebook and updated his status to “in a relationship with” and was waiting on my confirmation.  Aaaw crap.  Awkward.  I am uber private about stuff like that and agreeing to that was like dying a thousand deaths. I let it slide.

When we met I was a super busy girl, but made time for him.  Whenever we were apart though, he would send me selfies.  Uhm…ok. Did he think I would forget what he looked like or something?  I let it slide.

He introduced his kids very early.  I was so uncomfortable with that, but I didn’t say anything.  Know what else?  His kids were creepy.  There, I said it. All three of them were socially awkward.  I kid you not, the first time we all sat down for a meal together, one of them was eating everything with his hands…and he was 12 years of age. You always knew what those kids just ate because it was smeared all over their faces and shirts.  Dental hygiene was real dodgy in that place, too.

I met the almost ex-wife too.  She left The Bible Thumper for someone she met gaming online.  The new man was a 300 pound 20-something year old dude from Alabama that was still living in his mother’s home.

I am so not making this stuff up.

We were dating just over three months when he started talking about living together. Here’s the part that embarrasses me to no end…I actually agreed to it, but reluctantly.  I met him half way and said that at the end of my lease, which was in June.  This way it gave us more time to get to know each other and to let my son finish school.  There was no way I was pulling him away in his graduating year.

The months leading up to our moving in, I started noticing little things. Things like he had no male friends. Not one.  He spent a lot of time in bed, playing video games.  He had hoarder tendencies (I spent ALOT of time organizing and cleaning that shit hole of a house that was deep in the boonies).

Moving day came and I was so not ready.  The move itself was awful, nobody helped us and I still had boxes and boxes of unpacked stuff.  I was dragging my feet.  I should have listened to my gut, because the minute we were done, he tore me a new one, screaming that I did not prepare properly and that he was exhausted from all that work.

That was how my first night was with him.  He left all my furniture on the front lawn while he went to bed.  I was so shaken and got the feeling that I had just made the biggest mistake of my life.  Also, I had left my son behind with his dad because he did not want to move.  Good call, kiddo.

I sat on that front porch, crying and shaking.  What the hell had I just done?

I kept my job in Montreal and would commute daily.  If that is not a sign that I was not embracing this new life, I don’t know what was.  He kept asking when I would start looking for work in Cornwall.  In my head, the answer was “try never”.

About two weeks after I settled in, all of a sudden one more of his kids decided that he wanted to live with us.  Next thing you know, the third one was moving back too. All of this was decided without me.  I had zero say. When I mentioned that I felt it was something we should both discuss first, he became enraged.

All right, I have to stop here, it’s really tough to re-live this. Give me another day or two and I will finish this story.

Stay tuned.