dating – Homeschoolers Anonymous

How I Became a Disillusioned Homeschooler: Elisheba’s Story

May 27, 2015May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team2 Comments

Image by R.L. Stollar.

HA notes: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Elisheba” is a pseudonym.

Content warning: descriptions of self-injury.

I used to be a good homeschooler.

I used to be a good Christian. I used to be a model daughter. Then something happened. I’m not sure what it was, I’m not even sure how it happened.

When I went to college I was determined not to lose myself to “the world”. I didn’t want to be another statistic for why you shouldn’t send your kids to college. I didn’t want to be written off. I was going to defy the odds.

My first full time semester of college was a blast. Learning with other people and having a social life? Hot damn! Sure my 17 year old sister was taking the same classes as I was and would comment on my new found friendship with a fellow homeschooler who happened to be a guy.

Fast forward six months. I am enjoying college as much as ever and even am proud to say I have a boyfriend. Sure I can’t talk about him around my parents, sure hardly any of my friends know about him but I have a guy. Things are slipping. I am becoming one of those people. One of my friends that my mom used as an example to warn me about. One of those girls who I’d have coffee with to try to encourage her to do the right thing. I wasn’t any different.

Then the depression started to hit.

Not only was I not a good daughter anymore, God had turned His back on me, or so I thought. I spent countless nights on the bathroom floor crying and holding a knife to my arm. Pushing it in just enough to leave an impression but never deep enough to actually cut myself. Even in self harm I failed. I didn’t have the guts to do it. Only to tell my boyfriend that I was losing it and that I was going to do it or that I wanted to die. The only relief I could find was being with my boyfriend, which led to more excuses, less time spent on homework and more lies to my parents and more guilt tripping from my boyfriend because I wouldn’t grow a spine and move out, all of this lead to more feelings of being a failure and depression.

Fast forward another six months. I was finding out that my prince charming (it sounded less worldy and in your face than “boyfriend”) wasn’t all that I thought he was, but I had given him my heart which meant I was never going to get that piece back (Boy Meets Girl, anyone?) and could never give anyone my whole heart so logically, I was stuck with him.

I had made my choice and once again I was not going to be another statistic.

My first college relationship would last. I was going to marry him no matter what, even if that meant moving to Texas to live in a trailer with his grandparents and dropping out of school. No price was to high to pay to not be a statistic. So here I was, my relationship with my parents in shambles. God? Yeah. Not really on good terms with Him. Good homeschooler? Not so much. I hated that I had been subjected to that.

The one thing I had was my best friend. She was honest with me, but somehow not harsh. She got through to me. Literally the only reason I did not move to Texas was because of her. To this day I am so thankful for her influence in my life. She saved me from so much pain and ruined dreams. My boyfriend moved to Texas for school. I wrote letters in class instead of taking notes. My grades continued to be mediocre or worse.

Then my parents gave me an ultimatum, him or them.

Some how, even though my relationship with my parents was totally shattered, I chose them. Even now, I’m still not sure why. But I did. Enter major heartbreak, anger, some more lies, and eventually surrender. I still seriously thought we were together, only now we couldn’t talk, okay, don’t become a statistic. We can still make this last. Until the day of all my finals, a mutual friend texted me and told me that my boyfriend had a new girlfriend and that he was a jackass. I got out of my car, stopped crying, threw up, walked in to take my first final and then repeated until all of my finals were over. So there I stood, still not the good, model daughter that I once was. Not a good christian, in fact I really hated God, that day especially. And now to top it off, I was dumped, damaged goods. It did not help that I was crushing really hard on this catholic guy that I knew even though I was sworn to my first guy. It made the depression and the feelings of guilt worse. Not only could I not make a relationship work and I was used and damaged now, I was emotionally cheating on my guy.

Three strikes and you’re out, right? I had them all.

Now I was trying to rebuild myself. Who was I? I was a broken, used, depressed, put in any similar adjective here, person. How should I redeem myself? How could I get my model status back? Fall in love with somebody else? Sure. Enter catholic guy. The perfect gentlemen. The guy who wasn’t afraid of my parents. The guy who my siblings and mom loved. The guy who knew how to handle almost all situations. The guy who treated me like a lady and made me feel like I was valuable and important. The guy who (though he did and doesn’t know it, helped me rebuild myself). Enter the perfect prince charming. No sneaking around this time, except in my head (Leslie Ludy’s books, anyone?). I was having an emotional love affair and giving more of myself away. More guilt, but no lies and no emotional abuse from this guy so not nearly as much depression. I felt loved and cared for and safe. Life was good. Fast forward. Things are good, in my head at least. Ends up he has a girlfriend and has had one for quite a while. Enter sobbing and telling my story to a guy that I don’t really don’t know (he will be one of my best friends eventually).

Again. I’m used and broken. But were we ever actually dating? This drives me nuts. Then the self loathing. Not only was I a sucker for another guy, he was catholic of all things.

Good homeschooled, christian girls don’t fall for catholic boys.

Good homeschooled, christian girls don’t have a chain of boys period. No good homeschooled, christian boy will ever want me now. Hell. God probably doesn’t want me now.

On the other hand I don’t have as many pieces to pick up this time. My grades are good. I have a supportive, loving group of ladies that I study with that are like second moms to me They get that I’m heart broken, they also get that finals are coming up and I have to study. During these study time we talk about everything. Life. Women’s roles. Religion. I learn that there are different types of christians and I like it. Maybe it’s more important to show people that God loves them than to show them where they’re wrong and how confused they are about God. Maybe God could accept the broken, used, messed up me. Maybe He doesn’t care if I’m the perfect homeschooler, daughter, christian girl that I once was. Isn’t that the gospel anyway? He takes something used and broken and renews it? Life isn’t too bad.

I’m still determined to not become a statistic. I will not lose my faith. I will not become too liberal. I will stay conservative. I will believe in courtship. I will follow my parents and obey them. I will not be crazy. I will only attend our church as it is the best and the right way to worship. I will of course homeschool my future children.

Fast forward. I have a best friend who is an atheist. I have another best friend who is struggling with their faith. I have other best friends that are rock solid in their faith. I’m just me. I don’t want to offend anyone. I’m not sure how to defend my beliefs but I think they are true, maybe. Then I start hard core struggling with my faith. What if there really is no God? What if my whole life has been a lie? What if nothing that I told was important, is important? The depression starts creeping it’s way back. I start cutting for real this time.

Now I’m a homeschooler that cuts. That’s not supposed to happen.

I’m a christian who isn’t sure if their God is real. That’s not right.

And I’m a daughter who isn’t telling her parents any of that.

Say goodbye to any chance of getting the daughter of the year award.

Who do I go to? My friend that was struggling and decided for their sanity that they cannot believe in God anymore. They get my problems. I go to my friend who is an atheist. He listens and tries to help. Several months later, I go to my friends who are rock solid in their faith. They still love me and don’t judge.

Fast forward a bit. I’m here. Now. I am tired of trying not be a statistic. Yes. I still hate the idea of it but people are going to make statistics out of whatever they want and as I learned in my research class, they can make those statistics say whatever the hell they want. Who am I to fight it?

Here I am. A homeschooler, christian, not so model daughter who is wondering if living at home is really biblical, if courtship is biblical, if modesty really matters (how is it all the girl’s responsibility?) basically I’m questioning everything I was ever taught was the correct thing to do.

How did I get here? I’m still not sure but it was through slow disillusionment of my life. I’m never going to fit the mold. I can’t. I’m too broken. Does that bother me? Sometimes. Sometimes it really gets to me. Sometimes I still want to die. Sometimes I’m still so depressed I can barely function. Sometimes I still want to cut. But do those things define me? Not really. Does not fitting the mold ruin my life and my plans? No freaking way. It opens up opportunities for me. It allows me an escape.

I’m starting to realize not fitting the mold may be one of the best things that has ever happened to me. The not ideal, disillusioned homeschooler, christian me.

On Crushes

September 16, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team3 Comments

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Libby Anne’s blog Love Joy Feminism. It was originally published on Patheos on September 14, 2014.

Growing up on the conservative Christian homeschooling culture of courtship and purity rings made a lot of things about boy-girl interactions different. Everything was ramped up, accelerated somehow. Our mothers jumped straight from simple attractions on our part to the possibility of marriage. We did too.

I still remember my first crush. I was seven. He was nine. I was homeschooled, but he wasn’t. My mother and his mother knew each other from church. Finally, I got up the courage to ask him what he wanted to be when he grew up, to see if our life visions were compatible. He said he wanted to be a basketball player. I knew that almost certainly wouldn’t happen, and that even if it did, the longterm prospects were slim. This declaration on his part made him seem unwise, and thus definitely an unsuitable partner. How would I be able to submit to his headship when his life ambition was basketball player? I still thought he was cute and all, but my crush was for all intents and purposes over, because I knew there was nothing there for us.

We were told we shouldn’t date until we were ready for marriage. Well, they told us we shouldn’t date at all, that we should court, but that those relationships should not begin before each party was ready to marry. In other words, guy-girl relationships were intrinsically tied to marriage. Guy-girl relationships that weren’t marriage-oriented were wrong and would have all sorts of consequences.

In this context, it’s not surprising that we children would immediately jump to thoughts of marriage upon even the slightest crush.

Were there prospects? Could we possibly end up married, someday? If no, attraction must be crushed. If yes? Well, one can dream, right? I mean, I might be 14 and he might be 16, and we may not be ready for marriage and I might be too afraid of the opposite sex to talk to him anyway, but the most important pressing question is whether maybe, someday, we might be compatible and in a position to marry, right?

There was one young man whom I had always found gangly and awkward and unattractive, but when I headed off to college I learned that he was headed off to university to study engineering. Hmm, I thought. That’s good prospects. Maybe I should reconsider how I felt about him? If I played my cards right, perhaps there might be something there. After all, we had the same beliefs and background. Like me, he was from a large homeschooling family, even more conservative than mine if anything.

Reading that now, I’m struck by how mercenary it was. But that was my reality.

I don’t think it’s helpful to ramp the pressure up to 100 and insert the marriage question into the slightest childhood crush. Most people will have multiple relationships before they meet the person they marry, and that’s actually a good thing, because it’s how we learn and grow. I was taught growing up that we give away “pieces of our heart” every time we have a relationship. The ideal, I was taught, was for my very first relationship to lead to marriage. But the truth is that we learn and grow through our relationships. My husband wouldn’t be the person he is today if he hadn’t dated the two women he dated before me—and I like the person he is today. Far from depriving me of pieces of his heart, those two relationships improved him.

But perhaps what I find most unhealthy about this whole pieces-of-your-heart/your-first-relationship-should-lead-to-marriage ideal is what it means for young men and women who begin a relationship and find it turning south, only to feel that leaving the relationship is not an option. I know women today who found themselves in abusive relationships—yes, good evangelical homeschooled girls who followed the rules and courted good evangelical homeschooled boys—only to feel trapped. Leaving was out of the question—leaving meant not simply relationship failure but comprehensive life failure, and things lost that could never be retrieved.

I know what I’m going to tell my children: It’s okay. It doesn’t have to mean more than you want it to mean. Enjoy the moment. Focus on building healthy and fulfilling relationships rather than trying to force things toward marriage.

Oh, and also? Sometimes a crush is just a crush. And that’s okay.

True Love Waits?: Lilith’s Story

February 28, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team2 Comments

Series disclaimer: HA’s “Let’s Talk About Sex (Ed)” series contains frank, honest, and uncensored conversations about sexuality and sex education. It is intended for mature audiences.

Pseudonym note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Lilith” is a pseudonym.

*****

I had the bare minimum sex education growing up—my mom gave me one brief, frank talk about sex, I read some Christian children and teen books on the subject, and I went to a teen dating class at my church that emphasized, of course, abstinence. In high school, I dated the pastor’s kid for a year, and he waited patiently until my 16th birthday to give me my first kiss (my mom’s mandate). My boyfriend and I only alluded to sex once the whole time we dated.

It wasn’t until college that I began to truly understand the mechanics of sex and sexual anatomy.

At age 18, a psychology textbook introduced me to the word clitoris, and I immediately proceeded to look for mine. At 21, I discovered I had been using tampons incorrectly for nine years (no wonder they were so uncomfortable and didn’t always work!). Shortly after, one of my male friends asked me if I had ever had an orgasm, to which I replied “I don’t know.” I was even more embarrassed when one of my male classmates commented abruptly over lunch, “You’re a virgin, aren’t you?” I finally started looking for answers to my sex questions through Google so I wouldn’t feel so ignorant.

Through these searches I realized that my notions of sex positions and the “motions” of sex – for lack of a better word – were utterly wrong.

At age 22, I started dating my future husband, Matt (HA note: name changed). Even though we were both Christians who valued abstinence, we talked about sex openly. Other guys had humiliated me by pointing out my ignorance, but Matt never made me feel stupid – perhaps because he was a virgin, too. As Christians, we were always told that having sex before marriage would ruin our sex lives once we got married. So, when Matt and I finally gave in to our sexual urges three years later, we felt immense guilt. Before this incident, we had already talked about getting married, but now we wanted to bump up the date so we wouldn’t be “sinning.” We confessed our sexual sins to our pastor and told him our idea of getting married soon, and he told us that was a viable option.

My parents, however, were resistant to the idea, because they wanted me to finish my master’s degree first.

I was confused and angry, because they seemed to be contradicting what they had always taught me: by telling me to postpone marriage, it was as if they were telling me that my education was more important than my morality. (To be fair to my parents, this is how I was feeling, and not necessarily what they believed.)

What I just described is an unfortunate dilemma that I imagine many young Christian adults and their parents face. Because of the demands of college, parents and their children rationalize that marriage should occur after college. At the same time, delaying marriage means delaying sex. Although many young Christian adults earnestly want to wait, their biological urges make it very difficult for them to do so. Our bodies are not designed to postpone sex until we are in our mid- to late-twenties.

Because of my parent’s wishes, Matt and I delayed our wedding until after graduation. In the meantime, we continued to have sex, though we no longer confessed this to our pastor nor our parents. Eventually, we lost feelings of guilt and began to question how ‘sinful’ our actions really were. Matt and I truly loved each other, and we were figuring out sex together. Months later, when we finally got married, our wedding night wasn’t any less special because we had already had sex. In fact, it was satisfying because we knew what we were doing. That same year, for many reasons, we left the church and are no longer Christians.

In closing, I was poorly informed about sex while growing up. This didn’t hurt me much when I was a teenager, because I was homeschooled and not around many other teens or “temptations” anyway. Once I started college, though, I was ridiculed for my ignorance and unknowingly put myself in risky situations. Early on, I should have been taught not only about sexual organs, STDs and contraceptives, but also about the risks of sexual predators and date rape – which, fortunately, I never experienced but could easily have.

I have conflicting feelings about the “True Love Waits” doctrine that homeschooled Christian teens are taught.

On one hand, I’m glad that it encouraged Matt and I to postpone sex for as long as we did – we were both mature enough to experience it safely and thoughtfully, and we couldn’t judge each other because neither of us had “done it” before. However, in some ways the abstinence doctrine did do some emotional damage: when Matt and I were expressing love to each other before we were married, our Christian consciences were telling us that we were doing something bad and harmful. Because of these convictions, we were really hard on ourselves and experienced a lot of unnecessary guilt – so much so that we broke up for a few months in order not to “sin.”

Ironically, the guilt and the breakup were actually more harmful to our relationship than the premarital sex was.

Relationships, A Series: Part Eleven — Conclusion, Don’t Brush Off the Next Generation

August 12, 2013May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team16 Comments

HA note: This series is reprinted with permission from Caleigh Royer’s blog, Profligate Truth. Part Eleven of this series was originally published on June 18, 2013.

*****

*****

Part Eleven — Conclusion, Don’t Brush Off the Next Generation

For the past two weeks, and more, I have been working through Phil’s and my story.

I’ve gotten very interesting feedback. A lot of positive feedback and that seriously has meant a lot. I have felt more sure of myself, our story, and of what Phil and I have especially as I worked through the entire story. Unveiling our story, working out the hardest parts, and writing about the things that went wrong has only further solidified my feelings of why I don’t believe in parent-driven, parent-controlled relationships.

(NOTE: I think what I have to say could make some of you parents who read my blog feeling discouraged or angry. Please know that I am not writing to push anyone’s buttons, point the finger to say you did wrong. I am simply writing what I have observed, what my thoughts are on the topic and where my husband and I sit with this. I know I don’t have kids yet, so maybe my perspective will change, but for right now, I am writing as the child who experienced these things.)

First, I want to give a little background to why Phil and I have reached this point.

One of the biggest difficulties in our relationship prior to marriage was the lack of being taken seriously. Yes, we were and still are young, but we were completely serious and were not taking our relationship or our goals lightly. We both felt very strongly that God had given us each other, and we were 100% committed to getting married.

What was heartbreaking for us was feeling like our parents laughed at us, called us too young.

In my case, my dad brushed everything off and made me feel like I literally was crazy when he in fact didn’t know my own mind or heart. I have heard multiple people call some of my generation and the generations under my generation as the generation that is fading away, that can’t make responsible decisions, or make wise choices.

While I agree that I do not have the perspective of many, many years of life, or the “wisdom from experiences” right now in my life, that does not mean that I am incapable of making good, informed decisions that are wise and exactly what I’m supposed to do right now for me.

While I am not someone who has lived for over 50 years, been through many, many things, and has (hopefully) wisdom from experience, I am someone who has already lived 22 years, I have been through a lot, and my perspective right now is important. I think my perspective is especially important right now because I have not been faced with total cynicism yet, I have not lost the dreams and imagination that makes me me and that comes with youth. I have a fresh perspective that I think as an adult I will lose the older I get unless I keep using imagination, continuing to stretch my mind in creating new ideas.

I have a problem with parents who brush off their children’s dreams, ideas, and experiences.

It creates this idea that children are stupid and can’t think for themselves. The more parents brush off their children, the more that idea gets reinforced.

Am I suggesting that it’s the parents’ fault that young adults can’t seem to make good decisions, be responsible, or even dream? Yes, maybe I am. See, I have a unique perspective. I just went through the child’s side of a relationship, I have been on the other side of parenting. And I expect to be taken seriously because I know that my perspective is not any less important than the parents.

Frankly, I think getting a child’s perspective and not just the parents is important in getting the full picture.

There are at least two sides to every story, so why not go right to the people (and yes, children are people) who are being directly influenced by parenting ideas like parent-driven relationships? Can you see what I’m getting at yet? If a parenting style is shutting down your child (at any age), teaching them that their opinions are unimportant, insignificant, and that mom and dad’s opinions are the only thing that counts, that’s dangerous and has a lot of potential to damage the child’s capability to grow up with a healthy self-worth and a confidence in their own opinions.

Growing up, I learned/taught myself how to read at a very young age. By the time I was ten, I was reading college level books, and understanding them. I worked on stretching my mind, my understanding of my surroundings without really realizing that I was doing that. As I got closer to graduating high school, becoming of age (turning 18) and the potential of being in relationship, I fully and wholeheartedly bought into my dad ruling and controlling who, when, and where I got married.

I bought into this because that was all I knew.

I had no reason to think anything other than that could or even would work. I had no problem letting my dad be my decision-maker, letting him be my heart, mind, and my opinions.

I didn’t realize that letting my parents control an entire relationship from start to finish left no room at all for my own opinions, feelings, or decisions.

It is the equivalent of treating me like a child, a toddler incapable of really making a complicated decision. But even toddlers have opinions and likes and dislikes.

Phil and I will not treat our children and their love interests how we were treated. We believe in letting our children have their own opinions and taking them seriously. We want to be able to raise our children to be fully function adults able to make their own decisions, confident in their own opinions, and able to trust us to help them if they need help.

I know what it feels like to not be taken seriously or to not be heard.

I want to make sure that I document those feelings so I can look back when I have children my age now and remember what it felt like to be their age. I don’t want to forget the perspective I have now. One day, I will most likely have a child who will tell me that I don’t understand and I want to be able to look back and remember.

Parent-Driven Relationships

You will find “Parent-Driven Relationships” most often among Quiverfull and Patriarchy cultures. Especially the homeschooling culture that is tied into these two.

I need to make a specific distinction here.

The usual circumstances for this set-up is when a daughter gets into a relationship, “dad” is especially controlling and protective. Daughters are special property to dads in these cultures, and thus it is usually the father of the daughter who is driving the relationship. It all stems back to the idea that “dad” is “God” in the home.

“Dad” is the ultimate authority, he is the final say on everything, including his adult daughter’s choice of hairstyles (not kidding).

Add in daughters who are unusually, unhealthily complacent and content to stay at home until they are 30+, willing and happily ready to give “dad” total control of their lives and you get a living nightmare of control, abuse, manipulation, and brainwashing. When “dad” drives the relationship, controls everything from which boy/man gets accepted into the precious family fold, to how much time the girl and guy get to talk, spend together, including assigning one or more of the girl’s multiple siblings to play “chaperon” — individual personalities and individual hearts get lost.

This idea for relationships is not only not Biblical, it is not an accurate interpretation of the Biblical ideas it’s supposed to be based on. The Old Testament structure of parent-driven relationships is based on daughters literally being property that is sold and traded for goods, money, and social standings.

Not only are we not in that era anymore, women are not property.

We are whole beings with hearts, minds, and souls, very capable of making wise decisions and holding good, strong opinions.

Now, here is what I think a parents’ role in their children’s relationships should look like. I think it should look like parents respecting their children’s opinions, decisions, hearts, and being there to help, share advice when asked, and to be a trusted person.

I think it’s great that some parents have a relationship with their children that automatically puts them in this situation. But that’s not all parents, all children, all situations. I believe that as a child becomes a young adult, and they start reaching the age of marriageability, and they look for a relationship, only they will know who is the right person for them. A healthy adult will know who is right for them. Phil and I felt frustrated more times than I’d care to recount with older parents, friends, not taking us seriously, not believing how strongly we felt about getting married.

We alienated ourselves from a lot of those people because we couldn’t be ourselves around them.

We felt put down.

I applaud the parents who have healthy, strong relationships with their growing children, and it makes me very happy when I see healthy relationships as the result.

That is good.

*****

End of series.

Relationships, A Series: Part Ten — I Am A Phoenix

August 9, 2013May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team11 Comments

HA note: This series is reprinted with permission from Caleigh Royer’s blog, Profligate Truth. Part Ten of this series was originally published on June 12, 2013.

*****

Part Ten — I Am A Phoenix

I finished chronologically writing our story yesterday.

Although, in a weird way, I haven’t finished it.

Our story still continues, and even though I reached over 2,000 words with almost each post, I left a lot out. Like, pages upon pages of information, memories, circumstantial happenings left out. I had the opposite of a writing hangover yesterday. My mind was buzzing with freshly remembered memories and I felt like I needed to go back and add even more to each part.

Like I didn’t talk about how we had nicknames for each other, how Phil called me Lady Mysterious because he couldn’t figure me out in one conversation like he could most girls. I called him DLF; reminiscent of The Chronicles of Narnia. Or how Phil said that I was like a good book; a good book that makes you think and that you can’t read in one sitting. I didn’t mention how it became my goal in life to make him laugh.

Do you know how rewarding it is to know that you can make someone laugh?

Especially after he had told me that he didn’t laugh much. I still have a mischievous side to me that will try to catch him off guard by doing something he least expects. Tell you what, I have pulled some awesome stuff on him, and thoroughly enjoyed making him speechless.

I haven’t talked about how Phil once compared me to an onion, multi-layered and all that. He covered his tracks by hastily saying I smelled so much better than an onion. We even once tried to write a book together. It was going to be called The Official Guide to Modern-day Hermitage. Trust me, that would have been one heck of a spectacular book!

We both have felt the pull of wanting to be hermits for a very long time.

I didn’t mention how I stupidly almost ruined our friendship at the beginning. I held on to these very damaging ideas of emotionally purity and how I couldn’t be friends with a guy unless I was going to marry him. When Phil asked for a week of communication silence, I retaliated and basically told him our friendship was wrong, we needed to stop talking, and I apologized for “allowing the friendship to reach this point.” Gah, I was so stupid! I broke his heart without even realizing it because I thought that was the right thing to do. Girls, if you any of you are ever in a situation with a guy like this, put yourself on the line and speak the truth. Be bold, be honest, and be real.

Don’t let “purity-catchphrases” get in the way of a real friendship.

I didn’t write about how high and mighty I felt when I told Phil that our friendship was wrong. I don’t want to remember just how rude I was to a genuinely caring guy who was falling in love with me. I don’t like mentioning just how goody-two-shoes I was about a lot of things, especially when it came to relationships. I was a thoroughly messed up girl, and yet, I thought I was doing it right.

This is what is coming back to me as I work through the details I left out about our story.

It’s in those details that the guilt lies. It is in those details that I remember just how flippant I was with this precious man’s heart. Even though having him ripped from me was devastating, I needed that wake up call. I needed to know just how much I needed him. I needed to see that I could love him, and did. I needed a slap to the face for how much I played with him and wasn’t honest. I don’t like remembering or reading about how shallow I was with hinting I liked a guy when talking with Phil, but never being honest and saying look, I like you, really, I do.

I didn’t mention about a little red heart I made for Phil.

He told me one day after the six months of silence that he really wanted a token of love from me. I thought about it, and before I even thought all the way through it, I had crocheted a perfect red heart. From the day I gave it to him, to this very day, he still carries that heart with him. I didn’t mention that I still have the first two roses he ever gave me. Those roses — one red, one pink —are tucked away in a thin wooden box which I still open every once in awhile. I still have the first dozen white roses he gave me on our first officially dressed up date.

I didn’t mention how much I hated saying goodbye to him.

Out of everything that happened to us, having to say goodbye every night for so long was the worst thing. There is something about saying goodbye to the one you love that really eats at you. Our first words to each other after being pronounced man and wife were now we don’t have to say goodbye!

I have a sense of being unfinished. Maybe, one day, I will write about our first year, and this past year. Our story does not end at our wedding day, it has continued and will continue until the day we die.

I have learned to never say never when it comes to writing about something.

We both have looked back on our relationship and recognized it as a testing ground for us both. I have often taken the stand that God was/is preparing us for something as we went through our pre-marriage relationship.

I say “bring it on!” to anything that’s coming in our future. If we were able to get through what we did, then there is no reason why we won’t make it through anything else that might be coming. Going through those three years of trial after trial only taught me more about being resilient. The past four and a half years have proved to me that I can make it. The past six months have taught me that I am strong.

I am a Phoenix, I will continue to bounce back even stronger than before.

Phil and I made it through some of the worst years of our lives only to come out stronger in love, in trusting each other to have the other’s back.

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.

– Martin Luther King, Jr.

*****

To be continued.

Relationships, A Series: Part Nine — We Made It

August 8, 2013May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team13 Comments

HA note: This series is reprinted with permission from Caleigh Royer’s blog, Profligate Truth. Part Nine of this series was originally published on June 11, 2013.

*****

Part Nine — We Made It

I am going to try to wrap up the before-marriage part of our story in this post.

This will be about a day that broke my heart. The walls that went up around my heart after this day have still not been taken down, only reinforced. I didn’t know that the same person could break my heart so many times.

*****

I didn’t feel much when my friend passed away. I said in my last post that something happened to me as our relationship continued. Part of what happened was I lost my innocence.

I lost faith over and over again that my dad cared at all about what happened to me, or whether or not he loved me.

Losing my friend was hard, but it wasn’t until almost a year later that I was able to really grieve her loss. My heart was slowly hardening and I was seeing just what I meant to my parents.

The Saturday of Phil’s guitar teacher’s funeral, the day before my friend’s funeral, I went out to breakfast with my mom. My mom’s and my relationship had grown increasingly rocky, and my trust in her was just about as broken as my trust in my dad. I felt like she wasn’t supporting me at all.

She didn’t stand up for me.

I was upset for most of our breakfast and we definitely didn’t see eye to eye on barely anything. I finally said that maybe it was time for me to move out. Some of the biggest issues that my parents, specifically my dad, had with me was that I wasn’t helping mom out enough at home. I wasn’t filling to huge role I used to fill with making dinner almost every night for 11 people, cleaning more than my fair share because my siblings wouldn’t clean, and babysitting without pay for all of my siblings. I was working 9 hours a day, 5 days a week, add in every other Friday off, and trying to get time with Phil, trying to see my other friends, and I simply had no time left.

Top it off with the snide comments, and the constant cold shoulder or being picked on from my parents at home —

Home was just not a place I wanted to be at anymore.

When I said that maybe it was time for me to move out, she surprised me by agreeing that yes, maybe it was time for me to move out. I was so surprised especially considering how just under a year ago I had tried to move out and both of my parents manipulated me into staying by using my siblings against me. I couldn’t believe my ears. I went home and sent a text to Phil about what mom had said, and then sent an email to my pastor because I wanted to make sure that I did things right this time.

Not even five minutes after sending the email, my parents walked into my room. I knew something was up right away.

My dad opened the dialogue by saying something about knowing I had breakfast with mom. He then told me that he wanted me to move out and I had two weeks to do it. He told me that he was tired of dealing with me, he didn’t have time for me anymore, and then proceeded to blame me for the problems he was having with my siblings.

He said I was a bad influence.

He said it all in a very nonchalant, “I don’t care,” kind of way while I sat there crying. I couldn’t believe that once again my dad was twisting my siblings against me. He asked if I had any questions and when I shook my head no, he then looked around my room and pointed out the few things I could take with me. He said that if I needed help, that I could ask, but basically, I was on my own.

The breath had been completely knocked out of me. I felt betrayed by my mom.

I felt like I was nothing to my dad but someone who he could no longer control and could be easily discarded.

My heart was ripped open and I felt any shred of faith that I might have had in my parents disappear. My parents walked back out of my room while I sat there, sobbing, and wondering what now. I emailed my pastor again and said disregard my last email, my dad just kicked me out. I called Phil, sobbing on the phone that dad had kicked me out. He hung up on me because he was so incredibly pissed. He tried to call my dad to talk to him and confront him. Phil tried to ask about listening to me, or caring about me, but my dad shut him down.

I had made the mistake when talking to my mom that morning about our pastor counseling Phil and I about needing to start looking at moving forward without my dad’s blessing. So when Phil called my dad to call him out, my dad turned the conversation back on him and accused him of disrespecting him and daring to go behind his back and moving forward without his blessing.

Phil was so incredibly upset. That was his breaking point. I have never seen Phil so knocked flat. I had reached my breaking point as well. My heart shut down that day.

But the day wasn’t over yet.

My mom came back into my room and told me that dad had told her that appeals were welcome. What the fuck. My dad expected me to come to him on my knees and beg for him to let me stay? Absolutely not. I was completely done. He cared nothing for me besides having to have control over me.

I was not a daughter. I was not a person. I was simply a thing to be controlled.

I told my mom that I was not going to do that. She came back into my room even later around dinner time and told me that I was welcome to come out to dinner with the rest of the family. It was not an invitation like I was expected to come, it was an invitation like I wasn’t a part of the family. My dad was happier than I have ever seen him. He was practically bouncing around. He even let the kids play the games at the pizza place we went to. He never let them do that. Never. My siblings had found out that I was being kicked out and the oldest ones were furious with dad.

My dad was celebrating.

At my friend’s funeral the next day the drama of the day before hit Phil and I really hard especially during the service. I grabbed our pastor after the service and we ended up talking with him for a good half hour. He told us right away that through my dad kicking me out, my dad had renounced any control he had over our relationship.

Our pastor told us that he was completely 100% behind us and he wanted to get us married.

Phil and I were grateful for the support from at least one person.

I spent the next week frantically looking for a place to stay. Because I didn’t have a car, I had to rely on Phil, and he was right there waiting for me. He was by my side every single step of the way. I found a small bedroom and a bathroom that I could rent for a month while waiting to move in with friends. I moved out almost exactly two weeks after my dad told me to leave.

I removed myself from my family. I cut them off. I stopped talking to my mom unless I absolutely couldn’t help it. I didn’t tell her where I was moving to. She hadn’t stood up for me, I wasn’t going to go to her for help. My parents kicking me out went against everything they had said to keep me from moving out the year before. Everything was in direct contradiction. I couldn’t believe it, but at the same time, I was done, and I knew I had done everything I could to restore any sort of relationship with my parents. I was free, and because my dad had kicked me out, there was no viable ammo on me that could be used against me.

I found out later that rumors were being spread that I had moved out because I wanted to do what I wanted to do. I expected that, and was totally not thrown off by it.

I expected such underhandedness from my dad.

The day I found a place to stay, we were able to settle on a wedding date with the church. Everything started falling into place. The date was three months away.

The month I lived on my own was the worst of my life. I felt bad for the family’s whose basement I lived in. We didn’t tell them about my family because we didn’t want to put any burden on them.

I began planning our wedding. We knew we weren’t going to get any support from either family, so we budgeted it out and found ways around the major expenses. I made my wedding dress, and was very happy with it. My dad’s parents sent us two very generous donations for our wedding. My grandmother called me one day and told me that she wanted to pay for my wedding dress.

We were lifted up on so many hands as people started coming out of the woodwork to help us.

My mom’s oldest sister was a lifesaver. She made my veil, she was the one who gave me my ring and found my wedding band for a very good price, and she made the brownie cupcakes for our wedding, along with numerous other things.

Things were looking up, we were getting married, but it was with sad and heavy hearts that we marched towards that day. There was no giddiness, there was no overwhelming joy.

There was simply this feeling of it’s time, we made it.

There was a sense of heavy relief as that day came closer.

We decided to save money and have a potluck reception. We only sent printed invitations to close friends and family, everyone else was invited via an online invite. The potluck reception was one of the best decisions we made with regards to our wedding. We were hearing praises about our reception for months after we got married. We wanted the people who had been our family throughout our relationship to have a part in our wedding and having a potluck was one of the ways to include people.

Honestly, I was planning on walking down the aisle myself, or Phil and I would walk down together. I did not want my dad to walk my down the aisle. When he kicked me out, he stopped being a father figure, not that he ever really was. My mom told me one day a few weeks before the wedding that dad was really depressed because he thought I wasn’t going to ask him. Frankly, I wasn’t going to, but I decided that I would simply because I didn’t want anymore drama. My family was not involved very much in the wedding, and I purposefully kept it that way. My friends are my family, and I had more than enough people helping.

The day finally came.

May 14th, 2011; the day we were getting married.

My dad almost didn’t make it to the ceremony because he had spent the night before our wedding in the ER with one of my brothers. By the time I got to church at 9 that morning, I was done with planning, I wanted to enjoy myself, and try to forget about the nagging feeling I had that something would go wrong. My biggest fear was that my dad would try to do something to stop the wedding from happening. I was completely calm all the way up till 15 minutes before I walked down the aisle. Then I almost started crying as I realized that we had actually made it.

We made it to the end. We were getting married.

Despite the people who didn’t believe us, despite the heartache, the tears, the hurt, we had made it. Three words that are such a relief to write:

We made it.

We wanted a short ceremony, it was only maybe 20 minutes. We were pronounced man and wife, and we marched back up the aisle to Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, part 4. A grand and triumphant march.

We made it.

We spent the reception wandering around greeting everyone we could. We both felt a great relief that we were done with the drama.

We made it.

We left the reception after about two hours, drove to our new apartment, changed, packed up the car, and took off to Williamsburg for a week.

We made it.

*****

To be continued.

Relationships, A Series: Part Eight — The Means To An End

August 7, 2013May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team13 Comments

HA note: This series is reprinted with permission from Caleigh Royer’s blog, Profligate Truth. Part Eight of this series was originally published on June 10, 2013.

*****

Part Eight — The Means To An End

Something started happening to me as our story crept on.

I think I started at the beginning with meeting Phil as a naive and happily innocent girl. Even though I was surrounded by abuse at home and I was clearly unhappy at home, I think there was still a part of me that thought that was normal. I still believed that my parents cared for me and loved me and would do what was best for me. At some point throughout all of this, and I’m not sure if it is when I said yes, or not, but I began to claim my life as my own.

Once a person begins to realize and claim what is theirs, I don’t believe you can really go back from that.

*****

June started slowly going by with typical muggy days, and I carried around a secret in my purse no matter where I went. I carried around the ring that my aunt gave me and would often pull it out to look at it. I had asked Phil the day I got it about whether or not he wanted to have it so he could surprise me, but he begged me to keep it. “I will most definitely lose it, if you give it to me,” he said. So, I kept it. A beautiful, one of a kind, sapphire ring. I have never wanted a diamond, and I loved the rich glorious blue of sapphires the best.

I want to back up a little bit in this story and go back to March of 2010. I just stumbled upon some really sweet parts of our story that I wanted to share, especially with all of the crap that is about to explode in the end of this part and the next part.

In March, something happened with my family and my dad’s job. The same day everything went down with his job, my dad was also in a bike crash and broke his collar bone. Yeah, that wasn’t a fun day. I happened to be at church later that day and got to see Phil for quite some time. By this point in our relationship, we were shrugging off the guilt of talking to each other and were talking again quite regularly. In person was really the only thing that cut it now, although, I just remembered that we used to talk almost every night for a few hours if we hadn’t seen each other that day. We had to see each other, we had to see each other’s faces and read each other’s reactions as we talked.

Once again, it was that time of year when the high school group at our old church was doing their annual play, and guess who was in charge of half the costumes? Yeah, me, so I got to see Phil multiple times a week, plus almost every Saturday evening because I had to be at church working on all of the costumes. Those were some of the sweetest times in our relationship, and I could definitely say that that is when our friendship blossomed and turned the corner to being something so much deeper. Phil knew when I was down, when it had been an incredibly rough day at home, and he knew just what to say. He would often put his arms around me and tell me that I was beautiful. He would lean in close and ask me if I was going to be okay and then would tell me that he was proud of me.

Those whispered words were what kept me going, and I grew more in love with this man as each day passed. I knew, without a flutter of a doubt, that this was the man I was going to marry, and this was the man who was going to take care of me and help me heal.

Now moving forward again to our current part of the story…

July 6th, 2010, The big day

It was a Tuesday, and we both had care group that night. We started making it a habit to meet before care group at the farm park just down the road from both of us. We would meet, eat dinner together, talk for awhile and then head our separate ways. Those meetings were, in a way, our version of dates because we weren’t “allowed” go on dates. Besides, we were away from the eyes of those who looked on us with disdain and there was almost no chance of running into anyone we knew at the farm, so we were free to talk, laugh, and share stories without feeling like we had to hide our emotions.

I met Phil as usual and it was really a gorgeous day. Not too hot, and the sun was getting ready to set. The sky was a brilliant blue with a splash of golden clouds reflecting the sun. I don’t remember what we had been talking about that day, but we had reached a peaceful lull in the conversation and were just sitting there, holding hands, and looking out at the corn fields and the trees before us. Phil suddenly turned to me and asked if I had the ring with me. I said yes very slowly and asked why. He just smiled and asked me to go get it. I went running to my car and on the way back suddenly realized something. Exactly 9 months ago to the day, Phil had told me for the first time that he loved me, and wanted to marry me. My heart gave a great leap of joy as I knew what was coming next.

I handed him the ring box, he stood up and grabbed my hand and led me off down one of the paths. During the walk he told me about how much he loved, why loved me, why I was his best friend. He told me about how excited he was to spend the rest of his life with me and how much he was looking forward to those days. By this point we had reached an enormous and beautiful oak tree, the sun was setting off to my left, and as I looked at him, Phil got down on one knee, held out the ring, and asked if I would be his wife.

Of course, I said yes. Immediately.

We both left that night having decided to keep our engagement a secret for a week. We didn’t want either sets of parents finding out until we could tell them simultaneously. Of course, wouldn’t you know it, they both refused to see any point to meeting with us…again. We asked if we could sit down and talk with both sets of parents at the same time, we really did try, so we resorted to other methods. The following Saturday, we decided that I would sit down with my parents while Phil called his from work. That was the only way we could figure out to tell them without one side knowing before the other and causing even more mayhem.

It really bothers me, seriously, about how paranoid we were about our parents throughout all of this. We were in love, we wanted to get married, we weren’t doing drugs, we weren’t sleeping around, we weren’t cursing our parents and going off to live with each other and saying forget marriage. We wanted to do things right, we wanted to get married, spend our lives together, and yet, I was treated like I was doing everything but that. Our reactions really goes to show you just how bad things were getting.

I remember the day we told our parents. Ironically, my side of telling my parents actually went quite well compared to Phil’s side of things. I sat down with my parents, looked them in the eyes, and said that Phil and I were engaged and we were getting married in 30 days.

Oh yeah, forgot about that part.

We had this brilliant scheme that we were going to run away down to Williamsburg to get married.

This part of things was definitely a big mistake on our part, and I am sorry we tried to do this. I don’t remember if we had any plans for after we were married… kind of drawing a blank on that. I think the whole “Getting married in 30 days” thing was more of a desperate attempt to show our parents that we were really serious even though they continued to not take us seriously. We wanted to show them that we weren’t playing around here, but were taking things very seriously and we had already made our decision.

My dad told me that no, we weren’t engaged, and I shot right back that we were.

All the way up to our wedding, my dad still would not acknowledge that we were engaged.

The days after that fatal Saturday were quite fraught with chaotic pressure from pastors, parents, and even some friends to break off our engagement. But somehow, we made it, and continued to say that we wouldn’t break off the engagement because that was something that was strictly between us and only we could decide whether or not we were going to get married.

I tell you what, the weeks began stretching into a monotonous never ending round of one week of drama and then two weeks of semi peace, to another week of drama, to another two weeks…well, you get the picture. Between our engagement and rudely announced getting married in 30 days scheme and our wedding, we met with the pastors separately with our parents, we met together with the pastors without our parents, and we met individually with pastors, and Phil met with the pastors, and his dad and my dad. Oh, but guess what, we never got to meet all together with the two of us and our parents. That is still something that has continued to frustrate me to this day. It never made any sense as to why we all couldn’t have met together.

November came, and I actually got to celebrate thanksgiving with Phil’s family and extended family. I was treated with much caution. I’m going to be honest here and say that I felt incredibly out of place. I was the interloper, I was the girl who had stolen the nephew, son away, and I was the girl who was most definitely not engaged to Phil.

Yes, four months after our engagement, it still wasn’t being acknowledged.

It wasn’t until about 4 months before we got married that we were actually allowed to put on Facebook that we were engaged. Before that we had to simply say that we were in a relationship, but even that was a fight to get to say that.

And yes, as you can probably tell, this is still a very sensitive topic for me. It is one thing to have a piano recital ignored or to not receive congratulations for completing a huge masterpiece that took a long time, but it is another thing entirely to have one’s engagement rudely ignored and treated like it never existed. It’s one of those life events that deserves acknowledgement. This is part of why I struggle with shame and guilt when it comes to our story. Engagement is something to be celebrated and ours wasn’t; not by the people who would have counted the most.

December rolled around, we had been engaged for 5 months and had made the difficult decision to call off our third wedding date (the only reason we called this date off was because the pastors told us they wouldn’t marry us…not yet, anyway) which was for the middle of January. New Year’s Eve was upon us and this year, I was not leaving Phil’s side. Things went down hard and fast that New Year’s Eve. That was the day that Phil’s parents found out all about my dad’s past and history, and that was the day that they found out what we had been facing throughout our entire relationship when it came to my dad.

The very next day, January 1st of 2011, was the day that for the first time in over 3 years, and after many requests for this very thing, all six of us sat in the same room and talked. By this point, Phil and I were done. I was done with my dad’s crap, with being picked on by both my parents at home, and not feeling welcomed anywhere else because I was with Phil. Phil was done with meeting with my dad to ask for his blessing on our relationship (he asked, point blank, four separate times), he was done with how I was being treated.

We were done.

I remember Phil’s dad entreating my dad to work on his and my relationship. I remember my dad’s disgusted face about being told to do something he didn’t want to do. I remember my inward scoff that he wouldn’t do anything. And I was right. I ended up initiating, yet again, a coffee date with him a week after the meeting, and a week of waiting for him to do something. We went out to Starbucks, and I told him that I was done initiating anything with our relationship. I didn’t even want to talk to him, I didn’t trust him, and I didn’t know if I ever would again unless I saw him do something.

He told me that he had wanted to kick me out (never really told me why he had changed his mind at that point) and that he just didn’t know what to say to me.

I shrugged and really had no interest in continuing the failing conversation.

*****

Two weeks later, my life changed drastically.

One of my best friends had been in a coma since the middle of December. She was one of the only people I felt I could trust was genuinely and extremely happy for us. She died shortly after my coffee date with my dad. Phil’s first major guitar teacher died of ALS the day before she died as well.

The following weekend held both of their funerals.

The following weekend was also when I found out just how much I meant to my parents.

*****

To be continued.

Relationships, A Series: Part Seven — The Five-Year Relationship Plan

August 6, 2013May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team10 Comments

HA note: This series is reprinted with permission from Caleigh Royer’s blog, Profligate Truth. Part Seven of this series was originally published on June 9, 2013.

*****

Part Seven — The Five-Year Relationship Plan

I have to keep moving with these posts or else I will lose momentum and it will become even more difficult to continue the story.

I want to explain a little bit about why this is so difficult for me to write, but also why I need to write our story. From that first devastating break in Phil’s and my friendship, I began losing a lot of friends, I faced opposition at home and from other parents, people I barely knew, and those who I thought were friends. I have always been sensitive to my heart, to my conscience, and it killed me when I couldn’t seem to get it across that my conscience was clear in my loving Phil and continuing to be in a relationship with him.

I was being accused of lust, idolatry, bitterness by my parents, I was called rebellious, disobedient, dishonoring of my parents by others around me. I was having friends question my heart, and asking whether or not I was being blind to wisdom just because I wanted to do what I wanted to do. I felt almost nothing but shame, false guilt, and pain from those moments on. Shame because I wasn’t doing what others wanted me to do and feeling guilt because my conscience was being used against me. I was also feeling pain because what I felt was right and felt at peace with wasn’t even close to what everyone else around me said was “right.”

I felt manipulated, like I was being used against myself.

I felt alone, I felt the few friends I could trust were my lifelines, and without them Phil and I probably wouldn’t have made it. I watched the people who used to “look up to me” look down at me in disgust as my parents told stories of my dishonorable actions.

Here are the reasons why I need to write our story. By writing our story, I am owning the story. I am spreading it out and accepting that it is our story; the good, the painful, the ugly, and the bad.

I am acknowledging that our story is amazing; amazing because we made it.

Amazing because Phil and I are married, very amazingly happily married. It’s amazing because we came out stronger and more in love with each other than before. It’s amazing because we stayed true to our hearts no matter how many people tried to break us apart.

That’s why I need to write this story.

That’s why it’s important for me to accept it.

The next year and a half that I will be covering in the next few parts are the ones that make the past few posts seem like a walk through the park.

*****

That week of talking after 6 months of silence was pure bliss.

We decided that we were going to write up relationship guidelines that at the end of the week we would try to present to our parents. We spent hours on the phone and online trying to work through what we thoughts our parents would approve of (incredibly strict talking guidelines, timelines, and so forth). We talked with the couple who were becoming mentors to me about what would be best to put into this five year plan that we were writing up.

We even started working on what would become roughly a year later our budget that is still in play to this day.

We talked about where we would want to live when we got married, we talked about how many kids we wanted, we talked about their names, we talked about the kind of house we’d want to live in.

We talked about everything.

I vaguely remember my grandfather being in town that week, but I wasn’t around very much. Phil was taking my time and I sure as heck wasn’t going to stop that. The week began winding down and we started figuring out what the game plan was going to be presenting this five year relationship plan to our parents.

We came to the conclusion that approaching my dad and asking for his blessing on our relationship was the first step.

And we decided that it was going to be on Sunday. Phil approached my dad at church, nervous as heck, and actually came across a little abrupt to my dad, asking if my dad could talk with him later that afternoon. Oh, the day started out bad from the start, and that should have been a sign for us to stop because we both got burned. The first sign was Phil’s car battery dying. He almost didn’t make it in time to meet with my dad. The second was getting questioned on the way home from church by my dad about this meeting with Phil.

The third sign that the day was going ridiculously wrong was when I watched my dad talking with Phil and saw the typical signs of my dad BSing Phil. The typical long drawn out speech that my dad gives when he doesn’t want to deal with something and is annoyed, but is going to keep the polite man face up. Sure enough, Phil left, I waited a few moments and then went inside, only to be met by two furious parents, one of them a mom I had never seen that angry with me. My parents talked and yelled at me about how disrespectful I had been to them, how I had dishonored my dad, how Phil was disgustingly disrespectful to my dad by asking him for his blessing on our relationship.

I have never been able to understand how a man asking to be in a relationship with me was a dishonoring thing.

Or how Phil asking in a very polite manner was disrespectful to my dad.

I felt ashamed of my “sin” of dishonoring my parents for wanting to talk with the man I loved. Both Phil and I were talked down about how sinful we had been to talk. I still feel anger and confusion over just why what we did was considered sinful.

The weeks that followed brought confusion, pain for both of us, and a tentative continuing of our under the radar relationship. We both decided that it was more important to stay true to our hearts than to continue a forced separation. Phil gave me thumb drives with letters to me, his favorite music, and class schedules, and I wrote him letters and we continued to talk about our future. Thanksgiving passed, Christmas was fast approaching. I gave Phil a little figurine made out of nuts and bolts who was a little man at a desk on a metal laptop. And I also made him a pair of half fingered mitts and a scarf. I think he gave me a chain mail medallion. New Year’s crept up on us and I was greatly looking forward to seeing Phil at a mutual friend’s party.

At this point, Phil knew almost everything that had to do with my family.

I told him about the nightmares I had of my dad beating me. I told him about how scared I was when my dad got angry, I told him about the depression I felt when I was home. Phil became more and more my rock as things continued to get worse between my dad and I. Ever since the year I had found out about my dad’s issues, I haven’t been able to talk with him without feeling some sense of uneasiness, discomfort, and distrust.

By the time the new year’s party rolled around, my dad and I weren’t really on speaking terms again. I have no idea why we weren’t this time, probably something I didn’t say that made him pissed with me. That happened way too often for me to keep track of anymore. I was planning on going to to the party, but mom told me I still had to ask dad. So I went and asked him. I already knew Phil was going to be there, but I sure as heck wasn’t going to volunteer the information. My dad told me I could go, but as I turned to walk away, he told me that if Phil was there, that I had to come home right away.

My heart sank.

I needed this party.

Outside of my job, I didn’t see anyone, like at all. I was incredibly isolated.

Besides seeing Phil sometimes after work, at single’s meetings at church, I rarely saw friends. I frantically emailed Phil and asked him not to come. I told him that I couldn’t ignore my dad’s command if he showed up. My conscience wouldn’t allow it.

Frankly, I have no idea what I thought, or was afraid, my dad would do if I didn’t do this stupid thing. I was being scared into doing what he said because he knew that he still had quite a few pulls over me. I was taken advantage of because of my sensitivity to what was put to me as the right thing to do. My mom told me that one day. I don’t know why she told me that dad could get me to do what he wanted because of my sensitive spirit. After finding that out I was even more wary of my dad. Rightly so, I believe.

Phil told me to enjoy the party for him and that he would spend the evening thinking about me and working on some projects. Throughout our relationship, up till a big thing happened in January of 2011, Phil tried his hardest to pull the fire off of me when it came to my dad. He was too much of a good guy.

I am angry about how many times my dad took advantage of Phil’s genuine care for me and his desire to do what was right.

After the beginning of 2010 had passed, life at home and around my parents began to reach new heights of buttons being pushed and nasty responses to almost anything I did. Sometime around February, I met a new friend, and shortly afterward got an email from her saying that her and her husband would like to offer me a place in their new house. She knew that life was hard at home, knew about Phil and I, and her and her husband wanted to give me an escape.

I quietly, secretly, began planning to move out. I was freaked out half to death that my parents would kill me and forcefully keep me at home once I told them that I was going to move out. I was pretty set on doing it, and even went and separated my bank account from them because the last thing I wanted happening was my money being taken.

I didn’t put anything past them.

May came around and I found out that major building delays were happening with the house that I was supposed to have a room in. That was seriously pushing back my projected move out date. The end of May came, and I decided to tell my parents anyway that I was going to move out. I wanted to tell them I was moving out, not that I wanted to move out. I didn’t want to give them any room to shut me down.

Little did I know that that was futile. I sat down with both my parents and told them I was moving out in a few weeks.

They immediately used their biggest weapon against me: my siblings.

They told me how devastated my siblings would be if I moved out. They told me how much of a good influence I was on them, and how they would need a big sister. They, once again, took advantage of my sensitive heart and manipulated me into staying. And yes, I stayed. I could feel the despair settle in even deeper in my heart. Twice in the months that followed I had a bad breakdown and asked two different friends to come get me. I was gone for hours both times, and I wish I had had the courage to leave when I had originally wanted to.

But, I suppose there is a reason for everything.

I also got something really special at the end of May.

My aunt had been saving a gorgeous sapphire ring for me, and I called her when I knew she was going to be in the area to ask for the ring. She brought it out from CA that May.

The ring fit perfectly.

Now if I could only wear it as an outward sign of my commitment to Phil.

*****

To be continued.

Relationships, A Series: Part Six — The Storm Starts Brewing

August 5, 2013May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team10 Comments

HA note: This series is reprinted with permission from Caleigh Royer’s blog, Profligate Truth. Part Six of this series was originally published on June 7, 2013.

*****

Part Six — The Storm Starts Brewing

For those who have been following Phil’s and my story, this is where is starts to get really uncomfortable to write. If I thought the past few posts have been hard, this is where I start losing hope and when I lost hope that things would ever be happy again.

This is the beginning of the darkest two years I have ever been through yet.

Also, on another note, as I’ve been reading through my original journal entries, I am realizing that there is a lot I am leaving out, and a lot that I am having to condense. Not only that, but it is really sad to read just how brainwashed I still was during this too. A lot of my honest reactions weren’t until later, much, much later after the original incident. I still believed that my dad was going to do right in this relationship.

I still believed that fathers were supposed to rule over their children’s relationships, and that it was my job to trust my dad and sit back and be a good girl.

Oh, I was so wrong.

*****

The calm I felt when I realized that I truly did love Phil didn’t last for very long. In fact, it only lasted until I had gotten home that night and faced my dad. I don’t know what I had been expecting when I called him at work to confess my love for Phil and to ask my dad to help bring us back together.

Was there some part of me that was actually normal and healthy and desiring a daddy who did what daddies are supposed to do?

Maybe, I don’t know, I just know for a moment there when I called my dad, I was in another world. Sitting down with my dad that night, I sat on the corner of the couch in which I felt most safe. I sat under a lamp and Dad sat in a chair across from me. Looking back, I will admit it felt like sitting in an interrogation and to this day, if the only seat available in a room is one under a light, I will sit on the floor or lean up against a wall instead of sitting in that seat.

My dad sat there looking at me and I waited, holding the tear stained piece of paper I had written on all of the reasons I could think of as to why I loved Phil, and why we should talk. I think I read the notes to my dad, and then nervously, eagerly waited for his response. His response was what I should have expected, but it still threw me off when he gave it.

He gave me this long sermon about how I was lusting after Phil and that I was making him an idol, and how it wasn’t wisdom for us to interact at all right now.

I was floored and even sitting here writing this, I am feeling the wrath in the pit of my stomach starting to churn again. Those three things were his main points, and yet I sat there for at least a half hour listening to his flowery dressed up speech.

The thing that made me the most mad was here was a man with an addiction accusing me of lust simply because I said I loved a guy and wanted to be with him.

As with everything that was said to me during those years, and even to today, I can’t let the words go until I’ve thought through and pondered everything. When my dad accused me of lusting after Phil, I went bed that night turning that over and over and over in my brain and the more I thought about it the less I could find that was backing up his point. See, the thing with my dad is that he talks some good stuff, but if you can get past the flowery words, there is very little weight to what he is actually saying. I can’t count the number of conversations I’ve had with my dad, walked away feeling like he answered my questions, only to realize that he hadn’t answered anything and in fact had only made me more confused.

About the same time I was working all of this, Phil was realizing that he was even more in love with me than ever. He told me later that at this point he had no idea how I felt towards him, but he loved me even to the point of wanting only what was best for me, even if that meant me falling for someone else.

The month after I realized I love this man, I spent a week up in PA with the couple that have become my surrogate parents in a way. During that time, Phil and his dad met with my mom and dad. I remember anxiously sitting by the phone after making my mom promise that she would call me and tell me how the meeting went after Phil had left.

I paced around the house up in PA, crying, wondering, and spending hours talking with this dear couple as I waited to hear what was going to come of this meeting. I was hoping, hoping with all that I could that this was when I would find out if Phil was waiting for me or not. I managed to get a hold of Mom late that evening and she told me the meeting went pretty good.

I asked her if Phil liked me, if he had said anything, and she gave me a very cryptic answer of something like he said he was waiting for me.

I was over the moon, and went to bed that night feeling like maybe there was hope, maybe this guy really did care for me.

I got back from my week in PA eager to see where things were going with Phil. I was also uneasy because I talked with my dad the day after the meeting and his lack of info about how the meeting gave me enough of a red flag that I wasn’t sure what to expect. Anti-climatically after getting back from my week of rest, almost nothing happened with Phil for a few weeks until one day, my family was getting the internet back at our house and needed help with setting up the computers and Phil was the guy to help. I was thrilled that Phil was going to be coming over to help with the computers. That meant that Phil was going to be in the same house that I was, he was going to be sitting in the same room I could be sitting in and maybe I would get to talk with him.

Wow, I could not have described a more awkward scene than the first few times Phil came over to work on our computers. I didn’t know whether or not I should say anything to him, I didn’t know if I was going to face a talking to from my dad if he knew that I had even said so much as hello to Phil. We both skirted around the fact that we were in the same room and that it is usually courteous to say hello to each other and instead simply enjoyed the fact that we could look at each other. That had to be enough for now because the risk of talking, the risk of my dad’s wrath on me was too great. By the third or fourth time Phil had come over, I had worked up enough guts to give him the letter that I had written to him almost six months before telling him that I would wait for him for as long as it took.

I gave him the letter and asked him to read it in front of me. I watched him open the envelope and major nerves set in as I watched him read through it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a guy get that pale before. The color drained from his face as he suddenly stood up, eyes shinning, smiling from ear to ear as he rushed to the bathroom.

I had no idea what was going on but found out later that I had made him so happy, so incredibly nervous, and so relieved that he felt like he was going to lose his lunch.

He thanked me profusely for the letter when he had the chance to say something privately to me. Him thanking me was enough in that moment, but I began realizing as the days and weeks went on that I had no idea still how he felt about me. It seemed pretty obvious from how he acted around me, but I had not heard it straight from his mouth.

That’s when I snapped. It was as if the past six months had been built on a foundation that was under enormous pressure and it was no longer able to stand up to it.

I didn’t realize it in that moment, but when I finally did snap, it was one of the first actually healthy things I had ever done in my life.

It was a beautiful, sunny fall day at the beginning of October, four years ago, I knew that Phil was probably still in class (side-note: the first full college semester that we were friends, Phil had given me his class schedule so I would know when he was online. and ever since then he had somehow managed to let me know what his class schedule was for each semester after that), but that didn’t matter, I had had enough. I sat outside on the hill at the side of the house, dialed his number, and left a message asking if he could please call me when he got a chance.

It was probably the first time in over six months I had spoken a full, confident sentence to Phil, even if it was in a message. I hung up, unsure if I was really sure of what I wanted to talk with him about, of even if he would call back. Ah, but I didn’t have to wait long for an answer, he called me back within five minutes. He was breathless like he had just been running (which I found out, he had. he had been so excited to get a message from me that he had raced out of class so he could call me back).

After getting the pleasantries out of the way, I asked the question that I had been burning to ask from day one; “what are your feelings towards me?”

His response was instantaneous and I will never forget it.

He told me that he loved me, he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. He told me that I was his best friend, that he wanted to be with me more than ever and he wanted to marry me.

That day, October 6th, 2009, I felt for the first time I had made the right choice, I was going to stick with this guy for as long as I could.

That day was also the beginning of a wonderful week that ended with an enormous bang that left us reeling for several months after. But that part of the story is going to have to wait till next time.

*****

To be continued.

Relationships, A Series: Part Five — To My Darling Clementine

August 2, 2013May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team10 Comments

HA note: This series is reprinted with permission from Caleigh Royer’s blog, Profligate Truth. Part Five of this series was originally published on June 4, 2013.

*****

Part Five — To My Darling Clementine

To be perfectly honest, this part of our story is a bit of a blur to me.

There were a few incidents that stood out to me during this time but I just remember an overall feeling of numbness, pain, and the feeling like my heart was constantly being gripped in an iron fist that was squeezing the life out of me. I hated it, I buried myself into my work, and found many nights filled with tears, nightmares, and wondering if this time was ever going to end.

*****

I wouldn’t have said that I loved this guy.

I don’t think I really could have picked a “feeling” of what love would have been for me.

I knew that I deeply missed Phil, my heart was still in many pieces, and I knew that I was waiting for him, and I knew that God had told me to keep an eye on him. After the parenting seminar, I went home and spent the next few weeks trying to survive. I remember pulling out old emails he had written to me and re-reading them. I remember crying as I read and wishing I could talk to him again. I remember wanting to pick up the phone and call him and hear his voice. I remember something happening that would make me smile and almost immediately feeling punched in the gut when I went to go tell Phil about it.

During the first two months of our separation I didn’t talk about not being able to talk with him. I think only one friend really knew how I was doing, and after the initial first few weeks, I stopped talking about Phil. My parents didn’t seem to care, or give any thought to us, and the friends who were all buzzed about the drama to begin with soon gave up and the story was no longer a new and exciting piece of drama in their dull lives. Only a small handful of people really stuck with me through the entire journey.

This story isn’t just about Phil and I, it is also a sad reminder of all of the friends we lost along the way.

I caught up with a good friend two months after losing Phil’s friendship and I broke down and told her everything. She was shocked, but at the same time some of her first words were “I knew it!” She told me that without knowing anything, she had played a bit of match-maker and had pair us together. (Several people told me the same thing when they found out later that Phil and I were together. They told me I was one of the only girls who was shorter than Phil and we perfectly rounded each other’s personalities out.) We would go on walks and she never seemed tired of hearing what had happened that week or where I was at.

Ironically she was the one who was with me for one of the most difficult situations I found myself in during that horrendous summer.

My best friend’s brother had a surprise birthday party at an ice cream place and I ended up getting invited. I had a feeling Phil would be there, and I was incredibly nervous. I knew he had recently bought himself a sweet car and knowing him, he would be there with it and would be showing it off in his own subtle way. My friend and I drove up to the ice cream place and managed to pull in right when Phil did. My heart stopped when I saw him break into an amazing smile and come charging towards us. He had these glasses on that looked like old fashioned scientist sunglasses. To be honest, I actually did come to like them a lot and they fit his quirky personality, but that’s not what happened this day.

The first words out of my mouth were the ones I wish I could rip back and burn. I told him I hated the glasses.

I told him I didn’t like them on him. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a guy, or any person, deflate that quickly. His shoulders dropped and I almost started sobbing right then and there. My heart broke all over again and I couldn’t think of another thing to say. I just didn’t want to see him so defeated. And it was all my fault. I went for a walk with my friend after the birthday party and I spent the entire time bouncing back and forth about whether or not I should call him and apologize. I had his number dialed twice and my finger on the send button. I found out later that he was so surprised to hear me say that I hated the glasses and he couldn’t help but see the pain in my eyes. He was more worried about me than hurt by what I said, even though he was hurt, and wouldn’t wear the glasses for quite some time after that.

Oh that is one day I wish I could relive and do it all over again!

Towards the end of the summer, around the end of July, I was in VA for a sewing workshop for some girls. I was teaching them all to make a proper corset and helping them all make their own patterns that would fit them the way the corsets were supposed to fit. I do miss this part of reenacting and I wish we were still in it, but too much went down and it no longer holds the attention for me that it used to. Anyway, at the end of the first day of the class, I found out that Phil was planning on naming his car. I wasn’t too surprised especially since his car was so unique. When I found out the proposed name, I had a very delayed flipping out reaction.

Being surrounded by girls who I was supposed to be a role model for, I didn’t feel like I could really react the way I felt I was reacting inside.

He wanted to name his car Clementine. And in that moment my world stood still; was he waiting for me? Is that why he wanted to chose a name that meant something special to both of us?

Let me explain about Clementine. This is a little known story about us and it is one of my favorites that I hold close to my heart.

About 3 months after I met Phil, he hit a really bad anxiety day and was pretty far down in the dumps. I had already dealt with one of those days before this and I kind of knew what to do to cheer him up but I was still trying to work around his no talking on the phone rule. It’s hard to cheer someone up when you can’t hear them or see them. This time happened the day before his brother got married. They weren’t all that close at that time, but I think that it was hitting him hard that things were changing drastically and he didn’t know how to deal with it.

The first time he hit the wall, I wrote this comical letter that really cheered him up. I wrote the letter as if he had written it to a crazy, wild girl named Clementine. I created this entire persona of a purple haired, red lipped, bubbly girl. So when he needed cheering up again the night before his brother’s wedding, I wrote the second letter to Darling Clementine and it worked exactly how I planned it to work. He told me the next day that he could barely keep from laughing out loud as he read it.

Honestly, those letters are rather strange to read now. They were hilarious back then, but they were a bad memory during that summer and a fond memory now that I can smile about.

When Phil decided to name his car Clementine, I was elated and crushed at the same time.

How dare he name a car something that was uniquely special to us? Does he like me still, is that why he wants to name his car that? And then the thoughts of what if he doesn’t like me anymore came pouring in. By the time I went to bed that night at the people’s house the class was at, I thought I was calm and could handle things. I had also let Phil know my mind and how I didn’t approve of the car name via some tricky commenting strategies on Facebook.

(Really, who am I kidding, I pulled the typical write a comment and then delete it prank. that was back when we got emails about comments left on our walls. so even if I had deleted the comments he still got an email about it.)

I didn’t have that hard of a time falling asleep. One of the girls at the sewing class was in a budding relationship herself, and I was getting the scoop on all of her exciting drama so Phil wasn’t completely at the forefront of my mind. I fell asleep feeling comfortable (which was very rare for me) and I fully expected to actually sleep that night.

I woke up around 3 am sobbing.

Bells were going on in my head as piece after piece of a puzzle I didn’t know I had been trying to solve was put together. I think up to this point I had been denying any other feeling other than that I was waiting for Phil and that was it. For most of the summer I shut down even more emotionally than ever before. When Phil had come into my life I had started very slowly breaking down the walls around my heart. But when he was ripped from me, those walls were reinforced and were even thicker. That’s why that early July morning I was struck breathless as emotions flooded my heart and left me sobbing.

I saw the world through opened eyes and I simply knew I couldn’t live without Phil.

I couldn’t go on living without him by my side.

I truly did love him.

I needed him.

My heart settled into the greatest peace I had even known.

“I love Phil.”

With one phrase, my world was calm. The chaos was hushed, my sight was clear.

*****

To be continued.