I used to be very athletic. I would take walks and even jogged back in the day. On one of those occasions I was jogging in the neighborhood and came across some eye candy. Stu was working on his Camaro in the driveway of his parents’ very nice home. He had potential and was on the “dangerous” end of the scale. He was blond but it was a darker dirty blond. His blue eyes were just dreamy and even though he wasn't a “perfect” picture of the prince, he was a lot better than anything I had seen in this place.
A senior in high school I remembered seeing him in the halls of the old school. He was two years older so I wasn't going to be forbidden to see him. Now all I needed to do was get him to notice me. Like a world class fisherman I baited the hook and set out to reel in the big one. I wore short shorts, did the hair and makeup just perfect. I would walk to about a block away then jog down the street he lived on. I couldn't risk messing up the hair or sweating by jogging the whole route. It only took two days before he stopped me and asked if I was new to the area. We started talking and he showed me his car, trying to get my attention as much as I tried to get his. There was chemistry from the start so it wasn't a surprise we were inseparable almost from the start.
He spoiled me for a long time. He loved to hear about all the places I had been and wanted to know all he could about me. He loved to hear me talk about myself and my dreams and promised to make each one come true. We would go out every weekend even if it was just to drive around in his awesome Camaro. He showed me off to all his friends and never left my side. The best part was being included in everything he wanted to do. He would bring me flowers that he picked from other people’s gardens. This should have been a clue that he didn't want to spend money unless it was on himself but at the time I thought it was so romantic. His parents were still together and were young when they married as well. We had so much in common or so we thought. We would go to the park near his house and stare at the stars. The stars seemed brighter and the conversations deeper when you are young. We knew everything already so no one could tell us different .We just wanted to be together forever and no one was going to stop us.
Stu had been hurt before by girls who were not faithful, I wasn't going to have a problem with that. My mom was faithful to S.D. even though he was a Tom cat. All the women in my family took the “forsaking all others” very seriously and mom raised me to think the same way. I didn't claim the paternal side of my family so I could pull this one off easy. S.D. was the Antichrist of husbands so I knew if Stu hated cheaters, I was going to have the perfect husband.
He was an incredible guitar player and was going to be a rock star, if that didn't work out; he was going to college for computers as a “back up plan” so to speak, but we just knew he was going to be the next Randy Rhoads. He would play for hours and I couldn't get enough of listening to him. After about a year, we both realized that Ozzy Osbourne wasn't going to be rolling into town and offering him the break of a lifetime.
He shared with me his love of music and cars. I didn't know squat when it came to cars but I listened as if every word he spoke was the gospel. One day he was working on the car again and decided I could help. This was a major mistake but I felt so special he trusted me. The carburetor was being worked on and he needed me to spray the cleaner into it while he tried to start the car. Being that I was only sixteen I was unaware that he just wanted a few quick squirts from the can. I sent a continuous spray of highly flammable liquid into this poor motor. As it burst into flames I must admit the colors of the flames were impressive. Unfortunately the color of red that Stu’s face turned was not so pretty. I had just torched his pride and joy but he still loved me.
I needed to nudge him into a more military career choice if he was going to be anything like the man who claimed to be my father. To me, the military was the vehicle to moving around and continuing my adventurous spirit. He joined the National Guard, it wasn't the full military but I figured this was close enough. I remember crying as he went off to basic training for twelve weeks. It felt like an eternity and I just knew I wouldn't survive this separation. I was so distraught I even took one of his t-shirts to use as a pillowcase to sleep with his scent. I missed him so bad I wrote letters to him almost everyday. He looked so good in his uniform. It was so very sexy to me and I knew I had found the one. When he returned from basic, he proposed and I thought finally my life was back on the path it was designed to take.
We dated for about two years before getting married. No this was not near long enough but I had self deception down to a fine art. He made me feel like the most important thing in his life and that made me blind to any faults he had. They say love is blind, but it is also deaf, dumb and in most cases for me, toxic. I think mom had a feeling this was a train wreck but no one could convince me this wasn't going to work. She refused to sign the papers that would allow me marry under the age of eighteen but S.D. was easily manipulated. I also knew his dirty little secrets so by this time; I could write my own ticket and get what ever I wanted. He signed the papers and I got my marriage license. Mom was a trooper. She has always been the one to put a shining light on even the worst disaster. This had to be the worst month in her life. We had prom one weekend, graduation the next, and finally a wedding on the third. She lived on Pepto-Bismal the whole time but never complained, well not in public. She must have lost twenty pounds that month. I thought it was to fit into her dress but later found out it was because she couldn't hold food down knowing I was about to make the same dumb mistake she did.
The wedding was beautiful. Mom planned all the details perfectly like only she could. She was the original Martha Stewart when it came to planning an event. She didn't really want to do this but she wanted to make me happy and make that good impression by hosting the perfect event. I wore my mother’s wedding dress and that made her happy. My friends and family were all gathered together; even the relatives you would rather hide in the closet were on their best behavior. The flowers, the cake, everything was perfect. I was nervous but excited. I did it, I was about to begin my destiny. Like the women in my family before me, I found my prince and ‘happily ever after’ was about to begin.
I found myself married, now what? Reality comes and slaps you in the face. We think of the wedding and how it should be, we think of the honeymoon and how that will be perfect but when the party is over and the guests go home its just the two of you. There were many things I didn't think about before I got married. One of the first things I realized was toothpaste and toilet paper doesn't magically appear in the bathroom, you have to actually go to the store and buy it. The reality came when I had to use my own money to do it. No longer could I just grab some plastic from S.D.’s wallet and go blindly through the isles of the store without batting an eye at price. Stu was working at a Pizza Hut so minimum wage was a new thing for me to deal with. I had never paid bills in my life. That wasn't my job so I was once again in foreign territory. I was a party girl and this was not my idea of fun. I would go to him for money and found most times he had spent it on alcohol or weed. I will admit I didn't complain when the party was at our house but I did want my basic needs met too. There is only so much partying you can do before the rent is due.
In June I developed a pretty bad urinary tract infection. It was probably from all the partying we had been doing and lack of taking care of myself. Water was good but whiskey was better. I went to the doctor and got the prescription thinking all was going to be fine now. July was good but August it came back, or so I thought. I went back to the doctor to tell him my symptoms returned so he ran more tests. It seemed like an eternity and he came back in the room with a little white box. On the top of this box was a very clear plus sign. With a smile on his face, he looks at me and says “your kidney infection is gone but the reason you feel the need to pee all the time is because you’re pregnant”. I sat there in complete shock. He had to be wrong, mixed the results with someone else because I was on the pill. I took it religiously and I don’t mean every Sunday. The doctor giggled and explained to me that some antibiotics made birth control pills ineffective. Oh how nice to tell me this now, little closing the gate after the horse already escaped. I had just turned eighteen, only been married three months and had no intentions of having children until my party days were over and we partied like it would never end. Stu and I were doing OK but the things were still new. Things are a lot different when you are living together than they were when you were just dating and we were still in that getting to know you stage of the marriage and I was finding things I didn't like very well. I was scared to say the least. We had talked about children before but we both agreed we wanted to have as much fun as possible before we settled down to have kids. At the time all I could think of was how hard it was for the two of us to make ends meet, adding a baby was going to make it even harder. I was extremely selfish and a baby was going to take away from me and what I wanted. Guess it was time to grow up, put the party animal to sleep and usher in a new addition to my life. A million things ran through my mind. Could I handle a baby? Could I do as good a job raising him or her as my mother had done? How will we do this without the resources my parents had? I knew we were not where I wanted us to be when it came time to having children but I was never one to back down from a challenge.
When I left the doctor’s office I called my mom and the first words out of her mouth were “Oh shit”. Not exactly comforting but at least she was honest. She knew this day would come but hoped it wasn't going to be this quickly either. She tried to be funny about it telling me that making her a grandmother before she turned forty was communistic. She reminded me that this was no longer the Stone Age and that Roe vs. Wade had not been overturned, no matter how the pro lifers tried, so I had options. I was pro choice, but that didn't seem to be something I wanted to do for me. I figured this happened for a reason so I was going to have this baby. She was supportive after the initial shock wore off but what scared me more was if mom reacted like this, how was Stu going to take it?
Stu was working so I had a few hours to get the house cleaned up and make a nice dinner. I remembered that if you have news to tell someone, good or bad, it goes down better with food. My culinary skills were not developed yet so the only thing I really knew how to make was Mac n Cheese or Hamburger Helper. I made the helper in hopes this would be a good talk. He stayed late to drink with the boys after work so the food was cold when he finally got home. No surprise there, he drank like a fish. It wasn't a problem when we drank together but now I was pregnant so drinking and getting high was out of the question. I had done some heavy duty partying over the Fourth of July weekend not knowing I would conceive at that time, I didn't need to do anymore damage than I may have already done. I told him I was pregnant and he acted like I just told him to pass the salt. No real reaction. Where was his shock, where was his fear, where was his roller coaster of emotion? OK maybe this is a guy thing, they don’t get worked up like girls do. It actually hit him the next day. I learned at that time never to tell important news to people who are not sober. Similarly I learned not to have fights with them because they don’t remember a word you said.
Before I got pregnant, his drinking and getting high didn't bother me because I partied just as hard as he did. For two years he was my best party boy. His father was a police officer so it wasn't like we would be busted. Our house was the place to be every weekend. Things were different now, everything was about to change and I needed to prepare for that. Unfortunately I was the only one in this relationship willing to grow up and be responsible. From the minute I found out a little one was coming I stopped drinking and didn't touch a drug. I didn't let anyone smoke weed near me either because I heard somewhere that the smoke was bad for the baby. It made the dog high so I couldn't risk it around me. I couldn't quit smoking cigarettes but at that time it wasn't thought to be that bad. I found as the pregnancy progressed that he was not near as much fun when he was drinking and I wasn't. His temper grew when I would complain about needing money or that I couldn't do the liquid dinner, I needed real food now that I was eating for two. I didn't understand why he couldn't stop. It was easy for me to stop; all I had to do was think of the healthy baby I wanted to deliver. I never even craved it while I was pregnant so I didn't understand why he could not give it up for us.
As I suspected, the rent wasn't getting paid and we had to move in with his elderly grandmother. She was a nice woman but she was brought up in the same era as GG. Woman were seen and not heard, we were to be subservient to the man, and cleaning house was the most important job. Although she was almost completely deaf, he couldn't party at her house because she was anti alcohol. She thought prohibition should have never ended; it was the drink of the devil. That was fine with him because he had more than enough places to get high at. When you work at a pizza hut and bring “mistakes” to a buddy’s house, you’re more than welcome to stay for a while. She went to bed early so it wasn't hard to stumble in without being seen. I was feeling more and more left out. It was not easy to sit at home doing nothing while he was out having fun. It was difficult for me to live there because his grandma had taken over taking caring for him. She cooked dinners, did laundry and even made our bed. Most people wouldn't complain about this, but it left me nothing to do. It was a constant reminder that this was not my home; I was a visitor who stayed longer than most.
The fights we had escalated and the tension was growing. Most of our fights were verbal. I could deal with those. Now that I was no longer the party girl he married, it wasn't long until he felt it was OK to push me around. I didn't really know how to react or cope with that. I had never seen S.D. put his hands on mom so there was no reference point to go to. I had never been exposed to domestic violence so I didn't know what to do. Stu would always come back after he sobered up and apologize. He promised it would never happen again. It was a lie of course but I desperately wanted to believe it. Clinging to the lie that this could work out was easier than admitting defeat. Everyday I would try harder and harder to be what he needed me to be so he wouldn't feel the need to drink himself to oblivion. If I was a better wife, he would feel that my company was better than the bottom of a bottle. When you’re young, you will try to convince yourself that you can somehow control the behavior of others just by trying. I needed to “fix” him and his problem with alcohol. With the right amount of love and attention I could do this…or so I tried to convince myself.
He was drinking more than before and by now our fights were full blown knock down drag outs. I would make the mistake of blocking the door so he couldn't leave. I wanted to finish this discussion and all he wanted to do was go out with the boys. Hindsight is 20/20 and I admit I was a nag when it came to him going out but when you’re eighteen and pregnant, you just want him to stay with you, not leave you behind because the guys are more fun. We didn't have a castle of our own, we didn't have a bed for the baby, and he didn't have a clue how we were going to do this. I needed things for the new baby and he was drinking or smoking what little we had. It was fun playing house but he didn't want that part to stop by being burdened with the responsibility of being a daddy.
When we had the big fights I could be just as violent as he was. I couldn't punch him back as hard as he would me but I could throw a mean ashtray or beer bottle. As I got further along he would have the upper hand. Hard to do damage on him when your trying to protect the baby inside. By the time I was showing I tried to protect my stomach as much as possible. The final straw for me was the night he knocked me down and started to kick me in the back and stomach. He told me it was my fault that I was pregnant (like he had nothing to do with it) and I had ruined his life by keeping the baby. He left the house, leaving me on the floor crying. I realized quickly that I couldn't walk. Something was wrong and my stomach was having contractions. I knew I needed medical attention but his grandmother couldn't hear my screams in the fight, she definitely couldn't hear me calling out for help. I had no phone in that room so I dragged myself to the kitchen. I called my parents to take me to the hospital. I was so ashamed. I was able to explain away past bruises and avoid seeing people until facial bruises healed. This time, I couldn't hide it anymore; my baby’s life was at stake. I was admitted into the hospital for several days so they could monitor the baby and give me a chance to relax. The stress I was under was not good for the baby and if I didn’t get proper rest I could have premature labor.
I moved out of his grandmothers and back to my parent’s home. Filing for divorce a few months later was the hardest thing I ever had to do and I felt like the biggest loser on the planet. People tried to tell me I was too young, I didn’t know what I was doing and I got several of the “I told you so” stares. I tried everything I knew to make this marriage work. I tried to be a good wife but I was obviously failing on a grand scale. Mom made her marriage work, I couldn’t make my marriage last one year, and so what did I do wrong?
Depressed and living in denial I couldn’t imagine that this was Stu’s fault. There had to be something lacking in me that made it impossible for him to be the man I needed him to be. I mean, I picked him right? He didn’t seek me out; I baited the hook and reeled him in. He was the father of my unborn child, my soon to be ex Prince Charming and it had all gone so terribly wrong. Now look at me, I'm moving into my old room as a soon to be single teenage mother; this was far from the fairytale life I envisioned.
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