Part 2.

The Prodigal Daughter.

Fall of 2021 I reconnected with someone I had gone to youth group with back in middle school. We hit it off and started dating. The red flags were waving in my face from the first week but I ignored them. I ended up moving in with him and his parents last second because my lease was up and the girl I was supposed to get an apartment with flaked last minute. 

When I say I lived in the bedroom, I mean it. I realized too late that he was an alcoholic and an angry one at that. I couldn’t have friends over and I couldn’t go see my friends without him calling and texting me the entire time. I was in our bedroom pretty much the entire time unless I was at work for a year and a half.

He was mentally/ verbally abusive and there were a few times his dad even stepped in because it got so bad. He withheld intimacy and affection as a form of control and was just plain mean. I had tired to break up with him a few times face to face and he wouldn’t let me. I had to quit jobs because of him and my family and friends didn’t like him either because they could tell he was a bad egg.
It was so hard to keep everything going on a secret but I did because I was embarrassed. One day when he was gone after he had left in the middle of the night after waking me up to yell at me over something dumb I got an answer to my prayer! I hadn’t heard from him except him telling me he made it to his friends house. That had been the only time he had ever not been contacting me all day. I saw my chance and I took it. I called my brother and him, his wife headed my way and their friend who I was with at the time in the middle of giving voice lessons to, helped me grab what we could and left. I texted his mom and told her I was leaving because she would be home when I got there and she fully understood. She had told me through the course of our relationship that she wouldn’t blame me if I left. 

During that time period I lost myself more than ever before. I was doing things I never thought I would to try and win the affection and intimacy he was withholding from me. I stopped going to church, reading my Bible and for a long time I wasn’t even praying much. I became so stressed, anxious and depressed that I lost 25lbs because I couldn’t eat. I absolutely hated my body because I was now stick thin and he made a point to talk about other woman in front of me. He asked me to do horrible things that I knew weren’t okay but I didn’t want the yelling and guilt that would have resulted in me telling him no. I was disappointed and disgusted with who I had become to simply survive. I had no plan and no money but God made a way even though I didn’t do anything to deserve it.

Stay tuned for part 3…