I was with my son's father for 9 years, we had a marriage ceremony and signed the legal document, however, (thank you to the higher powers above) the marriage license never arrived to the courthouse. He and I even went back 4 different occassions to try and get it to be legal and each time there was some reason why they couldn't make it legal. Now that I know what I didn't know then, I'm so thankful it was never legalized. He and I both "legally" agreed to not accept it as a legal marriage, so we didn't have to go through the actual divorce. That has it's pros and cons, however, the pros definitely outweighed the cons.
Literally 3 months after our ceremony (our son was 7 months old when we had our ceremony, 10 months old when I left his dad/my ex, and is now 4 years old), I found out the ugly truth about him, wish the people who knew all of this crap would have came to me before I wasted the thousands of dollars for the ceremony. However, not only was he very mentally/verbally/emotionally abusive to me most of the 9 years we were together, but he was cheating on me with many women, and was doing drugs and drinking alcohol all behind my back. He is no longer involved with my son, thankfully.
I'm now married "legally" to my wonderful husband who is so supportive, loving, understanding, and just wonderful. We have a daughter together and he considers my son to be our son, so we are getting ready to make that a legal change so that we all have the same last name. Marriage is a good thing when it's with the right person. It's so weird, because I would fantisize about my husband (have known him since we were kids, but was never in a romantic relationship with him, and never thought about him like that until right before my wedding ceremony with my ex) when I was with my ex, and now that my husband and I are together, well we are very much in love and going on 3 years together.
My current husband helped me pick up the pieces that my ex left me in. Finding out I had PTSD was something hard for me to swallow and accept for myself (never heard of it before and wasn't sure what to make of it, but glad I wasn't going crazy). My husband just said that at least he isn't the only messed up person in the relationship now, we are both messed up and are meant for each other... Hahahaha. He always makes me laugh!!
We have our rough times from time to time (nothing as volitile as they were between me and my ex), usually my fault with my mood swings and my exploding behavior out of nowhere. When we are together, and one of us can sense the other one getting close to exploding, we tell each other to breathe and that usually gets us to calm down. He has never been diagnosed with PTSD, but he was beaten as a child (though he says he doesn't remember it, we lost his mother a few years ago from brain tumors caused from those beatings that she received as well, she was the sweetest woman I've ever known) and has a lot of anxiety and exploding tendancies as well. We just work well together. I'm blessed to have him with me
In fact, at one point, I left my current husband when we first started dating, I thought he was trying too hard and was over compensating for something and also didn't feel worthy of being treated as well as he was treating me (don't ask, I'm still confused with my thinking at that time, I was just starting my therapy back then), so I went back to my ex for about 7 months. My current husband and I both agreed that we don't count those months we weren't together. He knew as badly as he didn't want to let me go, that he had to let me find things out on my own, and he said he knew in his heart that I would be back. I did go back to him, just as a friend at first, and somewhere it developed into a beautiful relationship.
I'm really lucky and so very very blessed!! We had a shotgun wedding at the courthouse, this way I would guarantee a "legal" marriage... hahaha.
