A few months ago I was contacted by a journalist wanting to write my story. Unfortunately because we were in a different countries she was unable to write it. So it was suggested I create a blog sharing my story as well as some of my recipes as baking and cooking is my passion! Ok here we go....
Born in Brantford to a young and fun loving 16 yr old girl who lived at home with her family. She wasn't ready to be a mom but tried until I turned 4. My grandparents legally adopted me and raised me as one of their own. I found out from my lunch teacher at school when I was 13 that they were in fact my grandparents. I had an amazing relationship with my sister (biological mom ) and it continued until she passed away when she was 47 from lung cancer. She was my sister, my mom and my best friend. When I was 15 I was a normal crazy teenager and then I met him (we will call him Steve). He was 19 and the love of my life. He moved in with me within a few months of us being together. There wasn't anything I wouldn't do for him, I was raised by an old school mom and dad where the woman does everything and that's just what I did. We got our first apartment when I was 17 and we loved the freedom it was awesome. We worked to pay our bills but then party party party the rest of our time away. We became best friends with a couple (we will call them Paul and Sarah ) we were inseparable we hung out all the time camped and vacationed together. Steve and Paul worked together and I was so lucky to have such a friend that I could trust with my life. By the age of 19 Steve and I decided to move out of our first apartment and get something bigger thinking of maybe one day starting a family. Steve started acting strange and disappearing at night for a few hours saying he needed some space. Well one night his sister Pam was staying with us and confided in me that she had a secret to tell me. She had found out the Steve and Sarah had been sleeping together. I was devastated. I didn't know what to do.. Pam told me she knew he was with her right now as Paul was working nights. Well I walked over to my so called best friends house and walked in (as we always did we were close friends ) I heard noises from the bedroom and sure enough there was Steve naked and having sex with my best friend. Well that was the end of friendship. Paul quit working with Steve immediately. Steve begged me not to leave him and he would never hurt me again EVER. I forgave him. Paul and Sarah stayed together as well and got married and had 2 kids together. (And divorced 14 yrs ago now ) Steve and I got married less than 6 months after that and our relationship ship was awesome. We hung out with my family and had amazing new friends. Steve was always a flirt he was always hitting on our friends women and when I said anything I would get yelled at by him, our friends, family etc... that's just what men do and there is no harm in it was all I ever heard. Being so young and from a family that that kind of thing was normal. I tried to ignore it (well pretended) it killed me inside. The following year we had our son Michael, he was perfect and handsome and we were the perfect family. I truly believed in my heart we were. As Michael grew up he was put into sports (baseball, hockey, football, lacrosse) we kept him busy as I always believed busy keeps you out of trouble. Steve started playing ball 2 to 4 nights a night plus hockey as well. My days were working and evenings were driving to sports for both our son and my husband as I was the designated sober driver. In between those hours I still had to come home and make dinner, cook , clean, laundry and make sure sports equipment was put together properly in their sports bags. We would come home anywhere from 9pm to 2am (my mom would take Michael after sports so I could go do my job driving ) Steve was a verbally abusive man and sometimes physically abusive with me but not very often. He was downright mean to our son almost regularly. I loved him so much I refused to see what everyone was telling me. And that was our life in a nutshell until our son was about 15. We had worked so hard to get everything we wanted in life, we had just renovated our home, bought a new motorcycle and a trailer as we wanted to start to travel. We had even started vacationing in the Caribbean. Our life was amazing we were all so happy and I thought all that hard work and staying with the man of my dreams and sticking through the bad stuff was about to pay off. We had gone and spent our first weekend in our trailer and our son had friends up with us as well. It was so much fun was the absolute BEST family time we had ever had. Then we came come. 3 days after we got back and I'm sitting in my office and receive a phone call from one of my former employees sister. She had told me that Steve was having an affair with her sister and got her pregnant and expected something to be done. Well I almost lost it. I was crying and so sick to my stomach that I got my new best friend (who I met through work and was my assistant ) to drive me home immediately where Steve was sitting waiting for me to come home and he was in tears. My friend who I will call Satan came in to make sure I was ok and looked at Steve and said "why"? She left and went back to work. He admitted that he had slept with that other girl (call her Tracy ) only one time and that he pulled out so that there was no way it could be his. He got down on his hands and knees and prayed and begged me not to leave him. I told him it was over that I couldn't handle it again. He told me he would do anything to make me stay. He had even gotten our son to beg me to stay and not break up our beautiful family. After a few weeks I decided I would try. I got Steve to attend councilling (he lasted 2 sessions and said we were fine, we were not fine) The mother of the baby (Tracy ) was taking Steve to court for support so I demanded a DNA test as he claimed still it was not his child. Well tests were 99.9 his baby and thay day signed off all rights to this child and agreed to never see him or have anuthing to do with him) (he blamed the child for our problems) but we were working through it. That Christmas he surprised me with a new diamond ring and on one knee under the tree asked me to marry him again for our 20th anniversary (which was not quite 2 yrs away) on the beach with our closest friends in the Dominican. I said yes... things seemed to be going ok and I finally was able to trust another friend as I hadn't been able to since Sarah. Satan was young and was so much help trying to help us mend our marriage and so supportive I loved her for it..My family hated her and all our friends hated her (she was not a nice or friendly person) yet to me I seen something different in her that I believed they were all wrong. She even went with me and held my hand during Steve court proceedings for child support. He had to a pay ALOT of money to her and it was difficult for me to see that money coming away from our son. We argued but our councillor said it was normal and would take about 3 yrs before everything would be great again. STEVE was willing to wait it out. He said he loved me and our son and didn't care what it took to make us happy again. We had a wonderful summer the next summer but as fall started we started to argue alot
He wasn't happy any more. He said he couldn't handle me not trusting him and he couldn't handle the fighting that was going on with our 16 yr old (you know normal teenage stuff ). So he started adding more sports into the mix (as if 4 nights or more plus weekends weren't enough ) he was starting to distance himself and I couldn't understand why. So Christmas morning that year was so beautiful (still not as wonderful as other years but was still really nice ) our friends got engaged !! Steve received a text message to let us know. We were so happy for them. I received a phone call from Satan wishing me a Merry Christmas and that she loved me and would see me later. Steve was getting into the shower as we were gong to spend Christmas with his family as we did every year. I went to grab his phone so I could get our friends number to congratulate them. I couldn't find it anywhere.. He had taken it into the shower with him. How very odd and I questioned him as to why? We were both very open with each other about our cell phones and never hid anything.Well he said he didn't do it on purpose. Odd but ok whatever we had to get going we had to be at his parents house soon. It was the first Christmas in a long time that every one was there. His grandmother was very old and wasn't doing too well health wise so everyone made that Christmas special as it may be her last. His grandmother was coming back from the washroom and stumbled and almost fell Steve jumped up to grab her and his cell phone fell out of his pocket and I reached to grab it so it wouldn't hit the floor. At that exact second he received a text message saying "well what the HELL IS she doing with your phone in the first place "? Well I was dumbfounded !! The text was from SATAN! turns out they had been sleeping together for awhile behind my back! (She is 20 yrs younger than him, 5 yrs older than our son ) I had a nervous breakdown right there in the middle of the living and left the house. That was the last Christmas any of us remember 😢.
He came home trying to decided what to do I guess whether to stay or leave. Our son was a mess. I was a total write off (plus 2 months before that I had back surgery and was still trying to heal ) I had lost over 20 lbs that week (mind you I was a 300 lb girl by this time ) I went to junk food (as did he, we didn't eat healthy at all ) New Years eve came and we went out with friends as we had made these plans long in advance. New years day he woke up got dressed and was going out for drinks with his friends and he would see me later kissed me and told me he loved me. That was the very last time I seen him unless it was in court. He never came home that day, he moved right in with Satan. I was out of work due to my surgery he made over 85,000 a year and left me with all our bills, mortgage, truck payment. My son and I almost became homeless if not for the help of my family and Steves parents we would have been. I went Into such a depression that I didn't eat for weeks .. lost 65 lbs in the first 6 weeks he was gone. Michael quit school and became so hard to handle got into drugs, and crime was horrible. I didn't give up on him though not even once. Over the next 2 years Steve forced me to sell the house and move into an apartment as I couldn't afford much. He had bought a 500,000 home with Satan. I had to start over from scratch. Having never been on my own since I was 15 when we moved in together I was terrified. I tried to kill myself I just didn't think I was good enough for my son and that I was just garbage. My son saved my life that day. He called 911 and I got help. With the help of lots of therapists and many many medications I'm now a completely different person. Over the course of the 6 yrs we have been apart I have been in some nasty relationships. I've been used and taken for money and almost killed. The one guy I was seeing I caught playing around one night with my nephews wife (who was his best friend as well ) I tried to leave that night because I was sad and crying and yelking at them and they wouldn't let me leave (heavily drinking and my nephew was passed out ) they grabbed my hair threw me down a set of steps where I hit my head off a wooden beam. I got up to be punched so hard I was it cold and was tossed out into the yard like garbage. When I came to I tried to walk home and must've passed out on the ground, I woke up the next day in the hospital, seventy bad concussion, my head was split open and I was back and blue, and a black eye. I have permanent head damage, have to wear glasses now because my eyes are blurry alot and have severe ongoing headaches. I tried to have them charged but it was them 2 against my word and the police said they couldn't help me. I was getting harassed by my nephews wife plus Satan's parents were constantly stalking me in stores and stuff making comments to embarrass me (Oh there is the perfect wife, thanks for our new family .. stuff like that. I left my whole family my son moved in with my sister and I left town. I was so depressed and alone I didn't know what to do. Valentines night I was lying in bed crying and decided to pray to the gods that I would find a good man to love me and went to sleep. I had a dream that night about Pau, I hadn't talked to him in 25 yrs but in this dream he was in trouble and needed my help. Well 2 nights later I was sitting having a few drinks and thought about that dream and wondered if he was ok. I got enough nerve to find him on Facebook and message him to see if he was ok. Hours later he messaged me back. Valentines night he was going to delete Facebook all together as it was just drama (he had broken up with his gf 6 months before that ) but he just didn't get around to it. We decided we were going to meet for drinks. The following week I was attending a buck n doe and asked him to go with me for our first date (he said yes) well I hadn't seen this man in 25 yrs I was terrified. I took my son and my sister and a couple of my friend with me lol. We had the nicest time ever. We have been together ever since and that was 2 1/2 yrs ago. He never hits me or verbally abuses me. He has a son and daughter that I love like my own. Then there is my son he is now 24 he went back to school and graduated (his father never showed ) he has a job and a beautiful gf. He is doing amazing and we have the best relationship and mom and son could have. Paul and Michael are fantastic together. He thinks of him as a dad and his kids as brother and sister. I get along with my family again and everything is really good. We are finally happy 😊. My son hasn't heard from his dad in almost a year and has stopped trying. We all live in the same town (I moved back for you family ) which is pretty hard because even after all this time Satan won't leave me alone. If she sees me she laughs at me or tried to embarrass me in some way. After all these years I'm still in councilling and medicated BUT I wont let her bother me 😊😊. Glad she took him from me.
I guess my point is this.. No matter how bad our life is and may try or want to throw in the towel, DON'T! There is always someone out there who loves you and can't live without you. Had I took my life I can't imagine how my son would be, I would not have the chance to see all my beautiful nieces and nephews grow up and I wouldn't have been able to help Pauls kids through everything they have been through. My life isn't champagne and roses and I still struggle financially and with my depression. I now have fibromyalgia and PTSD, but my life is still mine and no one can take it from me. I know I am loved, that I'm strong and I can get through anything life decides to throw at me!
