Sunday, May 31, 2009

Once More, Slowly

I've already shared the story of how I lost my virginity at age 19, but it's kinda the Cliff Notes version. It was only my second blog post, and I hadn't quite found my way into the multi-post diary format.

So I crammed the entire episode into 337 words, prompting my friend Chief to gently remind me that I didn't need to race through each story just to get to the punch line.

So now I'm going to take a deep breath, beg your indulgence, and retell the story.

Only this time, I'll tell you more about the guy and more about how it all ended.

But before I even get to him, I'm going to tell you a little bit about my dad, who could single-handedly be the subject of an entire blog. (My sister half-jokingly suggested I start an I-survived-daddy blog called Scarred for Life.)

Just a little bit, so you can understand how a nice girl from Yale gave it up to a small-time drug dealer, then dated a closet-homosexual jailbird, then lived with a 50-something self-proclaimed revolutionary, all before the age of 23.

And you thought my late twenties were dramatic!

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Fixin' to Go All Teenaged On You

This blog is about to go back, back, back in time.

Yep, uh huh. In case you weren't already chronology-confused enough.

For those of you new to my blog, I am currently in my late thirties. But I primarily write about my former life as a self-proclaimed slut, a life that more or less ended about 10 years ago.

Here's what I've shared so far:
Most of my posts fall into two categories: diaries, where I relive my experiences, and lessons learned, where I share the knowledge I gained from them.

So before I jump into a new chapter, I wanted to remind you of where I've been and give you a head's up about where we're going.

I thought I'd spare you the pain of wondering why I suddenly aged backward and turned 19 years old!

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

When You Let Go, Really Let Go

I've seen Brown twice since our breakup nearly 10 years ago.

The first was a few months later. I was in my kitchen washing dishes and singing. He greeted me with, "It sings," in a tone of voice that said how dare I sing while he nursed a broken heart.

The second time was a few years later. I was heavily involved with transformational seminars that required me to have conversations with people I had unfinished business with. I basically acknowledged that the elephant in the room had played a bigger role in our breakup than the betrayal, and apologized for treating him like a bad guy who needed to constantly atone.

Then a year or so after that, I called Brown to (falsely) accuse him of giving me an STD.

I'd had an abnormal pap smear. When I went in for my biopsy, I asked my mean, hatchet-faced OB-GYN what an abnormal pap meant, and she tersely replied that I had an STD. She didn't bother to explain what I've now learned from commercials: that a very common virus called HPV can cause cervical cancer in roughly 10 percent of women exposed to it.

I thought I was dying of cancer. So in total terror of my impending baldness, radiation-imposed barrenness and ultimate untimely death, I gave Brown yet another piece of my mind.

Of course, the biopsy turned out negative. I wasn't dying. And I didn't have an STD.

But I was too embarrassed to apologize, because I'd blurted out, "I haven't been with anybody since you, so if I have something, you gave it to me."

I'd admitted to being stuck in my head with him, while he had moved on – into the arms of a Korean woman.

I haven't seen or talked to him since, but through the years, I've kept up with him through his best friend's wife. When we talk, she gives me the juicy second-hand gossip about his wife, kids and drama.

A few years ago, I admitted to my friend Chief that I was still in love with Brown. Her face kinda squinched up. She was my boss at the new job I took while Brown and I were breaking up. Then and now, whenever I describe my relationship with him, she always says the same thing, "He sounds totally wrong for you."

A few weeks back, while blogging about the Brown saga, I confided to her how writing about him brought up all this stuff because "I still hadn't found his replacement."

Chief gave me one of her quizzical looks, and gently pointed out that I wasn't supposed to be looking for Brown's "replacement."

In that moment, I realized that instead of looking for a love that's based on mutual respect, shared goals and shared dreams, I was merely measuring every man against my selective memories of how good things used to be with Brown.

Writing about him has made me realize the extent to which I've been playing the what-if game. The blaming-myself-for-letting-go game. The blaming-him-for-not-trying-harder game. The blaming-his-wife-even-though-I-don't-know-her game.

So I made the decision to really let him go – psychically and emotionally, not just physically. I prayed for him to be happy (instead of hoping he'd waste away from miserable, undying love for me). I prayed he'd have a great relationship with his wife (instead of taking pleasure in second-hand tales of marital discord). I prayed for him to completely release me and for me to completely release him.

In writing this blog, and supplementing it with a deep intention to forgive and be forgiven, I feel like I've finally let Brown go – for real and for good.

Thanks for being a part of my healing process.

(Brown Diaries Parts 1-18: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 | Lessons Learned Part 3 of 3: 1 2 3)

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Friday, May 22, 2009

True Love Ain't Nothin' Like This

I wanted to write something poetic about it being better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all, but in my case, that wouldn't quite ring true. Damaged people who don't love themselves can not truly love others. They can feel infatuation, obsession, what passes for love, but what they think is love isn't really love.

And that's the truth about me and Brown.

At the time, he would have sworn he loved me, and I would have sworn I loved him. And we both would have meant it – fervently.

But the evidence wasn't in his favor, nor was it in mine.

Love doesn't disappoint, take for granted, verbally abuse and deliberately dupe another person. Because that's irritating, disrespectful and ultimately devastating.

Nor does love cling so tightly to a fantasy and a dream of the future that it completely dismisses another person's reality. Because that's unrealistic, disrespectful and ultimately life-strangling.

In lying and breaking promises to me continually, Brown proved he did not love me.

In refusing to acknowledge, understand and accept that Brown absolutely, positively did not want more children, I proved I did not love him.

We both experienced love as a noun: an indescribably good feeling, the object of the verb making.

We didn't experience love as a verb, with all the selflessness that it entails. Brown didn't love me enough to show up, to support my dreams and aspirations, to want what was truly in my best interests. I didn't love Brown enough to be spacious, to let him be him, to hear what was always being said under the surface.

We both did the best we could, based on who we were at the time, and we both called it love.

Then when sugar-sweet love turned to vinegar, we both fled.

I still don't know what true love is, but I definitely know a whole lot more about what it's not. And that's a good lesson and a good start.


(Brown Diaries Parts 1-18: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 | Lessons Learned Part 2 of 3: 1 2 3)

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Wednesday, May 20, 2009

I Don't Need a Man

A few weeks after the painful goodbye to Brown, I did something that nice Catholic girls just don't do.

I went to an adult store and bought myself the thickest, blackest, most utilitarian approximation of a man that I could find.

It was liberating.

Because I was addicted to Brown. More specifically, I was addicted to amazing, glorious sex with Brown. And discovering that I could have amazing, glorious orgasms all by myself was a very liberating form of revenge. My plastic stand-in couldn't kiss my eyelids the way Brown did and it couldn't string me along with empty promises and sweet words of love, but it could absolutely, positively handle the mechanics. (Better than most flesh-and-blood men, I might add.)

And knowing that I could take care of my own needs freed me from what had been my pattern:
  • I'd be celibate for a few weeks or months.
  • Then I'd meet somebody, anybody who was polite enough to get past my no-class meter (which must have been temporarily out of order when I met Semi-Homeless) and who acted like they were into me.
  • The hormones would kick in, and usually I'd be panting and naked at the end of the first date – and feeling really bad about it.
  • Then in a few days, weeks or months, the relationship would be over. I'd be celibate again, and the cycle would begin anew.
After Brown, I knew unequivocally that the merry-go-round had to stop. So I promised myself – and this time I really meant it – that I was done with being a sexual dishrag.

I still wished and hoped that a man would be my escape route from poverty, from loneliness, from boredom, from corporate America. But slowly but surely, against my will, I've learned to take responsibility for my own dreams and to be my own entertainment, the same way that I learned to push my own joy button after my breakup with Brown.

Over the past year, I've begun to come to terms with the fact that I may never marry. I may never have kids. I may never get the white picket fence that I always dreamed about.

That's not an easy pill to swallow, but neither is the alternative: Blaming myself because I didn't find The One or that I didn't make it work with Brown even though so many things were clearly unworkable.

What I finally realized, just in the last few months, is that I really am responsible for taking care of myself and for making my own dreams come true. These aren't the days before washing machines and tractors, when women needed men to take care of them. In our age of automation, education and not quite equal pay, women are fully capable of taking care of themselves, even if we just don't want to.

I've been doing it for 10 years now.

It's not always easy, and it's not always fun.

But I'll take taking care of myself any day over taking care of myself while being emotionally torn in two by a man who's not taking care of me.

(Brown Diaries Parts 1-18: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 | Lessons Learned Part 1 of 3: 1 2 3)

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Sunday, May 17, 2009

Shout-Outs, Awards and Kudos - Thanks!

Over the last few weeks, I've been honored with awards and kudos from a few bloggers. I wanted to get Brown out of my system before I acknowledged all the blog love, so here's a slightly belated recap.

Featured Blog of the Week - Hooray! Made my Week!

Last week, I got a big surprise from one of my favorite bloggers - J.B. of It's Gonna Take More Than a Hamburger to Make Me Happy fame. She made Don't Be a Slut her featured blog of the week. It was such a delicious surprise.

I love J.B.'s blog. She's a good writer, she's funny and there's something really heartfelt about her writing. Most of her stories take place in restaurants. She works in a deli, and her family used to own a restaurant. So she's got lots of stories about insane customers. My favorite is her rant about mock chicken.

She's also got her own Brown-like saga, about her breakup with her ex.

Kreativ Blogger Award

Enchantress of Days of My Life blog was kind enough to give me the Kreativ Blogger Award. She lives in Atlanta and has a warm-hearted, slice-of-life blog.

The rules are:
1. Post the award on your blog and link to the person who gave you the award.
2. List seven things you love.
3. Pass it on! List seven blogs you love and let those people know you've given them the award.

Seven Things I Love
  1. Blogging
  2. Chocolate
  3. Mindless TV (America's Next Top Model, Oprah, Grey's Anatomy)
  4. The Pacific Ocean
  5. My church
  6. Lingerie
  7. Hummingbirds and flowers
Seven Blogs I Love
Since the name of the blog is "Kreativ," I've tried to pick blogs that are unusual or different in some way and that haven't, as far as I know, been honored with this award in the past.
  1. The Recessionista - her blog is about shopping, dining, dressing and living well on the cheap. She doesn't just dish about deals, she includes witty commentary.

  2. The Lotus Sutra Chronicles - a travel diary of sorts, it features interesting photos and observations from an American(?) woman who currently lives in Korea (and is planning to head to Europe soon).

  3. Jane Minogue - Huffington Post - an interesting take on women's issues that ties today's hot topics back to their historical corollaries in medieval Europe.

  4. The Spicy Princess - Shhhh, this blog is everything you ever wanted to know about the mechanics of sex but were too embarrassed to ask. The Spicy Princess offers tips on how to please your partner as well as reviews of various sensual products.

  5. Luscious Sealed Lips - part dialogue, part stream of consciousness, part poetry, part narrative, this blog is about love, relationships and life.

  6. How I Changed Careers - essentially a business blog, but with a more personal twist. An entrepreneur sharing how he went from practicing law to launching his own line of body-care products.

  7. Remembering Paris - a survivor of child sexual abuse, incest and domestic violence tells her story.
Makes My Heart Smile Award
RETROMUS-IK awarded me the Makes My Heart Smile award, naming Don't be a Slut as one of her top 10 favorites. Thanks a bunch, Retro!

Friday, May 15, 2009

Goodbye

I finally did the impossible. I broke up with Brown – for good. In both senses of the word. Good as in final. And good as in what was truly best for both of us.

I didn't berate him. I didn't play the victim. I wasn't particularly dramatic.

I just told him – in person, not over the phone – that my needs weren't being met and that I no longer had the expectation that they would be; that the things I wanted for my future (marriage and children) he couldn't provide; and that there was no sense in prolonging my agony or his.

He was hurt, but he said he understood. He wanted me to have the best, and he would always be in my corner.

For everything that had gone wrong between us – from harsh words to the betrayal to countless broken promises – I knew for certain that he really loved me and that I really loved him. And that's what made the whole situation so damned sad.

Less than a week after the breakup, I had a fever of 101 degrees. I'd wake up sweating. Then freezing.

But that was nothing compared to what I felt emotionally.

Pure, raw pain.

Pure, raw loss.

Grief in its purest, most utterly agonizing form.

I felt like a part of me had died. Like I'd been cut in two, and pain was just pouring out of my body. Like a dried-up flower that would never bloom open again.

I hoped the pain would pass quickly, but it didn't.

It lingered, in a less-intense form, for nearly a decade.

(Brown Diaries Part 18 of 18: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 | Lessons Learned 1-3: 1 2 3)

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Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Growth vs. Brown

The truce with Brown didn't last. But neither did my emotional neediness. Slowly but surely, I was starting to outgrow my dependence on him – a process that he accelerated by only seeing me once or twice a month.

You see, my first act of independence was that I stopped going to Brown's apartment every weekend like a cheap, convenient and dependable little treat. I filled my empty evenings and weekends with The Artist's Way, a self-help book that had changed my life four years earlier.

After a 27-day absence, Brown appeared on my doorstep, and we made love.

I took a six-day trip to Detroit for my birthday, where I hung out with my Best Friend and got an over-the-top, orange-blond hair weave that mirrored my messy inner transformation.

Brown picked me up at the airport. He gave me three pairs of earrings and a necklace, along with a bunch of reasons why he wouldn't be around for the rest of the weekend.

I found out that I was the lowest-paid secretary at Looney Tunes Home Video and waged a campaign to get a raise.

Brown reappeared. We made love, but now something was different. I was squirmy and skittish. I couldn't relax. In the middle of the night, he woke me up, hungering for round two. I couldn't. Making love to him hurt, like cutting open a scab that had just begun to heal. He left before dawn. The next day, I broke up with him over the phone, saying that I loved him, but the relationship was causing me too much pain.

A software company that I'd interviewed with a year earlier called. Back then, the hiring managers had wanted me for an editor position, but the VP with the final say was turned off by my secretarial background. They still remembered me, and offered me a freelance writing job. It meant an extra $300 a week, which I sorely needed.

Brown and I got back together, and the sex was magical once again.

The software company interviewed me for a full-time, permanent writer/editor position. There was a glimmer of hope that I might finally escape the executive-assistant ranks.

Brown and I fought over the phone. He questioned me about how much the new job might pay. I got an attitude. When he uttered the words, "I don't want to deal with your sh#t," I slammed the phone in his ear.

I excelled at my freelance-writing assignments, and I got the full-time job. A writer/editor title. A $13,000 raise.

Brown came over. After another attempt at nervous, jumpy love-making, he accused me of having an affair. An affair? I told him I didn't know who he was anymore, what he wanted from me anymore. Not to mention, he was talking about moving to Vegas. Without me. He asked if I was afraid I'd be alone when he went to Vegas. I replied, "I'm already alone."

I broke up with him again by phone. Told him that I still loved him and I probably always would, but my needs weren't being met and apparently neither were his. Twelve days later, he was back in my bed.

I started my new job, which was both terrifying and gratifying. I was officially a writer now. Working with people I liked. At a company I liked. At a salary where, for the first time in my life, I wasn't broke.

My life without Brown was looking up. My life with Brown hurt like hell.

(Brown Diaries Part 17 of 18: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 | Lessons Learned 1-3: 1 2 3)

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Monday, May 11, 2009

Deciding Not to Decide

A month after the betrayal, Brown and I had a serious conversation about our relationship.

I asked him to say whatever was in his heart to say. And what he said, in so many words, was goodbye.

He said he thought I was going to hold a grudge forever about him lying to me, and his subsequent promise not to lie was ridiculous.

"What happens if I go to Vegas and win $2,000 and give you $200 and you find out and get mad at me for lying?"

"Why would you want to do that in the first place?"

But it didn't take long to get past that ghetto ridiculousness and get to the real problem in our relationship: the elephant in the room.

He said he could give me "cats, dogs, turtles or anything in this world," but he couldn't give me what I really wanted: children. He would not and could not get his vasectomy reversed, even though he knew kids would make me "50 percent happy."

Then he described how I took on a supernatural glow in restaurants whenever ladies walked in with their babies. How I lit up when I played with his best friend's three-year-old son. How it was painful for him to even look at me, because he couldn't give me that. How it bothered him when he told me about the vasectomy because "you barely knew me, and you cried."

That's when I realized that Brown had interpreted my love-at-first-sight devotion to him as ridiculous, unappealing desperation. I instantly felt ashamed and very stupid.

But he didn't stop there.

He adamantly decreed that if I wanted children, I was going to have to adopt because "I don't want anything coming out of you that I didn't put there."

Yes, he really did say that.

Selfish bastard.

Selfish, tactless, hurtful bastard.

He ended it by saying that instead of being the man who couldn't give me children, he preferred to be "the best friend who f*cked up."

I responded by pleading – yes, pleading – in the most heartfelt, pitiful and childlike of tones, "Brown, please don't leave me. I don't think that I can bear it."

So much for womanly pride and assertiveness.

With absolutely nothing resolved, we both called a temporary, eggshell-fragile truce.

(Brown Diaries Part 16 of 18: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 | Lessons Learned 1-3: 1 2 3)

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Saturday, May 9, 2009

The Wrong Kind of Fight

From the moment our relationship began to fall apart, Brown started acting like it was already over. I wanted him to be the kind of man who was open and honest and willing to do whatever it took to make us work. And I wanted to be the kind of woman who was assertive and loving and able to balance both of our needs.

But he wasn't that kind of man. And I wasn't that kind of woman.

So this is what happened instead.

He reverted back to his old MIA tricks – saying he would call and then not calling, saying he'd see me and then standing me up. Only now, instead of merely pining over him, I fantasized about dumping him in the most painful and embarassing ways. Like humping another guy in his living room just as his key was turning in the lock.

When we did talk or see each other, I was the nagging, enraged wife.

"I feel like you've been playing me for a year and then acting like, 'Why are you tripping?'"

"No, that's not true."

"I don't trust you anymore."

"What do you want from me?"

"I want you to be honest with me and not lie to me."

"You want me to say I'll never lie to you again? Everybody lies. But I won't lie about that again."

"So what am I supposed to do – measure all your words on a scale?"

"Ok. I won't lie."

And then I told him if I ever caught him in another lie, he wouldn't even have time to blink, I'd be gone so fast.

"I thought you were gone now."

I couldn't believe he was willing to let me go that easily. Without a fight. Without even a feeble attempt to make things right.

A few days later, he stood me up for an entire weekend. I went to the movies twice on Saturday just to try to keep my mind off of him. Then at 8 p.m. Sunday, I caved in and called him.

Of course, he didn't apologize. He made small talk as if nothing was wrong, even though my anger was a red hot knife and I was stabbing him through the phone line. Finally, I told him the next move was on him, because I felt I was chasing him.

He responded kindly, "You're not chasing me."

I said good night and threw my phone across the room as hard as I could, then broke into yet another firestorm of tears.

I was terrified to be alone again. Having the bubonic plague was more appealing to me than being single. The thought of returning to my old slutty ways – months of celibacy, broken by desperate love affairs and then a return to being alone – made me sick.

Was it only a month ago that I'd been so happy just to wake up next to Brown and watch him sleep?

(Brown Diaries Part 15 of 18: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 | Lessons Learned 1-3: 1 2 3)

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Thursday, May 7, 2009

Happy First Anniversary

I wanted to marry him.

I wanted to leave him.

I wanted to forgive him.

I wanted to make him pay.

Such was my state of mind in the days after Brown's betrayal.

I felt sick to my stomach.

I had nightmares and insomnia.

I sleepwalked through work.

I cried incessantly.

He called me a few days after the truth came seeping out. At first, I let him talk to my answering machine. Then I decided to call him back. I told him that I was very angry and that I didn't have a lot to say, because I didn't want to say the wrong thing out of anger.

He asked me what I wanted to do.

"I don't know."

"Will I be the first to know?"

"Yes."

I didn't want to leave him, but I didn't want to be his fool, either. What I really wanted to do was run screaming from my life and lock myself in a dark closet.

A few days later, I called Brown and asked him to come over.

I couldn't get any words out, other than I was very upset that he had lied to me for a year and that his lies had led him to make false promises and led me to have false expectations.

"You can't stay mad at me forever. Do you want me to leave?" He wasn't being flippant. He wanted me to make a choice: forgive him and stay with him, or hate him and break up with him.

"I don't think you're even sorry."

"Yes, I am sorry." He went on to say that this was all his problem, not mine. That he wrestled with guilt for many months before he decided to tell me. That everyone except me knew how much he loved me and wanted to marry me.

Then he massaged me and massaged me and undressed me and made love to me ... while tears streamed down my face.

He let me cry. And remarked, "I hate when you cry. You always cry for a long time."

The next day I attempted to do something I'd never done in nearly all of my 28 years: I attempted to get drunk. I went to the grocery store and bought a bottle of Alizé.

And I felt good for the first time in what seemed like years.

I laughed. I danced.

I called Brown and announced that I was drunk.

I decided that I danced better drunk. That I wrote better drunk.

I even thought that maybe I should follow my Great Aunt's example and become a drunk.

It was better than crying alone in my apartment.

It was the only way I knew to celebrate the first anniversary of my first date with Brown.

(Brown Diaries Part 14 of 18: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 | Lessons Learned 1-3: 1 2 3)

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Monday, May 4, 2009

Compassion Turns to Fury

After Brown confessed his big, monstrous lie, my first reaction was compassion. As he sat on the edge of the bed, head hanging low and pain dripping from his pores, I wanted to protect him. My man was broken, and seeing him broken broke my heart.

He claimed that this was the only lie he'd ever told me, and he explained the origin of the lie: Early in our relationship, I woke up in the middle of the night after dreaming that he had a child by someone other than his ex-wife. He knew by the tone of my voice that I would leave, and he didn't want to lose me.

I didn't remember the conversation or the dream, but I knew he was telling the truth. I frequently have precognitive dreams, and I'm also known to completely forget entire conversations that occur after I first wake up, along with traumatic events I don't want to relive.

Would I have left him if I'd known the truth up front?

Maybe.

My raised-Catholic sensibilities took marriage seriously. An ex-wife was unfortunate but respectable. A baby's mama was cause for concern. An ex-wife plus a baby's mama was a sign that the man was irresponsible and callous. (Which Brown often was.)

But in the moment that he told me these things, he was on the ground bleeding.

So my first reaction was compassion.

My second reaction was numbness.

I had a whole work day ahead of me. I drove to Burbank and did my job as if the earth hadn't just crumbled underneath me.

My third reaction was fury.

It started setting in at 1 a.m., when I started sorting out the incident in a long, tearful vent to my diary. Because when I wrote it all down, I had no choice but to admit how thoroughly Brown had duped me. Now I wasn't just mad at him, I was mad at myself for missing what had always been right in front of my nose.

He claimed it was one lie, but a multitude of lies were wrapped up in that one lie.

The preposterous notion that he would have had a child with his ex-wife years after they broke up. His lame explanations when I would ask why she never dropped the baby off when his two oldest kids came over. His inexplicable money problems over the last two months, which I had naively attributed to my half-promised engagement ring.

Instead of a man who made double my salary and paid one ex-wife child support, he was a man who was now handing most of his check to his Baby's Mama, even before his two legitimate kids saw a dime. He was now a man who made much less than me, with a much higher standard of living to support.

The shock was wearing off, and the confusion, anger and hurt that had been building up all day was starting to hiss and shriek like a teapot on full boil.

The elephant in the room was now trampling mud all over my tiny apartment and blasting dirty water in my face. If I stayed with Brown, I'd be barren by default – unable to have children of my own – but paying dearly in baby-mama drama with what were now the two mothers of his children.

How dare he hide the truth until I was so locked in, so completely in love with him that I couldn't run away?

(Brown Diaries Part 13 of 18: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 | Lessons Learned 1-3: 1 2 3)

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Saturday, May 2, 2009

The Betrayal

Brown fell from grace exactly 10 days before our one-year anniversary.

One night, he came home completely defeated, with his head in his hands, too upset to eat. He wouldn't tell me what was wrong.

The next morning, I asked if he felt better. The answer was no.

I held him for what seemed like an eternity. If I nagged him, he'd keep silent. So I held my tongue and rubbed his back and massaged his temples and tuned into him intuitively.

In a flash, I knew what was bothering him.

"Is it one of the kids?"

That simple question unlocked the door to everything Brown had been hiding from me.

It was his three-year-old son, the one I'd never met.

More specifically, it was Brown's Baby's Mama – a baby's mama I was completely unaware of because Brown had always claimed his youngest son was by his ex-wife.

He described her as his "worst f*cking nightmare" and painted an unflattering picture of a 33-year-old woman who still lived with her mom, faked disability claims, drove a red BMW, was mean to his two older kids, snooped through his things, blew up his pager and pressured him to buy a house.

They'd dated for 18 months and lived together for six months.

When they were still an item, she'd warned one of Brown's best friends that if he didn't do her right, she would take him to the cleaners.

Brown hadn't done her right.

He'd missed the birth of the baby – her first-born – because he chose to be with his dying father. "I made the choice: my dad, who was on his way out, or my son, who I'd always have with me." And, without going into details, he admitted that when they broke up, he'd put her out of his apartment with the baby in tow.

Now, she was making good on her promise.

She went to court lying and crying that he'd never paid a dime in child support, although he'd given her cash from day one. Now the government was garnisheeing his check. He handed me his pay stub: $327 was all he had to show for a week's worth of backbreaking, box-lifting labor.

And the pain wasn't just financial. He barely got to see his son. If she knew Brown was on his way over, she'd pack the baby up and leave the house. She didn't let Brown take the baby home, which meant Brown's older kids couldn't develop a relationship with their baby brother. And now she was threatening to take Brown back to court to get sole custody, which meant Brown would pay even more in child support and would have even less contact with his son.

In short, she was using her three-year-old boy as both paycheck and payback.

Brown was in agony.

And now I was, too. Because the man I loved had lied to me, over and over, for an entire year.

(Brown Diaries Part 12 of 18: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 | Lessons Learned 1-3: 1 2 3)

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