God Bless the Broken Road

JFK jr died 9 years ago today.

I know this cause it was the day I got married.
The first time.

People always ask me if I had to do it all over again, would I do it?
Absolutely. It put me on the path that lead me here.

I met my first husband the summer of '96 about one month after my current hub and I broke up. (It seems like ages ago).

My BFF at the time was harassing me to go down the shore(that's the boardwalk for all you non-Jersey folks). It was a sunday night, raining and basically a lame night to go anywhere... but she just wouldn't stop so I agreed to go. We tried to go to a bar in one town but it was closed... so we decided to go to Seaside Hghts, stroll the boards and find a bar.

There was NO ONE around. When I say no one I mean there were like 10 people in the bar we were at and maybe 5 idiots(like ourselves) walking the boardwalk in the rain. Think a shore town in November.. that was it. Off to the side was this dude in a booth, working one of those put a quarter down(remember when games were a quarter), spin the wheel, win a prize booths. The dude sees us and yells at the top of his lungs.."Hey girls come on over.. I've got BIG BALLS!" The prize at the booth were those stupid giant balls.

My prize was..... a stupid giant husband. Yup I married the "big balls" guy.

My first sign that I knew I was in for a rough ride was that I had on my sorority letters and he told me he was in a sorority in college. When I asked him which one.. he said Alcoholics annonymous. I thought what a loser and actually walked away. Always stick with your first instinct. Later on that night... I was being harrassed by this annoying drunk guy.... and I turn around and there was the big ball dude. He totally saved me from the drunk guy.. after talking for a while he didn't seem half bad.

We started dating. In the process of dating.. I learned.. the boardwalk was his only job, he failed out of college, he didn't have a car , was a hippie pothead that was basically living on the couch of whatever friend would let him stay there and was a little bit of a liar. I had my life together.. this was not my plan to take care of some bum. We dated about 6 months.... but I had had enough. I told him that he had no motivation, wasn't going anywhere and I didn't see a future for us at this point in time. When he got his life together give me a call we'll see what happens.

It was during this break.. that I had bumped back into the hub and we starting talking again. Nothing serious but made that initial .. hey let's keep in touch kinda thing. He had started dating someone else so friends was all it was.

That's when I get the call from the dude. It was a voicemail actually.
It basically went something like this.." Hey it's me... everything you said was true and I decided to pull my life together. I enlisted in the Marine Corps I leave in 3 weeks." He wanted to see me before he left. I totally thought he was lying and it was all an act.

Turns out... he wasn't lying. When I saw him.. he had dropped like 15 pounds had cut his hair and the whole nine. (I turned a hippie pothead into a Marine, go me,lol). I told him I'd write him totally intending on just humoring him but I figured I'd be nice. Needless to say we wrote each other back the whole time and ended up back together. After that he got his orders.

They were to here... Hawaii.

After a year of long distance dating we got engaged. Everyone was surprised ,thought we were a terrible match ,my parents really disliked the dude and his me. That year I spent planning a wedding.A big Italian wedding.... with a lot of people. A wedding that as the year progressed I wasn't even sure I wanted anymore. I used to convince myself it was a phase, that all soon to be brides go through it, that it was just that he was far away. My mom used to tell me that I could stop it at anytime, she would rather me happy, it was only money. As it got closer, it got worse. If I decided to stop my wedding ..it was like standing in front of a steam roller coming at you full speed. I wasn't ready for that. I told myself once we were married and were able to be together.... it would be different.

The day of my wedding. I cried... all morning. In the car on my way to get my hair put in this veil.. and I couldn't stop. I get to the hair place and the girl who does my hair took one look at me and tells me to sit down, brings me coffee and is trying to calm me down. That's when I remember hearing about JFKs plane on the radio. I pulled myself together and got through my hair appointment.. once I was back in the car... the crying started again. I was going through with it.. no matter what. I could always get divorced I told myself.... probably not the best way to think. I get home , the bridesmaids arrive, we do all the pics, get in the limo, go to the church.

The music starts.. Everyone's in ..the bridemaids, the guests our parents... the dude is at the alter. It's time. Just as my entrance music is about to start, it's just me and my dad at the back of the church.

He looks at me, takes a step back to the church door that opens to the street, opens the door and says....

This is your last chance, the limos right there if you want to go.

I was floored. It was like he was trying to save me. The sad part was, I thought about it.. til the music started then down the aisle we went.

That was it.. we were mr and mrs dude marine. Off to Hawaii I went. He had a little less then 2 years left when I got here. Of those 20 months (pre-OIF) I spent 14 of them here by myself. It was a rough time at first. It took a while but I got into the swing of things. I got a job... met some of the most amazing people in my entire life, that I am still friends with and most of them are still here now. I became a strong independent person that learned to deal with things on her own cause there was no one here to help me.... yet things with the hubby didn't get better.

Shortly after I got here, I had found out through the grapevine that the hub had enlisted in the Army, had finished AIT and was headed to Colorado. He was a volunteer EMT back home and wasn't sure what he wanted to do with his life but loved that. He went in to see the Navy recruiter and I can never remember what happened but on his way out the Army recruiter stopped him. The rest is a career.

The dude was getting towards the end of his enlistment and he decided he didn't want to re-enlist. (You can never take the hippie out of the Marine) Our marriage was getting worse, his drinking got worse, I eventually stopped going out with him and his friends. Babysitting a bunch of drunk Marines isn't what I signed up for. I hoped that getting back to NJ would make a difference.

Right as we were leaving here, the hub got new orders to Hawaii. He had heard that I was here had sent me an email asking questions about the island.. yada yada etc. I told him that I was headed back to NJ but if he had any questions before he got there I'd be glad to help him out.

Getting back to NJ didn't help. It made things worse. The hub fell back in with his old group of friends, continued to drink heavily and wouldn't get a job. We were living rent free in my dads summer house and I was working so he figured I could pay all the bills and he could do want he wanted. After 3 months of that, I threatened to leave. ... he got a job that worked on commission. The only problem was he never sold anything. So even though he was working, taking clients out to lunch on my dime.. he wasn't making any money.

Without all the details it was bad. I was in a bad place, I got really depressed and was angry all the time, never went out, my best friends had even started to see a change in my normally happy demeaner. There was a crashed car, 2 maxed out credit cards and then the final straw.

One night we got into a huge fight... he was drunk and all I wanted to do was leave. One thing lead to another and my arm ended up going through the pane in the glass door. He was so drunk that he new he was going to get in trouble he didn't even want to call 911. Needless to say 230am.. the ambulance, the police and a rush to the hospital was my final straw. I was too ashamed to tell anyone so I laid in the emergency room bed all by myself, next to some girl with a police guard cause she had try to OD. Seven stitches and 5 hours later my hub showed up to get me after the police had let him go. We took a cab home.

When people ask me about my scar I tell them I got in a fight with a window and lost.

We had to continue to live together for another 2 month....even after all that I still felt bad cuz he had no place to go. I couldn't leave cuz my transfer hadn't gone through yet.. the commute from my parents house to Atlantic city every day wouldn't have been worth it.We were basically2 individuals living our own lives under one roofs. It was difficult.

During this time the hub and I started emailing more.. I didn't really give him the details at that point ,he just knew my marriage was done. He was in Hawaii and dating someone and I was in NJ with a broken relationship... us as a couple didn't even cross my radar at this point.

Finallly October 2002 I moved out... that was it. It was over.

In our 3 years together as mr dude and wife.... when it was good it was amazing, but when it was bad it was terrible. I'm not saying he was completely to blame in our problems.I definitely had my issues and flaws.. I could give as good as I got.. but someone can only give/take so much.

Sorry didn't mean for this to be so long but I started writing and just couldn't stop. I guess tomorrow I'll do the happy part.

"God Bless the broken road.. that led me straight to you"~ Rascall Flatts.