What I have Now

Accusations, assumptions and comments are easily made about things people do not fully understand or have all the facts on.  Though, for personal reasons, I was discontinuing this blog, it is still open but will be discontinued in the near future.
 
That being said, despite my many accomplishments and successes, my life has not always been fantastic.  I came from an abusive home with both an abusive mother, step-father and grandmother and no one to save me but my grandfather who was the light of my life.  He was my best friend, my confidant and my absolute everything.  He passed away unexpectedly when I was 22 years-old.  Since then, I can not tell you how many times I have picked up the phone to call him and share with him something new that has happened every single day of my life.  He's the one that, no matter what was happening in my life, understood. 

After watching my mother battle to save her marriages continually and never understanding fully why until I had my own marriage that fit the criteria hers did, it was an eyeopener.  I have made it a point to try to not be like my mom.  I didn't believe in divorce, didn't want a divorce and felt like anyone could work through anything just so long as the love, passion and desire was still there. 

With my first marriage I lived by that rule.  I was very young and very stupid when I married my first husband.  I desired security and didn't want to be alone.  After having been a model and dating the standard "desirable" guys and found they were one hundred percent into themselves, jerks, and only wanted "arm candy" I took a step back and re-examined my life.  I wanted someone to love me for who I was, not what I had accomplished, not because of my families money, not because of my looks but for me.  I had known my first husband growing up as kids.  I figured if anyone would treat me like an equal and well, it would be him.  I could not have been more wrong.  He wasn't safe or secure in his own appearances or successes and therefore, I was more the enemy and someone to compete against rather than someone to love.  My family, their successes, myself and my successes, drove him to madness, rage and thus, an abusive marriage that started out verbally and quickly became physical.  I was nearly thrown through the bedroom window after I bought my first new car, out of bitter rage.  He drug me backwards down the hall choking me.  He screamed, yelled, cursed, called me names, degraded me and then began to have affairs.  I still stayed.  I blamed myself.  It was my fault.  I must have done something wrong.  He was overcome with jealousy when another man talked to me, he couldn't stand for me to be happy or have nice things.  I made quite a bit of money in my profession working in the medical field.  He took every penny I had and I was aloud, sometimes, to have one hundred dollars a month and he got to decide what I spent it on.  I was not aloud to see my family, have friends or talk on the phone.  I could go to work and come straight home.  Towards the end of my marriage, I stopped caring.  I took a step back and began to see the bigger picture.  He was an abusive pig with low self-esteem and a natural born "mommas boy" and I was young and wanted so much more for my life.  I didn't love him, I didn't like him and the sight of him sickened me.  For my privacy, I have left out a lot more abusive details, very few know and that is how I intend to keep it.  After making the decision to file for divorce, he became insane with fury, anger and depression.  I was "ruining his life" "I was the only "thing" he had ever loved" and more.... My life had begun to hang in the balance, literally.  He threatened killing me, himself and once asked me if my life insurance was paid up. 
I have been a successful writer for quite some time.  He use to demand that I "sell more books faster! I want a house in Miami on the beach and a Maserati" his list of demands went on and on.  He went so far as to one day tell me, after an interview with a journalist. that "Your books mine as well be worth toilet paper because they aren't worth shit" and then he'd rave to his friends about what a success "my wife is", which I found quite mind boggling.  He never picked up one of my books to read and yet loved the money that came in from them and enjoyed spending it on things for himself such as new X-box(s), games. paintball guns, equipment, tournament fees and partying with his friends, new house etc. He always had plans for "my" money and I never saw a penny of it. 
After filing for divorce, filing reports with the police department and providing evidence of abuse against him, life turned topsy turby.  He began to buy handguns, bullets and then load and cock them where I could hear it. He would leave them lying around, point them at me as I walked past.  The police department informed me that if I left the house before a lawyer had a chance to file, I gave up rights to the house.  I stayed, not wanting to give up my 5 bedroom, 3 bath house, office with a sun room, game room and kitchen that I loved and had decorated myself.  After hell and torment, I finally threw in the towel and said keep it.  I took the dogs and moved into a perfect little apartment but not before one day I was standing at the sink washing dishes and he decided to attack me. That was the last straw.  That was the day I fought back and I won.  He had knocked me around for the last time.  I warned him to let me go.  He didn't.  I had a nearby cookie sheet and as he had me pressed against the sink, using the weight of his near 300 pound body to cram me against it, knocking the air out of me, I grabbed the cookie sheet, gave one more warning to let me go and when he laughed, I swung clocking him upside the head.  Shocked from the impact, he staggered backwards then came at me again.  I hit him again bending the cookie sheet from the impact.  He roared with anger and took a running start at me.  Unable to get around, fight or flight took on new meaning.  I pushed off the counter behind me, kicked my feet out in front of me and connected with his stomach sending him bellowing and gasping for air and leaning over, gripping his stomach.  I grabbed the back of his head, and slammed it into my knee, knocking him to the floor.  Not giving up, apparently this had no effect on him, he jumped to his feet, lunged at me with his weight to which I countered sending him face first into the sink.  I backed up towards the entryway hoping to make an escape but he took another running start at me.  I, once again countered, and sent him flying into the wall in the hallway.  He sat there and stared at me blankly.  I took this opportunity to run to the bedroom, grab my purse and keys and ran out the game room door and then drove to my friend Heather's house. 

After leaving my first husband, I was finally free.  Free of drama, free of madness, free of abuse and free to live my life the way that I chose. 
This is when my now husband, Eric, came into my life.  Unable to resist his charm, whit, humor and the fact that he was the father to his children that I never had for myself or my sisters, I fell head-over-heels in love with him.  We, like now, have the best times together.  I knew he had children, I knew he had an ex-wife.  What I didn't know was the disasters that came with that.  I can not tell you how many relationships I turned down or walked away from after finding out they had a "past."  This was because I had watched my mom struggle with her marriages because of such factors.  The ex-wife that always caused problems and tried to make as much trouble as she could.  One even went so far as to burn my mom and her husband at the time(s) house to the ground.  He had just had it built and it was gorgeous! They had to start over and despite my moms urging to send her to prison, he declined stating "she's the mother of my children."  Much like my mom, I would have said the same thing.  Every marriage was like that, that had children or an ex-wife involved. 
I really thought it was her bad luck. She just chose the wrong man.  I have hundreds of stories from other people who have been through the same exact thing.  It's shocking that some people behave the way that ex's do and they aren't all just women.
A philosophy to keep is "When it's over, it's over.  Especially if they have moved on." 

Though I do have a fairtyale life and a wonderful marriage, it has been trying but only because of what his past entails. 

My writing is my passion.  It's what I have.  It's what I have always had.  Despite the comings and goings in my life, I have always had my writing to keep me alive, happy and fill the spaces that are left open or are missing something.  I can write any character that I want, make them into any profession or person that I want them to be.  I can write a passionate love affair or a brutal blood scene for murder and mayham.  My writing has no limitations. 

I work hard for everything that I have, including my marriage, which because of one factor, has not been a cake walk at all.  Despite the desire to have children, I do not, as of yet, have any of my own, which would make my life complete.  The fact remains that everything else in my life is just that, mine.  This includes where I live, what I drive and the happenings in it, including any success I had before my new marriage.  We both brought something from our pasts.  We've both made the best of opposition because that was then and this is now. 

If you're unhappy with what is happening in your life or the path that it is on, only you can change it but do not blame someone else for your unhappiness when they haven't done a thing to you.  I have no bearing on the past that came with my husband, I can only make the best of it and I've tried.  My life is just that.  It's mine and it has no bearing or effect on anything that came before me.  It is completely separate just like my writing has no bearing on him because I had it and was doing it long before he ever came along.