Authentically Nita

I knew it.  All the signs were there.  This man flipped the script so fast!  We were just in love and planning on starting our business so we could really build something.   Ex had enrolled in school and began classes.  Soon after, he started going out without me.  He was staying out really late.  At family events he sat in a corner with his face in his phone texting and smiling instead of talking with the guys.  I wasn't stupid.  I confronted him and he denied any wrong doing.  I waited up for him so many nights.  The bars closed at 2:00 am.  Sometimes he didn't make it home until 5 or 6.  He said he was at the "after hour."  I called him a liar.  I argued with him every day.  I bitched and yelled, and he wouldn't tell me the truth.  I tried talking and reasoning with him, but he wouldn't tell me the truth.  I had to find out on my own.  So I did.  After only three months...

Sometimes I think Ex loved me more than I loved myself.  He loved me so much that he put me on a pedestal and held me to a higher standard. There were so many things that I was supposed to be.  Pretty but humble, kind-hearted but unyielding, well kept but natural, conservative but open-minded, reserved but out-going, strong but soft, cordial but not too friendly.  It was almost impossible and quite draining to keep up with.  Still, I was determined to keep it up.  Ex thought more highly of me than I thought of myself and I wanted to be everything he thought I was.  So I did....or at least, I tried. Sometimes I was too friendly or didn't say the right thing.  Other times I held back too much and came off as awkward.  It was a little nerve-racking to not know when I should or shouldn't speak to someone.  Normally, I would just speak to store clerks to be polite.  Now, I needed to make sure I wasn't being, "joe."  It really wasn't...

I feel compelled to fill you in on what happened to change me as a person and stop me from writing for so long.  It has been a long journey and I think you will understand me more if I explain. Let me tell you about my marriage... I met Ex long before we got married.  We married in 2011 in a very rushed ceremony while he was on house arrest fighting a case. (He was later aquitted of all charges). You will never hear me say that I did not love my ex-husband. I loved that man. From the moment I met him, I felt like no one else on the planet understood me the way he did. The night we met, we sat on bar stools next to each other and talked for an hour and a half. We talked like we had been friends for years. We talked about life and family, about current events and politics and about music and movies. I wondered why I had not met him sooner. I was 22. Now, here I was, at age 30, feeling doubt in my heart while standing at the alter holding his hands. The doubt was not from me thin...