Friday, January 20, 2017

Where in the world has Emmalee Aple been?

Hello.

Yes, I'm alive.

To the few of you that follow me still, Hello. Thank you for being patient.

I wish I could tell you that I have been out travelling very remote areas of the world and that is why I just vanished from the internet.

But, I can't.  My adventure starts out a lot less exciting and very uncomfortably sad. Maybe that's why it has taken me so long to share it. Because I really just do not want to relive that part of my life, but I will. What I went through has to be said, you deserve to know why I abandoned you, especially when I was so close to finally getting to where I was working to be.

I apologize, this is going to be long. It might not even all fit on one blog post, I might have to divide it, but trust me, as uncomfortable and sad this might start out at... I am in a much better place now. I promise, this chapter of my life ends happily.

So, 2015... here we go.

Last time we talked, I was married to my high school sweetheart, mother of two and aspiring author.  I had just gotten through two really tough miscarriages but I was pushing through, writing was my outlet, it helped me cope with everything. I was a stay at home mom, I thought I had everything. I thought life was good.

Then March 2015 happened. When the man I thought would love me forever went on a business trip and phoned home one morning to tell me the biggest lie I had ever caught him in.

"I walked my co-worker to her room, she invited me in but I told her I was happily married and that her advances were not wanted."

That's what he told me, or a version of that, either way, I was proud of my husband. He had a women hit on him and he turned her down.

Or so I thought.

He came home the next night, and nothing was the same. One a daily basis he would ask me if I wanted a divorce, what he would have to do in order for me to want a divorce, what if he wanted a divorce.

I was firm, clearly he was going through something, I told him over and over, I didn't want a divorce, whatever was bothering him, we would make it through. We were a team. He was my one and only, I never planned to leave him. We would make it through, for us, for the kids, we would get through it and be better for it. I truly believed it.

He told me he wanted to rekindle his relationship with his sister... the one he was currently not speaking to because she did the unthinkable, she had an affair on her husband and divorced him for another man.

Things were not adding up, I realize I am not the smartest person in the world. I won't be winning any geniusy awards for creating the cure for all the worlds ailments. But things were not making sense. So I asked the question I really didn't want to hear the answer to.

What really happened on the business trip.

That's when the story changed. This time, he did go in her room. But still he turned her down.

It got worse from there.

I have to say, my sleuthing skills were on point.

He started to use the credit card that we kept just incase for a lot of very unusual purchases.

Like a hotel room, in the middle of a work day... when he was supposed to be in this big meeting.

So, I went. Not sure if it was the smartest or dumbest thing I have ever done. But I went. My mom and dad in tow just to make sure I didn't do something stupid. I sat outside that hotel and waiting and sure enough....

They walked out together. Him and the woman. They walked out of a hotel together, both carrying bags, his work backpack and her a huge purse over night bag type thing. And she looked right at me, sitting across the street in my car, with my camera up to my eye, and smiled.

I still have that picture.

It reminds me, I can be strong.

Even after that... even after he lied to me about being there, even though I had proof.

"we just needed someplace to talk, she was having a hard time at work and we just needed a quiet place to talk"

Because coffee shops and libraries are you know, inconvenient or something.

Whatever.

I was still determined we could make it through it.

And it got worse.

He stopped coming home from work on time, staying late, late night projects, coming home at 4 or 5 in the morning.

Still I stayed firm, he would realize what he was missing, he would come back. He would see. He loved me and our kids and would get over it.

Then came our daughters birthday party.

He never came home the night before. Turned off his phone after I probably called it 50-60 times. Turned his phone off.

According to Uber, they got picked up at her apartment and went downtown, then at bar close went back to her apartment.

Told you, I really should have been an investigator.

They took trips to New York together, lovers weekends. He would tell me it was a business trip, but leave on a Friday and not come home until Sunday.  He works for a company that runs Monday through Friday.

Finally late at night he started to tell me, how they kissed during the first business trip, how they tried to have sex but he just couldn't do it...

I found their condoms in his work bag one day... a three pack.... the variety type. Except there were two.

I found their conversations, no matter how many times he changed his password on his phone or his computer, I found them. I read them. I felt unbelievable pain over and over, every day.

I started running.

I stopped eating.

I couldn't eat, nothing was appetizing.

I was losing myself.

I hated myself.

I tried to be strong. I tried to be who he wanted me to be.

He wanted me to stop writing.

I did.

He wanted me to get a job.

So I applied.

I tried to keep us together. For our kids. For us.  For what I thought love was.

I prayed.

I pleaded with God. I pleaded with myself.

I begged him to leave her.

He stopped hiding it.

Every night that he managed to come home, he sat on his phone for hours texting her.

I turned into someone I never want to be again. Someone so overcome by pain and fear and grief. I could see I was losing him, I was losing me. I was losing everything I believed in.

I went to interviews.

I thought I could make him happy if I could just land a job that would make him proud again to be my husband. 

I was doing things that I was uncomfortable with, just to please him, to entice him, to rekindle that fire.

All while he flaunted her in front of me.

I was pathetic.

I was lower than low and couldn't see a way out.

I wasn't a brave person.

I couldn't see a life without him.

I didn't want to.

I was blind by my own fears.

He was turning our friends against me, I would call him out on his affair and he would convince them I was crazy. That I was losing it. That I was nuts. And they believed him. I would try to reach out for help from the people I knew he would listen to, his friends, his family... they all turned a blind eye. Afterall, this was a man who no one would ever think would do something like that. He was well respected in the community, a volunteer, he had a good job, he was smart.

He's a manipulator.

A liar.

But I was still under his spell.

A friend told me about a job she saw posted on facebook.

I prayed hard as I applied. If I could get that job... I would be okay.

If I got that job, I would feel strong, I would feel protected, it would be God's way of telling me that it was time for me to leave. That he would not change, I needed to find my own way. I was applying for a job at the local police department.

I was terrified.

Hitting the send button on that email was the most hardest thing I had ever done up until that point.

I did it.

And they called me in for an interview.

I was so nervous, there was so much riding on this.

My interview happened to fall on a week where he was in New York with her.

I was so distraught and nervous and overwhelmed by all the stress in my life.

Plus by now, my weight loss was out of control. I'd lost about 50 lbs by then my body was spiraling out of control, I was dizzy more than I wasn't and I just couldn't eat. I started drinking Naked juice just to get some calories.

I was late for the interview.

A whole 15 minutes late.

I thought I had been early, a whole 15 minutes early.

This threw me off.

There was no way they were going to hire me.

No way in hell.

They interviewed me anyways. They gave me a chance. I was so nervous and I just knew it was a pity interview. I thought I bombed it. I answered everything honestly, with everything I had left in me.

I had made them laugh. I was a wreck.

I left there, didn't even make it out of the parking lot before I called my mom, crying.

I had bombed the interview.

My husband still wanted another woman, a successful woman, a woman with a job and things in common with the man who was supposed to love me.

A few days later, the Chief called me.

Asked me to come in to talk.

I was the Village loon, he didn't want me going through the village doing something crazy, so he was calling me in to let me down easy.  That's what I had in my head. That's what I was convinced.

He offered me the job.

I asked him if he was sure.

He was.

It was only part time. Not the hours I really wanted, but the job was mine if I wanted it. And the pay was good.

I took it.

I wasn't even out of the parking lot before I was on the phone with my mom. Crying.

Things were gonna change. I was going to be brave. I hadn't worked in 8 years. I was going to be a working mom. It was part time so I could still do everything in my kids life like I had been.

Things were gonna get better.

I started my job, I felt good. I made new friends.

I started to see that how I was being treated at home wasn't right.

It wasn't okay to make someone feel the way I was being made to feel.

It wasn't just the affair.

Every day it was something about how I didn't look right. I looked better fat. I was dumb. I would lose the job because I wasn't smart.  I was an embarrassment. Every day it was something new, a new insult to add to the rest.

Another way to make me feel like less than a person.

And still every night, he flaunted the affair.

And still I begged. Begged for our life together.

Until I stopped begging.

I stopped asking.

I started getting angry.

He noticed.

I stopped sleeping in our room. In our bed.

I still had moments of weakness where I tried to entice him back to me. But I really didn't want him anymore. Not if he wanted her more than me. Not if he was saying the things I read in their conversations. He loved her. He told her that often.

I was ugly. I wasn't good enough. I was his embarrassment.

I started talking to my new friends. I started to feel stronger. I asked questions. I got answers.

I stopped feeling so dumb.

I started feeling strong.

But I was still scared.

He finally noticed my distance.

He begged me to give him another chance. He wanted to change and leave her and be with me. Be the best husband and father to our kids.

He cried.

I didn't.

I was done.

I knew it. In the time it took him to tell me he wanted to be with me again.

I realized, I didn't need him.

I didn't want him.

All the things I had been fighting for, all the beliefs I thought I had. He had taken that from me. And I didn't want him back. I didn't want to hurt anymore.

So I filed for divorce that day.

I tried to make it work with both of us living in the same house. I tried to make him know I wasn't his anymore. I wanted this.

He thought I'd change my mind. He was sure of it.

I wasn't a brave person.  And he knew it.

I always caved.

But I didn't.

It took an act from an angel, to push me to be brave.

One night things turned from sad to scary.

My husband changed. And I finally knew it wasn't right.

He had just come home from another one of his lovers weekends in New York.

And I didn't want to hear about his adventure. I didn't want anything to do with him.

He held me down. He tried to take from me what I no longer wanted to give him.

I ran, tried to lock the bathroom door, he held the knob on the other side.

I begged him to let go, to leave me alone.

He refused.

I recorded the whole interaction with a voice recorder on my phone.

I was terrified he would do something.

When he finally lost interest, I typed up the whole exchange on my phone. I sent it and the recording to one of my new friends. Who also happened to be a police officer.

He was my angel.

He reported what I sent him.

He did his job.

Even though it could have ruined our friendship. He wasn't going to let me go back to a house I wasn't safe in. A house where I was terrified to sleep incase my husband snapped again.

The next day I had to file a report, I told my story.

I cried, I shook, I was terrified.

He would try to get me back, he would fight me on this. He would hurt me.

He was arrest that night for domestic charges.

I signed a 72 hour "cool down" which meant he could have no contact with me for 72 hours and since I had the house and the kids, he couldn't be there either.

He retaliated.

He filed a restraining order against me. With a whole report of lies.

He had me served at my job.

I was so embarrassed.

My boss was there.

My co-workers were there.

My new friends.

My new world.

The job I thought was going to make me so brave, he was going to get that taken away from me.

Except he didn't.

They stood by me.

They were there to comfort me. They made me feel strong.

I'd get through it.

They'd see to it.

And I did.

I moved out.

Got my own place.

Learned to stand on my own two feet.

On April 21, 2016 I found freedom.

I bought my own house in July 2016.

I got a second job, my dream job at the school in August 2016.

And I still work at the police department.

I still have all my friends.  My family in blue.

And I met someone.

A man to be exact.

A good man.

A man who gives me confidence that happily ever afters really do exist.

A man who showed me what love should feel like.

A man who likes my crazy. (He's even said so)

A man who doesn't try to change me.

Who doesn't feel I am an embarrassment.

A man who feeds me. Who has helped me become healthy. Or at least on a path to get there.

A man who takes care of me. Who makes me feel special.

One who looks at me. Who knows my faults, my insecurities, my quirkiness. And doesn't make fun of me for it. He embraces it.

He is someone who I can ask anything and he won't laugh at my curiosity, he teaches me.

He has made me a better person.

He has filled my cloudy days with sunshine.

He pushes me and challenges me to step outside my comfort zone in so many good ways.

He doesn't let my insecurities restrict me from experiencing life.

He too was broken. He was alone for longer than me, but I think we both are helping the other heal.

When I look into his eyes, I feel like I am home.

And he is a firm believer in forehead kisses.

While I don't know what the future holds. I know I am happy where I am. Happier than I have been in a very very long time.

I feel safe.

I feel like I can take on the challenges of life with my head held high.

And that brings me to now. To where I am right this moment.

Currently, I am sitting at my manfriends house, waiting for him to get home from work.

So that is where I have been. I am sorry for disappearing. I really am.

I am back. Not like I was, but like I am.

I am slowly getting back to writing.

I have not given up. I do still wish to get you all the characters that still swim around in my head.

I understand them more now.

I understand their relationships more. Their friendships.

I can fully appreciate the struggles and the rewards.

I understand the love they have for each other. I don't have to pretend.

My writing will be stronger, my books will mean so much more.

I have been to my lowest low and came out a victor.

And so will they.

So, if you have made it to the end of this. Thank you. I appreciate you. Even if I don't say that enough, know that I do.

I fully appreciate every friendship I have made and every person who not truly knowing it, has stood by me when I needed them the most.

I have some big things in store for the Linked Series. I can not wait to share it with you.

I am not afraid to be me another. And so I should be able to get more done faster!

Until next time!
~M~

5 comments:

Anna said...

I am in tears right now. Thank you for being brace and sharing that with us. I know it had to have been hard. Nobody deserves to be treated like that. It's a tough web to be in when we are made to feel so small. I am so happy and relieved that you got through all of that, and have been able to find true love. I truly admire your strength and your perseverance.

Unknown said...

I'm so proud of you- you were put on this earth to give me great happiness. And you have not let me down. Your writing is beatiful. Unfortunately DD tried to side track that- glad you came out the victor- love your mother.

Kimmy :) said...

My first husband also told many similar lies. He left me for a woman at work, who then left him a few years later. Karma will get them! Best of luck in your new life. It's scary and filled with uncertainty but I'm remarried going on 15 years now and this love is infinitely better! Maybe I should thank him for improving my life!

LRAtRandom said...

I'm so sorry you had to go through all of that :( but I'm glad that you've managed to pull yourself out of a bad place and find happiness! *hugs*

Jeanz xx said...

First of I all sorry you had to go through all this. I have experienced miscarriage myself and that alone can break you. I have also suffered domestic violence, mental, physical and emotional. My angel is my daughter, soon to be 21! At 9years of age she was a stronger person than me. She got out of bed one morning and said she didn't like it here ( the house she, myself and my then husband lived in) My 9 year old asked if we could move out and go live with nanny and grandad. Ipacked a few things in a holdall and asked my mum if we could stay, she didn't hesitate in saying yes. My dad was not pleased, he was more a 'you've made your bed now lie on it' He resented us staying, but my mum insisted we stay. Within a month my ex had met someone else, within 3 months she was pregnant! He was nasty with my daughter I tried to encourage them to see each other under supervision (because of the violence) My ex didn't want that and screamed down the phone at me he would see me in court. He sent a couple of solicitor's letters, my solicitor replied explaining the situation no more was ever said. Within 3 months of parting he stopped wanting to see my daughter. (I say my daughter because that's how she feels herself) I managed to get a divorce, the proceeds from the house sale was split. I didn't have enough money or earning power to buy a house, so I rent a housing association house. Things were strained between my parents, so my mum asked if she could move in with me and my daughter of course I said yes. I am now her full-time carer living on benefits as I was made redundant from my job due to my own health conditions. I hope you don't mind me sharingthis with you but it was the only way I felt I could say I know how you feel and you are not alone. x
I hope you di

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