There was this man, we'll call him Brandon Chapman, who came into my life unexpectedly at the beginning of 2010. I came home from work one Friday to find a Facebook request from Brandon and it took me several minutes to recall the name. What a surprise to remember that we were a "casual item" 20 years earlier when we were crazy 20-somethings. We spent some time catching up and Brandon had lots of questions about how I'd spent my last 2 decades and what I had going on at the time, particularly in the area of relationships.
After a few days of communicating, it was clear that we had some compatibility and a strong mental connection. Brandon expressed a desire to see me. He was separated from his wife of 14 years with two children and lived 3 hours away, so "apprehensive" only slightly describes my thoughts at the time. I expressed my concerns, explained my wish to be in a committed, monogamous relationship leading to marriage and how I didn't want to be distracted from getting there. Brandon said that he understood and his convincing pursuit continued. Every day and night we spent hours chatting online and talking on the phone into the early morning. We were hitting it off so well that I agreed to see him. A week later, he was in town and I was not prepared for the chemistry and magnetism between us. It was intense, powerfully intimate, beyond magical, beautiful in every way and something I'd never experienced. His attention, wonder and adoration of me was extremely seductive. At the very least, I was enchanted and captivated.
Brandon continued to pursue me and kept coming back for long weekends. You know how it's new and you just can't get enough of each other? Yeah, it was like that. It felt like we were attached ... mind, body and soul, and he never hesitated to tell me how he felt about me. He met friends and neighbors immediately and the "I love yous" were exchanged after only a month or so. Shortly after that, Brandon told me that he wanted to move to Atlanta with his children by the end of the summer. He led the way in moving our relationship forward and the bond between us became stronger with each visit. He started looking for work here, we looked at houses, researched schools for his kids and talked about engagement rings, wedding plans and how the name "Lisa Chapman" had a nice ring to it. He attended and enjoyed church with me, accompanied me to a friend's wedding, met co-workers, participated in neighborhood activities, gave me his parents' phone number in case of an emergency and fit beautifully into my circle of friends, who were all so happy for us. All of our time together was spent talking about and preparing for our future...about what our life would look like and how we couldn't wait for that time. And sex. There was lots of sex ... couldn't keep his hands off of me, that one. Everything was perfect.
Close to a year into the relationship, Brandon dropped a bomb on me over the phone while he was working a job in another state. The details aren't important, but it was a significant setback in our plans. At the end of the conversation, he assured me that he loved me and wanted to be with me. I was disappointed, but accepted it as just another hurdle in the process of building our life together. I didn't lose much sleep that first night, but had no idea how drastically my life was about to change. I couldn't have known that the last time we'd seen each other a few weeks prior would be the last time I'd ever see him.
Brandon disappeared. For 6 weeks. No chatting online, no response to texts and no answering or returning phone calls. I received the occasional cryptic and confusing text from him saying he was "in a bad place" or "confused" or "not himself", but never a solid explanation of what was going on. I desperately tried to engage him in any kind of communication and my attempts were largely ignored. I had no idea what was happening other than that I knew I was devastated. All of this took place a few days before Thanksgiving, followed by my birthday, Christmas and New Year's and during an extremely demanding time on the job. I'm sure you can imagine the type of birthday and holiday season I had that year.
Brandon eventually called me and we started to talk things out, but it was a slow and frustrating process. It was clear that the feelings were still there, but I always felt like I wasn't getting the whole story from him. After about a month of sporadic communication, it seemed like there was a possibility that things might work out for us after all. But soon after, the bottom fell out. Because I didn't believe I was getting straight answers from him I made the degrading choice to go into recon mode and begin my online investigation. Pictures, friendships and comments started appearing on Facebook. Nothing I was seeing was lining up with what Brandon was telling me and I learned that he was involved with a woman in his home state and a woman from his current state in addition to still being married. Anger and confusion settled in, so defeated, I backed off.
The name of my blog...? This is when I entered the "Lost My Mind" phase. To make a long story less long, I'm going to spare you the majority of the gory details and events of the last year, but trust me when I tell you that it was the most painful time of my life. A year ago I was on the verge of a mental breakdown, started therapy with an amazing Christian counselor and at the end of my wits a couple months later, told Brandon, "This is good-bye." For some peculiar reason, that didn't sit well with him and he continued to contact me every couple weeks by text or email and even via a YouTube video that my friend posted of my dog, all while he was still married and involved with the woman from his current city. I was observing behavior that I was extremely uncomfortable with (ya think?!?), ignored his advances and set up boundaries I was irritated to have to build. I took steps to prevent him from reaching me ... unfriending, blocking (beware of the guy that sets up a dummy profile to view your page), unlinking, unfollowing and unsubscribing from him and his friends, and getting my friends who were connected to him to do the same. Even after everything that happened ... after everything he'd done, he persisted and found a way to get through to me, on Words With Friends of all places. I wasn't prepared for that ambush and 4 months after my first good-bye, I briefly got sucked back into old ways. I was mistakenly hopeful that he was remorseful and wanted to apologize.
Very quickly, it became evident that his behavior (and character) hadn't changed one bit, there was no remorse and that he had no intention of apologizing. As if his original path of destruction wasn't severe enough, he made another attempt to cause even further damage. This man, who the year prior turned my life upside down, nuked the bridge between us and left acid rain all over the place was apparently not finished having his way with me. I'd taken steps to block and ignore all communication with him, strategically setting up boundaries, yet he was intent on crashing right through them. When confronted, he glossed over his inability to get a divorce, downplayed his involvement with his current girlfriend ("we talk, we've gone out, that's about it") and told me that he missed me and thought of me every day. Since I'd previously discovered that there was no way I could ever believe anything he said to be true, I saw right through the deceit and into his sickness and was able put a stop to the communication.
What the hell was that?
I don't know if it's possible for you to imagine the agony of that experience or the questions that I asked myself and asked of God. I was robbed of my dignity, suffered an emotional raping accompanied by mountains of shame and questioned everything I'd ever trusted and knew to be true. In the last year I've gone through each of those wretched seven stages of grief at least three times and turned myself inside out to get to the bottom of the emotions. I looked my grief dead in the eye, befriended it, rolled around with it and put it in its place, little by little. It's been the most exhausting year of my life and not many a day has gone by that I haven't asked God, "Why didn't you protect me from this man?"
You should know that I spent a fair amount of time repenting, asking God for forgiveness, accepting His forgiveness and forgiving myself. I'm not comfortable playing the victim role, at least not for too long, and I know that I had an opportunity to prevent all of this from happening had I been more discerning. I'm a Christian, yet I sacrificed my beliefs and standards and made the choice to get emotionally and physically intimate with a man who was still married. The guilt was overwhelming and there was no excuse for not spending more time in prayer before making the choice to become involved with Brandon. I paid dearly for that choice and I'm sure that my choice was disappointing to the God who gave me the gift of free will yet would never ordain such a relationship. I'm sure He would have wanted me to wait on His very best for me instead of just accepting what was shiny and fun to play with.
But the rest of it...how Brandon searched for me, pursued me, set up camp in my sweet little life, planned a future with me, then, without explanation walked away while tearing down every good thing that ever existed between us ... I'll never understand that. I wonder what kind of person can do something so despicable to another human and not be remorseful at some point. You might be wondering why I didn't exit sooner and that's certainly a logical question. At the time I thought I was fighting for us and for our future. Brandon's behavior after the break-up (interesting that he never referred to it that way, don't you think?) was so out of character for him and the opposite of what I'd experienced when we were together. None of it made any sense at all and I didn't realize that I was seeing the real Brandon coming out.
At the beginning of this process I had to sort through so much and it was absolutely agonizing and exhausting. There was grief over the betrayal and loss of someone I missed and loved deeply, despair over the disintegration of my future, sadness from being robbed of the hobbies and pastimes I used to enjoy because of the memories of Brandon that were attached to those things, and shame over putting the most precious and fragile part of who I am in the hands of a man that had so little regard for me that he would never be able to appreciate its value. And to add insult to injury, as I put salve on each of my wounds one by one, a new wound appeared in the form of another woman. Or women. Phhht, who knows. Had it not been for my faith, my counselor and pastors, and a few friends and family members that comforted, counseled and encouraged me, I don't know that I could have survived. I recall having a conversation with a friend of mine who was sorry for my experience, telling me about an acquaintance who suffered through a similar situation with a man. He described how 10 years later this woman is barely able to function and that the experience has essentially destroyed her. It's frightening to think about and I'm abundantly thankful for God's protection and all of my friends and family members who took care of me over the last year.
My healing process is winding down and things are getting back to normal, but I'm left to wrestle with God over a few things. As the Brandon chapter of my life ended, I had a strong desire to see God in the situation. For better or worse, God created me with an overwhelming desire for justice and a desire to see the logic in things. Those are good things, but if I'm being honest, I haven't been thankful for them in this instance. My need for logic led me to dig for answers to questions that weren't meant to be answered and my need to see justice teased and tormented me, delaying my healing and robbing me of my joy. I wish I had a miraculous and astounding testimony of God's divine provision of answers and justice in this situation, but I don't. It is likely that within my lifetime, the questions will be left unanswered, it will never make sense, I will never get an apology and knowledge of justice served will be withheld from me. Truthfully, those things hardly matter much any more (awesome!). But I do have some basic Biblical truths to apply to the situation and however insufficient they are to stroking my ego, they are providing me with comfort and reassurance as the wounds completely heal and I move forward. Ultimately, this story I'm telling you is less about me and more about God and how He works in our lives.
1. God is God, He is always good and He is in the center of everything good.
2. God can redeem any situation that we mess up if we submit to Him.
3. God restores dignity.
4. God is faithful and trustworthy.
5. I am obligated to forgive others because God has forgiven me.
6. God loves me so much more than I'm able to comprehend.
7. God's primary goal is to make us more holy and will sometimes allow horrible circumstances that are a result of a fallen world to achieve that goal.
8. One of the most graceful things that God can do for a person is to allow him/her to suffer the consequences of his/her poor choices. If He doesn't let you suffer consequences He might just be leaving you be, to live for yourself according to your will and your desires. That can't be good.
9. God hates pride.
10. God is a God of justice.
11. I'll be on vacation beginning this Friday for 11 whole days
OK, that last one isn't a Biblical truth, but it sure is something I'm looking forward to. In all seriousness though, I've come to the conclusion that sometimes we just get the short end of the stick and we don't get the explanations we seek. But I'm secure in my faith and know for a fact that God wants every good thing for me so I'm just going to choose to trust Him. And I'm really happy to tell you that I'm finally at the point where I'm able to enjoy my pastimes again and I'm hopeful about what God has in store for me next. Lastly, I'm just really thankful that God gave me the good sense to take the high road in the way that I dealt with Brandon. I never did anything crazy and was charitable and dignified in dealing with him, despite the way he treated me. I think a less grounded woman might have...oh, I dunno...showed up at his house, knocked on his door, punched him in his throat when he answered, kicked him in the cajones and spray painted the word "LIAR" in big pink letters on his black Sequoia. I have no idea where that thought came from.
I suppose the most I can hope for is that in some way, at some point in time, Brandon saw a glimpse of Christ-likeness during the time he spent with me. Maybe one day he'll fully comprehend the weight of his actions, maybe not. God will work out the details of how he wants to deal with Brandon. One way or another, in this life or the next, I absolutely know that He will.
Thanks for reading. That was a long one but it was really important for me to tell you my story. I know I made some mistakes along the way but I'm just going to go ahead and accept God's grace for those mistakes. Feel free to share it because I'd be pleased if it helped someone who is suffering through a similar situation. But I promise that my next post will be more lighthearted and entertaining. I'll talk about food or travel or even better, adventures in dating at 50.
Stay tuned!
By the way, I'm off to Indio, California in a week for the Coachella festival...so excited. Here's me, chumming it up with a gigantic bamboo grasshopper at last years festival.
