Chapter 26 Broken Vows
Broken Vows
NOW BEFORE I GET INTO THIS CHAPTER, I WANT TO say that it’s not in this book for any other reason than to show y’all how hard we have worked to be together—and all the things we’ve overcome.
Will some people judge me for going back?
Sure. But I don’t give a fuck. It doesn’t mean I’m weak, and it doesn’t mean he is a horrible person.
It means that we were two people who fell in love but didn’t know how to maintain love in healthy ways.
Is it an excuse for his behavior? Absolutely not.
But I do pride myself on being able to see both sides of the coin and put myself in another person’s shoes.
I’m also pretty fuckin’ self-aware and can admit to my own faults in the beginning of our marriage.
And I do believe that in some way, it was my karma for all the homes I contributed to wrecking in my previous career.
The amount of my clients who wore rings make my heart hurt for the women who found out—or even worse, never did.
Bottom line: Everyone deserves a second chance.
And if you don’t believe that, that’s your story. Not mine.
But man, I thank God for second chances. Lord knows I’ve needed them my whole life.
Mmkay, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s carry on.
J hadn’t had a healthy relationship in his whole life, and I sure as hell hadn’t. In those years, J, Bailee, and I were just three strangers, all trying to figure out how to be a family together.
Part of healing is figuring out what’s in our control and what’s not—and that almost always we create relationship dynamics and drama together.
And I know now what I couldn’t see then: The breakdown J and I were hurtling toward at this point wasn’t a simple story of a villain and a victim.
I brought all my baggage into our relationship—my bruises and the weight of getting sober and learning to regulate my own nervous system.
I can’t begin to tell you what J was feeling about me then—and how hard we were struggling to fight through his own individual trauma.
If we’re far from perfect now, we were even farther then.
But we both deserved grace with each other, and I thank God for our castles burning to the ground.
It brought us so much closer and led us to healing.
It made me realize that we can go through hell and still come out with our halos unscathed.
* * *
THE TRIP BACK TO NASHVILLE with all our shit in the back was absolute hell.
J was so mean to me the entire way. He made it clear that he did not want me with him.
I couldn’t figure out why, and it only made me cling to him more.
When we finally made it back to Nashville, we tried to settle down after the chaos of the move.
But I knew something was off. You know how we women are—our gut instincts never let us down.
And for the most part, I’m no square. I love to have fun with my husband in the bedroom, and inviting other women into our bed was never an issue.
I thought my openness and willingness to have third parties would save me from all the other cheating I’d experienced in my life—even Bill, who couldn’t stay faithful.
Men want variety, right? When J and I first got together, I was a hooker who saw nothing but men cheating on their wives.
Pastors, lawyers, celebrities—anyone with a penis was unfaithful.
J was used to having multiple relationships at the same time with different women.
So when we first got together, we both frowned upon monogamy.
That’s not to say that we agreed to go fuck whoever we wanted whenever we wanted—to me that’s what an open relationship is, and we aren’t in one.
But if a girl wanted to come home with us, we more than likely wouldn’t turn her down.
Now, here comes the part that might surprise you.
J has always told me that I can sleep with other men if I want to.
At first, that hurt me, because I felt like he didn’t really love me if he wasn’t possessive and jealous.
We argued about it many times until I finally just accepted the fact that that’s who he is.
I’m not going to try to change him into something he’s not—and I started to agree with him.
We both live by the motto that we aren’t each other’s possessions and consider our relationship to be free, not open.
Free will. Which means: I’ll give you the world sexually, but don’t fucking lie to me or ever let me be the last to know something.
Glad we got that out. Now back to the story.
His ex was still hanging around Struggle’s family—and it was now suspicious. I knew in my heart something was going on, but I didn’t want to admit it. Cheating has been a constant in every relationship I’ve had, and I truly wanted to believe J was different. Again, just don’t lie.
For a year, this girl tormented me online. She would quote his song lyrics, she would post pictures wearing his merch, she would take cheap shots at me in her captions because she knew I was onto her. I just couldn’t prove it.
J and I had moved into a cute house in an upscale part of Nashville to give Bailee a fresh start.
Again. And I swore to myself this time that I wouldn’t move out of Nashville until she graduated high school.
I was fully committed to her father and—more important—to her.
But the fights between us were getting so bad.
I could feel his attention elsewhere, and anytime I’d bring up that girl’s posts, he would gaslight the shit out of me and make me feel crazy for doubting him.
He would also leave and disappear for days on end whenever we had fights. He’d go stay at Struggle’s house. Insert long, dramatic eye roll here. Can you tell I don’t care for him in the slightest?
I was so desperate to figure out what was going on with us that I talked J into couples’ therapy—which turned out to be a fucking nightmare.
We went to a husband-and-wife duo. J and I thought it would be perfect: a male and a female opinion.
Those poor people. They had no idea what kind of shitstorm came barreling into their office that day.
J and I sat next to each other, explaining the issues we were having, and at some point, a screaming match broke out between us.
Nobody else could get a word in edgewise because we were at each other’s throat, screaming at the top of our lungs.
When the lady finally did calm us down, we both just walked out of the therapy session and went our separate ways.
It was probably one of the lowest points in our relationship.
The fighting and suspicion went on for ten months until shit finally hit the proverbial fan and splattered all over the place.
* * *
I GOT MY HANDS ON J’s phone, and I wouldn’t give it back to him during another one of our heated arguments. He had a total meltdown—and right then, I knew something was up. We screamed until he left—with Bailee. I was left alone in a house in the middle of a city I had just moved to for him.
I lay in bed for two weeks. I couldn’t even shower. Then, after being depressed for weeks, I had to fly out to San Diego to see one of my sugar daddies and make some money. All so I could afford another cross-country move.
But when I walked through the front door on the night I got back from that trip, my heart sank.
The house was all packed up, with J and Bailee’s stuff moved out.
No explanation. No goodbye. Just gone. I was furious at what he’d done to Bailee—uprooting her again.
That child just needed some stability, and he and I couldn’t get it right, and she’d bear the consequences.
I dropped to my knees and bawled. I couldn’t figure out what I had done wrong. Didn’t I deserve a conversation face-to-face? To be treated like a human being?
* * *
ONE NIGHT WHILE I WAS lying there trying to piece everything together, I saw J was playing a show locally and decided to show up just to see him and hopefully talk.
I wanted so badly to be near him. He would call me every other day from a blocked number, and we would speak, but the conversations always ended with him hanging up on me or me getting mad because I was just so frustrated with being lied to.
When I showed up, he was irate. He didn’t want me there and was mad I would think it was okay to show up unannounced. I found out later that it was because he had his ex-fling waiting for him in a hotel room down the street.
Standing there without J, I told Struggle’s wife how hurt I was.
“If he’s cheating on me, I wish he’d just tell me go back to Vegas,” I said.
She looked me in my eyes and spoke as calmly as she could.
“Bunnie, you need to go back to Vegas.” I guess being honest with me is the least she could do after letting my husband have an affair under her roof.
She’d confirmed all the suspicions and fears I’d felt for the past ten months.
I left that bar immediately, went home, called my best friend, Monica, to fly out and help me drive cross-country again, with two vehicles, a twenty-six-foot U-Haul, and two dogs.
That night I contemplated taking my life.
The pain was so intense that I genuinely just wanted to end it all.
I went into my bathroom and grabbed a bottle of pills I had stashed in case of an emergency and held them in my hand.
I stared at the bottle, wondering what it would feel like to die from an overdose.
Would it hurt? Would I just fall asleep?
What if it didn’t work and I woke up in a hospital? Would J even care if I was dead?
I took a deep breath.
Tomorrow is a new day. Time to get the fuck out of here. Lights out.
* * *