Deployment and Cheating, Part 3

May/June 2005 -

Ronnie: So who is he?
Me: Who is who? What are you talking about?
Ronnie: I know you've been talking to someone online. What the F*^% are you doing with Kevin?
Me: Kevin? The only Kevin I know is the one I went to high school with... and I definitely haven't been talking to him. And what do you mean I'm talking to people online? Who told you that??! I haven't been talking to anyone online. I want to know who told you this because they're lying to you!
Ronnie: Don't worry about who told me. Just know that I know and S**t needs to stop NOW.

That was the conversation we had one day before I started work. I don't know where in the world Ronnie was at the time. Probably Greece or maybe Dubai... His deployment was more than half over and he was supposed to be returning in July. Most of our conversations sounded like this... Him accusing me of something and me either defending myself or just getting angry with him. A lot of the time I laughed at the accusations because they were so far off. Who was telling him I was talking to people online??

I was definitely seeing someone, but I never once talked to him online and his name was Kyle, not Kevin.

Kyle spent the night at my apartment that first night and pretty much never left. Our relationship started off pretty innocently despite how it sounds. He slept on the couch for awhile... Kyle and I just really, truly enjoyed hanging out with each other. He allowed me to be myself around him... Something I hadn't felt with someone in a few years. I was having fun. I was laughing and enjoying my life again. It felt good.

Kyle knew a lot of people. A LOT of people. Slowly, but surely his friends were becoming my friends. I loved hanging out with them and they all thought I was a cool chick. I was made even cooler because I was 21 and they were all 19 and 20... I could buy us alcohol... and I did. I spent so much money on alcohol it was pretty ridiculous looking back on it now. I never used Ronnie's money for it though. (He was doing a good job of that himself... spending hundreds and thousands of dollars on alcohol and food while in port.) No, I had my own money during this time. I was working part time as a front end supervisor at Michaels. I didn't make tons of money, but it was enough for me. (Thinking back I can't even remember how we managed to pay bills during this time.)

We were partying every weekend... I supplied the drinks. We were smoking weed everyday... Kyle had lots of hook-ups. Kyle moved from the couch to my bed after one night of partying. We were falling for each other fast. I knew in my head that nothing would ever come of this relationship... I didn't care though. I wasn't thinking of the future. I was living in the present for once and it was addicting. Each day was different and fun. We were making things up as we went along. My hours at work were slowing down so we had plenty of free time. We went to parties. We hung out at the beach. We were just having fun... living for the moment.

One night we decided to have a party at my apartment. There weren't a ton of people that came, but there were enough. We had a fun night. Everyone spent the night in my living room.  In the morning one of the guys that I didn't care for too much decided to whistle at and say vulgar things to one of my apartment managers that walked by. She took offense to it... Later that day I got a notice that I had to either voluntarily move out or they would be forced to evict me. They claimed to have 3 strikes against me and the whistling was the last strike. The first two were bogus claims. She said that some neighbors complained of drug deals going on outside of my apartment. I don't think so! We were smoking weed, but we never had anyone come to the apartment to drop it off! We were always the ones to go pick it up... Second strike? She claims that someone from my apartment broke a water pipe near the swimming pool. Um, seriously? The pool was on the other side of the complex. We never went swimming. We never had a reason to walk past it unless I was walking over there to pay rent. She said she had witnesses to both claims. I had to move.


By this time Ronnie was calling me less and less. We were just going through the motions now. He didn't WANT to call me. As the deployment was coming closer and closer to the end he started talking about divorce....

Deployment and Cheating, Part 2

April 2005 -
One night after work I got a phone call from a guy friend of mine. He asked me if I wanted to come hang out with him and some of his friends at his apartment. I wasn't interested in him at all other than as a friend. He knew that. He also knew that I was married. Despite that, I'm pretty sure he had a little crush on me. I'm not gonna lie, I liked the attention at the time. I wasn't getting any attention from my husband and I was craving it. So I went. I knew I shouldn't have. I was a married woman... even if I could feel my husband pulling away from me. I remember that I actually tried to get out of it by saying that I didn't feel like driving... Should have come up with a better excuse. He offered to pick me up.

When we get to the apartment I can see why he invited me over. It was a bunch of guys hanging out. They wanted some girls there. There was one other female there, but she was with one of the guys and she was nothing but loud, obnoxious and annoying. When her and some of the other guys decided to take off some where, the rest of us were relieved.

Around the time the loud girl and her friends left I noticed someone else there. It was a guy I went to high school with who always seems to show up out of no where a few times a year. I can't stand this guy! Great... As soon as he spots me he comes over to where I'm sitting on the couch and starts talking to me like we're old friends. He's had a thing for me since 9th grade. I tried my best to be polite, but at the same time I was trying to find a reason not to talk to him. I was saved when he got up to smoke outside with some of his friends.

While they were outside smoking a guy came up and sat down next to me on the couch. I thought he was pretty cute. He introduced himself to me as Kyle and told me that he noticed how thrilled I looked to talk to the guy who went outside. He offered to save me from him. (Thank you!) I definitely didn't mind him saving me. He seemed like a fun guy to talk to. He was friendly, good looking and he seemed interested in me. I don't even know when the guys came back inside from smoking. Kyle and I were too interested in our conversation with each other. Towards the end of the night Kyle asked to see my cell phone. I didn't know what he was going to do, but I gave it to him. He put in a phone number and gave it back to me. Confused, I asked him, "What's this?" He told me that it was his number and that I should put mine in his phone. I don't even know what made me do it. I think I was just enjoying the attention that he was showing me. What harm could come from exchanging numbers? It wasn't like I was going to call him.

Some time after midnight the same friend who picked me up took me home. Kyle and the stalker guy came along for the ride.

As soon as I got inside I got a text from Kyle... Oh great, what did I do now? ...He let me know that he had fun talking to me and he hoped to talk to me again soon. Oh no. I knew I should have cut it off right then and there, but he knew I was married and off limits. What harm could come from being just friends?

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Kyle called me the next night when I got off work. ...I don't even know how it happened. Suddenly our phone conversation turned into us hanging out. I drove over to his house and picked him up. I knew what I was doing. I didn't care. I hadn't heard from my husband in weeks. I was just making new friends... No harm in that, right? I had no intention of taking things further than some innocent flirting... so why not hang out with my new friend?

I remember our ride back to my apartment. On the inside I was nervous, giddy and had butterflies in my stomach... I hadn't felt like that in a long time and I didn't want it to end. On the outside I was confident and flirty. I felt like I was in total control of the situation. I liked knowing that this guy was interested in me and I loved the power that came with that.

On the way up the steps to my apartment I turned to Kyle and jokingly said, "We can hang out, but you just have to do one thing for me... Promise me that you won't fall in love."

To be continued...

Deployment and Cheating, Part 1

February 2005 Ronnie deployed on a Navy ship that was sailing around the world. We didn't say our good-byes on the best of terms. I remember hugging him in our apartment and telling him that I loved him. I also begged him to keep the drinking to a minimum and to stay out of trouble... he knew I meant girls... His friends drove him to base. I waved to him from the balcony of our apartment and then went on with my day. I don't even remember why I didn't drive him. Maybe I had to work that day.

Ronnie had started off the deployment with a phone call about once a week and sent me at least one e-mail a day. As time went on I was getting about one phone call a month and about one e-mail a week. The phone calls lasted less than five minutes and the e-mails were boring, generic and sounding a bit forced. For about 2 months I e-mailed him every day... When I realized that I was getting nothing in return my e-mails slowed down too.

March 2005 was when the 1st affair happened... well I guess it wasn't really an affair... more like a one night stand. I didn't find out about it until AFTER the deployment. Ronnie was distancing himself from me because he had cheated on me. He had told me that some guy from the ship had flown his girlfriend from the States into Guam, which was their first stop. He didn't care for this guy and wanted to prove to who-knows-who that he could get this guy's girlfriend to sleep with him. (His favorite thing to say back then...and probably still... is, "I do what I want.") I truly believe that he doesn't think he'll have any consequences for his actions. At least at the time he's doing it. And of course he was completely drunk at the time. They did it in the bathroom of a club... In a bathroom stall. Classy, right?

Back at home I was hanging out with my best friend at the time, Melissa. She and her husband had just filed for divorce. (I think she was really hurt when it happened. She did what I did when Ronnie and I got divorced... She went looking for male attention. Not saying it's right, but I think we both dealt with it the same way.) She and I would hang out in Pacific Beach a lot. (Lots of bars, tattoo shops and guys!) We hung out with a lot of guys she knew during that time. After we both turned 21 we would also go to a bar every now and then. When I wasn't hanging out with her I was working... Until the night I went over to a friend's apartment...

That night changed everything for me.

Marriage, Year One

December 2003 - December 2004

I learned a lot that first year. A lot about life, about myself and about the man I just married. Neither one of us really thought things through. I was fresh out of high school and he went straight from one marriage right into another. I gave up a lot of my future plans in the name of love and I think in a way I actually started to resent Ronnie for it.

I decided against joining the Marine Corps and instead of going to college like all of my friends I started working in retail full time. My hours at work were awful. I worked a lot of nights and weekends, which I hated. My new husband was working nights as well, but he had all weekends and holidays off. We spent very little time together during this time.

During the weekends while I worked he spent all his time either at his friend's house or the bars. He drank. A LOT. I didn't even realize that he had a drinking problem until we were married. Even though I knew that he had a problem with it he would never admit to it. He always said that he could handle his alcohol and he could stop drinking any time he wanted to. He drove home drunk almost every night. Some nights he wouldn't make it home and I would have to track him down.

Along with the drinking were the girls... He's a naturally friendly and flirtatious kind of guy and could make fast friends where ever he went. The girls that hung around the bars and his friend's houses showed lots of interest in him. I was still too young to go to the bar with him, but I saw girls flirting with him on the nights that we'd both have off. Nights like that always ended in me getting angry with him and him drinking more and more. I would usually leave him where ever we were and drive myself home... Only to be wondering what was going on without me there. I'd end up calling him all night.

(Thinking about this time in my life brings up all the hurt feelings as if this all happened yesterday. I was a very jealous and bitter person back then. I was angry all the time. Looking back on this now I don't even know why we stayed married! We had no kids. We didn't own anything besides our cars... I just kept telling myself that it would get better. That he would grow out of it and that we'd go back to how things were when we first met. I stayed because I didn't want a failed marriage at the age of 20. I didn't want to have to start my life over again... Little did I know that had I done it then things would have been MUCH easier.)

At the end of 2004 we found out that Ronnie would be leaving on deployment in January 2005. This one was different. He'd be on a ship that sailed around the world for 7 months. I was ready for him to leave....

My Past: September 2002 - December 2003

September 2002 -

Ronnie left for what we thought would be a 6-7 month deployment to Japan. We had no idea that the war in Iraq would break out in March 2003. We had no idea that he would be stuck there for a whole year. The whole time he was gone we stayed in constant contact with each other. We emailed several times a day and he called to talk to me for hours on end after work. Everything seemed perfect.

He came home to visit for a few weeks in December. He stayed for Christmas and my birthday. I was turning 19 in January 2003. He got down on one knee that day and proposed to me. I thought I was the luckiest girl in the world. We were both beyond happy with the way things were going. Only problem was that he was still legally married to his wife. He kept telling me that she was taking care of it and that it was supposed to be final as soon as he got back.

That never happened.

September 2003 -
Ronnie returned from Japan and their divorce STILL wasn't final yet. So he and I traveled the 6 hours up north to get her to sign the paperwork... and to visit with his son who was now 2. We found out that she was pregnant with some random man's baby. She didn't fight us about signing the paper work. She signed and we went back home. He was staying with us at my parent's house... in a separate room.

November 2003 -
We rented our first apartment together. (I actually live right next door to the complex he and I used to live in...) I wanted to wait until we were married, but I was already tired of living at my parents house. I think we really rushed things because we didn't want to stay there any more.

December 17th 2003 -
His divorce was final and we got the paperwork in the mail a few days later. We eloped the day we got it... on December 20th. The only people we told were my mom and my best friend.

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That first year of marriage wasn't the best...

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...