I had just turned 15 when I met Aden, I was a freshman in high school. It had only been six months since the incident with Karter, but he was cute and I liked him. So I thought I’d give it another try. We were boyfriend and girlfriend for a while, but he cheated on me with my now ex-best-friend. So we broke up.

One day, in my somphmore year, and I’m not sure when or why, I decided to talk to Aden in my computer class. We had assigned seating right next to each other so it was kind of inevitable I guess. Things were okay at first, but that didn’t last long… Maybe a month or so into our new found friendship, he was mad and he decided to take it out on me. We were sitting in class joking around while the teacher wasn’t looking, and then the next thing I know he just punches me in my right arm… I let him know that it hurt, but instead of saying sorry he says, “oh you mean this?” and punches me again. I didn’t say anything to anyone because I knew him, and I knew what he was like. And Aden was the type of guy who everyone liked him, so I really didn’t think anyone would believe me. And so this type of abuse continued for several weeks.

Then one day, everything changed. James (my then boyfriend, and now husband) was home sick and I was having some really bad stress migranes. I had been getting them for months, ever since our relationship troubles started. Any way, I was already feeling sick when I saw my best friend Chelle talking to my ex Aden. She seemed to be laughing, but he didn’t look so happy. Then he grabbed her by her hair and slapped her in the face. I knew him, and I knew what he was capable of doing to her. So I put myself in between them. Aden grabbed my arm and threw me against the wall, he put his forearm across my chest and held me there. I felt the pressure against my chest and began to have trouble breathing. Then he started punching me in my face, chest, and arms. I cried and begged him to let me go, I could see Chelle standing behind him yelling at him to let me go. There where other people around, but no one would help. Finally he let me go, I fell to the floor. Chelle helped me up and we walked away. When I got a chance I called Tim and told him what had happened. He told me not to worry, he’d take care of Aden. The next day he showed up stoned again, not a surprise, and he talked to Aden alright, but it wasn’t what I thought it would be. I could see the two of them laughing. What was he doing congratulating Aden for beating on me?

Eventualy things got better for James and me. He quit using drugs (mostly because I gave him an ultamatem, even though I hate them), which was great, and we mended our relationship. As for Aden, after that day I wanted nothing more to do with him, understandably so. I moved my seat in class, and I didn’t talk to him anymore until our senior year. And then that was only because our English teacher had us confrence together over a project. However, today, four years after the incident, I’ve actually put this behind me.. I mean I haven’t forgotten it, and I probably never will, but I’ve forgiven him.. Why? I really don’t know. Maybe it’s because by the time graduation rolled around we’d both grown up a lot, and we were actually civil with each other. I don’t know, I just woke up one day, and I realized that what he did to me didn’t hurt as much anymore. I mean the pain is still there, but it hurts less now.

James and I had a good relationship before and after the drugs, but while he was using our relationship was horrible. He used to flirt with other girls right in front of me. He’d smack the girls on their asses, hug them, and even talk about having sex in the shower with them… He humiliated me, even mentioned his ex around me just to piss me off. Yet I still stayed with him.. Why? One reason was because he was the first boyfriend I had who hadn’t physically abused me or actually cheated on me with my friend. But mostly because I was hopefully in love with him. And things did get back to normal once he quit using. See I’d had enough after the incident with Aden. It was the day before Valentine’s Day and I told James that I was giving him one last second chance. He had one shot to quit using drugs or I was leaving him, and this time I meant for good. I couldn’t handle anymore of him flirting with other girls or playing nice with a guy who had just beat on me. I was done with all the drugs, if that’s what he wanted, then he was more than welcome to have it, but I wanted out. Valentine’s day he comes to me with a teddy bear & a box of chocolates and an apology. He apologized for being such a jerk, and swore to me that he was gonna get clean. He said he wanted me & not the drugs.

Now our relationship is not without it’s share of problems.. For starters, Dale. I met Dale a few months before James and I got married. At first glance, I thought he was some spoiled little rich kid, and even though he fooled me for a while, it turned out in the end I was right. Now before I say anymore, I do want to say that I think part of my reasoning for letting Dale into my life was my way of getting back at James for the drugs. I had forgiven him, but I hadn’t forgotten. And even though I didn’t even realize what I was doing at the time, I think subconsciously it was my way of paying James back for what he did to me.

Dale and I met by chance.. I was a senior in high school and almost ready to graduate and get married. I had one month till graduation and just under 3 months until my wedding. I was blissful, and didn’t expect anything to change that for me. Then in walks Dale into my Buisness and Computers class. He told my teacher that he needed help with an assignement of his and his teacher sent him to our class to use one of the computers. He went to sit beside one of his friends but instead the teacher told him to take the empty seat next to me, and since I was in the advanced part of the class I could help him if he needed it. Great! I thought, just what I need a pompus spoiled rich kid sitting next to me. He sat beside me and immediately started asking me questions about my life. I didn’t even know this guy existed 10 minutes ago and here he was asking me questions about my life. I answered them, mostly because I was trying to figure out what his agenda was. And then I figured it out. A boy who sat on the other side of Dale told him that he needed to quit flirting with me because I was engaged and getting married in a matter of months. Dale’s response, “Engaged? Not married yet though, so that means I have a chance.” I found him a bit egostatisctical, but somehow over the next few days he worked some kind of magic on me. I fell for him. (Now, James swears that Dale had some kind of mind control on me, like he brainwashed me. I don’t know what it was, but I know I fell.) It was like I had this connection with Dale that I’d never felt before, not even with James. He started showing up at my job where I worked as a waitress, and even started calling my cell phone several times a day. Before I knew it, I was spending more time talking to Dale than I was to James, who I was engaged too. Dale began telling me that he loved me, and that he wanted to be the one I was marrying instead of James. He said he give me the moon and stars, and that we’d live a happy life. I tried to deny it, but I was developing deep feelings for Dale as well, and I decided that it was time for me to confess them to James.

After I confessed my feelings to James I decided that I needed a weekend to sort through what I was feeling. It so happened that it was the same weekend that Dale decided to go see a car show in Tennessee. James called me regularly over the weekend to check on me, and see if there was anything I needed. Dale never called me once. I realized that my feelings for Dale were merely infatuation and lust, but I was really in love with James. And he was really in love with me, where as Dale I believed it was just a game to him. To see if could steal me away from another man. So when Dale got back on Sunday night I was ready with my answer. I’d already told James and now it was time to tell Dale. I told him that while I had enjoyed our time together and I really cared about him, I wasn’t in love with him the way I was with James. I asked if we could remain friends and he didn’t want to.. So James and I continued on with our wedding plans, and we were married in July as planned. And I didn’t speak to Dale again for over 3 years.

James and I were doing good and were really happy. We had two kids together and our relationship was really going strong. Then one night out of no where I had a dream about Dale. And then the next day I have a message from him on myspace. It was like my dream had been a sign. He thought he would message me to say hi since he’d ran across my page. I messged him back saying that I was sorry for the way things had ended, but that I really had meant that I wanted to be friends. Then it was like a switch flipped. All of a sudden I found myself being sucked back into his life. Only this time I wasn’t falling in love with him, I was just happy to have him back in my life as a friend. See I adored Dale, I really did. I thought he was one of the most amazing people I’d ever met, and I’d always wanted to keep him in my life, and here it felt like I was being given a second chance. Now I had informed James that Dale and I were emailing back and forth as friends, and while he was skeptical (he figured that Dale was only after one thing when it came to me, and that was to win me back) he knew that I loved him and he trusted me. So in the end he said that he didn’t have a problem with my friendship. So from January 2^nd through March of 2007 Dale and I continued emailing back and forth nearly every day, just as friends. Then things changed.

James and I got into a fight one morning before he went to work. It was a stupid fight about money, and he left before it could be solved. When he came home we continued the argument after our kids were upstairs in their rooms asleep. Only things took a downward spiral.We’d been arguing back and forth for a while, and I could tell that things were starting to get pretty bad. So I tried to leave the room, but he wouldn’t let me. He grabbed my arm and held it very tightly for a long time while he stood there yelling at me. When he let me go, my arm was extremely sore and red. Within an hour a bruise had began to show. I sat on the floor crying and the only thing he had to say was, “why don’t you go cry to your friend Dale”. And so later that night, I emailed Dale and I did tell him what had happened, thinking that he was my friend and all. But instead Dale never emailed me back. Weeks went by and I began to realize that Dale and I weren’t really friends after all. I mean when you’re friend is in trouble you do what ever you can to help them out. So as James and I worked things out, I emailed Dale again telling him that he didn’t need to worry about me anymore. This time he did email me back. He said that he felt that it was best if he didn’t get involved. Now while at the time I bought this story and once again forgave him, I realize now, that it was just more of Dale’s mind games.

Dale continued to manipulate me, calling me and emailing me, telling me that he cared about me, but then when I needed him to talk to he was never there. He’d tell me that he had really been in love with me before, but then he’d tell others that he’d never loved me. Then he began asking for nude pictures of me (he swears it was just a joke, but I know better). Dale used me over and over again, and yet every time he said he was sorry I believed him and let him back into my life. Then finally in July 2007, I talked to a friend who I hadn’t spoken with in years.

Bethany had dated Dale back her freshman year of high school. There had been rumors circulating that something had happened between her and Dale that caused them to break up, and her to move from Kentucky to South Carolina My brother had informed her that I was now friends with Dale, and so she felt that we needed to have a talk. So she contacted me, and we had a nice long talk. Bethany informed that one night she’d went over to Dale’s house to study, only Dale didn’t want to study. He wanted to have sex, and when she said no, he forced himself on her. The next day he told everyone that she cheated on him so he didn’t want anything to do with her. And she moved to live with her mom in S.C. The last thing Bethany said to me was to be careful around him, cause she wasn’t the only one that he’d raped, he’d also done it to a friend of hers. And she didn’t want to see him do it to me.

This news devastated me. Here was one of my friends telling me that someone else, who I cared about, had committed such a horrible crime against them. So I asked Dale, and of course he denied it, but I could tell by the way he spoke that he was lieing to me. I furious and hurt at the same time. And a little scared, because I wondered if he could do that to her when he was a freshman, what would he do to me now? From that day on, I avoided him like the plague. I didn’t take any calls, and I didn’t answer any messages, as far as I was concerned the Dale I knew was dead. And until this past Sunday, I hadn’t spoken to him in nearly a year. (For those of you who didn’t read my blog from Monday, Dale calls me out of the blue. He swore my # showed up on his cell as a missed call but I know better. I know he’s back to his old tricks of trying to sucker me back in, but I’m not falling for it this time. I know it’s horrible to say, but to me, he’s still dead.)

James however was happy that Dale and I were no longer friends. He of course didn’t like Dale, but he said that he was also concerned for me and what Dale would do to me.

Now after that my relationship wasn’t smooth sailing. We had two additional violent incidents. There was one where he punched our counter and pinned me against the stove, and then there was another where he kinda pushed me against a wall and then punched the wall after I’d moved. I was terrified at each of these times, I felt like it was the whole Aden thing all over again. Yet, at the same time I felt like it was my fault for making him mad, and partly because of this we’ve managed to grow apart over the past year. And it’s taken it’s toll on our marriage.

But James and I have moved past that, or at least we’re trying. I’m not scared of him anymore like I was for months. I know how sorry he is, and he’s working really hard on being a better person. And while I’ve forgiven him, I can’t seem to forget, or at least not yet. But I’m hoping I can do that by writing this. I love my James, and we are working so hard on making our relationship better. We have our problems, but they don’t include Dale or violence anymore. I do want to state that I have NEVER, since I’ve known him cheated on James, I had more respect for him and myself than to ever do that. And I know what it feels like to have someone cheat on you.

I admit I’ve made mistakes, the first is ever getting to know Dale in the first place and falling for him. But I have to live with the image of me telling James that I had feelings for Dale. The pain I saw on his face that day, I never want to see that again.

Over the past few years, we’ve both made mistakes, those we have to live with. All we can do today is work to making things better, work at forgiving each other for the mistakes, and learn from them.

I’ve been hurt my nearly everyone in my life, and for the longest time I thought I deserved it. I thought I deserved to believe I was fat and ugly, I thought I deserved to be molested and abused. I thought deserved to be used and manipulated by someone I thought was my friend, and to be abused by my husband. I thought through all my mistakes, that somehow I deserved all that.

But now, I know I’ve made mistakes. And people have already forgiven me for that. James forgave me along time ago. It’s me who hasn’t forgiven myself. I forgave Aden and James, but I couldn’t forgive Karter, Dale, or myself. I don’t really want to forgive Karter or Dale. But I have to forgive myself or otherwise it’s going to eat at me until the day I die.