Loyal to a Fault
Photo Credit TanteTati, https://pixabay.com/photos/forever-word-heart-text-seem-red-771012/
I met my first husband online when online was still brand new.
I was on AOL, hanging out in chat rooms, and this one guy caught my attention. He was funny and quippy, and I liked how he sort of lit up the virtual room we were in. Apparently, I caught his attention, too, because he started inviting me to private chat rooms where we could talk, just the two of us.
Not too long into our chat conversations, we started talking on the phone, and he asked me to be his girlfriend. I was enamored. I liked this online thing — it seemed less risky than meeting people in person.
There was the opportunity to get to know someone and still be a little anonymous. So, when this guy told me he liked me and wanted me to be his girlfriend, I knew it was about just me — who I was at my core, not about what my face looked like or what the shape of my body was.
I chatted online a lot back then. This guy wasn’t the only guy I was chatting with. However, he asked me first to commit, so I did — even though I’d never met him in person.
Even though, there was this other really nice guy, who also liked me and wanted to take me on a date — and who lived in a city only about a half hour from me (when my “boyfriend” lived literally in the opposite corner of the country from me); I declined every time this other really nice guy asked because I had this boyfriend.
I was loyal to a fault. Notice that I started this essay with “my first husband.” We were together for about fifteen years, married for about twelve of those. I could do the math and figure it out precisely, but that’s too much work, and I don’t really care.
The point is that we’re not together anymore. And the larger point is that I stayed loyal, even in those early days of a virtual relationship, because it felt like the right thing to do, even though we’d never met in person, and I have exactly no idea if he was loyal to me. Of course, he’d say he was, but I know now that he was a liar and a con.
I was an easy mark, desperate for love and acceptance, afraid no one would ever love me because I didn’t fit society’s norms for beautiful. My boyfriend told me I was beautiful. And I wanted so badly to believe him.
But so did the man who lived in the next town over from me. I never even gave that guy a chance, because I was too afraid to let this guy go. This guy seemed like a sure thing.
The guy the next town over seemed like a risk, and one I was unwilling to take. What if we went out a time or two and it ended up being nothing? I was young and already scarred by societal expectations and not fitting them.
I’d never really had a boyfriend, and I knew I wanted a husband and a family. Really badly. I let my fear strengthen my loyalty to the wrong dude. And I ended up in a loveless, emotionally abusive marriage that lasted way too long–all because I was loyal.
Loyalty is important; however, I should’ve been loyal to myself first. I wish I could’ve loved myself then enough to know that I deserved so much better. I wish I’d been confident enough to take a chance on the guy in my own state (and he wasn’t the only one, just the most interesting one), instead of staying true to the guy who found the sucker he was looking for in me.
