Narcissistic Abuse Survival

New Year’s was nothing to write home about, but most holidays were ruined in one way or another.

January 5, 2011 was a day that would change my life forever, because of the choices I made and because of the actions of one person. I am sure you can guess who that person is. The events of Tuesday, January 4th led into the next day. Yes… Tuesday, which if you’ve read up to this point you know that Tuesday was dart night.

I remember where we played that night… at a bar in South Lakeland. We had a make-up match that we were also playing, which meant it would be a very late night. I probably had four beers the entire night, and God only knows how much Sly had. I know at the end of the night there were six pitchers on our tab. It was a long night, and truth be told, today I cannot remember who won or lost or any of that. I can tell you the boards we played on and where in the bar we were. I also know that a member of the other team clearly had too much to drink, and possibly had something in addition to beer (intentionally or by someone putting something in his drink, I’m not sure). I went outside after him after I saw him leave, but I didn’t catch him in time before I saw him drive away. I went back in, and we finished up for the night.

I drove that evening, as I did most times. We lived in an apartment complex on the south end of Lakeland, and as we pulled on our street at the rear of the complex I saw two white cars parked in the middle of the street, parked to where their driver side windows were next to each other. As I drove closer, I saw they were sheriff cars. Apparently, my passenger, good ol’ sly didn’t (at least he says he didn’t) see who they were. He reached over and honked the horn several times, in hopes that they would move out of the way. Of course the one deputy gets out of his car, and comes back to the driver side and starts asking me several questions. I know he could smell alcohol. When Sly drank, it seeped out every pore on his body and he smelled like a walking bar. He was drunk. I knew I was still perfectly capable of driving, or I wouldn’t have.

Making a long story short, apparently I didn’t pass the sobriety test because I turned my head too much when the do the test to follow the light with your eyes. Yup, that was the thing that got me.

I called my parents as soon as I could, because of course you only get one call. I told them exactly what I needed, and the next morning as soon as I got bailed out my brother was there to get me. I’d never been happier to see him.

The next few months were expensive, and emotionally and mentally exhausting. I lost my license during the court process and spent thousands and thousands of dollars on attorney fees, court costs and classes. The charge did eventually get reduced to a reckless with alcohol.

I had a great attorney. After telling him the entire story from start to finish, I remember him saying to me “I hope you’re not still going to marry him”. Well, if this whole scenario didn’t teach me anything, those words sure weren’t… clearly. I was still fighting this, and still going to the courthouse once a week to take a drug test, well into October of 2011.

On top of all of this, Sly let me handle all of this because after all I was the one who caused all of this, and embarrassed him where he lived (in the apartment complex), and I was costing him money. And I still had a wedding to plan….

This was also the very reason I would never be able to finish my teaching degree and become a teacher. My dream was to become an elementary teacher, and had been since I was little. Apparently, even a reckless with alcohol is considered a crime against moral turpitude, and you cannot work for the schoolboard if you have something like this on your record.

Oh… and later in January we’d also close on our first house. I’m sorry, let me rephrase that… it was HIS house and he made that perfectly clear to me. However, I took care of all of the work done, the contractor (it was a foreclosure), and all of the repairs that needed to be done. My dad was a huge help as well.

April 9th was the day… what would eventually be known as the worst day of my life. The day that I said I-do to the narcissist that would single handedly ruin me, and my life that I now am so desperately trying to get back.

The only thing I remember in all of that is that I was excited and happy… for the wedding. I was blindsided by everything else, or even who the person was that I was marrying. Young and naïve, gullible maybe… I had been convinced that no matter what, he was best for me and I would never find anything or anyone better.

The entire day we hardly spoke two words to each other. It was just a huge party where quite a few people got drunk. We had people passed out, carried out, and belligerent by the end of the night. But, it was always “our” thing… to party it up. He always told me that you can’t have a good party without a lot of alcohol.

As the rest of the year went by, and into the next few years, nothing changed. Everything stayed the same. We used to have family days on the weekends where everyone would come over, eat, go swimming and have fun. We’d have huge parties for Halloween, the 4th of July, and anything else that might constitute a party. I was usually the person to take care of the planning, buying items, taking care of food, sending out invitations and so on.

We rarely spent time together, unless we were having a gathering of some sort. We still took vacations and did things… like the twelve day trip out west, or the trip to Aruba. Every time we went somewhere, alcohol was always involved and an argument would always ensue.

Just because you get married, and you are still being convinced that it is everything you’ve always wanted, doesn’t mean everything isn’t still so very wrong.

Within these few years, I learned about the cheating, the lying, and the things he’d said and done to certain people in my life. If you know me and the story… you know what these things are. I’m not going to write details about them, mainly to protect those who he did these things to. Some of my closest friends stopped coming over or even speaking to me because of things that were said or done to their family members. Thousands of dollars were spend on credit cards that he had when he’d go out of town for work. I wasn’t to ask about it as it didn’t concern me. I knew about some things. Those I asked about and confronted him. It came down to “I was drunk, I didn’t know what I was doing.”. Or “she was drunk and no one saw anything so I don’t know what you’re talking about.”. It was also my fault that he did these things because I was not being a “good wife” and doing what I needed to do.

The trip out west in the summer of 2015 would be another point in this story that would change my life… for the better. The one thing that he would hate.