Husband Chronicles Part Three: Erik

A quick disclaimer, trigger warning for abuse and foul language. (Kinda sorry to my Mom and Dad. Some things just have to be emphasized with the CORRECT word. Sometimes that word is foul. I’m actually not sorry. But I do love you!)

This one gets more screen time than the first. Not because I loved him more, or chose more carefully, or remember more detail.

It gets more screen time because it takes longer to carefully craft the image I want you to see and truly understand. To acknowledge the specific kind of evil that was this man.

Joshua is two. I’m dating a man I don’t even really like. It’s Sunday, and a woman from church introduces me to Erik.

He’s tall. Thin. Charming. Covered in tattoos. He reminded me of my brothers. Just bad enough to be dangerous. But — he was here, at church, so how could he be bad? His energy was so west coast it made me yearn for ocean sunsets accompanied by long summer nights.

It was so fast, it’s blurry. I gave into him within twenty-four hours.

For a single mom, broke, in college, in a crap apartment, who hated the laundromat with her whole soul, it was a slam dunk. I was done for.

He had two boys from a previous marriage who lived with us most of the time. Let me be so for real — I LOVED those boys. They were one and three. Joshua was two, right in the middle. Three kids under three, and my heart was completely full. Those boys were my life.

One weekend, we drove them to their mom’s in Temecula to drop them off for the summer. Afterward, we drove to San Diego and got a hotel. Erik and I went to dinner. It was lovely, actually. We met this woman who was a CEO, super successful, but no kids. She treated us to dinner and drinks. I’ll never forget her, she said, “I never had kids because my career was my life. So now, when I meet young couples I treat them as my kids. I can’t take any of this shit with me when I die.”

On the way back to the hotel, he started a fight — and punched me in the face while I was driving.

I pulled over, got out, started surveying the damage. No need for police, it was just my car damaged. He was screaming at me the whole time. I was scared, so I walked away.

He chased me down. When he caught me, he beat the hell out of me. A stranger stopped to help. Erik beat him too, then came back for me.

I fell on the ground. He grabbed my hair. Slammed my face into the sidewalk.

Blood everywhere. I couldn’t see. I tried to run. I flagged down a car and begged for help. He was instantly behind me again. They saw him. They drove off.

Let that sink in. Downtown San Diego. Busy Friday night. Cars everywhere. People everywhere. A badly beaten young girl comes up to your car, begging for help.

They drove off.

I don’t remember much after that, except waking up in the hotel with him the next morning.

He was so sorry. He built a story, called our families, got us another night in the hotel. Then we went home.

I hid for weeks — didn’t want anyone to see my face. I eventually needed plastic surgery and a plate in my cheekbone. To this day it’s the biggest scar I carry from loving the wrong man.

I want to be expertly clear about something: I was young, dumb, and driven by an absolutely insane desire to be married.

But mostly, I loved those boys.

So — two months later, I married him anyway.

On our honeymoon, we fought.

Two months after that, another fight — this time at home, with Joshua there. He came out of his room scared, looking for comfort, and ended up caught between us. I was backed into a corner in the kitchen. I reached into the drawer and pulled out a butcher knife. Held it up. Joshua still between us.

Erik shoved him to the floor. Joshua started crying. I flinched toward Erik. “You won’t,” he said. “Not with him here.” Gesturing at Joshua.

Stone-faced, I said:

The shock on his face.

And then — the doorbell rang.

It was my dad. My dear sweet angel of a father.

I ran to Joshua’s room and locked the door. A few minutes later my dad knocked. Joshua was already packed. I opened the door. My dad took one look at my face and said, “Come on.”

Walking out, we passed Erik in the living room. My dad looked at him with the exact same stone face I’d given him minutes earlier.

We left.

Three weeks later, Joshua and I were in Walmart. The people in front of us had a Thomas the Train table. He wanted it, a major meltdown ensued. I looked up — it was Erik, with a new girlfriend.

Joshua looked right at him.

Joshua didn’t recognize him.

Thank you Jesus. Thank you for whatever you put in front of my son that day. For whatever force it took to protect us from what could have been a very dangerous situation, but at the very least more trauma.

We were divorced within two months.

I never looked back. My heart was broken wide open — over the boys — but for Erik, zero love lost.

Erik did have the misfortune, a few months later, of running into my twin brother.

No notes on that encounter.

Lesson learned.

To this day, no man has ever put his hands on me again. One tried. He instantly regretted that decision.

Once again — thank you, next!