You'd think I would have learned my lesson; the first time. There I was, It 2020. The salon I has called home for almost 3 years was being shutdown. There was some mysterious virus spreading all over the world. Coronavirus made it unsafe for stylists like me to perform our daily services. All we were told was that we needed to grab everything that we might need from the salon for an undetermined amount of time.

    What am I going to do with NO income and what seems like Marshall law taking effect. We had curfew.  I have to sit down and do NOTHING?! That was unheard of. So, one night I'm scrolling online after another failed attempt to date someone I'd met at work. Now that I think about it, this pandemic was right on time. I download a dating app. I had tried online dating in the recent months but I had given up. It had been almost 3 years since the divorce. My new hopelessly romantic girlfriend encouraged me to get back out there, hell we are stuck at home for God knows how long. My pointer finger got tired of swiping left, tired of the same old "Good morning beautiful" message with the heart eyes emoji. Then I come across a profile picture that I like. There was something mysterious about the man in the pictures. I noticed that he looked different in each picture. He didn't have a wordy bio or anything clever to say at all. I swiped right and it was a match!

    Looking back I can say that I was first intrigued with his name. I'd never mad a black man with a nam like his. We started messaging almost immediately. He was friendly and consistent with his communication. We were the same age. I loved hearing about HVAC school and how ambitious he was about learning new things. He told me that he was retired from the Navy. "Wow"! I thought, we were only 38 and he was already on to his next big adventure. He shared with me and that he loved to cook. His favorite cuisine was Caribbean food. His mother and father were from Jamaica. I had always wanted to visit Jamaica. I after a couple of weeks of messaging on the dating site we started talking on the phone. One night I looked up to see the sun rising. We had been on the phone all night! He was so vulnerable. We has so much in common... Or so, I thought. Unbeknownst to me I'd be learning new term that's largely popular when dealing with narcissism; Mirroring.

     I remember talking to my hopelessly romantic girlfriend about how amazing this man was. "It seems like everything I've been through, he's been through the same things."  It would take me years to realize that he was just mirroring me. I tend to overshare. I was thrilled to know that I wasn't alone. He too had experienced church hurt, a neglectful mother and exes who just didn't appreciate him. He was a giver and so was I. I didn't even think that men like him even existed. We wanted the same things out of life. He loved to travel. We talked about creating generational wealth and how important parenting is.  Before long this man was coming to see me and doing more things for me than any man had done. He did so much that I had a Jack of All Trades on my hands. When I needed brick masonry work done, he did it without me even having to ask. He would bring his pressure washer over and wash both of our vehicles. He was communicative. Anytime I had an issue with anything or anyone HE UNDERSTOOD; that was UNTIL I had an issue with him.

    One day he had come to visit me and the kids. He brought his two daughters to my home  who were 10 and 6 at the time. It was nice to have other kids around. My kids loved to play with his kids; this was amazing! Until one day my 7 year old son was playing with his 6 year old daughter. My son comes running and crying saying that his daughter had punched him in the stomach for no reason. we both sat there dumbfounded. He asked his daughter did she punch my son in the stomach to which she replied "yes". When he asked her why she punch my son, she couldn't give a reason. That was just the beginning of her impulsive episodes. He told his daughter apologize and we let them go play. I did make sure my son was ok, he seemed more shocked than anything. As soon as the kids walked away my soon-to-be husband looked at me and said, "He needs to learn to toughen up." Well, that was an odd thing to say in that moment; I thought. We were seeing a therapist at that time for premarital counseling. This was a week before we were set to get married. I told my soon-to-be husband that I wanted to discuss this incident with our therapist at our upcoming session. He went home and didn't call me to say goodnight like he normally would. The next morning I called him, to my surprise he said, "I don't think we should get married anymore." DUN DUN DUN.... 

    I asked him why he was having cold feet  and if he was willing to at least have a conversation about this with our therapist. He agreed to participate in our next counseling session but his reasoning for having cold feet was absurd to me. He said that he didn't think things with the kids were going to work out! 

What in the gaslighting, word salad, narcissistic hell was that supposed to mean? This was just the beginning of even worse things to come. They say hindsight is 20/20. I should have let him go then and never looked back. We met with our counselor virtually and immediately dived in to him not wanting to get married anymore. The therapist was surprised as well. My soon-to-be husband was upset because he felt that the issue with the incident between his daughter and my son was that my son needed to toughen up. I told him the night it happened that it was important to teach her to keep her hands to herself. I also expressed to him that I felt that if the tables were turned and my son had hit her he would have been upset. This is what he was upset about. Enough to cancel our small ceremony at the beach; enough to Not marry me. I was really confused. At that time I was just baffled and thought it was just cold feet. Our therapist was able to talk with him about if he trusted me with his daughters to which he said yes. Did he believe that his daughters liked me to which he replied, "Oh yes, they love her: they'd rather be at her house than mine." The therapist told him that he didn't see any real justification for him changing his mind about marrying me. The therapist did say; "You know... I do think you might be too defensive about your daughters. At the end of the day what she said is right, they have to have discipline and consequences for their actions otherwise the hitting will continue." Boy was her right!  My soon-to-be husband agreed with the therapist and vowed to work together with me to put certain measures in place to reward good behavior with all of the kids and consequences for unacceptable behavior.

 I didn't know it at the time but in the future  anytime his or his children behaved in a way that required a conversation he would handle it the same way he did the punching incident.

    Needless to say,  a week or so later we were married. The snow didn't permit us to have our beach ceremony. We went to the courthouse. In true pandemic irony we both said our vows wearing masks.

   I can see now how before the punching incident when he would get his girls on the weekend sometimes  we wouldn't see them. He would say he was coming over but he didn't show up with the girls. He  was keeping the interactions between us to a minimum.  There were more things going on with his daughters and him that he didn't want me to see. I can honestly say that there were some red flags that I completely disregarded. He said and did some things that I had every reason to cut him off for. Why did I ignore red flags, you ask... Because I was focused on the wrong thing. I still had some healing to do. After a lifetime of being told that I wasn't good enough and being told by my ex over and over again that no one would want me; I clung to the fact that this man wanted me and my kids.