We eventually made it to Albuquerque.

I don’t remember much about that time, which feels telling. Trauma has a way of editing for brevity. What I do remember is learning how to spell ALBUQUERQUE, which feels like something I should get a merit badge for. Possibly a patch.

What I didn’t realize at first was that we had quietly entered a new phase of the marriage:
The Rules Phase.

No one announced it. There was no handbook. The rules just… appeared.

Rule One: I was not allowed to look for a job.

Rule Two: I was not allowed to make friends unless he approved them first – people in the ward would be acceptable, wives of enlisted men were off limits.
Rule Three: I was not allowed to have the mail key, gathering the mail and packages was HIS ALONE to do.
Rule Four: I was not allowed to call anyone unless he was there, and he checked my phone every day to make sure I wasn’t secretly calling my family. He argued it was because he didn’t want to miss out on any conversations.

This was framed not as control, but as concern.

I did have to call my brother Alan once, because I had a question. The news kept referring to “the C word,” and I genuinely didn’t know what that meant. Alan paused, sighed deeply, and said, “I can’t tell my sister that. That’s like stepping on a puppy.”

He did eventually explain. He’s a good brother. And he always did know the good vocabulary words.

There’s one moment from that time that comes back to me a lot.

My car died in the middle of an intersection. Not pulled over. Not limping into a parking lot. Dead. Right there. Directly in front of the Air Force base.

Perfect.

I popped the car into neutral, left the driver’s side door open, and started pushing.

By myself.

I was steering with one hand, pushing with the other, trying to angle a full-sized car through an intersection so I wouldn’t block traffic. I remember thinking very clearly, Don’t cry. Crying will slow you down.

And here’s the part that stuck with me.

I wasn’t alone.

There were people everywhere. Cars all around me. Men in uniform. Men in BDUs. Men walking down the sidewalk. Men literally manning the gate of the base I was broken down in front of.

Not one of them moved.

No jog.
No wave.
No “Hey, you need a hand?”
Not even a half-hearted “Yikes.”

Nothing.

They drove around me. They watched. They waited for me to finish clearing the intersection like it was a performance art piece titled Woman Handles Her Own Emergency.

So I did. I pushed my car out of traffic. Alone. Sweating. Shaking. Weirdly calm.

And when I finally got it out of the way, I just stood there for a second with my hands on my knees, catching my breath.

No applause.
No assistance.
No rescue.

Just me.

At the time, I didn’t think, This is symbolic.

I thought, Okay. Guess this is how it works. I’m on my own now.

I still didn’t have access to TJ’s bank account, but he would give me money to grocery shop—an allowance, though we did not call it that, because allowances are for children, and I was a wife. A distinction without a difference.

One day I tried to make my Aunt Norma’s sukiyaki recipe. The original recipe could feed an invading army, so I halved it. Except I forgot to halve the sherry.

The meal did not sufficiently resemble something his mother made, so he refused to even taste it.

Which meant I ate the entire massive bowl myself…which made me feel warm and happy inside.
(This was 100% the sherry. Zero regrets.)

Once, he gave me extra money to buy clothes. He said he wanted me to get bright colors because I wasn’t as fun as I used to be.

Yes. A yellow sweater would fix systemic despair.

I adopted a cat. We named her Loki. She was a gray tuxedo and she hated me. Actively. Passionately.

So, I got another cat. For morale. I named him Albert. Albert loved me so much he tried to nurse on my earlobe. He drooled constantly.

My husband appeared to resent my existence. One cat agreed. The other was… overly invested.
Between the three of them, the emotional math seemed to work out.

We went to Moab one weekend because Jason’s wife, Estela, was running a marathon there. One morning we all went hiking, and while the rest of us were chatting, TJ carved his initials into the rock near petroglyphs. And then proudly dragged me over to show me. Like a child who had just drawn on a museum wall with a Sharpie.

I should have reported him to the authorities.
Instead, we went to get pizza.

The pizza order was discussed at length. No onions. No green peppers. No mushrooms on his half. The waiter messed up and brought a pizza with ONLY mushrooms on one half—and charged extra.

Everyone laughed.

Everyone except TJ, who sulked like a man personally betrayed by fungi.

Back in Albuquerque, I said I missed swing dancing. As a “special treat,” he took me dancing.

It was country swing.

He knew that was not what I meant.

I think he expected me to flail. He did not know about my time as a hostage at Ricks College, where I had been forcibly honky-tonked into competence. I knew the steps. The songs. The line dances. I was relaxed and having fun.

He was furious.

Mid-dance, he announced he was going to do a lift. I said no. He insisted. And whether he didn’t know what he was doing, or he knew exactly what he was doing, he grabbed me wrong, twisted, and wrenched my back. The pain was instant. I gasped. He finally stopped twirling.

And then he declared that my injury proved I didn’t actually know how to dance and that I should never complain about missing it again.

Problem solved.

Meanwhile, the church remained deeply unhelpful. My calling as TJ’s personal Morality Compliance Officer continued. He was careful about deleting his browser history—until he wasn’t.

What I found required spiritual bleach. Possibly fire. Definitely a hazmat suit.

I also discovered he had an active dating profile:
FlyGuy8168
Location: Albuquerque

Because nothing says “eternal marriage” like marketing yourself to strangers in the desert.

I went to the bishop. Miserable. Confused. But hopeful he would provide guidance.

The verdict: this was my fault. I wasn’t “meeting his needs.”

This was fascinating, because he hadn’t touched me in months. I could have paraded through the house wearing the handmade lingerie his mother made and he still would have just asked me to grab him a Dr. Pepper.

I was there to cook (albeit badly).
I was there to clean.
I was there to smile in public and make him look functional.

We were there six months. Six months of shrinking. Six months of rules that were never written down but always enforced.

And then he got his next posting.

Valdosta, Georgia.