Happily Ever After Starts...NOW!

This is a story that I've never really told. I really never talk about when I was married or the experiences I went through. Most of my best friends and even my family don't even know a lot of the details of what happened. It was really hard and painful and not something I love to chat about. I just feel with everyone desperately trying to portray these picture perfect lives I want to share with you my perfectly imperfect life and let everyone know it's totally ok if your happily ever after is crumbling or looks a little (or a lot) different than you pictured! 

I know that when I got married (at nineteen) yikes! I thought it was the start of my happily ever after.  I had just married my prince charming and knew my fairy tale life was just beginning and would never end! I truly married the man of my dreams. I couldn't have created a more perfect man for me. I still remember the day I met him.  It was my first semester of my freshman year in college. I was walking home from class when I saw him. He started talking to me but I didn't hear a word he said. I looked into his eyes and I forgot everything. I forgot I had a missionary I was in love with.  I forgot where I was. I forgot my name. I forgot everything but found everything at the same time.

It all sounds so lovely...and it was for awhile. We had the perfect courtship.  I was so in love with him. Everyone that knew him LOVED him! I loved his family and my family was obsessed with him! He was charming, gorgeous, smart, sweet, romantic, caring, funny, athletic, adventurous and everything I ever wanted in a man and more.  I felt so safe and he literally just adored me.  I had never felt that way before from a man. Even after everything that happened I still have never connected with someone on that level. He treated me like gold. I think that's what made everything so hard. Not knowing what was real and what wasn't.

But everyone thought we were the perfect couple. People use to call us Ken and Barbie.  From the outside everything looked perfect. But what everyone didn't know was my perfect prince charming was a drug addict. I know this isn't a huge shocker these days. I hear about it all the time. But when I found out he was a drug addict a year into our marriage at the age of twenty I was not mentally or emotionally prepared to deal with it..not even close! I had never in my life heard of someone being addicted to prescription drugs. A drug addict was a homeless person doing cocaine living in Compton! Not a good ol' Mormon boy from the suburbs of Utah from the perfect Mormon family. I can't even describe to you how I felt when I found out. There are no words. Just no words. 

The next five years were so hard.  Most people would have peaced out but I'm not the type to give up on anything or anyone, especially the person I loved the most in my life.  I always thought he would get better. I truly believed I could fix him.  I thought if I made everything look perfect, became perfect and made his life perfect that he would get better. Nobody knew this was going on. Nobody knew I was dying inside and felt so alone. Everyday I was lied too and everyday I had to lie to everyone. Everyday he lived a double life and everyday I had to live a double life covering up his secret. 

The drugs weren't the worst part.  I think the part that was the most painful was being lied too and watching helplessly as the person I loved and committed my life too destroy themselves right in front of my face. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. After supporting my husband through rehab, lies, cheating and things that are so awful to share...he left ME! I remembering feeling like I was physically dying but somehow I was still breathing. I remember feeling my heart break into a million little pieces but somehow it was still beating. It didn't make sense.

My life turned completely upside down. I literally went from living in my dream house that I had built from the ground up, being on infertility treatments because I couldn't get pregnant, thinking my husband was clean to the next day him saying he didn't want to be married and he left...and I never saw him again.  Literally.

I will spare you the horrifying details that happened on and off during those years and things I found out after. When you go through something so traumatizing and traumatic as that you either crumble and die or somehow survive.  I crumbled for awhile.  I couldn't function. I couldn't get out of bed. I didn't want to live but somehow I pulled through piece by piece...day by day.  It's taken me years but I'm finally realizing it had nothing to do with me.  I thought for years it was me. It really ruined my self esteem and I just felt worthless. I became so afraid of love and loving anyone.

I am so grateful for my real friends and family that have supported me through my trials.  I don't think I could have made it without them.  I am so grateful for my brother who was living in California and left his full ride scholarship to come live with me and get me through. He will forever be my angel. And I just want to tell everybody that nobody has the perfect life.  For six years people thought MY life was perfect and look what I was going through! You NEVER know what people are going through. 

I'm grateful for my friends and people in my life that uplift, support and love me because even as I write this I am struggling with things. I feel we all need to support each other and lift each other up instead of tearing each other down! Life is hard enough and everyone is fighting a battle.  I started this blog to share my passions and one of my passions is living an authentic REAL life! After having to live a secret life for so long I can't handle any more fake! Life is seriously way to short for that crap!  

So, I guess the point of this story and why I finally shared a piece of my life that was painful and awful is because I want people to realize it's freaking ok if your life isn't perfect! STOP comparing yourself to other people that you think might have it all. I shared this because I feel it's NEVER to late to start your happily ever after. You might have to change your story of what that looks like but it's never to late to live, be, achieve, become and experience the life you have always wanted and dreamed of! Whatever trials you might be going through I now see as gifts for my own personal learning and growth. I would not be the person I am today if I hadn't of gone through what I did.  I can look back and feel grateful because I feel stronger, more compassionate, understanding and a heck of a lot less judge mental of people with problems! So, get going because your happily ever after starts now!