When I arrived at the two room cabin/shack, I went into shock.  It wasn’t a house, it was barely a dwelling, and almost uninhabitable.  The floors were painted concrete, and there was dog hair everywhere.  Was this where I supposed to live?  That couldn’t be possible … all kinds of things ran through my mind.  I was facing a man who couldn’t walk, barely talk and, as I later found out, was also impotent.  He had no operable transportation, no microwave, no working refrigerator, and none of the basic creature comforts I’d lived with all of my adult life.  This wasn’t living, it was barely surviving.  I felt as though I’d just stepped into The Twilight Zone.  Surely no one in their right mind could live that way.  I would soon find out that he wasn’t in his right mind.

I tried to settle in.  I tried to be comfortable.  But the environment invited only discomfort and hardship.

When I questioned him about wedding plans, and asked him for wedding money, he had none.  He expected me to pay for my wedding.  There would be no wedding.

My prince had transformed into a disabled and broken toad who lived on a damaged lily pad. And expected me to squeeze onto that lily pad with him.

Still, I dug my heels in and thought I should try to make it work.  After all, he’d just had his stroke 2 years before, and there was hope that he could regain additional body functioning.  Almost every night, I would ask him why he’d misrepresented himself?  Why had every photo displayed a man who looked whole and healthy?  (In fact, I found out later that he was actually using a wheelchair when he took those photos.)  Why brag that you had no problems with sexual functioning in a normal and healthy way? Why not fix your teeth or at least tell me that half of them (or more) were missing?  Why didn’t you tell me that you lived in a two room dwelling?  Why tell me that it was a house that just needed some remodeling?  I demanded all of my moving expenses be reimbursed to me.  I wanted the beautiful wedding ring I’d bought for him returned to me.  He promised me (with my mother as a witness) that he’d give all of my money back to me.

Everything had been a lie.

Still, I held on to the fantasy of a man I’d known 45 years earlier.  It was more important to have true love with a kind, generous, loving man who had a whole heart.  I told myself that I would try to deal with a broken body.

I was going to find out that I was dealing with a controlling, angry, bitter and exploitative man who had no heart or soul.  I was dealing with a man who had out of control narcissistic personality disorder, and only wanted to use, manipulate and control me for his own purposes.  One of those purposes was to get me there.  He’d succeeded in that.  However, unbeknownst to me, he had many plans for me to.  Plans that served only him.