Author: spicyturtle92

2024:
We decided to move back to Michigan. After six years down south, we were coming home. Rent was climbing higher and higher, and my dad had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s. On paper, it made sense. I had a plan: move back, make sure my dad was settled and safe, then take the kids and leave again—back down south, on my own terms.

I tried to shield my babies from as much as I could, but some things can’t be hidden, and not everything should be explained away. I was already living a separate life from my husband—a whole different version of me, the real me—one I never felt safe being in front of him. While he worked, I had friends, conversations, outings. I took the kids to the park, swimming, on nature walks. We laughed. We bonded. We lived.

But once we moved back, I realized how quickly my hopes for a better, simpler life unraveled. I was working as a lunch lady—honestly, the best job in the world: perfect hours, great coworkers, and kids who made me smile every day—and spending my weekends with my father, who seemed to be slipping a little more each time I saw him. I went with him to his first doctor’s appointment, where he was diagnosed with a form of dementia. I knew it immediately: my life had shifted again. I had gone from managing one man’s needs to preparing to carry another’s.

2025:
I tried to leave him again. I told him I was moving into my dad’s place and that I didn’t want him to come. I told him it was over—that it had been over for a long time. I no longer loved him. I no longer felt attracted to him. There was no fixing fifteen years of stepping out, or the slow, ongoing discovery of who he really was behind the man who claimed to love me.

Texts. Apps. My friends. My family. Nothing was off limits to him. I won’t detail all of it here—this space is for learning myself and growing forward—but safety was a basic need for me, and time and time again, he proved I couldn’t trust him to provide that. We argued. He refused to leave.

So here we are.

A year later.

Still standing in the aftermath. Still choosing myself, even when it’s messy. Still figuring out what freedom looks like when you’ve carried everyone else for so long.

By 2023, I had fully given up on my relationship.
Even though we were still married, I no longer wanted to be around him. I let him use my body at night, then I would turn over and go to sleep. That was it. That was all I had left to give.

I stopped trying to fix us and started trying to survive.
I poured what energy I had into myself and into keeping my babies happy. I still showed up as a wife in the most basic ways—meals, routines, obligation—but my heart was gone. I shut it off on purpose. I couldn’t let his behavior keep interfering with my growth anymore.

In 2024, someone I cared deeply for helped me see myself clearly for the first time. I learned that I am who I am—and that I don’t need to apologize for it. I’m hard-headed. I’m loud. I’m a damn good mother. I love fiercely, and I put everyone else before myself. And that last part? That had to stop.

I still struggle with putting myself first, but I no longer allow other people’s negativity or actions to shake my core. I protect my peace now, even when it’s uncomfortable.

By 2024, I knew I was ready to do everything on my own.
Deep down, I understood that the cost of everything we had endured was too high to undo. It wasn’t fixable. We needed to separate.

So one day, calmly and without warning, I asked him for a divorce. I explained my reasons honestly and without anger.
He did not respond with the same calm.

The first thing he asked wasn’t why I was hurting.
It wasn’t how long I’d been feeling this way.
It was whether I was seeing or talking to someone else.

I wasn’t, my heart no longer wanted Him.

I didn’t yet understand that asking for a divorce wasn’t the next chapter—it was the pause before it. What followed was a move, a shift in purpose, and a return to taking care of someone else: my father.

So now that I’ve thrown out damn near all of my dirty laundry, I’ll summarize the next few years.

Between my last baby and now, so many things happened. I stepped out a few more times — sometimes physically, sometimes emotionally. Years later I found out he did too. I guess when I was asking questions, I wasn’t as terrifying as he was, so he didn’t think I needed the real answers.

I never learned how to share my emotions. Every three months I would get tired of our life and I would blow up, listing everything that had been bothering me. By the end of each argument, I’d apologize… and then he would want sex to erase the bad things.

Things got so bad that we started landing physical blows and screaming at one another. I was ready to leave and I gave him the option monthly. We weren’t good together — I could see it, others could see it — but he couldn’t.

In 2018, there was a horrible accident that took the life of a family member. It forced us on our first trip together out of state. I don’t know if it was the air or just being in a new place, but we were okay for that week and a half. We ended up moving there shortly after we came back and spent the next six years in the south.

The first year down south was hit or miss. We fought about stupid things — the house not being clean, the kids, dinner. Let me tell you, there were 13 of us in a tiny-ass place: three adults who all worked, and a bunch of kids who did NOT care.

Then, someone I used to work with started bringing up old things, and it just stirred up more crap. Every time I was late getting home, there were questions and accusations. Location tracking apps were installed without my knowledge, and my phone was combed daily.

I was loving the attention I was getting from customers at work, and I started resenting my husband in a way I didn’t understand then. He didn’t understand what I needed — even though I told him time and time again: “Give me what you give them. That’s all I need.”

By 2020, he thought I just wanted everyone else’s attention, so he let me have it — thinking that would fix us.

That’s when I started OnlyFans and created a separate Facebook account for paid activities. I was growing in body confidence. Men of all ages wanted to know me — sexually or personally. For the first time, I felt accepted for all that I was, not just the quiet submissive housewife. I was allowed to be real, to want things I was told I wasn’t supposed to want.

I was tired of trying to fix something that was never going to be fixed.
I was tired of being small.
So in 2023, I stopped fighting for him… and started fighting for myself.

Annalise was born in August. After 22 hours of pushing, my beautiful 9 lb 1 oz baby girl arrived—and she was turning purple. Doctors had to keep her for over a month. Her lungs were underdeveloped, her sugar was low, but she was fighting. Cole and I visited her daily.

At some point before she was released, I stayed in the hospital with her while Cole took Little Cole home. I prayed every day that I would do whatever it took to keep her safe if God was even listening. I couldn’t lose one that I had carried and birthed. I couldn’t do it.

Finally, she turned a corner. She got stronger. She got better. And the day she was able to come home, I felt like I’d been given a second chance.

For a while, I didn’t cheat again. I had my babies, and they were enough love to keep me happy. Until they weren’t. I needed more. I wanted more. I deserved more…?

My “more” came in the form of another baby.

Three months after Annalise was born, I found out I was pregnant again—with Maggie.
I never said sex was an issue in my marriage. It was fine. It was good. It was even passionate—for a while.

By the time Maggie was born, I had my first job at Subway, and I loved it. But I had to quit because of issues in my marriage. Cole didn’t like the attention I was getting, and he didn’t like that I had a life outside of him. I went back to Subway months later—and I was never out of a job again.

I thought having a baby would save us. I thought it would fix what was broken. But having a child in a toxic relationship doesn’t heal anything—it just gives you something else to lose.

It started with small moments of attention from other people… and slowly turned into a habit. I didn’t cheat because I hated Cole. I cheated because I needed proof that I was still wanted.

And once I started looking for that proof outside my marriage, the spiral began.

Cole and I found out we were expecting during the back-and-forth of me wanting to leave and us trying to fix something that was already broken. I took a test and the line was faint—so faint. I was excited but nervous. What if it wasn’t his? The timeline was just right for that one time I stepped out. Cole was thinking the same thing, so much so that he started insisting I wasn’t pregnant. He said when I “miscarried,” I was just late and the mass was nothing but a blood clot.

I knew he was wrong. His mother even confirmed it. But I started to wonder… maybe he was right? Maybe I was just making a big deal over nothing. Every time I brought it up after that, he shut me down and said it wasn’t a miscarriage.

Two months later, I found out I was pregnant again. This time, I had zero doubt. I hadn’t touched another man. The pregnancy was rough—our relationship was rough. Everything I did was always wrong or starting a fight.

I started making friends everywhere. Once we finally moved out of his mom’s house and I wasn’t babysitting all the time, I could take Little Cole to the park and actually breathe. I’d hang out with people I met there—other moms, some teens who needed a “laidback” adult to talk to, and sometimes even men. Innocent. I didn’t want anything physical unless it came from my husband, but the attention was nice.

I was finally back down to my 130 pounds, even though I was a few months pregnant, and the attention kept coming. Looking back, I realize now that attention is never just attention. Guys don’t give it away for free. It usually means they want something in return.

And that’s where the spiral started.

Because when you’re hungry for love and attention, you don’t always see the trap until you’re already inside it.

For a moment, things were peaceful. I stopped looking for proof. I stopped expecting the worst.
I let myself believe we were healing. And that’s when everything fell apart.

I didn’t even mean it the first time I flirted with someone else. He was a guy close to my family growing up—familiar, kind, attentive. That was all it took. I left Cole that same weekend because who was I to ask someone to love me after I’d crossed that line?

We were separated for about a month. After long talks, I truly believed we could fix things. And for a while, it felt like we did. He paid attention to us. He touched me. He talked to me. He loved me. Things got so good I stopped snooping.

Then, slowly, everything slid right back to where it had been—only worse. Every argument ended with my mistake thrown in my face, no matter how much I tried to make things right.

I asked for a divorce. I was okay with ending it because I knew we couldn’t heal like this. But I fucking loved Cole, and I didn’t yet know how to stop wanting what I’d been conditioned to want. He refused the divorce and insisted we could work through it. So we tried.

Around that time, Betty got pregnant and Cole’s brother flipped out. She moved in with us—sleeping in my room with me and Little Cole while my husband took the couch. His mom and sisters filled the rest of the house. I don’t know how I missed it, but during that time, Cole and Betty grew close.

Too close.

On my birthday, he kissed her while “fixing her muffler.”

I found out one morning when I went to wake Cole for work. A text popped up under a coworker’s name. I checked it in case it was a call-off. It wasn’t. It was Betty.

My heart dropped. I took the phone into the bathroom and read everything—every message, every picture, every ounce of affection I had begged for now being given to my best friend. The same friend I let live in my home.

I walked into the living room, threw his phone at him, and slapped him across the face. Then I went back to my room, woke Betty up, and told her to get out.

After that, I never trusted another woman who wasn’t related to me again.

I started going to school for my GED and to become a dental hygienist. I met a group of amazing girls and even found my best friend—Betty. She was my age and had just escaped a deeply toxic relationship, so naturally, we gravitated toward each other. I clung to her. I vented to her. We became sisters—always together. When Betty started dating Cole’s brother, I got to see her even more, which made me genuinely happy.

I wasn’t snooping—he left the page open—so I read it. I really wish I could say that’s when I learned my lesson about reading someone else’s Facebook messages… but it wasn’t. Cole had started talking to his ex again. The same annoyingly skinny ex—with a kid—who used to comment on photos of me, saying I looked like someone very unattractive.

At first, their conversation seemed innocent enough. Talking about old times, their kids, what life might’ve looked like if they’d stayed together, if she’d kept their baby. Then she offered to cook him dinner. Not us. Him.

I confronted him. I cried. I felt betrayed. Why would you entertain her knowing how much she hurt me? His response was familiar: You’re overreacting. It’s not what you think. I’m with you, not her.
So I started to detach—not fully, because I still cared. I cared so much that I kept looking. I searched for reassurance and instead found more than I ever wanted to see.

I let myself believe he loved me. I let myself believe I was just “too much.”
(I know now that I wasn’t.)

At eighteen, I thought I was happy. I didn’t need to go out every night. I was content being quiet, being home, having just my husband and his family. My days were full in the most invisible way—cooking, cleaning, babysitting his little sisters and nephews. Sometimes I made dinner, even though cooking non-vegan food was still foreign to me. Most nights, spaghetti was the safest option. I did this every day.

Cole and I were trying to start our own family through all of it, but my body wasn’t cooperating. I was diagnosed with pelvic inflammatory disease, and the doctor told me I’d likely never carry a baby. The idea that I might never have someone who loved me unconditionally—someone I could love freely—shattered me. I didn’t show that grief to anyone but Cole. To everyone else, I played it off. Maybe it was fine. Maybe it was even a blessing.

One weekend in March, we went to his aunt’s house to drink and hang out. Yolanda and I drank so much we were leaning over the porch railing, sick and laughing and careless. Three weeks later, I took a test. Positive.

I was happy—and terrified. I’d been drinking heavily because I’d been told pregnancy was unlikely. Cole was overjoyed. He ran out of the bathroom, leaving me standing there alone, sprinting across the park to tell his aunt and calling his mom at work. I remember growing bigger, feeling the flutters, then the first real kick. I also remember the moment I started to feel unwanted. Ugly.

My 5’3” body went from 130 pounds to 211 by the time I gave birth. I didn’t recognize myself. I don’t blame anyone—who at eighteen or nineteen actually has life figured out? You barely know who you are. But when I tried to talk about how hard it was, my fears were brushed aside. You’ll be fine. You’ll get through this.

By December, I was enormous, exhausted, and scared. I thought I knew what labor would be like—I’d watched my niece’s home birth and even helped where I could—but my baby had other plans. He was big and stubborn, and after fourteen hours of fighting, I gave in to an emergency C-section.

Our son was born weighing 10 pounds, 14.9 ounces—chubby cheeks, a pushed-up nose, and a perfect little mohawk. I saw him, and then I was gone. Cole later told me I lost a lot of blood. Things were touch and go for a while.

A week after we got home, I was back in the hospital with cardiomyopathy. My body was holding too much fluid, my heart working overtime. I stayed nearly two weeks while they drained what my body no longer needed. When I left, I could finally breathe again.

Lying in bed one night, Cole looked at my stomach—soft, deflated, unfamiliar—and asked why it looked so strange. He was thin, barely 120 pounds, and every girl before me had been small and effortless and pretty. I felt like maybe he didn’t like what he saw.

The first six months blurred together. Our baby was colicky. I ignored my own needs like I always had, pouring myself into everyone else. I was exhausted—up all night with the baby, babysitting during the day, doing everything alone. My husband preferred the computer to parenting or sitting with me. I was angry. Hurt. Invisible.

I wanted to be acknowledged, but I didn’t say anything—because I already knew the response. You’re overreacting. I love you. Everything’s fine.

So I did what I had learned long before. I retreated inward, searching for something—anything—that would make me feel real again.

I lived with my dad for about two months—or honestly, maybe a week—before I decided to move in with my cousin Yolanda. My dad worked a lot, and after being homeschooled for so long, I needed structure. I needed school. According to all of my homeschool records, I was ready to graduate that year. All Amber had to do was turn in my completed workbooks and I would’ve been done.
But she didn’t.

So instead, I started my high school year all over again in an Adult Ed program.

That turned out to be a turning point. I ran into old friends I had lost touch with, and they taught me about life—the real kind. In the three months before my 18th birthday, I tried pot for the first time (and loved it), had my first real drink, and started dating… a lot. I lost my virginity to a guy who had been my best friend in elementary school. I dated casually—sometimes for weed, sometimes because someone asked and I said yes, sometimes because I thought it might be love. And then I met my now-husband.

The summer of 2010, Yolanda and I lived like we were making up for lost time. We met random guys at the park, stayed out late, laughed constantly, and felt free. During that time, I decided it was finally time to meet Cole—a guy I’d been talking to online for nearly five years. He was sweet, shy, eighteen, held a steady job, and seemed calm in a way I wasn’t used to. He never asked me for anything I wasn’t ready to give, and because he never pushed, I never felt like I had to offer more than conversation.

I asked him to meet us and bring a friend if he had one.
He brought his brother—and from that moment on, everything moved fast.

Weekend trips to Kalamazoo turned into week-long stays, which somehow turned into a wedding. I was happy. I was in love. And for the first time, I felt loved by someone who didn’t make me feel like an object. I was so sure this was it that when he wrote something on my hand Thanksgiving night in 2010 and told me not to read it until he left, I didn’t wait.
I opened my hand and read: “Marry me?”

I said yes.

Less than a month later, we were standing in his grandfather’s cousin’s living room, saying our vows.

I didn’t understand it then, but I should have listened to my gut when it told me to slow down—maybe even walk away. Almost immediately after the papers were signed, something shifted. The control crept in quietly, but it felt familiar. It felt like Amber’s house all over again. Only this time, I told myself it was okay—because he was my husband, and I thought that meant obedience was love.

Within the first month of our marriage, I was given choices: delete certain people or shut accounts down entirely. MySpace was the first to go. Then Meebo. Then Tagged. Facebook stayed, but only after it was combed through and approved—friends and family only.

At the time, I understood his fear. Looking back at my past, I had dropped people easily when I got bored. But this was different. I had married him. I believed marriage meant commitment at all costs. I had been completely honest with him—about everything. Even things I probably should’ve kept to myself, because honesty seemed like the right thing to do… even when it hurt him.

I felt so removed from everyone I had just reconnected with, and part of me was already ready to bolt. I talked to Cole’s mom about it—a lot. I tried to explain how trapped I felt, how small my world had suddenly become. She told me that’s just who he is, that it was nerves, that we’d get through it.

So I did what I’d always done. I swallowed the feeling, let him manage my activities, and focused on keeping him happy—telling myself that if I did it right, I’d be happy too.

I thought transparency would build trust.
I didn’t realize it was helping build the bars.

Every time I logged into Meebo, I felt wanted. Messages upon messages—from boys my age and men twice my age. Most were perverts, sure, but others… others were my friends. Kids I grew up with and reconnected with, new church kids just as messy as me, and random people from back home.

I was happiest holding that big, ancient laptop. It meant I was needed. It meant people noticed me. It meant there were friends who were genuinely concerned about me. I loved it.

Unfortunately, that didn’t last long.

Trevor got caught doing naughty things, and he decided he wasn’t going down alone. That’s when she lost it. Amber took the iPod and the laptop and smashed them with the rubber kitchen mallet until they were no longer usable.

Even though she said she did it for godly reasons, I knew better. It wasn’t about God. It was because we had hidden something from her. Because there were secrets she didn’t know about. Because she realized she was no longer in control—or maybe never had been.

Shortly after that, I decided I was moving out. I was only a few months from 18. I had started reconnecting with my parents over the last year, and my dad was eager for me to come live with him again.

So I left.

I walked away from the woman who took me in and raised me. I walked away from the religion. And in her eyes, I walked away from them all. To her, I was ungrateful. I was about to become just like my mother.

Leaving didn’t mean I was free.
It just meant I was finally walking without rules—and with no idea how to protect myself. I carried everything with me: the need to be chosen, the fear of being alone, and a definition of love that was already bent. What came next wasn’t sudden. It was slow. Quiet. And at the time, it felt like survival.