Cocooned in the love of her father Annette Reid had never known or seen a woman being abused by a man. As an immigrant to the United States, she had seen her fair share of trouble but nothing prepared her for the pain she experienced in the hands of the one who had pursued her relentlessly and pledged to love her for eternity. In part one of her story, Annette tells us his progression from lover to loather and from calling her my precious to my property.
Nuggets of wisdom in this episode
References in this episode
Cracked Edges Podcast on Facebook
In Search of Satisfaction by J. California Cooper
Please DM me on Instagram or Facebook @judithobatusa to let me know what you thought of this episode.
If you'll love to share your story on the #MessyCantStopHer podcast, click here to let me know.
Podcast Music Credit: https://indiefy.me/wanted-carter
Join the Messy Can't Stop Her Sisterhood at https://www.facebook.com/groups/3204395256540448/
If you would love to share your story on the #MessyCantStopHer podcast, click here to let me know.
Thank you so much for listening.
Music Credit: https://indiefy.me/wanted-carter
Cocooned in the love of her father Annette Reid had never known or seen a woman being abused by a man. As an immigrant to the United States, she had seen her fair share of trouble but nothing prepared her for the pain she experienced in the hands of the one who had pursued her relentlessly and pledged to love her for eternity. In part one of her story, Annette tells us his progression from lover to loather and from calling her my precious to my property.
Nuggets of wisdom in this episode
References in this episode
Cracked Edges Podcast on Facebook
In Search of Satisfaction by J. California Cooper
Please DM me on Instagram or Facebook @judithobatusa to let me know what you thought of this episode.
If you'll love to share your story on the #MessyCantStopHer podcast, click here to let me know.
Podcast Music Credit: https://indiefy.me/wanted-carter
Join the Messy Can't Stop Her Sisterhood at https://www.facebook.com/groups/3204395256540448/
If you would love to share your story on the #MessyCantStopHer podcast, click here to let me know.
Thank you so much for listening.
Music Credit: https://indiefy.me/wanted-carter
JKO: On today's episode, I'm so so privileged to be with the woman with a great comeback story. Every woman needs to hear this. When you go through the fire and you come out and unscathed, that's the person better than she went in. Her name is Annette Reid, and in our conversation, you're going to learn her come back. Annette, thank you so much for honoring us with your presence today.
Annette: Hi, Judith. Thank you so much for inviting me on your podcast. I am very delighted and excited to be here.
JKO: Annette is the owner of a driving school. How amazing for a woman. My teacher was a woman. She and her husband owned a driving school, and she was an excellent teacher because prior to her, I had a teacher that… I wasn't ready for the test, and I knew I wasn't ready, but he allowed me to go for the test only for me to fail and, of course, disappeared after that. This woman, if you're not ready, she will tell you. And she was very patient. I think there's something about the woman's touch. And when we listen to Annette's story, we'll see how that woman’s touch is translating into business opportunities and business growth. So Annette is also the host of the podcast Cracked Edges, and I'm going to put a link in this episode so you can go check her out and hear her story. And she's a delightful writer, very, very creative. So, Annette, I want you to take us back to that mess. We always talk about the messes, and we've been talking a lot about domestic violence on Messy Can’t Stop Her for a while. And your story is a great example of a woman who didn't let that situation keep her down. Please tell us where you want to start from.
Annette: Where do I start? It's easy to start from the place that I am in right now because I am in such a great place. I am happy. I don't need much right now except money. That's all I need right now. So if I start from here and if people see me in this place, they will think that I've always been in this place. But what you're seeing is the person who has come through a storm, a fire, something that was meant to devastate her, and she, through the grace of God, through holding onto her faith, through having a strong foundation coming from Jamaica, using all of that and her resilience to be in this place where I can smile broadly. And I'm not using my smile to hide pain. I'm smiling because my heart is smiling, my lungs are smiling, my kidneys are smiling. My entire being is smiling because I am so happy. This morning, I was walking down the street and I said, I wish I was dressed differently, like, in my heels and whatever, and I said, to heck with that. So I started walking down the street and I said, this is the walk of a healed woman.
JKO: Awesome. So now you are in this beautiful space and time in life. Take us back to that place that was so impactful to your change, the place of pain, the place of brokenness from whence you came.
Annette: I think I have to go back to tell you where I started, and then you will understand why I ended up there. I was 34 years old and I came to America at 20 years old on my own. And I had a relative living here, but that's a different story. Eventually, the first year in America, I was left curbside in December, and I had nowhere to go at that time. I had to go back to ring the doorbell of where we were briefly staying and asked if I could stay there. And make a long story short on that, I ended up sleeping in a closet right next to the kitchen sink, right next to the refrigerator that was next to the kitchen sink. And moving through New York, I turned 21 here and going through all of that; live in housekeeper, domestic Worker. I used to clean apartments in Manhattan, and I lived-in this Saturday and I cleaned an apartment on Mondays. And I did that for six years. Even when I got my corporate job, I still kept that apartment in Manhattan. I still kept that job in Manhattan because it was easy. And also I saved that money, the money that I saved from that, I bought my first property in Jamaica, which I still have to this day. So it started there, where I moved myself to life. I am figuring out New York, all the trials and the tribulation and the adversity, being hungry. At one time I was homeless. I had my things in storage and somebody broke in there and stole everything I had because I had to have a surgery. And I packed up my things because a relative that moved to New York and I wanted to be close to family. I said, okay, I will pack up my things, have the surgery, then find an apartment close to where she lives. This way I will not feel alone anymore, because I was moving through New York feeling very alone. I would look at the faces of millions of people and did not recognize anybody. So they stole my stuff. But even during that time and I remember it today I went over to the food stamp office to beg them for two weeks worth of food stamps. And they did not give it to me because when I had to bring my bank account from when I lost my job, it said I made $48 over the amount the previous month. And government services are income tested. So I did not get that. And it was right after that they stole my things from the storage place and I had put some insurance on the things that I had, it wasn't enough to cover everything. But because of that insurance that I put on my belongings, I got $900. And that $900 got me off of the relative where I was staying off their sofa because I was not comfortable there, and into an apartment. And I started again, building my life back, looking for a job, doing temp work. And then I found this wonderful job in Manhattan. I was doing so good. I was doing so well. I remember turning 27 and I got a cake because the company was going on a summer picnic on the boat. And I was just happy. I still have a photograph with me and two of my coworkers just beaming. I got two promotions on the job. I was doing just fine. And it was Christmas Eve, 1998. I was home reading a book called In Search of Satisfaction by J. California Cooper. And I was so immersed in the book, I had no intention of going outside or going anywhere. And my girlfriend, who lived on the 6th floor, I lived on the fourth floor, she called and she said, I'm so depressed. I want to get out of this house. And I said, I am in for the night. I'm reading this book. And she said, oh, I just want to get out. And you know how you please your girlfriends? You want to help them out. I put down that book and I went into a party with her that I was invited. And I said to her, I am not getting dressed because I'm going there because I want to get you out of the house. I got to the party that night. We were the only people there with two other people because it was early. And I saw this guy jumping in the corner, dancing. He had a Heineken and he had a radio in his cargo pants pocket. And I didn't think anything about it. I was there for my girlfriend, and so it was time for us to leave. And as I am walking through the door and there are lots of symbols in my story as I am walking out the door, he said to me, Can I have your number? And I said, no. He said, well, here's mine. And I had one foot out the door. I reached back and I took the card from him and I walked out the door and I went home. I didn't think anything of it until six weeks later. I was cleaning my room and I saw the card and I said, I never called this guy. And I picked up the phone and I called him and he said, I was wondering why you didn't call me. And I said, it's nothing. Just that I forgot. And that begins the beginning of someone pursuing me. It was a long pursuit. It was not someone I met that I was interested in. It was the pursuit of him showing me that he's a good guy. I remember someone told me that he was married but separated. And I said to him, Separated is not bad, but you have to be divorced. And he said, I'm about to file my divorce. And he did. He went through his divorce, and then now he was pursuing me more because now he's a divorced guy. Looking back on it, I think he got divorced because he could not get me so easily, right? I think that's what happened, looking back on it now and the pursuit and the stuff he did to want me and to convince me that he's a good guy. And I went to speak to his sister, I called her the nice Jehovah Witness lady. And I said, Your brother once in my life, but I don't know him, because I was moving in a community of people like the cricketers and just a nice community of people that knew him, but I did not know him. So we have mutual friends, but we have never met. And I think that's a part of it, too, that drew me into him, because when I went to two of the guys, they talked so highly about him, and I said, okay, I'm so glad that somebody knows him, but I'm still not interested in being with him. And the things that he did and the pursuit, and gradually I got myself involved with him, but he was such a nice guy. I remember going home to Jamaica to talk to my father. I wanted to go home for the weekend, and he wanted to come, and I said, no, I've never introduced anyone to my father, so I'm going to go by myself. And I got to Jamaica and I spoke to my father, and I told him about him. And my father said to me, I don't think you should get married to this guy. Because my father was always saying to me, what about your life? I don't hear you talking about family. You're always helping other people, doing for other people. What about your life? Get on with your life now. So a part of me, too, wanted him to see that I was making an effort, right. And he knew that the guy that I really wanted to get married to was my high school sweetheart, and I was heartbroken based on what had transpired between us. He was in England. I was in America. And so when I listened to my father, he said, I would prefer that you did not. I prefer you find someone who did not have any children. And I said, okay, Pop. I remember leaving Jamaica and I said, okay, pop. And I walked away thinking that was it. I got back to the United States, and I told him what my father said. I said, I'm going to move on, because my father thinks that's going to be not the right thing for me, and I trust him and I don't know where I lost myself because he was such a nice guy. He was such a nice guy that I started to see the nice guy. And another thing happened was where he lived before was about 45 minutes drive from my house. So I did not know anybody where he's coming from. I did not know about his life, where he's coming from. I live far away from where he's coming from. And I think that's another avenue where you don't have mutual friends who know each other, somebody introduced you, who know just your inner workings about your life, your history, everything. But there was something that was going to connect him to me. After a while, he was just pursuing me and telling me how he would take care of me. And like, I can take care of myself. I want somebody that I can have a family with because I've always wanted a family of my own. And he said he wanted that, too, because he was always working two and three jobs, and he felt like he missed out on a lot with his children. And so one time I was talking to him, and he mentioned that his mother left when he was young and came to the United States, and later on she came for them, which is a story of a lot of women from the Caribbean and other parts of the world. You leave your kids with grandparents, auntie, cousin, whoever, so you can go make a better life, and then you return for your kids. A lot of times they don't return or they return too late when their kids are now adults, teenagers. And so as he's talking to me about that, I remember something inside of me connected to him, because I was sent to live elsewhere by my mother twice. So as he's talking to me about that, I started to feel connected to that. And that is when I let him in. Yeah. I didn't see the stranger anymore. I started to feel something for the guy in front of me.
JKO: I want to ask we say he was very nice. What were some of the things he did that made him nice?
Annette: It was very quiet. The rowdy man that I saw later was not that guy that I met. He was quiet. My father was a very quiet man. He's not here anymore, rest his soul. Pop was very quiet, very calm, very kind, very philosophical, nurturing. So I mistook his silence for being quiet. Now, I know that he was hiding himself, but he was very quiet. If I had something to do, he would be willing to help me with it. Like, if I had to go to the supermarket, he would stop by because I didn't really need a whole lot. I didn't have any children. I didn't have any debt. I was just living life. I went to England a few times, back to Jamaica, wherever I wanted to go. But he was very kind, he was very soft spoken. And we talked about Jamaican life because he felt like he missed a lot by coming here so young. And I would fill him in, and I told him I wanted somebody who lived his life by the guided principles of the church. And he said, oh, I go to church all the time. My grandmother had a church, which she did but when I started going to church with him, I remember saying to him one time, the first person I go to church with, and you don't pick up the Bible. So that was a red flag. But I said it to him because I noticed it, not because I knew anything about red flags. Now red flag is on my consciousness. It wasn't at that time. And another thing he did, we went to Jamaica one time, and he was so kind to my family. I was repairing my mother's house. He was right there with me if we went to the park. He was always kind to other people willing to help. And he's that person. He has some great qualities. He is that person. So I think I started to see that. And I remember the first year when I was going out with him, I helped him to move up on his job because I saw opportunities. He was working for the city as an engineer, and I said, there are so many opportunities. I did his resume, I did his cover letter, and he did the exam, and he moved up. And at the end of the year, before Christmas, I baked a cake. I mean, I'm not a baker, but I baked a cake, I cooked some chicken, I cooked some food. And I said, Take this to your office and share it with your workers. I said, when you are a supervisor and you have workers, it's nice to be kind to them. And he was very appreciative. He’ll always say, thank you, thank you, thank you. He was so appreciative of my kindness. So all those characteristics, non aggressive at the time, just was not loud,
JKO: like gentle. He was kind to you.
Annette: That part the kindness. And it reminded me of my father.
JKO: So when you went to Jamaica after you had been dating for a while and that kind of, did it change the way your daddy felt?
Annette: It took years. My father is the kind of person that does not say a whole lot, but he observes. And I would tell him I said, Poppy seems okay. I love the kids. I love kids. I didn't think I would be a step mom, but I love them kids. He has beautiful children. They would come around, and not often, but whenever they did, I cook for them. And they're beautiful children. I have nothing bad to say about the kids. But my father, it took years when we went to Jamaica one day and we were already married. And he took my father to the fountain, to the mineral bath. And when my father got back, he put his hand on my shoulder and he said, I think you're in good hands. Yeah. I thought, okay,
JKO: He was charming. It was very charming. Very charming. Yeah. Very likable, very charming. They understand humans. They understand the way people think.
Annette: He saw my vulnerabilities.
JKO: Yes. This white man's land. And you had nobody, really. This was the first time of having your own person?
Annette: Yeah, it was the first time I was going to build something with someone. Like, if I was in a space where now I wanted to build before I dated and went to dinner and did all these other things, but now I wanted to build something, I saw where I could build an empire with him. And he's very hard working. That's another thing. He's a hard working guy. Take nothing from him. Very hard working. So I thought, okay, this is where we are going to build this empire. The thing also that he saw in me was I worked in Manhattan, so I was not privy to a lot of what was going on in his life, because my life was happy in and moving in the direction that I wanted it to go. I was growing as a person. I was growing as a person, and things were happening for me. And like I said, I got a promotion at work, and then I went over to work for another company. So I was in a great place where I was planted to grow. So I did not see that I didn't spend as much time as I think that I should with him or should have in the beginning, because our lives were, like, so different. He worked night, I work days.
JKO: Yeah. So when did it change? So how long after the marriage did you begin to see differences?
Annette: I started to see something before the marriage. He asked me to marry him about a year and a half before I actually did, because something inside of me was saying, I don't know if I want to get married to him. It was just a thing inside of me. And I would think it's probably me having cold feet, not wanting to be married, not sure. So there was something inside of me. And then I said to him, I noticed that he lacked boundaries. I went to dinner with him and his family, and I do not eat beef. I don't like beef. I don't like the texture of it. I just don't like it. I don't care how it is. Grass fed, corn fed, champagne fed, caviar fed. I do not like beef. And we went out to dinner. This is before I got married to him. And we are ordering with his family. And I ordered the chicken, he ordered the steak. And he turned to me and he said to me, when our meal arrives, he turned to me and he said to me, would you like a piece of the steak? And I said, no. And he cut it anyway and put it on my plate. And his sister said, she told you she does not want it. So he picked it up and put it back on his plate. But for me, something about that was not right, because I was very clear that I do not want that, and so there are other little things like that. So I said to him, I cannot marry you because you lack boundaries. I said, you seem to lack boundaries, and that's an issue for me. I said, if you work on that, then I will think about that. And at the time, I was seeing a therapist, not because I was going through a painful time. I got myself to a place because I've gone to therapy before, and I'm a proponent of going to therapy. And I wanted to go back to college and finish my degree. And I walked into this therapist office, and she said, “Why are you here?” And I said, I noticed something about me. I will drop whatever I have to do for myself and pick up what someone else wants me to do for them. And she said, what do you want to do for yourself? And I said, I want to go and finish that degree. Then I started in Jamaica and saw my pay to pay that last semester. I went, but couldn't afford it after that. I said, I want to go back and finish what I started. And she said, what's stopping you? And I said, Nothing. And I walked out of her office that day and went straight up to the college, to the admissions office. And that is where I got my degree and graduated with honors. So he saw me one day walking out the door, and he said, Where are you going? And I said, there's a therapist that I go to. I think you should come see her. You need somebody to help you with your boundaries. And he said, okay. And he came. So I gave up my session to him. I was there, but I gave up my session to him. And I remember when he left there, he was so angry. And I said, “Why are you so angry? She's only helping you with your boundaries.” It was one time I heard him speak to his ex-wife, and it was disrespectful. And I said to him, you don't get to treat her that ugly in my presence, because if you do that, my turn will come. And so he left the therapist office that day very angry. And I couldn't understand why because she hadn't done anything. She just helped him to say, on these days, she called you an emergency. On this day, she can call you anytime, right? To try and set some boundaries so that there would be some kind of harmony in what they were doing with their children. Because I grew up as stepchild, I did not want to see children in the middle of two people bickering. Those are the things that I saw. But I did not know that he was waiting for me to be married to unleash.
JKO: So how long did you date?
Annette: It was less than a year. Less than a year? Less than a year? Yeah, less than a year.
JKO: So he asked you to marry him the first time, not long after he met you?
Annette: Yeah, when I met him, he asked me, I said, “Are you seeing anyone?” And I said, “no, but there's a guy that I'm interested in.” So I look back on it now and I realized that he did not want me to go to that person. That's why he was in such a hurry to hold me down. Or in Jamaica, we say, tie you down. Right. It was in such a hurry. But I was so nice to all of that, because I am not in the playing the game business and being dishonest and manipulating people. So I did not see that. I look back on it now and I said I did say that to him. Right. I guess whatever he had to do and to show me that he's a good guy and rushing me into marriage. And I would say, no, I don't want to get married. I'm not sure I want to right now. I want to have a family, and I want to do that.
JKO: What were the changes? How did it start after you got married? Was it immediately got married? Did he give you any honeymoon period at all or he just went right into it?
Annette: The thing is that we bought a house before we got married, and we had moved into the new house and we renovated it and we picked it up. It was beautiful. Not this house, the other one that we lived in. And so when I got married yeah, this is another thing that I look back on when we were getting married. I did not want a big wedding. I've never decided a big wedding. I'm not a girl who dream about a wedding. I dream about the person that I'm going to be married to or how am I going to be treated? And my father was not here in America. My mother was not here. So it felt like I did not want that. So I said to him, let's go away on vacation, get married on the beach. Because I grew up on the beach in Jamaica. I love the beach. Not here, but back home. And he was just like he took over the wedding because his mom did not go to his first wedding. Right. She had some problem with the bride to be, and she did not. So I think he wanted to please his mother so much, and they had not spoken in five years. And I said to him, I don't go out with guys who don't have a healthy relationship with their mother. But they did not fight or argue, just that they kept their distance. And so for me, it was important that he got back in with his mother. And so I think that drove him to be so dogmatic about this wedding, had to go the way that he wanted it. And we had started arguing over it because I was like, Whatever I want doesn't count. So I said to him, okay, then, since you want this wedding, I'll give it to you.
JKO: You had a groomzilla on your hands.
Annette: Yeah. And I said to him, you'll get the wedding that you want, and when I turn 40, you support me in giving me the party that I want. And that's how we did it. He got the wedding that I want. I did not spend a great deal. My dress looked great, but I had it done in Chinatown from a seamstress, because I was not going to spend thousands of dollars in a dress. And I looked fabulous. I look great. I was a great looking bride. So if I look back, I can look back on those things and see that they were red flags. But for me, I was looking more at the stress that it was stressful. He wants it like that. I am different. Maybe I always see myself as different. So I said, okay, fine. But that was that. And then after the wedding, one day, he called me an Effing moron. And that's when I knew something shifted. After we got married, it cost me an effing moron. And I looked up at him and I said, you don't get to call me out of my name. And I went to Jamaica, and I pulled my father aside, and I told him, and I remember my father raised his voice, and he said, that cannot work. That cannot work. And we stopped talking because he was walking from my house down to my father's house, and we stopped talking. But I wish I could have continued having the conversation with my father, because that was the beginning of something. It's like the dam opened up a little bit. There was more to come, but I had no idea that there was more to come.
JKO: So it started with words, verbal abuse. And then he moved into other things, just because for people who are listening, we talk a lot about types of abuse and all of that. and many times, abuse doesn't come. It comes in more than one type. You don't just get just one type. They beat me. Now, there are lots of other things that happen. So now you started with the dam opened tiny with words. Just tell us a little bit about that.
Annette: Well, it started with that, and then I had an incident one night where I was sleeping, and. I don't talk about this part much because I started to gradually feel ashamed of what I put myself in. So I was trying to fix it. I started to feel shame, like, this is not how I want to live my life. This is not me. How did I get pulled in here? And so one night I was sleeping. We were in the house that we bought and I was always afraid to be there by myself sometimes, because you hear noises at night, and the floor creaked and this sound. And so one night I was sleeping in the room in the middle because it was a two bedroom. And he came in and instead of waking me up, he was over me, just over me, like, in a sexual way. And I jumped up out of my sleep in the dark. I thought it was somebody broke into the house and I jumped up and I flung myself off the bed. And then he said something and I heard his voice and I thought, oh, my God. But I ran downstairs. I ran downstairs and I ran down the top level, down to the bottom level, down to the basement, and I locked myself in the bathroom and he used his elbow and he busted the door. So I went from sleeping to thinking somebody broke in, to it was him. And he grabbed me and I was resisting him. So I'm on my knees resisting him, and he dragged me on my knees until I got up. And I said, “what are you doing?” I said, “Why are you doing this?” Because I am scared. Because I have never experienced this from him. And he had me and went back up the stairs because he's dragging me on my knee. So I got up. I was very small. I was like, 100. And when I got married to him, I was 118-120 lbs, I was tiny. And I got upstairs and he threw me on the bed and he said, “I can rape you if I want to. You don't understand, you’re property now.”
JKO: Just like that.
Annette: Just like that. And he just let go and went into the other room. And then I heard him snoring and I knew I was in trouble. I didn't know what to do. I was there in the bed thinking, what was that?