Real Love

Closing

Introduction

I’ve wanted to write a book like this for sometime now. I hate the fact that we have to come in as an expert to be respected in my industry. I’ve always just wanted to be a regular person with a real story. I believe that it’s our stories that really do the teaching, not our book knowledge. In this book I want to be real with you. I want to share my journey to real love. I mean REAL LOVE! I’m not talking about that fight every day type of love. I’m not talking about that break up to make up love. I’m not talking about that hate them to love them type of love. I’m talking about real love. The love where your spouse is your best friend and the only time you argue is because you just got bored and both of you know that you’re just having an attitude that day for no real reason. I’m talking about the love where you go to bed happy and you wake up happy. It’s peaceful. I honestly didn’t think it was possible. I didn’t think I would ever get there or that I would ever know what it is. I look around me and I don’t see it in many couples. It hurts to be in a world where true peace and happiness are so rare. I listen to other people’s relationship issues every day as a professional life coach and it hurts me to know that some people may never experience real love in their lives, other than the love they give themselves.

My relationships haven’t always read like a fairy tale. I once was a grown-boy, in my opinion. I was ruthless in love and relationships. I was a devil disguised as an angel. A lot of times we see a person as a finished product and we don’t know their process. You see me now but you don’t know where I come from and how much I’ve been through. I made so many mistakes but I was able to finally get it right. The truth in that gives me hope that anyone can turn the corner, anyone can get it right if they really want to. I want to share my story with you in the hopes that you can make the changes I made or you can be the one who influences the changes like my wife did for me. We actually influenced one another. I give her a lot of praise but she’s human just like the rest of us. We just allowed God to use us to make one another better. We both had faults and we still do. We just know how to manage them better now. I don’t think any of us will ever be able to write every detail of our whole lives, and I don’t think we should. Only God can truly judge us and I think He is the only one who can handle our whole truth. I want to give you my truth today. This is my love story. This is my love decree. I feel strong in my love. I believe that my wife will be my wife until the day I die. I feel like the games and big mistakes are all behind me. I feel like a grown man today. I feel like I am love, love is in me, love is all around me, and I’ll always have this real love. I hope my story can help you on your journey if you haven’t already found real love.

CHAPTER 1

Why Do We Love Wrong?

As a child I grew up around toxic relationships. My entire family was a toxic relationship; it’s just our truth. The majority of my friends’ families were all in toxic relationships. It was just all around us. There would be one couple here or there that seemed to have it right but I didn’t live in their home so I don’t know what went on behind closed doors. You never know what goes on behind closed doors.

My mother and father had an average relationship. In many eyes they were above average. They were married for over 20 years. We were always together as a family. My parents never missed a game. That doesn’t mean everything was perfect. My father lost his mother at a very young age. He lost his father at a young age also. He had 11 older siblings. My mother lost her father at a young age. She also had 11 older siblings. They both came from humble beginnings: hardworking families just trying to get by.

It’s always been said that love doesn’t pay bills. In a household we seek order. We try to find balance. We do the best we know how. After all, the history of the black race in America isn’t one that was designed for peace and happiness in the home. We were kind of wired to just come together to reproduce but not really to love, cherish, and respect. I saw at an early age that was the majority of black families. I saw other races going through divorces and things too, but all I could try to understand at that time was my own race and our issues.

I would see my mother and father argue a lot in my early years. My mother was a fireball and my dad was an enforcer. They got better over the years but I later found out that it wasn’t because of maturity. It was because they were growing apart. I saw a lot of things in my home that I couldn’t decipher as a child. I didn’t know that it was toxic. I thought it was normal. I didn’t know that yelling and screaming and arguing for hours wasn’t normal. I thought that was normal. I can’t remember what they would be arguing about. I saw physical altercations, but I couldn’t tell usually who was the initial aggressor. I never saw my dad hit my mom or vice versa. They would lock up with another and my mom would always yell that they were just playing. OK, yeah mom. I realized later that what they were going through was normal in the grand scheme of things, but it’s not what love was intended to be. I never saw a black eye, busted lip, bruises, cuts, broken bones, police, or anything that we would consider a real fight. It was just loud and could get pushy at times. But as a child that confused me.

I had both of my parents in the home for the 18 years I lived there. After about the age of 8 or 9 I didn’t see anymore physical altercations with them bear-hugging or wrestling or whatever it was they were doing. And no, it wasn’t sex. I know the difference. So my home became more peaceful as my parents got older. They relaxed and began to grow up. My parents had me when my mom was 20 and my dad was 21. Coming from where they came from, they didn’t have much of a clue what they were doing at that young age. They were doing what they knew how to do and emulated what they saw growing up, and obviously they didn’t have the best examples.

My dad’s parents both died before I was born. My mom’s dad passed either right after I was born or right before — I don’t remember how the story goes. I spent a lot of time at my grandmother’s house. She would tell me stories of the fights she would have with her ex-husbands. I believe she had like three or four husbands or something in that ballpark. She had 12 children total that I remember. All of them were alive while I was growing up, except one. My grandmother’s stories would involve her throwing hot grease, hot water, or hot grits at her man. One time she said she bit a man’s finger off when he put his finger in her face during an argument. I remember that story, but honestly I can’t remember if she said she did that or her mother did that to her father. As you can see there were toxic relationships all around me. Now being an adult I realize that many people have similar stories and we all get together and we continue being toxic.

While at my grandmother’s house I would see different family members come over with their significant others. I would also see neighborhood friends come over with their significant others. One time a lady walked up with my aunt, and half of the lady’s face had a lot of light spots on it. I asked my aunt what happened and she said that the lady had hot grease thrown in her face during an argument. I can’t fully remember if my aunt did that to her or if someone else did that to her, but that was etched in my memory as another thing that happens in relationships.

Another time while at my grandmother’s house one of my aunts came into the yard and she was walking hunched over, holding her side. My grandmother asked her what happened and she said that her boyfriend had broken three of her ribs. I took another mental note that this is something that happens in relationships.

In another case, I saw one of my older cousins who had gotten married come over to my grandmother’s house, and she had a black eye. When asked what happened, it came out that her new husband had punched her in the eye. It was a really bad black eye. I took another mental note that this is something that happens in relationships.

In another instance at my grandmother’s house I met one of my aunts for the first time. She had swollen lips and swollen eye sockets. I felt so bad for her. I found out later that it came from consistent domestic abuse. I was under the impression that a boyfriend she once had beat her so bad that her orbital bones and her lips never returned to their original form. She also had a finger that was permanently disfigured because it had been broken. I’m not sure how any of these things happened to her because I never asked her. I took another mental note that this is something that happens in relationships.

Outside of my own family I noticed that none of my friends except one had two biological parents in the home. That sent a message to me that all relationships end in divorce. Ironically, my parents eventually got divorced too.

I remember hearing that certain pastors we knew were cheating on their wives and one pastor was caught having sex with a woman in his office on the desk. That etched into my mind that even men of God couldn’t get it right.

I didn’t really look at any of these things like they would hinder my love life. I didn’t think that they were shaping my ideas and beliefs around love as I saw them unfold before my very eyes. But I saw these things and I remember them to this day, which is evidence that it can mold and shape us if we aren’t conscious of it.

All of the elders around me were teaching me how to love. It was so confusing but I tried to experience it as if it were normal, but something in me knew something was off. I don’t think I’m the only person in America who saw stuff like this. There were other confusing things that I saw growing up.

At a very young age I found out that some of my aunts and female cousins dated women. I didn’t understand that, especially because they all had kids already. Back then the "I