09/26/2026
Sitting in prison I decided that I did not want to continue the kind of life that I had been leading most of my adult lifehood I spent alone I was not a good man I was a thug gun toting drug dealer and I didn't care about anybody but myself and if you could bring money into my life then okay if I could make money doing it then okay I paid for the the choices that I made nobody forced me to make any of the choices that I did and I am solely responsible for those choices and I have no problem saying that I was not a good person I made a lot of mistakes but I wanted something different I had to have something different because that is what was put on my heart that I was not who I was supposed to be.
> So I prayed for it.
And eventually, someone came into my life who made me believe my prayer had been answered.
She didn't just get my attention. She got through the walls I'd spent my entire life building.
For the first time, I allowed myself to be completely vulnerable with another person. I told her things I'd never told anyone. My fears. My insecurities. My past. The things that hurt me. The things I was ashamed of.
I thought that's what people did when they loved each other.
I thought vulnerability was how two people became closer.
I didn't understand that the same things you tell someone because you trust them can become weapons in the hands of someone who never intended to love you in the first place.
I didn't know what love bombing was.
I didn't know what grooming looked like.
I didn't understand manipulation, gaslighting, or the way someone can slowly make you question your own reality.
And I certainly didn't know that someone could spend years learning everything about you—not because they wanted to understand you, but because they were learning exactly where to hurt you.
That's the part of my story I want people to understand.
I wasn't stupid.
I wasn't weak.
I wasn't some guy who couldn't see what was happening right in front of him.
I simply had no experience with healthy love.
I had spent my entire life learning how to survive.
Nobody had ever taught me how to recognize someone who wanted to destroy me while convincing me they were the person who loved me most.
And that difference cost me years of my life.
It cost me my marriage.
It cost me my business.
It cost me relationships with people I loved.
And, in ways I'm still trying to understand, it cost me a piece of myself.
But that's not where this story ends.
Because I'm finally beginning to understand something I wish somebody had taught me years ago:
Being a good person doesn't mean everyone who tells you they love you deserves your trust.
And being willing to forgive someone doesn't mean you have to keep giving them opportunities to hurt you.
I learned that lesson the hard way.
This is how.