Part Four

This next part of my journey is the most painful to revisit because it was not just me that my poor choices effected. It also effected my son, and he had to carry those effects. Watching my poor choices play out in front of my face was harder than living them in my own body and mind. Part of healing is taking ownership of our own poor choices, repenting to God, apologizing to those we hurt, growing, maturing, making better choices, and using it as a learning experience so we do not continue those same destructive/toxic patterns.

We are going to pick up my story when I was 15 years old. By this time in my life I had already had relationships with several older guys. If you can consider what I had as relationships. Back then I fully felt like with each guy we were boyfriend and girlfriend, but looking back I know for them it was just about sex. There was no substance to the relationships. None of them got to know me on a deep level and I did not really know them either. We always had to sneak around to see each other because what we were doing was basically illegal. I knew that at the time, but in my mind I didn’t think it pertained to me because even though my physical age was young mentally I was way more mature. Which it is true that I was more mature than other kids my age because of the trauma I had went through, but I was still a child that grown men were seeking to have sexual relationships with. This truth didn’t really hit me until I had a son of my own and he was around the age I was when I started being noticed by adult men. It became crystal clear how wrong and disgusting the whole thing was on their part. I do take responsibility for putting myself out there, but their actions were very wrong as well and I had never even considered that part before I had my son.

One night, when I was 15 years old, I was at the mall with a friend of mine. We used to go there because it was the only real place someone our age could hang out in our small town. I didn’t get invited to parties because I had very few friends so one of my friends and I would go to the mall to hang out. We would basically go with the intentions of looking for guys to meet. If I was not in a relationship I was constantly looking for a new one. I didn’t like to be alone, and I went from one relationship to the next. When a guy would break things off with me, I was never the one to break it off, I felt heartbroken and then I would immediately be looking for the next one. I always had a boyfriend or a guy I was chasing because the attention was like a drug to me. I craved it and felt like I needed it. I was like a chameleon in many ways because I had no idea who I was, so I became a carbon copy of anyone I was interested in. It wasn’t because I wanted to be fake. It was simply because I lacked personal identity.

On this particular trip to the mall I saw two guys and one of them caught my attention because he was really cute. I noticed he noticed me, but he didn’t come up to me. Instead, he sent his friend over and asked if he could get my number for his friend. I said something sarcastic back like, “well if he is the one who wants my number shouldn’t he be the one asking for it?” He ended up with my phone number, I can’t remember how, and he called me that night. He was really drunk, but that didn’t deter me. I was immediately drawn to him because he had paid attention to me. I was like a moth to a flame any time a guy paid any attention to me whatsoever. Red flags were nonexistent in my life. We started talking and spending a lot of time together. I was totally into him and my co-dependency was in full swing from day one. I had to have him, and I felt like I could not breath without him. Of course, I called it love when in all actuality it was very toxic. We were both very broken people because of things we had each went through in our childhood. We thought we could heal each other, but all we really did was allow ourselves to be instruments of pain and hurt for the other.

We dated for a very short time and then we got the idea that getting married was what we should do. I wanted to break free from any type of parental control and I knew marriage would do that for me. I also felt like I could not live without him and the thought of every losing him brought me physical pain. By that time I was 16 and my mom consented to me getting married. You may think that sounds crazy but give me a moment to explain why it makes sense for our family. One, she thought if she didn’t consent I would just run away with him. She was right, we would have. Two, the women in our family all got married very young. She was 17 when she got married and it was not unusual in our family. It was never on our radar to go to college and then have a career. We always thought you got married, had a family, and that was life. He was also close to my own age, and she liked that because she had caught me communicating with guys much older than me before I met him. I also calmed down and stayed home much more once I started dating him. He didn’t like my bio-dads family, but he loved my mom and dad, so we spent most of our time with them. I loved my bio-dads sister and her kids, but when I was in a relationship I was all about who I was with and doing what they wanted so I started to distance myself from his side of the family. It was also very hard to go to my aunt’s house because my bio-dad lived on the same property and thoughts of my him continued to terrorize me. In some ways it was easier to just stay away. I tried to block him out of my mind, but it was painful not seeing my aunt and her family. My mom saw attitude changes in me, and it looked like a very positive change in my mood and actions to my parents because I was not so combative and disrespectful toward them. I also stopped having meltdowns when I did not get my way. I was a very difficult teen because I would often lose control of my emotions and lash out. I was often erratic and uncontrollable. At times my parents were afraid I would try to hurt my little brother or even them. They had no idea what was wrong with me so to them I think they never really knew what I was capable of, and it caused them to lack trust in me and what I might do when I was angry. Looking back I think they really just did not know what to do for me or with me. They had zero help and guidance in how to help me. They tried to help by getting me into therapy, but it was not effective and the therapist never offered them tangible advice and direction on how to handle me and help me.

Only my mom had to legally sign the paperwork to consent to my marriage because my dad is technically my stepdad, so he did not have legal parental rights, but as far as I know they were one the same page in the decision. Once she consented we got married very quickly. We went to Tennessee and several of my family members came to the wedding with us. Right before the wedding my grandma (mom’s mom) whispered to me that I did not have to go through with it if I did not want to. At the time I got mad at her and could not believe she would say that to me on my wedding day, but many years later I learned that she saw things in my fiancé that I had never seen, or that I had refused to see. It was her way of trying to give me a way out, but I never even considered not getting married.

We came back home to Indiana, and I was 16 and newly married. I was going into my junior year of high school as a married woman. School was always very difficult for me and once I was technically independent I did not want to be there anymore. I wanted to sign up for evening classes because those classes were much smaller, but the school refused to let me, so I dropped out. My husband had to come sign me out because he was 18 and I wasn’t so legally speaking he was considered my guardian. Before I married him I had no I idea that was the case. I just thought I would be considered a legal adult that was allowed to make my own decisions. 

When I got married something shifted inside me with my relationship with my mom. Prior to being married I had a love hate relationship with her. I never wanted her to give me rules or tell me what to do. Being around her in the house with my brother was also very painful because he had the life I always wanted. She was a different mom to him than she had been to me because she was in a much different place in her life when she had him. Back then I didn’t understand that. All I could see was that he had everything I wanted, but didn’t get. It was so much easier to just stay away, but once I got married I started to bond with her and then it went to an unhealthy place where I felt like I had to have her close to me. I felt like I could not be away from her and somewhere along the way a family joke was formed that said my umbilical cord would not stretch far enough for me to live very far from her.

Within the first six months of our marriage he hit me for the very first time. I was devastated and he seemed to be as well. We both cried and I thought it wouldn’t happen again…and then it did—over and over the cycle continued. People often ask me why I didn’t leave after the first time he laid his hands on me. It is easy to look from the outside in and say you would never let that happen to you, but you must look at it from my viewpoint. From a very early age I was taught to hide abuse. I was also taught that those who are supposed to love you the most can also be the ones who hurt you the most. So, I did what I was trained to do. I didn’t tell. I blamed myself, and I stayed. I stayed for six years. During those six years I had my son, gave my heart to the Lord, obtained my GED, and began to outgrow the relationship. I got sick of being hit and I finally realized that love was not supposed to be painful.

When I was 18 years old my husband ,at the time, and I were invited to a marriage conference at the church my parents attended. We went and gave our hearts to the Lord. He was in and out of the church from the beginning, but I stayed and really tried to dedicate my heart and life to God. I wanted us to be a healthy family, but I just didn’t know how. I went full force into the church, the teaching, and I really tried to live a Biblical life, but I was so broken it made it difficult. I was not healed even in the slightest, so I had no idea how to not be toxic.  

The level of toxicity in our relationship was off the charts, but I cannot put the full blame on him. I am in no way excusing a man ever hitting a woman. There is no excuse, and it is never okay. I am simply attempting to explain where I was at during that time in my life. I would often push and push until he exploded and hit me. Looking back, I now understand that I was using him as a means of self-harming behavior. In some ways internally it felt good to have him hit me because it reinforced that I was worthless and that I was getting what I deserved. I also had a tempter that would run wild when I was emotionally or physically hurt. Toward the end of our relationship I started fighting back and that never went well for me. When I left him I knew we were to the point that one of us was going to end up getting really hurt or killed. I also could not let my son continue to live in that kind of violence and chaos.

I was growing in the Lord, and I really felt that He released me from the marriage. I am not going into all the details because they honestly just do not matter at this point, but there was infidelity which the Bible clearly states is a reason for divorce. I stayed until I felt God release me because I did not want to do anything displeasing to the Lord and for many years I felt like I was deeply in love with my husband and that I could not live without him. That is the results of toxicity and co-dependency, but at the time I called it love. Up until the point that I left him I had never told anyone about the abuse. No one knew. I had a busted lip, black eye, and other bruises that I lied about over the years, but to my knowledge no one knew what was going on in our home. The bathroom door to every home we ever lived in had been busted or ripped off the hinges at one point or another because when he was angry that is the first place I would always try to run to hide and lock myself in away from him. Most of the time I never made it to the bathroom, but when I did he would try to bust the door down and sometimes he was successful.

I was very involved in our church and after the divorce I continued to be, but something shifted in me. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I became angry at God, and I felt let down by Him. I was angry that I had been abused as a child and I was angry and let down that my ex-husband did not change and be the husband and man I knew he could be. Instead of fully blaming him somehow I placed some of the blame on God. I felt like He had let me down because I always felt like my ex was called into the ministry and that we were going to do a lot of great things for the Lord. I also saw glimpses of the man he could be and that is who I wanted to be married to. I know now that it was not God’s fault at all, but back then a seed of doubt was planted in my heart about God’s goodness, faithfulness, and love for me.

That seed grew alongside the other seed that was planted as to why God did not protect me from the childhood sexual abuse. Actually I think the seed was planted when I was abused by my bio-dad, was watered when I felt like no one saved me from the abuse, and then when I walked through the divorce it was in full bloom. I would do Bible studies and learn about God’s goodness, but I had a wall around my heart because I felt so rejected, let down, and abandoned by God. I could hear His voice, be led by Him, and feel His presence but a wall was built, and it was getting wider and taller. It was affecting my relationship with God and all my other relationships. I went through massive changes in my attitude and personality.

The divorce took a heavy toll on me in many ways but in other ways I felt free for the first time in years. I was free from the abuse and toxicity. I could just really be me again, but the problem with that was I had no idea who me was. I started dating right after my divorce was final. I never wanted to be alone, and I always wanted to be married and in a family. Alone was never appealing to me. My divorce was final on Dec. 31^st, 2001. I didn’t even know it until the following Monday. As soon as I was divorced I was ready to start dating, or so I thought. The problem was I had not healed any of the trauma from my past. I was still the same broken little girl who was trying to go on with my life. I met Ronnie at church before my divorce was final. My friend actually wanted to set us up on a date, but I didn’t until I was legally divorced. That was really important to me. I did not want to start something new until I was completely legally free.

A few months after my divorce and dating a few other people I went out with Ronnie for the first time. We went out to eat and then for a walk. We talked and talked and talked. That was the first thing that I really loved about him. He spent so much time just talking to me and the other thing that really attracted me to him was that he could make me laugh. He was so funny and witty. I remember laughing a lot and that was something I needed more of. We clicked from the very beginning. I think we have pretty much been together every single day for the past 22 years. We liked the same movies, books, and music. We went to the same church and we both had kids. I had one son and he had two that were close to the same age as mine. Ronnie was very easy going and I really needed that in my life.  

As soon as I was divorced a switch flipped in me and I made a promise to myself that I would never again be hurt, abused, or walked all over. Because of that I became very easily angered, easily offended, aggressive, and I was always on the offensive. I think Ronnie felt like such a good fit in some ways because he was very passive. I was controlling and dominating, and he let me have my way because he just didn’t care to argue. He passiveness came from his childhood and trauma he experienced. We both were very broken people, and we had no idea in the very beginning how that brokenness would affect every single aspect of our marriage and our lives.

Next time I will go into more details about my marriage, mental illness, physical illness, parenting, and relationship with God.

Thank you for taking this journey with me as I go back and visit my past, receive further healing, and remember everything God has done in my life. If you are in a place of pain and trauma please know that God sees you and wants to heal you. Healing is possible and it is for you!

Blessings,

Nichole Henson, Fullness of Joy Ministry