How did this happen to me?

How could this happen to us?

I'll be asking myself that for the rest of my life. Joshua and I met when I was very young. He was 23 and I had just turned 18. My friends and I went out to a bar one night. I wasn't old enough to get into a bar, obviously, but I had looked 22 since I was 14, so I was a pro at sticking my ample chest out and looking cute to get my way. We were sitting at the bar when I looked across the room and saw this, gorgeous man. I mean he was tall, dark, and handsome with these eyes that you could pick out across the world if you needed to.

I just remember being at the pool table with my buddies, and looking up for the waitress and seeing this... woman, sitting at the bar smiling. She was this pretty brunette and I could hear her laugh across the room. She had this body, hidden in this little black dress and when she looked at me the whole room froze.

He was looking back at me and he just smiled this smile and I thought I was going to die right then and there. Well, he saw me looking at him and he came strolling up to me and leaned his elbow on the counter and gave me the smoothest line.

He said, "Gorgeous, please tell me you're an EMT."

Stupidly, Gwen walked right into it.

"Why?"

"I'm pretty sure I need one."

And again, she walk right into it.

"What makes you think that?"

"Because as soon as I saw you, my heart skipped a beat."

All right it's not the smoothest line, but I thought it was hilarious, and corny, and cheesy and showed his sense of humor. He offered to buy me a drink and before I could say yes my friend next to me jumped in and said, "She's not 21. She just turned 18. I'm 21 though, I'm older than her. My birthday was a couple of days ago."

You know, I never really liked her anyways. I wanted to smack her so hard, I thought for sure she had just ruined my chances with this guy. I was thinking, "How could you put that out there like that?!" I was waiting for him to hightail it outta there.

I wasn't quite sure what to do at that point. Part of me was wondering if it was a joke, I mean, how could all that belong to an 18 year old? Then I was hoping she wouldn't ask me my age, cause I didn't want her to think I was some kind of pervert, even though I was thinking some pretty perverted things about her. I tried to play it off, because what guy doesn't want to look like Mr. Smooth? By the time she told me her name was Gwen, I was gone.

Instead, he looked at me in the most adorible, confused way and he said, "Really? I had it the other way around. I would have thought she was 21 and, since you were with her, I assumed you were of age too." I'll never forget the look on my friends face. She was so upset, and he looked so good smiling charmingly at her.

Anyways, he bought me a non-alcoholic drink and we stayed there all night talking until the bar closed. Then it turned into taking a walk, which turned into 4am, which turned into breakfast, which turned into lunch. I just instantly was in love with him. He was a musician and he was so charasmatic. He had this way of talking that made you believe anything he had to say. He was melodic and addictive. It was like being put into a trance listening to him and I just thought he was the sexiest thing I'd ever seen in my life.

I knew instantly that I was going to marry him. It was love at first sight, I said to myself that night, "I'm going to marry this man." And I did, 10 months later.

I was petrified about asking her to marry me. I was sweating bullets for weeks. All my friends thought it was funny. I was just nervous because we'd known eachother less than a year. I didn't know if she was ready. I was worried that she had figured out what I already knew, she was too good for me.

One weekend we went on a skiing trip, to Aspen. I wanted to go all out, because I knew we would remember this moment for the rest of our lives. It was late one night, we'd goin out to dinner, and we were just taking a stroll around our cabin. She was all dressed up, looking real pretty, and I got down on my knee in the snow.

"Gwen," his eyes stared up at her, somewhat confident, somewhat fearful, "These past eight months with you have been the most amazing of my life. You brought out the man I had always wanted to be, but never could quite be. We share a bond that no one in this world has ever known, and it can never be measured or paralleled. You make each day just alittle bit better and brighter than the last. I started living when you came into my life, and I can't bare the thought that you'll ever leave me. So Gwen, complete my life. Make me the happiest man in the world, and say you'll marry me?"

Gwen's brown eyes glossed over as she peered down at the man kneeling before her, and the diamond ring he was holding just infront of her ring finger. It took a moment for everything to register, for all the words to process in her mind, but when it finally did, she shrieked with joy.

"I don't know what to say!"

"Well say something soon, my knee is freezing." They were in the snow after all.

"Yes!" she cried with a smile. "Ofcourse, yes."

It was spectacular. I was young, 19 at the time and all I had ever dreamed of was that fairy princess wedding and he gave it to me. He said that he wanted whatever would make me smile so I had the big white gown and the white shoes and the 200 guests and everything I could possible want. He took me to the British Virgin Islands on our honeymoon and it was the most spectacular thing. It was magical being on that island with this man that I loved so much, who loved me so much. I didn't think that life could get any better and I just remember thinking that I didn't want anything to ever change. I didn't want to get older, I didn't want us to do anything other than lay around that island and make love and hold eachother and just be the happy newlyweds that we were.

It was about 6 months after we got back from the honeymoon. We were still newlyweds and we were still crazy and kind of on that annoying high that people have when they're in love and they're all glowy and giggly and 'no I love you more' 'no I love you more' and were grossing everyone else around us out but we had been together alittle bit and we were about half settled into married life. One day, I just got sick. I started getting headaches and numbness and I wasn't quite feeling myself.

It finally got to the point where she was just waking up places. She'd wake-up in the living room at 2am. One time she woke-up in her car, sitting on the side of the freeway. She didn't know how she'd gotten there, or how long she'd been there. Her voice when she called me was just, pure fear. She was scared. And I was scared too, she was my wife. I didn't want anything in the world to ever happen to her.

The whole thing was like a dream. You don't understand anything about it, you're just going through it hoping you wake-up soon. It was scary, it was petrifying. Joshua took me to the doctor and they said it was epilepsy.

I was put on medication, and my body kind of shut down. The medication made me gain weight. I went from being about 180lbs, being a normal, shapely woman, and shot up to well over 300lbs, close to 400lbs. I couldn't walk, I couldn't feed myself, I couldn't do anything. All the pressure was put on Joshua. All of the shopping, the laundry, the cleaning, the cooking, all of the day to day that I had been doing before so that he could focus on his music career was on him and he had to take care of me at the same time. But he stood by me the whole time. He always took care of me.

I, on the other hand, was growing really depressed. I had always been pretty independant. I loved him, but I hated that he had to take care of me so much. I felt like a purden on him. I hated the way I looked, when I could see myself in a mirror. I wanted to break down in tears, I just hated the sight of myself. I thought I was ugly and disgusting. I remember sitting down with all of my pills, it must have added up to be 200+ pills, and a bottle of Jack Daniels and kind of, comtemplated. I thought, "It'll only take a moment. The swallowing will be painless and once I do it'll only take a moment for all of it to overtake me and I'll be done. I don't have to be like this anymore."

I had been sitting there for a good hour or so when Joshua came in. He walked through the door and dropped his keys and his stuff down and looked up into the room where I was and instantly froze. I saw all the blood drain out of his face and he was staring at me and his mouth was hanging open and he was just shocked. Now I can understand it, I would be too, to see my spouse sitting there with these things in their lap.

He started walking towards me very slowly and he said, "That's not the answer. That's not going to solve anything for anyone, that's not it. You're stronger than this." He told me he loved me and not to give up.

It was very obvious that she was not handling this as well as I and everyone else had thought. Something had to change, something had to give for her, or she wasn't going to be here much longer. She was at the point where she had had enough.

I called my doctor and told her that something had to change. I'm not happy like this, I can't live my life like this. Something bad was going to happen, if something didn't change very soon. She changed my medication and one of the side affects was said to be rapid weight loss. I started feeling better, people were saying I looked better and I was so excited. I had a whole new outlook on my life. I remember I would show my husband every couple days, "Look honey, look. I've lost so much weight. This is unreal! I'm a size smaller. I can do this, I can do that. I can get up on my own. I can go for a walk, blah blah blah blah."

My whole self-image changed. I changed the way I looked, my confidence went up and I was so excited to get back to the life we had known. I was almost 21 now, he was almost 26. I was just so excited to get back to everything the way it used to be before when we were young and on that island it was pure love and that was all that we knew.

Joshua and I hadn't been intimate in a long time and I was anxious to get that aspect of our relationship back. I remember hugging him, or kissing him, or trying to inniciate intimate contact and he was unresponsive. I didn't feel like he didn't love me, or wasn't somewhat attracted to me, but he was wasn't interested in being with me, or anything sexual that I had to offer. I didn't understand. I was like, "I'm back. This is the woman you knew. This is the woman we both wanted me to be. But you're pushing me away, you're busy, you have other things to do." I couldn't quite fathum what was going on and I didn't understand what was happening between us and that tends to be a bad mixture between people.

It was hard for me to switch gears and go back the other way. I had almost been her parent instead of her lover and husband for so long. The chemistry between us had changed. It hadn't disappeared. I don't think the chemistry between us was ever completely gone, but it was different at the time and neither of us really knew what that meant or how to fix it.

One night I decided it was going to be THE night. I went out and bought this sexy, short, tight, see-through, lace and ribbon nighty. I thought I looked so good, and when he came home I had it on. He came in and looked at me and said, "That's nice honey. That's pretty. That's a nice outfit. That's a nice song you have playing, I like this song." And he kissed me on the cheek and went back downstairs, and never came back.

The outfit didn't really have that big of an impact on me. I was still confused, and didn't know what to think about anything. I had been spending alot of time on our computer, on the internet. There were chatrooms and groups for people like me. Spouses who had been incharge of taking care of their spouses for a long time. I met a woman on there, and we developed a friendship. Soon after it went from being an online thing to an over the phone thing.

One day Gwen and I were in the car when she called my cellphone.

"Hi honey," the cheerful woman sang into the phone.

"Hi."

"What are you doing? You busy?"

Joshua opened his mouth to reply, sneeking a look at his wife from the corner of his eye. He had hoped that his voice sounded completely normal, and that he didn't appear nervous or caught offguard in the least bit. Such was not the case. He wasn't as smooth as he needed to be at that moment, because it was apparent by the look on Gwen's face that she could hear the feminine voice at the other end of the line crystal clear, and she wasn't pleased.

"Um. No I uh, I'm not busy. Actually yes, yes I am. Very busy."

He could see her folding her arms over her chest as her eyes narrowed on his profile.

"Josh are you okay? You sound funny."

"Um, well, I-."

"Is your wife with you? Do I need to call you back later honey?"

"Later? Yes, later would be a good idea."

When I got off the phone Gwen and I got into this huge fight. She was accusing me of cheating and I was telling her it wasn't what she was thinking. It was a woman who lived in the neighboring state, and we had never met. But it still was what she was thinking, regardless. I'm not going to lie and say I didn't have any feelings or emotional attachment to that woman, because I did. She was filling the void I felt Gwen had left behind.

She was older, and independant the way Gwen had been before. She looked at things from my point of view and understood where I was and what I wanted. She was everything that I thought I needed, and I was blinded by that. I wasn't able to see how this impacted my wife.

I felt unloved and unwanted. I had been turned down repeatedly by the man I loved and I had pledged to be with forever. He felt like I was his child, his daughter, and now he was giving his attention to someone else. Another woman. I thought, "Who's gonna love me now? Who's gonna want me around? I'm a fat cow. My life is over, I'm done with." I was again hurt, and confused, and scared. I figured it was only a matter of time before he left me to be with her, or someone else.

One night, I had been over at a girlfriends house, and I was driving home. It was late, it was dark, and I look over and see this club. There's loud music, people are standing outfront talking, and I don't know what came over me but I just decided I needed a drink. The moment I set my foot through the door I met Craig. He laid eyes on me and was just by my side in a second. He was smooth in this adorible dorky way and he was laying it on thick. He was like my husband, charasmatic and charming. He was just, hot. Like Brad Pitt, and Chad Michael Murry rolled into one. That's Craig.

"Well helllloooo beautiful lady."

Gwen turned, not quite sure she was the person being spoken to. Her eyes locked on a tall, slim man. His bright eyes were staring back excitedly.

"Me?" She couldn't help the cheesy giggle that escaped her lips when he nodded.

"What is a pretty girl like you doing around here? Tell me honey, does your husband know how sexy you are? Because you have about the most precious eyes I've ever seen."

The only thing running through her mind was, "Wow." He was so attractive, and he was talking to her. Someone actually thought she, Gwen, was beautiful?

I was just blown away at everything he was saying. I had been waiting to hear it for years. We became inseperable. We went to the movies, we went to lunch, we did everything together. When ever Joshua would ask me what was going on, or who I was spending all my time with I would lie or I would just say it didn't have anything to do with him. Craig knew I was married and stupid me assumed that our relationship would neverbe anything other than friendship. But I, at the same time, I knew that wasn't true. I knew what he wanted from day one. He looked at me with one sause on his mind, and I was the steak. But at that point I didn't care.

I should have.

One night Craig was dropping me back off at my car. It was late into the evening, it was dark, stars were out. He put his arms around me, to hug me and I noticed that he lingered there, just alittle bit longer than usual. Which was fine with me, I mean I was loving the affection and the attention I was getting from him. But he pulled back a little bit and just looked at me. We stood for a minute, gazing at eachother, and then he leaned down very slowly, and gave me just the best most sensual kiss. It was wonderful. It was romantic, and it was gentle, and it was tender. Everything I had been missing.

But it also brought with it alot of guilt. I realized what I was doing to my husband, and to Craig, and to myself, and my life and I didn't want to do it anymore. I walked into the living room one night and sat down on the sofa next to Joshua, and I said, "Honey I have something to tell you."

My wife came to me and told me she wasn't happy in our married. She said she felt like I was acting more like her father than her husband. She felt betrayed about what had happened with the phone call, and she felt like I didn't love her or want her anymore. That was not the case at all, and I was shocked. I didn't know what to say to her. I didn't know how to fix it for her.

But I had a gut feeling. I knew there was someone else. She had been acting different, she had changed herself. She was more upbeat, she dressed different, she went out all the time. I didn't know if she had cheated or not, but I knew someone interesting had come into her world.

Joshua looked at me and he said, "Who is it? Just who it is? Tell me who it is." And I said, "It's no one you know. His name is Craig."

Then she told me she had kissed him. Nothing more, just a kiss, and she was sorry.

He got up from the sofa and went into the kitchen and just started drinking. I mean he was throwing them back. It was making me nervous. He wasn't talking to me, he wasn't looking at me, he was just drinking as much as he could. Then in a second, he was on me. He had me pinned to the wall, and when I fought him off and ran to the livingroom, he pinned me to the couch. He pulled me so close to him, and he was kissing my face and my lips so hard that it hurt. He kept asking, "Is this what he does? Is this how he holds you? Is this how he kisses you?" I told him, "Joshua, stop. You're hurting me. No, stop." But he didn't.

I never was the type of guy to hurt my wife or smack her around, but I did that night. I still to this day wish that had never happened. It was rough sex, fueled by anger, rage, jealousy, hurt. It was almost out of body, like I was watching myself do it and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I'll never forget her face, I'll never forgive myself for doing it. I'm sure it pained her physically, and it caused some mental scars for both of us.

After he forbid me to leave the house. He took my car keys, my cellphone, everything. I wasn't allowed to go anything. For months, I was dying inside. I was waking up and exsisting, but I was still dying inside.

About 5 or 6 months later, I was at the bank. It was a bright sunny day. I looked up as I was leaving the ATM and walking towards me was Craig. He stopped and gave me a hug and asked how I'd been and said he had been looking for me. It was like everything in my life feel back into place at that moment. I got in the car with him and we went for a drive and Craig and I decided to take the relationship to the next level.

We went to a nice hotel, in a different town. It was a beautiful hotel room. We spent nine hours in that room together. I made love to him that day. The way he made love was incredible. He made sex magical. He made me feel special, and beautiful. I hadn't felt that in a long time. I hadn't made love to someone, or had someone make love to me, in more than 3 years.

It also made me see that I had to make a decision. I loved Craig. He was great, he treated me like a princess, he made me feel alive again. But I couldn't lie to my husband anymore. We had a history, we had a romance. Joshua took care of me too, and he loved me from Day 1. He stayed with me, through sickness and in health and I couldn't let him go.

I had known what was up as soon as she and Craig saw eachother again. I could feel it in the bottom of my stomach. She had changed again. But I had changed too. I had thought long and hard, and I decided that this was my woman. I loved this woman. No man was going to come slithering in under my feet and take her away from me.

I went to her and I told her that I admitted my part in all of this. I admitted that I was wrong in holding back the way I felt for her, I was wrong for that relationship I was carrying on with that other woman. I also told her that I loved her, and that I needed her, and that I wanted us to be able to work it out. We had a history, we had a life together, and we had only been married for a few years and we hadn't really given it a try yet. We owed that to eachother, to really try to work it out. To really try to stay together, through thick and thin.

I agreed with him, that we hadn't really tried. I admitted what I had done to him, that I had lied to him, and I sincerely told him that I was sorry and I really wanted to work on getting our relationship back together again. I was tired of lying, I was tired of feeling hurt, I was ready for it to end. We were both ready for it to all end and for us to get on with our life together.

Craig called my cellphone the next day, and Joshua answered it. He doesn't know that I heard him, but I did.

At first I was fired up. I couldn't believe the nerve of this man, calling my wife almost like he had ownership of her. I'm sure he was calling to ask her to meet up with him somewhere, and I wanted to reach through the phone and just, lay into him. I wanted to beat the crap out of the guy.

I told him Gwen was still my wife, and until that changed he wasn't allowed with have any contact with her ever again. He wasn't to call, he wasn't to drive by, he wasn't to even look at her if he saw her out on the street.

It's funny how big of an impact that had on me. For the first time in a long while I felt like he meant all the things he had said to me. He was finally showing me that he loved me. He was standing up for me, he was fighting for me and for our relationship and our love. That was all I had really wanted all along.

Do I love my wife? Absolutely. I love her more now that the day I married her. She's still my bestfriend, my companion, my mate. She's still the beautiful woman I've ever seen, she's still the best lover I've ever had. She's still my world and she always will be.

Now that I look back on it all, I only really came alive when I started working on my marriage. Not with Craig. I don't know if things will ever be the way they were before. When we were newlyweds, when we were on that island. But I'm still so thankful that we are still together and that we have come as far as we have over the past two years. Joshua Chasez is still the best thing to ever happen to me and I don't think I ever could have lived with myself if I had let him go.