Get this CoDe.....there I was, a 19 year old girl, killer body, lots of friends, funny, kind, total package (red hair to boot!) And then there is Snaggle (which is the nicest term I can come up with without using his name). Snaggle had just been released from prision. He had grown up in Juvey and prision (yes, prision, not jail and there is a difference). He pursues me relentlessly. I usually just laugh at his advances. I mean, he was a white guy with an afro bigger than anyone from the 70ies, a missing front tooth, a voice that no one could understand, a drug habit that would have killed any ordinary person. Yup, a real winner. Pursuing ME!! A nice girl from the suburbs who could speak in complete sentences. LOL! Well, I got involved in the drug scene and I got pretty deep into it...using, dealing, I became friends with Snaggle...he had all the good drugs and he liked me so everything was free....

I am not proud of this story but I just want you to understand how sick and insane we can become when involved with drugs and drug addicts....

Anyway, he keeps on trying to be with me....constant compliments, free stuff, etc. Wears me down after a year...I was so high all of the time I would have said yes to just about anyone. There we are a couple...he loves me more than life itself, blah blah blah. Then the violent, physical abuses start and the verbal abuse, emotional, mental and sexual. He was the ultimate con artist. He was 24 and never had a job in his life.....never. He was on welfare. I lived with this Snaggle for 18 months. 18 months of sheer hell. But in that 18 months I went thru Tramatic Bonding. I tried to leave or kick him out more times than I could count. He was so incredibly, hidiously awful to me. My friends were worried for me. They tried to help. They said to me "Seren, what the HECK do you see in this slob?" I mean, the way he treated me was enough for me to say see ya. But I stayed.

I never wanted him in the first place, but yet, I stayed. Why? Drugs? Fear? Yes. But it was more than that (Tramatic Bonding). Finally, I caught him cheating on me!!!! With a crack whore (I'm not being mean, that was what she did for a living). Imaging my fragile self esteem being shattered knowing that this abusive monster would choose a crack whore over me!!! I was insanly upset. My best friend held me while I cried buckets and she was stunned at the depth of my pain over this Snaggle who was no better than Satan himself.

But, at the time those were my feelings. I didn't really understand them. I didn't know why I was so sucked into the drama. I didn't understand why I couldn't just walk away from someone who was so bad to me. I didn't get it.

I understand better today. But that was 15 years ago and my healing only started 5 and a half years ago.

Hon, You are worth so much more than what he is giving you. He will never, ever be what you want him to be. I don't care what this program says, I will guarentee that he will never change. The only thing that will change is you. You will change, you are changing.

I am sorry you are going thru this. I am sorry he is not going to be what you or your child need. But what you and your child need is right there within you. It is not outside of you, it is within you.

P.S. him being with the girl he was arrested with is a very bad sign that he will be back in jail again very soon. Don't get used....

When you make him so big and great you make you so little and insignificant. I'm with seren, I had one of those too only a lot longer than 18 months, guess she was a little brighter than me...plus I had two kids with him. He died...drunk...falling down a flight of stairs. Or maybe the girl he was mooching off of (I mean staying with) pushed him, the world will never know.

Anyway, I digress, back to you. You are a smart girl, you have a lot going for you, you have a great son who deserves all this love and energy that you are putting out to someone who just soaks it up like a sponge. Love should be reflected, not absorbed into a dark hole. I remember telling my A EX husband that he was like a black hole. I used to call him a smooth talking persuader (it was our little joke) but really it was the truth. Like a used car salesman trying to make a junker look like a mercedes. I wanted so much to believe all of his lies that I just did - even tho I knew they were lies. For me, detaching meant no contact at all over a long period.

I can tell you that I PROMISE that it DOES get easier. Those intrusive thoughts of him or his name popping up in your head diminsh over time. The amount of time depends on how busy you are I think, how many things you can put on your plate and still function. Eventually there's no more time for thoughts of him. After time those thoughts will change, there will be bitterness, there will be sorrow for love lost, there will be pity for the sad man he chooses to be. REality sets in and you realize that he is not ever going to be the man he was and or you hoped he would be, he just is what he is right now. He chose her over you, he chooses drugs/alc. over being a bf/father. You need to choose you! Choose your son!

The hardest thing for me was to learn to say I love this man so much but he is bad for me and my children and I just can't be with him. And back that up every day even though it hurt - until it became easy.