And the Deception Starts Early

Summer 2002 -

That first date was just the beginning for us. I fell asleep next to him that night and never left. I was hooked on him. He said all the right things and gave me all the attention I've ever wanted. He showered me with love and affection. I had never been with anyone like him before. He already had a career going for him. He had his own place... kinda. He treated me like a princess. After only a few weeks he told me that he loved me. Soon I was telling him the same thing. It was around this time that I found out about his wife and child.

How did I not see that coming?!

There was no evidence at the apartment that he was married and had a baby. There were no toys. No baby clothes. No sign that a woman had ever lived there. He never even mentioned it! None of his friends had mentioned anything about him being married... I found out about them by asking Ronnie a question about something he had hanging up in his room. It was a word made out of metal wire. It simply said, Tre. I asked him what it meant and he hesitantly answered that it was the name of his son. Eventually he told me the whole story. Or at least the story according to him.

He's very good at spinning a story to favor himself.

They were on a break and she had moved back home to Visalia to figure things out. His son was just 9 months old. He swore that they were over and he wasn't going back to her. He said that I made him more happy in the past couple months than she ever had in the past year. He filled my head with everything I wanted to hear. He told me about all their problems and how he didn't want to be with her any more. He told me how beautiful I was and that he would never leave me.

So at 18 years old I was made out to be the other woman and I didn't even know it.

Of course I stayed with him. I was head over heels in love with him. I even told my mom that I thought he was The One. I told myself that we could make this work. If we got married I could handle being a step mom. We could get through anything, right? As long as we loved each other...

A few weeks later he took a trip to Visalia to visit them. By the time he went up there his wife knew about us. He called her on the phone right in front of me... to prove how much he loved me... Ronnie was very hurtful in the things that he said to her that day. In my mind at the time I was only thinking that I had won. Here he was married to this woman and yet he loved me more.

Her mother and family didn't know that anything was wrong between them so (according to Ronnie) to keep up appearances he slept in her bed. They ended up sleeping together a few days in to his trip. It could have been more, but I can only go by what I was told. He ended up coming home that night. He says he felt too guilty to stay. He got home late that night and told me everything. I was beyond hurt and felt completely betrayed by him! How could he have done that to me after all the things he's said to me?? It took me awhile, but I decided that he truly was sorry and that it would never happen again. I stayed.

I should have left that night. This was just the beginning...

The First Date

July 18th, 2002 -

I decided that no harm could be done by going out just this once with Ronnie. I was very interested in getting to know him better. He had a playfulness about him that I enjoyed. He was flirty. He was handsome.... and he was interested in ME.

He took me to Applebees. That night I found out that he had been after me since the day we first met. He was just waiting for the right time. I was flattered. I had secretly wanted him too. We talked the whole time. He was very easy to talk to and he made me laugh. He showed an interest in me like no one had ever done before. He said all the right things... Touched my arm when he would talk. (He's always been a very touchy feely kinda guy.) Looked into my eyes when I would speak. I was becoming putty in his hands.

After dinner we went to the movies. I don't even remember the name of it now... I just remember there were dragons in it. I really wasn't interested in watching the movie. I had this guy sitting next to me that I wanted to get to know. The sexual energy between us was starting to get intense. We stuck to holding hands.

When the movie ended I wasn't ready to go home. Truth be told, I wouldn't have gone back home anyway... My parents thought I was staying at my friend's house for the week. I wasn't ready to end our date and neither was he. Ronnie suggested that we go back to his place to watch some movies that he had rented.

(Later on I found out that he had gone out and BOUGHT a DVD player and rented movies that day with the intent to get me back to his apartment.)

We got to his apartment and he had my favorite alcohol there. (We partied a lot when I was dating my boyfriend... lots of drinking almost every night.) We were in his bedroom which was the master bedroom with his own private bathroom in it.We started drinking and watched the first movie. He was touching me the whole time. Not in a truly sexual way, but like holding my hand or brushing his hand along my arm or back. I had promised myself that nothing was going to happen between us that night. He was making it really hard.

By the time our movie ended we both had a few drinks in us. He suggested we take a shower together... I had never done anything like that before and I was kinda nervous to do that with him. I wasn't thinking clearly because of the alcohol.... So we showered together. Up to that point in my life he was the most beautiful thing I had laid my eyes on. Wow, he was hard to resist that night, but we didn't do anything.... Our shower together ended and I put on one of his t-shirts and went to sleep next to him.

I was falling for him. HARD. What I didn't know at the time was that he had a few skeletons hiding in his closet... in the form of a wife and child.


To be continued...

Where to start?

I should probably start from the beginning.

I was 18. It was May 2002 and we only had about a month and a half left of our senior year of high school. I had just started dating a guy I that I met earlier during my freshmen year. We had a lot of fun together while we were dating, but I knew he wasn't The One. We both had plans to join the Marine Corps. He was leaving in July and I was leaving next January. During our brief relationship he introduced me to his friend's older brother, Ronnie. Ronnie was constantly flirting with me when we were hanging out at my boyfriend's house. I was attracted to him and really wanted to get to know him better, but I was still with someone else. My boyfriend had started to distance himself from me because he was preparing to leave for boot camp. At the time I didn't understand why. I now realize that's their way to deal with leaving... to make it easier on themselves. Ronnie was giving me the attention I craved.

My boyfriend left for boot camp on July 15th, 2002. He was cold and distant that day. His way to deal with leaving. I was crying. We said our good-byes at the recruiter's office and left it at that. We never officially broke up. That was the last time I saw him. (A year later he died while in Iraq... I still feel guilty for how we left things.)

That night I got a call from Ronnie. He wanted to know how I was doing and if he could take me out to dinner. I had a big crush on him by this time and decided no harm would be done by going out with him... just this once.

To be continued...

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

I know I said that this wasn't going to be updated any more, but I decided that I'm not done with this blog just yet... In my new blog I had started to write about my my previous marriage. I feel that it fits better in this blog. From now on I'll be posting anything that has to do with the past in this one. I'll leave my new blog for my daily life.

Here's what I started saying about the things I plan to write about....


I've been doing some reading over at the blog, The Quest For T. Lately she's been writing about the affair that she had during her marriage to her ex-husband. Reading her words has really made me think about my own situation and what I went through during my marriage to Ron. There's a lot of stuff that I've never told anyone about. There's a lot that even my ex-husband doesn't know about. I'm sure he could say the same thing about me. Our marriage was pretty much doomed from the start. Looking back I can see that now.

At the time I was a naive 18 year old girl who had just graduated high school. He was a 21 year old United States Marine stationed here in San Diego. He had his own apartment... that he shared with his brother and his co-worker. Back then I thought the world of him. He had me fooled. He had us all fooled. I wasn't completely innocent though. That year I had made plenty of mistakes. Mistakes that would truly hurt my mother if she knew about everything I've done in my life.

When I was 17 I joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. That's a pretty hard time in any persons life to decide to change religions and join a church. It didn't last very long. I still believed in the church doctrine, but I just wasn't ready to fully commit myself to it. So yes, I'm Mormon. I'm very active in the Church now, but during my whole relationship with Ron I wasn't going to church... it was the furthest thing from my mind.

I think I'm ready to talk about everything that's happened. I think it will help me process everything and allow me to really move on with my life. I'm going to be writing about everything from the good times (which were few and far between), sex, our affairs, drugs, drinking... If that's something that you're not comfortable reading about then please don't read. I won't be writing about this stuff every day, but there will be a large portion of my blog that will talk about my past. It's not who I am today, but my past has helped shape me into the person I am now.

I'll type up a few drafts and when I'm ready to share I'll post them... I just thought I should give a fair warning of what may lie ahead.

New Blog Home!

The time has come for me to stop updating this blog... I'm no longer a divorced mommy and I felt like it was time to move on. I hope my readers will come follow me on my new blog.

Happily At Home

Hope to hear from you on there!