My dad knew I had a melodious voice and the talent to succeed as an artist, so immediately I graduated from the University, he started working on how to make me a star in the music industry through his influence. But I was already seeing Marvin at the time and because he told me he was not comfortable with his girlfriend going into music, I decided to put an end to my studio sessions in order to please him. My dad was distraught when he found out I was putting an end to my journey to stardom just to please my boyfriend. He told me so many times that a man who truly loves me would support me in getting to the peak of my chosen career and not one who will ask me to give it up for him.
"Julia, you can not and will not marry that boy. I do not care if his family owns the universe and he has what it takes to put the world at your feet. As long as he is not going to help you make a name for yourself as the beautiful, young and talented girl that you are, you do not have my blessings to marry him" these were my father's words when I had told him Marvin wanted to come to him for my hand in marriage. But I did not care that my dad was against our union because I loved Marvin so much that I was willing to defy my dad just to be with him, yet it didn't bother Marvin that I was giving up my dream of being an artist just to make him happy.
Well, of course I eventually got to find out in the last days of our marriage that he never had an issue with artists, he only did that because he didn't want me to outshine him. According to him, a woman should not be more popular than the man in her life, instead she should be in his shadow. But despite all these, I stayed because I couldn't imagine my life without him in it. He refused to let me work or do anything meaningful with my life by giving me the assurance that he had everything in the world to make me live a comfortable life and indeed I had everything any woman could ask for. From the latest designer shoes, to the latest bags and clothes, vacations to beautiful places at will and at some point my life was beautiful.
One thing I didn't remember was that I had to live a healthy lifestyle by going to the gym once in a while to keep fit. Slowly I began to add more weight and although he didn't make any comments about my weight gain, I noticed he stopped taking me out to parties and other social functions as he used to. The vacations stopped and even shopping together became a thing of the past. I tried to confront him about these issues that bothered me but he brushed it off as me being paranoid. And then I got pregnant with Miracle; the pregnancy hit me really hard. My face got infested with pimples and acne, my nose tripled in size, I added about ten pounds and I was always tired. For this reason I looked totally different from what I used to be, I was indeed a mess and I couldn't even look at myself in the mirror because I looked horrible.
It was at this time the abuse began and I watched my self esteem take a dive because of this since he always seized every opportunity to remind about how fat and ugly I looked. How he couldn't let anyone see me because I was an embarrassment to him. I would cry myself to sleep every night because of this and he didn't seem to care that his words hurt me. Those were really dark times in my life, the experience was so terrible that I wanted to hurt myself and just end it all but each time I thought about the baby that was growing inside of me, I gave myself the push to go through the pain.