Lesava's blog: "Marriage and Disintegration"

About two years into the marriage,  I started thinking about children.  I had always been told I would be a great mother, and I really wanted to have one or two children.  I wasn't close to my parents during this time, in fact all during my marriage, Randy wouldn't hear of it (more on that later).  I was kind of on my own when it came to asking someone for advice or counsel, except for his family, and I didn't want to talk to them about it, they had too much control on our marriage as it was.

I thought first about having a child when we only had a studio apartment at that time.  We barely had enough room for our things, much less room for a baby and all that entailed.  Also, money..........we weren't in debt, but we really didn't have enough money (IMHO) to take on a baby.  And lastly, as I thought it through completely, I came to the very real conclusion that there was no way I could have a child without my husband being jealous of it.  He needed my attention, 24/7.  I could barely talk to my family and friends, and he hated me even talking on the phone to anyone else, how was I going to bring a child into that situation?  I knew it wasn't the right time.  Not until things got better with he and I.

As I look back on that time now, I just thought of something that should have been my answer all along.  Randy NEVER discussed having children with me.  He got along with his niece and nephew, and loved his cousins' children, but when the subject of us having kids came up, it was dropped, ignored, or the subject was changed quickly.  He couldn't have stood it.

My only chance of having kids was to leave him, but I was too blinded to see what I had married, and I made the sacrifice to not have kids for the time being and I stayed to have my "loving" marriage.  That decision hurts my heart to this day.  Because by the time I had left him 10 years later and I was ready to have children with my long time boyfriend, I was forced to have surgery due to severe hemorrhaging, and I was unable to have children at all.

The first of Randy's damaging to me and my body and mind had begun from the day the decision was made to stay with him.  And things were just going to get so much worse from there.

In the beginning, our relationship was a good one.  He was romantic, to an extent.  Cooking dinners for me, going to the beach, concerts, etc.  We made love, we didn't fuck.  He took me to my senior Prom; I had the oldest date there at 28 (he was 10 1/2 years older than I was.)  It was on the Queen Mary in Long Beach, and was such a beautiful evening.  He gave me a beautiful promise ring on deck.  His sister was my "prom mom", since my mother was still not talking to me LOL  BUT, my mother bought me a pink gown to wear to the prom; Randy had bought me a black dance dress to wear to prom.  So there was a compromise: wore the pink to prom, and the black under my graduation gown, and to Disneyland for Grad Night that evening. 

Speaking of graduation, I barely graduated with a 1/2 credit to spare, thanks to the upheaval.  But I was able to walk onto the field with my classmates.  Randy was in one section of the bleachers out on the football field, and my parents, paternal grandmother, and aunt and step-uncle were in another section.  We spoke briefly, my parents gave me a card, along with my grandmother, and then we parted.  It slooooowly was starting to heal, but would never fully happen.

We lived in the studio apartment until 1991.  He received a job offer from his sister's boyfriend in the Bay Area at a machinist.  I was in between jobs, and we had just become engaged (he thought it was expected from us, so he dragged me to Montgomery Ward and got the cheapest engagement ring and put it on my finger in the parking lot without a word.)  We had decided to get married at Wayfarer's Chapel in Rancho Palos Verdes in Southern California.  So, our wedding preparations would be done long distance.  We moved in May 1991 to the San Jose area.

I found a job at Longs Drugs, where I started as a clerk, and worked my way to bookkeeping and POS coordination.  Randy worked at the machine shop during this time.  We started in a GORGEOUS one bedroom apartment that I loved so much.  Wedding plans were done by phone calls, mail, and fax.  I approved maid of honor dressed, decorations, etc.  I would drive down for dress fittings and invitation addressing.  Mom and Dad were resigned to my marriage, they weren't happy about it.  Randy's family was ecstatic about it, and thought I was terrific.

The day of the wedding, everything went off without a hitch, for the most part.  Randy and his family showed up to the chapel stoned and/or a little inebriated.  I had one glass of champagne in the limo from the salon to the chapel, but nothing like they did.  His sisters both wore BRIGHT colored outfits, and seemed to be in competition for getting the most attention away from me LOL

We spent two days in town to visit with family after the wedding, and the day we left officially for our honeymoon, we first went to Disneyland with ny family before departing.  It was such a fun day, it was the last time I saw my grandfather alive, and I will always remember it.  When we left, we were going to drive to Arizona to see his maternal grandparents since they were too old to come out for the wedding, and then head on to Vegas for a few days before going back to the Bay Area. My mom told me later that she called her best friend and said, "I'm never going to see Nikki again, am I?"  She knew what Randy was capable of, but I was blind to it completely.

When we got on the freeway, he was driving, and I mentioned to him that we needed to head toward a certain freeway, and he became unglued on me.  I had never seen him like this before.  He yelled he knew what he was doing, and I just needed to shut up and let him drive.  it felt like the day at Disneyland was a chore to him, and now we were driving at night, which was such a chore for him.  It was HIS idea to do it!

Anyway, I "shut up", and just closed my eyes, my chest felt like a rock, I was so nervous. I had never had anyone yell at me that way except for Mom right before I left home.  It was our first fight, and I didn't know it then, but it would be a common thing from that point on in my life, and my marriage.  Things were going to be different from now on, and I wouldn't see it coming until it was almost too late. 

Well, one thing I can say about the beginning of the relationship, ALOT of it was Mom's fault. She knew who he was, he was a co-worker's brother from long ago. Mom was a customs broker at LAX, and Randy (not his real name) got me a job at the trucking company he drove for part time as a favor for Mom. It was during the summer before my senior year of high school. Made me some money, and got me away from the parental units. 

Anyway, the job was ok, did some receptionist work, dispatching, and did boxing for the local school district that the company did things for. I was seeing someone else at the time, Randy was just a friend at this point. After I broke up with Pedro, I started seeing a little more of Randy. Senior year began, and as the year progressed, he and I were officially dating, but my parents, especially Mom, was not happy about it at all. Mom knew Randy's drug history (marijuana and some cocaine). She began refusing to let me go out with him. So of course, being a senior in high school, I snuck out, told her I was going to a friend's, etc. This continued till right after my birthday, 3 months before graduation. 

A month or two before 'the incident”, Mom was lashing out, physically and verbally. ALOT of yelling, and physically hitting me open handed on my head in particular. Dad did nothing to stop her, he never got involved. He apologized later for this, but it was hard to forget this.

 One night I went to Randy's sister's, where he was staying. I was hanging out with Randy, sis and her hubby, and Mom and Dad showed up, taking my car and driving away with it. Their names were on the registration still, so I didn't have a say in the situation. I got back home, and Mom had thrown my clothes in the backyard on the wet grass, and said I couldn't come home. So I packed my things in Randy's truck and moved into my Grandma's studio apartment with her, sleeping on the floor there. I would take Randy's truck to school or ride my bike that I was allowed to have from the house. It was a tough situation. Mom and Dad were giving Grandma extra money while I was staying there, I found this out later; the funny thing is I paid for all of my stuff, Grandma pocketed the money for herself LMAO 

Prom arrived. Mom was not happy that Randy's sister CeCe (not her real name) would be my “Prom Mom”. There was a battle over the dress, that I never picked out! (Kind of a foreshadowing to my marriage, as you will see later.) Mom bought me a pink puffy prom dress, and Randy had picked out a little black cocktail dress that was rather pretty. A deal was hatched. I'd wear the pink dress to prom, the black dress to graduation and to Grad Night at Disneyland. 

We rode to prom in my '72 Chevy Chevelle (for one night only my parents let me have it, they didn't trust Randy's Mitsubishi). My date was the oldest there at 28, and at the end of the evening, after a nice time with friends and with Randy, he gave me a promise ring on the deck of the Queen Mary. I accepted it, and it now surprises me that lightning didn't strike me that night. 

Graduation had one section of my family there for the ceremony at the football stadium at the high school, another section with Randy, his sis and her husband at another section of the bleachers. Everyone was cordial, but it was really difficult. After the ceremony, we went to Disneyland with my friends and Randy had a great time, smiling and laughing at everyone acting like goofballs. 

Two months after graduation, he and I got a studio apartment in the same complex as Grandma so I could keep an eye on her, and I officially was living with my boyfriend. I had a job at the school supply store across the street, and Randy was still working for the trucking company. There would be no college for me, my parents spent my college money on an addition to the house instead. My life lessons were hard earned, and hard learned. The chaos that was the defining relationship in my life was ready to begin.