Impacting Journey

I have gone back and forth over whether or not to actually post this blog.  Some might consider it “airing dirty laundry,” but I’m now considering it a PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT.  Most of you already know that TJ and I broke up and I have been purposefully very vague on the details.  This blog is painful for me, for the obvious reasons.  I am hurt.  I feel utterly blind and stupid.  I am angry.  But more important than my feelings, is the need for the truth to be told.  So, follow me down the yellow brick road if you will.  Guard your heart and your mind so that you or someone you love may never have to walk this path yourself.

The following story, as God as my witness, is true. 

If you’ve been around my blog for any time at all, you know that my husband died tragically in a car accident on May 31^st, 2008.  We had two children who were ages 2 and 4 at the time of his death.  That accident shook me to the core.  Six months later, on what would’ve been my wedding anniversary, New Year’s Eve, I was invited to a party that I didn’t even want to go to.  During the course of the evening, I met a wonderful man that I hit it off with instantly.  He was truly an unexpected ending to a night I’d been dreading.  We talked until nearly four in the morning, had dinner two days later and the next weekend he made his very first trip to my home in Nashville, TN.

His life was crazy, to say the least.  He was in the middle of a painful divorce and was juggling a booming repossession business and a full time job at the Asheville Fire Department.  Regardless of his hectic life, he made room for me in it.  Because my children had already lost one father, I proceeded cautiously into the relationship.  It wasn’t until he and I had been together for six months and he asked us to move to NC that I finally allowed my children to really become involved with him.

The next year of our life together was wonderful.  Every week, he drove the 300 miles between us to be with me and my children.  We attended my daughter’s school programs, her softball games and my son’s baseball practices.  He flew me to Vegas (twice) for Valentine’s Day weekend and we took the kids to the beach for my daughter’s birthday and to Disney World for Spring Break.  When we were in NC, he let my baby boy go to work with him in the big repo truck and took him fishing.  We began making plans for the future, plans for a wedding and another baby.  He wanted a boy named Ace.  We found a house in NC and he sold his prize truck to pay cash to finish it’s construction.  Aside from some hiccups in the relationship, it was wonderful.  I was happy.  My kids were happy.  My daughter kept asking when we were going to get married so he could really be her daddy.

Then in April, I caught him in a lie.  One lie turned into two and then into three.  He explained everything away and made me feel like I was crazy for doubting his love and devotion to us.  I believed him.  He began to make huge steps in rebuilding our broken relationship and even insisted on us to begin couple’s counseling, which we attended together, so that “we could have a solid foundation for our new life together.” 

On my birthday, May 26^th, he’d just gotten in from a long trip to Michigan with his mother to visit her sister who was diagnosed with breast cancer.  He flew into Asheville and then drove all night, so I could wake up with him next to me on my birthday.  He crawled into my bed at 6AM that morning.  I had an amazing day.  We picked my daughter up from school together and he cooked dinner for me and my neighbors that evening.  That night, we were planning to go out to celebrate.  He had to get clothes from his car and disappeared for what felt like an eternity.  When I finally walked outside he looked up from the trunk of his car like he’d been caught.  He came inside and locked himself in the bathroom for another twenty minutes.  When he finally emerged, he was a different man.

“I need to talk to you,” he said.  We sat down at the table.  “You know how much I love you, right?”  I nodded.  “I need to be honest.  I lied to you again.  When I was in Michigan, my ex wife was with us.  She went to be moral support for my mom because they are so close.  I knew you would be mad.  That’s why my phone was off in the car and why I only called you from gas stations and restaurants.”

Lying again.  This was the final blow.  I threw him out of my house.  He was supposed to stay until we packed up the truck five days later and moved to NC. 

“The truth shall set you free.”

The truth, the real truth, came out the next day.  He was never divorced.  He was never separated.  He was living the ultimate double life.  His wife had no idea.  I had no idea.  He lied about lying.  He never went to Michigan with his mother.  He was in the Bahamas with his wife for her birthday, which ironically is the same day as mine.  He felt sooo bad about having to miss her actual birthday because he had to work at the fire department. 

For a year and a half, he built a life with me and my children and every time I had a doubt about him, he had a plausible explanation.  I trusted him blindly, completely and ruthlessly.  All of the promises, pledges of undying love, and pleadings of forgiveness are meaningless.  All of the nights we would lie in the bath and talk until the water ran cold were a LIE.  The man that I loved with all of my heart, trusted blindly, forgave relentlessly…. NEVER EXISITED.

I was nothing but a pawn in a sick fantasy. 

He always told me, “I’m a good person.  I don’t hurt kids and I don’t steal from old people.”  My kids are hurting.  My daughter has cried herself to sleep more than once this week. 

His wife is an amazing woman.  I am blessed to know her.  She doesn’t deserve what he’s done to her probably for the entirety of the marriage.  Yes, we know that I am not the first.  Yes, we know I wouldn’t have been the last if he’d gotten away with it this time.  Practice makes perfect and this was pulled off almost flawlessly.  ALMOST. 

 I can’t help but wonder who else played a role in his extraordinary charade.  All of the guys that worked and covered and lied for him… so that he could pull off this lifestyle.  Do you not have souls either?  Is the money that good?  Has he been lying to you too?

You had us all fooled: me, your wife, my kids, my family, your family, our counselor and even yourself…But not anymore.  Here at the end of the yellow brick road, the big curtain has been pulled back and just like the Great and Powerful OZ, you, TJ FORTENBERRY, are nothing but a small, pathetic, little man.