For the sake of not dragging out the backstory, the next two years can be summarized pretty quickly.

I spent two years at my first unit. I was miserable. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my career. I was struggling to support Ryan and myself and build a life based on the perceived notion of being a “newlywed.”I put my name on a waiting list for a training program my husband approved. I knew it wasn’t my goal, but I was so interested in pleasing him, I forgot why I enlisted in the first place. I reached out for advice. The only person I truly trusted and felt I could have an open dialogue with was my recruiter. He and I had kept in contact on a branch-wide instant communicator (I will call this communicator in the future) and through e-mails. He had asked me how my unit was. He was the only person to send me a wedding song playlist when I asked for advice on Facebook. When my marriage started to fall apart I asked him for advice. He shared bits and pieces of his life with me. I felt like I had a non-biased mentor to lean on. I finally felt like I could share the parts of my life with someone who truly wanted to listen.  He would check in from time to time via communicator.I was finally realizing that I didn’t fit the box I was trying to put myself in. I started reading sex positive blogs, listening to podcasts about sex, sexuality, and alternative relationships. I had discovered what polyamory was. No, not polygamy. Polyamory is just the fancy word for multiple relationship partners. “Open relationship” is another acceptable term. Remember, I am still a sheltered small town girl learning about this HUGE world of sexuality. I felt like I was missing out on an exciting world. I brought up the idea of dating outside of my marriage to my husband. This was also around the same time I was finally accepting that I was not a straight female. I was attracted to all different types of people; male or female was just a label. So here I am, a newly identifying pansexual human (I try not to use gendered pronouns) starting a very difficult conversation with my husband about my struggles of dealing with my sexuality and our relationship. I was met with an explosion of anger and hateful comments. He called me a slut for wanting to explore my sexuality and didn’t want to hear anything else I had to say. It was that moment it all became clear. This wasn’t me. This wasn’t what my relationship should look like.I took leave for nearly a full week and a half in December 2013, a year and a few months into my marriage. I voiced my concern about my crumbling marriage. I had my family’s support. My parents encouraged me to make my decisions, to ask for a divorce if I was miserable. My best friends were on my side. Before I could sit my husband down and ask for a divorce I got a call that I had an opportunity to go to training in two weeks. I called my dad immediately and told him I had a chance to accept orders earlier than planned. I called my husband and told him. I accepted those orders and had two weeks to pack up my uniform items and put everything together. Soon after, I told my recruiter how excited I was about getting the orders. All of the important people in my life knew my exciting future!

It was once I left that I knew I had no choice but to get a divorce.

I began talking about my failing relationship with my barracks roommate/new closest friend Becca. I told her about everything and didn’t hold back anything. She is in her 30s, is married to a veteran, is a mother, and is from a similar small town situation. She accepted me and my unique views of the world. She encouraged me to dive into the world of sexuality and learn as much as I could.Right around this time, I also was desperate for any social interaction. I reached out to my recruiter once again for advice. I now knew he had divorced his wife. He was one of the first people in my military bubble to tell me it is ok to get a divorce. That it is ok when relationships fail. I began to realize how much I enjoyed talking to him. Austin, the recruiter. It soon turned into a personal friendship and from there the flirting began. At this time, he had just been advanced to a higher rank and was sent to a new unit farther south. Talking to him was fun. We bonded over “May the Fourth be with you” (yes, Star Wars Day- I am a huge nerd) and had a seemingly harmless flirty-friendship. It got my mind off Ryan.Of course it would not stay that way, it was not harmless. Isn’t that my point in sharing this? Most toxic and abusive relationships start off fun. They start off as harmless flirtations. I trusted this man. I respected him, I respected his career and his leadership. I liked that he was listening to me. How could I not fall for him? He was very charismatic and well spoken. Even over text message, the conversation flowed easily and was an actual conversation; easier said than done over text message. Meanwhile, I asked for a divorce from Ryan. He was devastated at first, cried for hours that night. Wouldn’t let go of me. Begged me for one last night of sleeping together in the same bed. It was sort of comforting for me, that I had him one last night. Soon, though, he turned to anger and resentment. Then he stopped speaking to me. I saw some of the posts he and his sister had written about me on social media. It was disgusting. I hope he has moved on, and I hope he can see how young we were--that he and I just were not meant to be. However, I’d be willing to bet money that he still hates me.Once I had moved to my new unit without Ryan, Austin and I talked almost every day. My new unit was in the southeastern bit of the Midwest, still a very, very long way from where he was stationed. Beyond the distance, here is the part where it gets a bit tricky. Although I had just advanced to the next highest pay grade, he still out ranked me and that made our relationship against military policy. He and I never really admitted what we were doing. We just let the flirting continue. Another month or so and he “called me out” on flirting with him. He asked if I had a “crush” on him. I admitted I had feelings and really liked talking to him. We set up a time to Skype and explore whatever was going on. We Skyped many times over those first few weeks, almost every day or every other. He said things to me like “I could see myself falling in love with you” and many other compliments. I wrote all of these things down. I wanted to remember them. When I updated my iPhone, I lost all of the notes I had written, or I would be able to share more examples of the smooth talk used to sway my feelings.

I now know that it was just that, smooth talk. I really do not believe he meant any of it the way I was receiving it. Regardless, I was falling for him.

He was coming to visit some of his family in about two months, so we made plans to meet halfway and see if all the feelings translated to real life. He had his son with him, so I met him too. We stayed together in a hotel room about two hours away. I did not allow things to escalate to the point of sex. It was known that an old girlfriend was visiting him in the next week to explore their own lost relationship. So here I was, admitting to this man I was falling for him knowing I was not his first choice. Margret was. She was visiting him with the intent of getting back together in about a week. He said it just sort of ended when he transferred units. So where would that leave me? I did not know, but still he wanted to meet up. He wasn’t sure of how things would turn out with her, and he wanted me to know he cared about me. OR at least that was my interpretation. I just chose to believe that the past was the past and I was the future. I was in love with the feeling of love. I didn’t know this was just the beginning of the confusing rabbit hole I was falling down.The Margret thing happened, and he barely talked to me that week. Well, until one night he texted me and told me how weird it was. How she was acting very strange and that his gut feeling was that it was totally over with him and her. They hadn’t had sex, but she was still there. He still paid for her flight; he let her stay with him; she was in his bed; she was driving his truck; he took time off work to spend time with her, and he even paid for her cab to and from the airport.A few weeks after that, she had all but fallen off the face of the earth and his attention was back to on? me. I was happy to listen to him vent and be there for him. He helped me through my divorce, so I thought I could help him through this heartbreak. We worked out our schedules, and I started planning my first trip to stay with him. It was nine days. I paid for my own flight, parked at the train station and rode the train to the airport, checked my bag, and boarded my flight. Remember how he had paid for everything for her? I paid for everything myself. I was so incredibly excited and nervous. I wanted to spend time with him so badly. I guess I am a bit ahead of myself. I do want to say, he and I were not actually “a couple” at this point. Actually, we never were. He never allowed it. I wasn’t allowed to call him my boyfriend or say we were together. We did agree that it was ok to see other people as long as he and I used condoms and barriers with other partners. I was on BC, so I wasn’t concerned with pregnancy, and we had both discussed testing for STIs regularly. The first weekend he and I planned to go to a concert to see one of his favorite bands, and this way my first time seeing them live. It was amazing. We sang “Here’s to Us” at the top of our lungs (we sang most songs this way), and it became the song I would play when I missed him. Around this time of year, his birthday, he still became emotional over the loss of his best friend a few years back. The song reminded him of his late best friend. At the end of the concert, I sat on the tailgate of his truck and he cried with my arms around him. I thought we had really connected, more than I had ever felt with Ryan. At the time of my first visit, he had went out with this other girl, a girl from work. He had stayed at her place, but he told me they did not have sex. He had said “his friend” was coming into town to visit him. Still Rita, this new girl, was jealous. I agreed to join them: Austin, Rita, and a group of work friends (we are all active duty so it’s not out of the ordinary to meet up outside of work). As far as I know, it went alright. She and I seemed to get along. She wasn’t suspicious of our intimate relationship. I guess, now as I am writing this, I see just how messed up this was. At the time, I didn’t see it. He had told me I was “winning.” Yes, his exact words. “You don’t really have anything to worry about. You’re winning. You just had sex with me. You are the one coming home with me.” Yes, he and I had JUST had sex right before going to meet up with her. How sick is that? What on earth was I doing with a person like this? Maybe I brushed some of it off, because it was the best sex I had ever had at this point in my life. I, too, had briefly dated a few other people.

It was all so controlling and manipulative.

One day the following week, I was visiting him for his birthday, his 36th birthday. I suppose I should have mentioned the age difference sooner. Maybe that played into the trust and respect I had for him? I suppose I thought with age comes wisdom. Anyway, I was so excited to share his birthday with him, but Rita had texted him and wanted to take him out for his birthday. She was making it known how jealous she was at this point that I was getting his time. He had said that he and I had plans for the evening but she managed to get invited. The night ended up being the three of us, with me as the third wheel. I was not the one holding his hand on the walk to the sushi place I chose specifically for his birthday. I was not the one he had his arm around. I was just there. I was just “the friend.” It was incredibly awkward. We ordered wine and were having a decent dinner for what it was. At one point, I remember she got pretty tipsy and flexed her bicep. She pushed into the upper part of her arm feeling a bump. She then stated it was her implanted birth control and asked him to feel it. It was like she had something to prove, in her mind she was the girlfriend- or on the path to being the girlfriend. In my mind, I was already his girlfriend. But I wasn’t. I wasn’t allowed to be. No one was allowed to know about me. All the signs were right there. He, from the very beginning, had full control over every aspect of our relationship. I was willing to let him set the narrative. Although I knew how an open relationship was supposed to look, how a healthy one functioned, I convinced myself that this was just our version of it. Everyone has the right to create their own type of relationship. The one-size-fits-all monogamous relationship had failed me once. I was ready to try something else. I was not ready to be manipulated into agreeing to terms I would have never accepted otherwise. That wasn’t my choice, but that is exactly what happened.