This is part two of Tis the Season. I’m not going to do a huge introduction of the horror story I’m going to share. I’m just going straight into it.. There were extreme measures that Bud did to make sure to keep me in his possession. When I started to become immune to his ways, he had to step up his game a little bit. I can’t count how many times I would catch him in lies or trying to pursue other women. It was always my fault that he went after other women. He would use the excuse that I wasn’t giving him enough sex or enough attention. His definition of not giving him enough sex is two days.. If I went more than two days of not giving it to him, he would use that against me.

We were always broke, he lost his job as a plumber making a great weekly pay to having to work as a landscaper bringing home pennies every two weeks. Even though times were tough financially, we were living in a new apartment and seemed to be doing really good. We hadn’t fought in quite some time, our sex life was back to “normal” and he didn’t seem interested in straying far away from home. Bud was a biker and would go out for a ride any chance he got. One Sunday he climbed up on his hog and rode off to go see his dad for Father’s Day. No problem! Well.. on his way to go see his dad he stops at a random gas station to purchase some cigarettes. Behind the counter was a blonde woman that liked the tall bald guy that just rode up on his stallion. Let’s just say it didn’t take much for Bud to get the digits that she willingly handed over.

I know.. what does us being broke have to do with the blonde woman. It was because we were broke that I caught him with this lady. Our cell phones had gotten shut off and he had a work phone. At the time I owned a Jeep wrangler and the battery went dead at a gas station right down the road from our house. Since my cellphone was off I couldn’t call my mom for help. I’m sitting in the driver’s seat about to have a mental break down and he hands me his work phone to call my mom. Now the cellphone was one of the old school flip phones because smart phones were just starting to become a thing. I opened the phone trying to dial the numbers but for some reason it wouldn’t dial. I noticed that Bud was getting a little anxious and kept telling me to hurry up and dial the number. I yelled back, I’m trying to but the phone won’t work… and then my eyes went up to the actual screen. “I can’t wait to be in your arms,” was on the screen. It was a text message from the blonde woman! He was now using his work phone to cheat on me, instead of his personal phone.

Instantly my eyes went over to his face and the look he had on his face was panic. He just got caught red handed… AGAIN! I’m pretty sure I yelled out REALLY?! Why? What have I done now that would cause you to go off and get attention from someone else. Right there in the middle of the parking lot gas station, he looked at me in my face and told me I’ve been neglecting him. I don’t remember what happened after that, I’m pretty sure I blanked out at that point. What I do remember is sitting on the edge of my bed staring at the wall. I think I may have been sitting there for a very long time and I’m positive that is when I started to check out of life. I waved my white flag and told him to just go do what he was going to do. He was going to do it anyways happy or unhappy, so just go.

Two things happened at this point in our relationship. He finally stopped chasing other women and since he couldn’t use cheating against me, the suicide threats made their debut! For as long as I live, the memory of the first suicide attempt will never leave my brain. Not because it was a horrible situation but because he is dumb. I’d like to use a different word but I’m being kind. We were fighting as usual and I can only assume my argument was better than his because he proceeded to grab his pocket knife and went into the bathroom. He was all locked up in the bathroom crying because he felt unworthy of my love. He would just end it all because what was the point of living if he couldn’t have me in his life. At first, I was scared.. I knew he was stupid but I wasn’t sure how stupid he was. I found some tools to take the door knob off, all I needed to do was get to the inside of the door to be able to open it.

I guess he didn’t realize I was a smart person and that I would figure out how to break my way into the bathroom. When he realized I was making my way in, he put his foot up against the door and he was still crying! Well at least I thought he was.. He made the mistake of turning the bathroom light off and once the door knob on his side fell off I could see he the light from his phone! He was either in there watching porn or texting with someone other woman. At that point, once I noticed his phone was on I knew his suicide threat was a bunch of bull, so I went to finish watching my movie.

Bud had to get creative because I was out smarting him. After a few years of putting up with him, I knew how to avoid his anger and I knew what to do to keep the peace. Well Bud didn’t like that. He needed to keep beating me down emotionally & mentally because that was how he could keep me around. Bud needed to have something to hold over my head, if he had something he could use against me then he wins. He knew exactly what to say or do to make me lose my temper and fight back. The minute I gave into that anger then I was no better than him… and he knew that. He wouldn’t stop until I blew my top, he would torture me and poke me until my eyes would black out. Once he got me to that point, I would yell, cuss and throw stuff across the room and he would sit back with this smirk on his face because he got me. That smirk would piss me off even more.. Let’s fast forward a little bit. He got a new job, we have a new three bedroom house in a good part of town and my kids were going to go to a great school! Once again, we have a new house that I considered a new start. Things would be better!

Bud was still popping them beer cans open every chance he got. By now, I’ve learned if I just shut up and watch what I say or do then the arguments wouldn’t happen. The more he drank, the better chance I had for him to pass out so I could have a little peace. He always kept me in the bedroom with the door closed, he would not let me keep the door open very often. I had to be at his beckon call and if he needed sex then I had to be there to give it to him. This is the part of our relationship where the sexual abuse would start. Having sex with him was straight torture, I didn’t want him to touch me anymore, kiss me and him laying on top of me while he used me has his masturbation tool was sickening. But if I didn’t have sex with him, then it would cause an argument. He would be so drunk that him finishing what he was doing was never going to happen and I got to the point where I would just lay there with my eyes closed praying for a miracle to happen. “Please God let him finish or let him pass out.”

I can’t tell you how many times I would cry laying there while he was on top of me. Tears would be rolling down my face while I pretend to moan with “pleasure”. If at any moment he would realize I wasn’t enjoying the sex we were having, then that would cause him to feel a certain type of way and when he felt a certain type of way that would lead to a fight. Depending on what his mood was at that time would determine what kind of fight it would turn into. I wish I could put into words the list that would run through my mind every second he was around me. Having to rely on the wrinkles on his face to give me a clue of what mood he was in so I knew what kind of person I needed to be.

I learned very quickly that leaving the bedroom while he was passed out was not an option. Just because he was knocked out cold, his internal demon would keep watch over me. If I would leave the room he would wake up and come looking for me. Remember when I told you I was smart.. well I also figured out by his snore how much time I would have before he would come looking for me when I left the room. Sometimes I would have fifteen minutes and some nights I would have an hour or two. Every blue moon, I could sleep on the couch all night before he come looking for me. But the process to get out of the room wasn’t an easy task. It was more like a special ops mission. Slowly I’d move my legs off the bed and then slide a little at a time until my feet hit the floor. Once my feet hit the floor then I’d maneuver myself until I could stand all the way up. I would have to stand there for a minute or two to make sure his demon was asleep too. Has he sensed that I’m not in the bed? As long as he kept snoring I was good. Once I felt safe enough, I would start to walk closer to the door but I had to be very quiet about it. Then there was opening the door and then closing of the door. Once I was out, I would take a breath of relief and make my way to the couch.

It was the only time I could get a little peace to fall asleep but even when I could sleep, it was very lightly. The sound of our bedroom door would wake me up out of a dead sleep. Then the panic would set in when I heard him walking down the hall way. Sometimes he left me alone and would just go in the garage to smoke a cigarette. Usually when that would happen, he was still drunk and didn’t even notice I wasn’t in the bed. Sometimes he would hover over me and watch me sleep. Other times, he would wake me up to go back to the bedroom and I would obey. I had to.. There have been times where stuff went flying across the living room because I wouldn’t obey and go back to bed. In his mind, if I wasn’t in the bed then I could be out in the living room having an affair on him or doing something I wasn’t supposed to be doing. Keeping the peace was my only option.

Now that I’m further into my story, I’m sure you have a lot of questions. Why stay Leah? Why didn’t you ask for help. I have no idea why I didn’t ask for help. My body & mind were not my own anymore. I walked around in a constant fog and was nothing more than a body with no soul. My time awake was spent in constant defense mode and by the days end, I had nothing left to give anymore. It was so draining on my mind and body to be like that all day long.

Then I found Jesus and started going to church. I’m going to do another part of so I’m not going into detail of what events took place once Jesus came into the picture. I want to close with one more suicide attempt. This suicide attempt is where he made the grave mistake of acting out in front of some church members. He was a truck driver and since he was gone a lot, I hired a landscaper to keep our yard maintained. Since the landscaper was a man, that meant I was having an affair with him because I knew too much about him personally. By knowing too much, he was married with kids and his name was Adam. And I would talk to him on the phone when I needed him to do something outside of his normal duties. So therefore, the 5 minute conversations I had on the phone with Adam, meant I was only trying to get closer to him by asking him to pull some weeds.

He was drunk one night and he was taking stabs at me trying to get me to blow up so he could blow up. When he brought up the landscaper, I made the horrible mistake of saying that he knew what the inside of our house looked liked. At the time, I didn’t realize this was a life saving maneuver. Once those words came out of my mouth, he destroyed the living room. Our big screen TV was trashed, my PlayStation was trashed and anything breakable was pieces on the floor of the living room. I remember being on the floor in tears begging him to stop and he just kept going. I hit him on the leg with a glass vase out of defense and that caused him to stop & he walked outside. I called my friend and fellow church member to please come over to help, so she got her husband up out of bed where they both came to the house. Where I lived was at the end of a cul-de-sac and at night it was very dark. My friend was inside with me while her husband was outside trying to figure out where Bud was. Since he couldn’t find him, he came back inside and sat with us in the living room.

I’d say about ten minutes went by and we heard a gun shot come from the back yard. The first thing that came to my mind was, “You idiot” but since my friends never experienced the stupidity of Bud, they panicked when they heard the gun go off. I then go out onto the back porch and called out Bud’s name to see if he would respond and he didn’t. So we walked around the front of the house to the back yard and there he was… laying on the trampoline with the gun to his head. My friend’s husband tried to go up to Bud to talk to him but he got so scared that he came back to where I was standing. Remember I said it was so dark that you couldn’t see anything. So Bud had no idea that we were standing about 15 feet away from him.

My friends are in shear panic trying to call someone else to come over and help. I’m standing there shaking my head because I know exactly what he is doing, he’s trying to be the victim so I look like the bad guy. All of a sudden I see Bud’s phone light up and he then sends me a text message when I’m standing 15 feet away from him. He tells me in the text message that if it were me with the gun up to my head, that he would try harder to get me to not kill myself. He thought we were had walked away and it surprised him when I yelled out, “Hey dummy, we are standing right here.” Well that made him really mad that he was caught and he got on his motorcycle drunk as a skunk. He took off..

After he took off, my friends were standing there with pure shock on their faces. I believe they were in more shock that I was so numb to it and that I was the only one not in panic mode. They thought he really wanted to die and I knew he was doing it for attention. He was too much of a coward to really pull the trigger while it was against his head. Sorry to be so heartless in that comment but at that time it was true. Now you may be thinking, how was this a life saving maneuver? Because it was the first time he slipped up in front of other people that could finally witness I wasn’t the crazy one.. he was. This was the beginning of freedom for me.

I would love to end this entry by saying our relationship was over shortly after this took place, but this entry doesn’t have a happy ending yet. It went on for a little while longer and life got even more scary. Don’t worry because by the time I’m done telling all of this, I will show you how God saved me. This may have been a bit hard to read for some of you and I would love to tell you the next one will be easier but it won’t be. The worse hadn’t even started yet.. his demons still had a hold over me and it wasn’t until I really started to grow closer to the Lord that they got disturbed and worked over time to bring me down.

The fact that I’m even here to tell you this story is a miracle straight from the Lord. And I promise you that when this is all said and done, you will see exactly how good God is. Once again, don’t feel bad for me. I have been restored in the Lord and finally ready to share my side of the story, even the bad parts.

I love your face…

Stay tuned..