Year One

On February 28, I went into labor with my son. Kody called out of work that night saying his son was being born. He called him his son and everyone knew that wasn't really the case, but he got major brownie points for it. You know the whole 'taking on a child that isn't yours' kick, it gets people reeled in pretty fast.

He had been super supportive up to that point, by my side the whole time. Worried about me. Excited even to some degree. He wasn't in the room though when my son was born, at the time Jesse was still in the picture, so I only had him, my mom and my sister with me. I lived to regret that choice for years. More so because he NEVER let me live it down.

When my son was born, I waited till everyone left to bring Jesse in to meet him. I was nervous and scared, because I was worried this would be too much for him to handle. A baby and a woman in his life, needing a lot from him. But he kept promising me that it was what he had wanted, and that he wanted to provide and take care of us, forever.

We brought my son home, and the first few weeks were very hard. My brother had his kids coming to visit when he was only about a month old or so (he had 3 of his own at the time). Jesse was working a lot, and I didn't want to bother him with asking for help. I always feared that it would push him away, so I always tried to do it all alone. And granted I had my mom but she was in a downhill spiral from my step dad passing away from cancer the previous September.

We had so many issues with the people we lived with. We never got time alone, Natus was very needy, my mom was drinking and staying up late and my brother and his girlfriend were joining her. There was a lot of arguing and fighting going on, and it pushed us to find a way to move out.

Jesse used Natus and I as a way to get housing assistance, and we managed to find a nice little 2 bedroom apartment. The only issue was it was in the town over. And when we moved he said by no means did he want my mom there (because of her behavior) and he didn't want my sister there either. So I wasn't really 'allowed' to have family come visit me while he was home, and if they did when he wasn't I was always super anxious about it because I wasn't allowed to have them there. So I was constantly on high alert for getting into trouble.

After we moved, we began having our own issues. He never helped around the house. Our sex life was non existant. Anytime he was home and didn't work he was playing video games and on the headset. We never went out on dates or did anything fun.

What made matters worse is I found he had pictures of an ex girlfriend on his computer and he had been watching a lot of porn. When I confronted him he said it wasn't a big deal, but to me it was because instead of coming to me, he went to his computer instead.

I also found out that the day before he left Idaho, when we were basically together but not completely official (we were saying we loved each other) he had actually slept with an ex girlfriend of his, and his reason was because he was horny and wasn't sure if we'd actually work out. And he didn't understand why that hurt me.

Anytime we fought, he'd spend a couple weeks and change. He'd help around the house, be passionate with me, and even spend time with me. But it always at some point faded. And soon the amount of times he'd change grew less and less. We wound up fighting all the time. He'd always tell me it was my job to clean home, not his. Even though I was back in school part time and he was only working 25-32 hours a week. I pushed hard to be able to care for the house and for him and for Natus.

I slowly started to pull away from people. I became more and more isolated trying to keep my home life under control. When our son was 6 months old, Kody spanked him for the first time. And it never stopped, that just added to the fight. Because he felt he was his son he could discipline how he saw fit, but I wanted to protect my child and I felt he was far too young to be being spanked like that. But I was afraid to constantly fight him on it, because he was a parent too and I didn't want him to feel like I thought I was above him on it.

I constantly made excuses for his behavior. I'd always warn people about his temper before they came over. Which back then, was a rare thing I even had friends tell me they got an off vibe from him. My friend Mikayla, actually told me years later he kept making sexual jokes towards her when I was in the shower once. Another friend said he tried to grab her butt once.

Every month I found more craigslist emails, hidden pictures, fake accounts used to sext other women. I told him it was cheating to me. He denied it, or shrugged it off or claimed it's not cheating because it isn't 'physical'.  Even though to some people the emotional aspect is much worse to have than the physical. Even more so when for 8 months he barely touched me. Any kind of foreplay on my end was non existent. It was more so about getting him off how he wanted it. He never really cared about making sure I was satisfied. 

In May of the next year, my son had just turned one, Kody and I were fighting a lot. I had a suspicion that he was cheating on me with a coworker we will call Becky. He claimed nothing was going on, but he was constantly texting, hiding his phone, deleting messages. Even when it was us doing something together as a couple, his phone was always involved. Where as before he never really used his phone much before. So it grew my suspicions. 

We had a really huge fight one day. He left to go talk to his godparents about us. I had an inkling it wasn't them he was seeing, but I didn't press it. He came back later that day, and decided to end things. We fought too much, and he blamed my depression. ( I was having bad postpartum that I was finally taking meds for, but that didn't matter). We decided to spend a few nights and then I would go and spend a week away at my moms, because maybe we just needed space. He wouldn't even look at me when I was still there, he'd spend more time away from the house. I found a movie ticket in his shorts, paid for two adults, to see a movie I had been dying to see. He claimed him and a buddy went with a couple friends from work. I again, knew better. (Years later I found out he had taken the co-worker on a date and lied to me. His words.) The day came for me to go spend a week at my moms, I left while he was at work with my son in tow. 

He didn't make much contact with me, come day three I knew something was up, I tried getting ahold of him. He wouldn't pick up the phone and eventually turned it off. He claimed he was bowling with friends. He never goes bowling though, it wasn't something he did. 

I decided to walk to the apartment. It was like 15 miles away, I got maybe 3 and called my cousin who picked me up and took me. My first clue was his car parked on the side of the building and not in the designated cover spot. We drove back and there was a black jetta with womans glasses on the seat in his parking spot.

I was livid. All of mine and my sons things were still in that house. Hell that morning I was there, and I made the bed for him and he even kissed me and told me he loved me! Granted that was after we fought because I found a condom in his trash can. his reasoning? He was getting off and didn't want to cum on the floor so he used a condom. 

I went up but the door was locked and I didn't have my keys so I woke up the manager and had him unlock it but it was latched. I could hear a woman moaning and I could hear bodies hitting eachother... That noise haunted me for a very long time. I started banging on the door and yelling for him to open it. Finally a light came on and he unlocked it and I came in. He was wearing a pair of shorts I gave him, shirtless with a huge hickey on his chest. His eyes seemed so dead. Not a care in the world. Seemingly as if he never even loved me before. 

We fought, of course. He claimed it was some random girl. I later found out it was the coworker I was worried about. I moved my things out of the house two days later. 

Almost everyday for about a month, I begged for him to come back. He wouldn't even make effort to see his son. A couple weeks after I moved out, he started sexting me again and I actually went over to the apartment as he was still there, and we hooked up again for the first time since the split. He had a couple hours he had to work, so he went to work and I stayed the night. 

Under his bed I found a notebook of letters he was writing to Becky, she was in the Navy and at bootcamp at the time. He was telling her how much he missed her and loved her and everything else. It hurt me all over again, to see him expressing love for someone so soon after me. 

I confronted him about it and he told me he only said it because she did and he didn't want to make her feel bad for not saying it back. That he didn't really love her and all these other things. When he got off work and came back I was sitting on the bed, really blank. I didn't know what to think,

He came over and kissed my neck, and pushed me onto the bed. I let him undress me but I just stared at the ceiling. He looked at me and I looked at him, and I felt nothing. He got off and apologized. I asked him to take me home, which he did. We didn't talk for a while after that.

Him and Becky wound up dating for a bit, but she cheated on him in bootcamp (I totally called that happening). So they had a falling out. He then started hooking up with a neighbor that lived there while I even lived there. I guess her husband and her were separated at the time and she 'needed' someone to take her mind off of it. I don't know if it went any further than that, but it lasted for a while. 

He continued to call on me for sex, and I usually always agreed because it was the only way he would spend any time with his son. And it was affecting him really badly, he completely shut down and stopped talking. 

At one point I told him that an old flame had kissed me and he flipped out. Called me a whore and wanted nothing to do with me. It made me feel bad and like I had cheated to allow a kiss to even happen. Even though I, in retrospect was supposed to be ok with him having sex and dating other people. But to him, I was off limits but he only wanted my body.

I was very confused and hurt. I began smoking again. And after 5 years of being sober, I began popping pills. I couldn't sleep at night and the only way was to take medication to knock me out cold. But then I would wake up a zombie and have to take another one just to feel like I was a human being again. 

One night a roommate that was also living at my moms place were I was, actually took advantage of me being so out of it. I had been drinking and I took a pill and I was falling asleep in my room and he came in and had sex with me. I couldn't move or say no. I had almost no memory of it till months after the fact. 

I hide my habits from him, in fear of being judged. At one point before the night above happened he actually told the same roommate he thought one of my friends was hot and wished he could have sex with her. 

I truly don't know why, in September, when he asked for me back, why I said yes. Maybe it was because at the time I didn't want to let go, I loved him even with his faults. But I also didn't see the man I see today, I didn't see the narcissist growing inside of him. And I didn't know that every month, every week, every DAY that passed, he would only get worse.