Page 28 - #LoveWarrior

“Oh, wow, Nicole, you thought he was married, still?”

“Yep, I just had a feeling he was lying about something. He was just too romantic, too good to be true, and not
everything was adding up. So, here I am, in the middle of this public records office, in a slutty outfit and holding
divorce paperwork for a man I am dating, requesting that they look him up in their system. With wine and saying it
out loud, I can’t help but laugh as I look back on it…now… Then, it was not so funny. The sweet lady came around
the corner to help me at one of the computers. As she entered his information in each box, I felt as if my heartbeat
was an alarm screaming throughout their building. Then she pushed ‘enter,’ and the system began to read his
information. When his profile showed up, I didn’t know what I was looking at. But she did. She looked at me, and
she could tell I was unsure what I was looking at. So, she said, ‘Sweetie, let’s go sit down.’”

I began hating seeing her pick up her wine glass, because, at this point in the story, I couldn't wait through a sip to
hear what came next. “What happened next?” I asked, probing her for the details.

She continued: “Well, have you ever watched yourself in slow motion? As if you’re having an out-of-body
experience where you can see yourself from above? That was exactly me in this moment. As she sat me down, she
began to explain, ‘Sweetie, our records show that, yes, in fact, he was married to Amanda in 2009 and divorced by
the end of the year. However, he married again that same month to a woman by the name of Vanessa. I am sorry to
say, Vanessa and he are still currently married.’ I’ll be honest. When she spoke those words out loud, I didn’t know
how to react. I froze.”

I decided this was an appropriate time for me to interject with “Oh, I don’t blame you. I am so sorry. Did you
confront him?”

She responded with “Oh, yes, I aggressively scolded him over text message, telling him to never contact me again!!”

I was so relieved when she spoke these words. I’m sure I exhaled one large, loud breath. You see, Nicole is not the
only one with a story like this. Thousands of women out there have similar stories. They have felt the magical joy of
a man who did everything right and said all the right things – just to find out he was not the handsome, tall prince
charming on the white horse they had painted him to be.

"He was a man who knew the Bible backward and forwards" she elaborated. "He claimed to love the Lord, to know
Him intimately. I won't presume I can judge if that is true or not, but what I can do is record my observations. This
is what I observed: I loved this man very much. What did I love about him? I loved his gumption to carry on. This
was a man who had been brutally tortured by the decisions of others. As a child he was caught in the crossfire of a
battle that was not his own. When I met him I recognized he was looking for the same thing I was — family, love, a
home. However, the battlefield soon became the only thing he recognized and — the only environment he created
around him. On survival mode, he fought as hard as he could.”

Nicole and I outtalked the moon, and as the sun rose, we realized we had talked all night. She opened up about the
painful moments that followed that day: the sleepless nights, the long showers where she just sat on the floor of her
tub, hoping the tears would be washed away by the rushing water. She exposed the truth that as women, when we
love, we love hard. She admitted to me that she was still struggling with the pain of it all. I walked her through all
that I could that night, helping her mourn the relationship in a way that would help her in her healing journey so that
when she was ready – she could love again with the same amount of joy, hope, and childlike wonder as she did
before she met him.

As I reflect on her story now, I see things so clearly. They met and fell in love so quickly, unaware of all that they
were going up against, the brokenness they were sure to encounter. You see, Nicole had a lot of her own growing to
do, and clearly, so did this guy. She knows my opinion that they were two broken people who came together looking
for healing.

I took her through the five steps of healing that night. Well, let me rephrase that: I spoke to her about them, meaning
I explained what I had observed from her story and what I recommended.

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