When we met
I met him at the first rehearsal for “The Rocky Horror Show” I had gotten the lead and he was to play “Rocky”.
I was unimpressed the first time I saw him, I actually thought he looked a little like a monkey, and was too loud, trying too hard. But.... there was something about him. Something that made me want to know more, yet at the same time, there was this knowing, this feeling that he was.... well, wrong.
My first thoughts during that first rehearsal were that he was a player (which he turned out to be) insecure (which I still believe he is, and I felt bad for him) and immature.
Despite all of this, there was this “electricity” between us, this chemistry that everyone else around us felt and commented on.
I was at the end of a failing 7 year abusive marriage. I was depressed, and theatre was my life line, it was the only reason I had for getting up each morning. I had been in 7 productions in the last year, trying to hold onto my passion for life, trying to run from the monsters within. I didn’t know it then, but I was running toward them at the speed of light.
Everyone thought Edrick and I were an item before anything had actually happened, I loved the idea of it. Being around him was like being energized, seeing things for the first time again. He made me feel like I was the most beautiful, amazing woman in the world.
I cheated on my husband with Edrick one night after rehearsal. He called me the next day and my husband answered the phone. I couldn’t believe it. I was sick to my stomach. I couldn’t believe this was my life. I was cheating. I wasn’t happy, the counseling had failed, the abuse had continued, and I had found another way out. Edrick.
I am not proud of how I exited that marriage. Yes he was abusive, yes he was cheating too (which I only came to find out about after I left), but that doesn’t make it ok for me to do what I did, and I am deeply sorry for how I finally left. That said, I do not regret leaving, I should’ve left long before I actually did.
I told my husband I had met someone else, packed my two suitcases and left (for the 3rd and final time). I was too ashamed to stay at my friends, and already addicted to Edrick. I moved in with him and his roommate until I found a job and an apartment.
This was at the end of October, by the middle of November he proposed (to which I thought he had to be joking) and by the end of November Edrick was sleeping with his ex J., telling me they were just friends. I knew in my heart he was cheating, but I didn’t want to believe it. Or maybe I thought I deserved it for how I left my husband.
There were plenty of signs, if I would have only actually looked, and been willing to see.
He said J. couldn’t know about me “because it would hurt her too much”
He could explain anything away, or rather I let him.
I listened to everything he told me, and wanted to believe him.
I found another place to live but still stayed with him most of the time, or he stayed at my new place.
We eventually moved into a house together, and things got worse.
He was cheating on 3 of us; me, J and another girl “T”, and who knows how many others.
T. and I eventually became friends, and still are to this day. I have been ashamed to be around T for a very long time. And I didn’t realize that was why I was avoiding her. But in the last year I looked at the situation, quieted myself, and realized I was embarrassed that I was still involved with him.
She was strong, wasn’t fooled by his lies, and had enough self respect to tell him to get bent when he treated her shitty, and when she found out what he was telling me, while he was sleeping with her.
I wanted to be her for that moment. For as much as I talked big about how I was going to dump him and never ever go back when we had our little talk and found out the lies he was telling both of us, I didn’t. I went back, felt shitty every time I saw him, but did it anyway. I’m still not sure why. That part I have not figured out yet, and I need to.
I think I’m getting closer to that every day.
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