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What love is� The first two years of my relationship with Lee were simply blissfully wonderful! We were an absolutely perfect match. We finished Lee's book and it was phenomenal. I stayed in school and Lee kept teaching. We kept our relationship a secret from the school board. We got engaged but I held off marriage until I finished school. My dad kept me effectively trapped in the Community College system even though I didn't get pregnant and I held off the level of the relationship with Lee for school. If we really loved each other we could wait for either me to finish school or for a better solution to pop up. We had a lot of fun and one evening I was even allowed, on Lee's suggestion, to drop into a Sociology class Lee was teaching and take the final exam with the class. I'd never attended this Sociology class before and it was a higher level than the last one I'd taken, but I scored a high A, a 98% on the test! I still had the same amount of opportunistic infections but I was having a blast. I was both Queen of the hill and loved at the same time. I was the academic star of the entire school and Lee cherished me. After those first years I found out how Lee had really been supporting his rather fancy life-style. He had been living primarily off of his retirement fund from when he'd been a tenured professor at a big out of State University. And he hadn't paid taxes on any of the money. Lee had left his tenured position because he hated that State and would have done almost anything to escape. Now all of Lee's money was gone. Lee began to change. At first he held onto me tighter and he needed me for emotional support. He was still wonderful towards me. So it was OK, I was well able to provide this even though I'd never received it before. I excelled at boosting Lee up when he needed it. I was his number one fan and cheerleader. I was his sanctuary. Being so sick for so long alone as a child had taught me what to do, in a sense I did for Lee what no one had done for me. I helped him in his efforts to find solutions and I loved him. However, that wasn't enough for Lee. He was broke and suddenly he was holding me and crying his heart out because he couldn't afford to fly his two sons over for the summer. This would be the very first summer ever that he couldn't be with them. Moreover, he didn't have enough money to take care of them while they spent the entire summer with him even if he could fly them over, which he couldn't. He loved his boys so much that it broke my heart to think that he couldn't see them. I got a job and gave Lee all of my money so that he could be with his boys. And I also loved his sons! After the first month Lee stopped being the slightest bit thankful when I brought him my money for the boys. After awhile he expected it as if he were earning it and not me. When I gave it too him it also wasn't enough money. Lee wanted to take his sons out all the time, to amusement parks, buy them expensive toys, dinners out, trips to the mountains with weekends spent at nice hotels, everything. Nothing was too much for Lee's sons. I wanted the boys to have everything too, but I was only earning a little over minimum wage and I couldn't afford what Lee demanded for his sons. Then Lee was filling out the paperwork for his oldest son, 17-years old, to get student scholarships and loans. Suddenly Lee did know how to work the system to get someone who didn't have money through school. I was confused and hurt. Why didn't Lee help me too? However, I wasn't really accustomed to anyone helping me. I was a one-girl show. I had fought to survive the sickness all by myself. I didn't know how badly I was really being treated. I kept working and giving Lee my money. The summer ended and the boys went home to their mom's house. However, Lee still wanted my money to help pay his bills and to send money to the boys for child support. Lee loved me when I did what he thought I was supposed to without complaint. He told me how good I was then. Eventually I became angry though. Lee kept taking from me and he was giving less and less. He wasn't helping me get into the University and he knew how to work the system. I tried to speak to someone at the student loan and financial aid office myself, but as soon as they found out who my father was they told me that there was no way I was eligible. My opportunistic infections continued and began to get worse. I cut down my work hours and some months I didn't work at all. Sometimes I had to take a semester off of school to earn money. I couldn't give Lee the money he wanted for his bills and his boys. I told Lee how angry I was about the way he was expecting me to work and make money for him despite the fact that it was affecting my education. Lee flew into a rage and all of a sudden I was a narcissist, a spoiled rotten rich girl brat, immature, cold, unfeeling, wretched, a mega-bitch. And, according to Lee, I didn't want his boys to have anything because I had had nothing when I was a child. All of a sudden I was labeled insanely jealous of his boys. Somehow, I was a snotty snobby rich girl brat and a child who'd had nothing all at the same time. Moreover, I was also labeled a hypochondriac by Lee even through he'd been through countless opportunistic infections with me. In short, I was the worst of everything that could possibly be bad. I was also labeled as unreasonably high maintenance, lazy and stupid. I still remember Lee hitting me and screaming at me about how STUPID I was, spittle flying out of his mouth, one day because he'd had to move to a cheaper apartment and he couldn't figure out how to plug his alarm clock into the wall. When I plugged the clock in for him, trying to sooth him by softly saying I understood how upset he was and how hard this all was for him, he exploded even more and really pummeled me. He them reiterated how STUPID I WAS. It was me who had used my vehicle and my muscle to help Lee move into that new apartment in the first place. Whenever the subject of the boys came up Lee was even more dangerous. His boys weren't getting what they needed and it was all my fault because I wasn't giving Lee money. When I did give Lee money it wasn't enough, so it was still my fault. Suddenly Lee was beating and raping me. I couldn't leave Lee at first because I couldn't be a worthless tramp again. But now Lee didn't want to get married anymore. Now Lee would sneer at me and say, "I bet your daddy wants to get rid of you real bad. I wonder how much he'd pay me to take you off his hands." I remember Lee driving to my parent's home another afternoon, I was in the passenger's seat, and Lee was driving too fast down the dirt road after a storm. I saw this big awful pot hole in the road in front of us and I said to Lee, "Watch out.. there's a hole," but his car's tired went into the hole anyway. The instant the tire struck the hole Lee's fist snapped out and struck me. The hole was all my fault. He wouldn't have hit the hole if I'd just kept my stupid fat spoiled rich brat mouth shut. Lee liked to hit me and then strangle me too. I tried everything I could think of to prove to Lee that he was wrong about me now and that he'd been right about me the first years of the relationship. I was used to people abusing me and only the Rabbi had ever been a consistently kind and stable male friend to me. Eventually I left Lee and I never regretted leaving him. However, working and going to school had crashed my immune system. My grades started dropping drastically.
Lee's endless insults had scarred me terribly. Lee thought I was worthless and my dad thought I was a failure, a high school drop out that wasn't good enough or dedicated enough to go to the University, and I still carried the damages of the illness on my face. I felt less than. I finally worked a nearly full time graveyard shift job at night plus went to school during the day to prove I was good. My immune system finished its nosedive and I was constantly sick. My grades plummeted downwards too. I was actually failing some of my classes. I was now too sick to keep up, but I continued working and I stayed in school too. I was an impossibly stubborn person and I would force my body to perform, to let me keep up. I had to be bigger and stronger than this illness. I HAD TO WIN. I had to win because I hadn't even gotten into the University yet� Then my dad suddenly permitted me to enroll at the University. So I went to both the Community College and the University except that now I was too sick to make good grades.
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