I Took You For Granted: The Short Stories of Allen Griff’s Double Life

By Johanna Sparrow

I knew my marriage was over after my wife caught me cheating on her again. But the cheating wasn’t the reason I ended our relationship. No, it wasn’t, and I told myself a million times that I would’ve stayed or tried to make things work with her if only she had kept her head on straight, which was all I wanted. But she became unglued. I’ve always seen my wife as a strong black woman never afraid of taking risk. Never one for falling apart, no matter the circumstances or roadblocks ahead. But I’ll tell you, the day I saw her fall apart was the day I saw she was no different than I was, human, and it was also the day I walked away. And now, looking back on it all, I regret it. My name is Allen Griff, and I took the love of my life for granted, and now my life is over.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Johanna Sparrow
• Release date: Jul 6, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463074510

Johanna Sparrow

Antoinette M Watkins writes under the pen name Johanna Sparrow, she has been writing for over 17 years and has published a variety of books from children's books to self-help books dealing with relationship, personal growth and conflict issues. She uses her expertise, knowledge and experience on a system she's created and used over the years dating back as far as 1995 in improving relationship issues, called the (HBCCR)© Heart Bruised Conscious Connection Renewal codes which we either have or don't have inside of us. When she is not writing self help books she writes Novels and Novella under the pen name SPARROW.In 2015 Johanna Sparrow will release for the first time her powerful and inspiring HBCCR system she's created for the rest of the world in hopes that we all can find a common goal or ground within our daily connections. She has researched and studied over the years connections between human to human and human to nature interactions in which she concluded in her research how understanding ones connections and disconnections in life is the essential step code and laws for love, happiness and tragedy, governing and guiding us in becoming life's greatest or worse creation to ever exist.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

I knew my marriage was over after my wife caught me cheating on her again. But the cheating wasn’t the reason I ended our relationship. No, it wasn’t, and I told myself a million times that I would’ve stayed or tried to make things work with her if only she had kept her head on straight, which was all I wanted. But she became unglued. I’ve always seen my wife as a strong black woman never afraid of taking risk. Never one for falling apart, no matter the circumstances or roadblocks ahead. But I’ll tell you, the day I saw her fall apart was the day I saw she was no different than I was, human, and it was also the day I walked away. And now, looking back on it all, I regret it.

Walking in our home after a weekend of fun, without a care in the world and the arrogance to match, I was shocked when I caught my wife of twenty-five years surrounded in a heavy haze of smoke. She’d never smoked in her life, not that I know of, and seeing this was foreign to me. I hated women who smoked, and she knew that. But what surprised me the most was what she was holding to her lips—a Marijuana joint.

In a matter of minutes, I flew into rage, forgetting about my weekend out with the guys. Our master bedroom was filled with smoke. Here she was, sitting in the middle of our bedroom floor, brokenhearted and high like a motherfucker from that Marijuana joint, talking incoherently. Finally, she let her guard down and relaxed. But this was no laughing matter, as I rejoiced in her pain while pretending to be disgusted by her behavior.

She looked up at me and mumble a few words, followed by, "Allen, didn’t we have good days? Were there really runaway emotions within us? Didn’t we communicate, and weren’t we able to get along? Can we still have sex even if we’re distant? I’ve been trying to figure out why we weren’t connecting. How did we lose it, and how can we get it all back? One day, you never know, you may find yourself back where you were the very first time we saw each other—in love. It could’ve happened just as suddenly as you started looking outside the relationship to find someone else to replace me with. You could’ve just looked at me. While looking at one another, we may find that our feelings for each other were never gone, because they floated to the surface of our hearts."

It could be a moment that we both share at the same time to realize I’m back online. I see her again. I see my wife in an attractive way again. See her as a positive person and not the negative monster I tried to make her out to be in my mind to justify my actions against her, the attack that I’m about to go through with. You should pray that I don’t become unfaithful to you, because you wouldn’t be able to handle it like I did. What if someone hurt your feelings, or said mean things, or put pressure on her to leave everything, including you?

I have so much I have to deal with, and you bring this to me, knowing I’m not mentally able to handle it. I don’t won’t to deal with all these emotions at once. This won’t take a few months to fix, and in my heart, I don’t see anything getting resolved this year. I can only see us talking this year and getting to know each other. And next year, talking more and getting to know each other more. I need to see consistency for a few years. I need to see you making time for me, not having any ill feelings or slipping off. I can’t have my intuition hovering over the marriage. When we can get to that place and the emotions come back online for us both, then we can reclaim what was taken for granted—love.

It’s gonna be like this until it’s not, and trying to balance the marriage with our feelings, our thoughts, our desires, and our wants when one person has stepped out, you know is gonna be a challenge. You’re not dealing with the same person. You’re dealing with someone who went out and did certain things and who now has a desire for those things. So trying to keep something structured and healthy becomes a challenge and is no longer a necessity for the person who was done wrong, but it is only for the person who betrayed their partner in the relationship. It’s gonna take some time, some flare ups, some walking away. I didn’t retaliate at first when you did what you did. It’s gonna be like this for I don’t know how long. I’m just beginning to process what’s happened. It’s gonna take some time, and all we can do is just hold on.

"I don’t know what’s gonna happen to us, my dear Allen. I don’t know who ‘ll cross my path in the future. I didn’t know we’d be dealing with infidelity. I thought we were past that, you know. I thought we were passed those years and that the only thing we’d be looking for would be warm days, vacations, time with family and friends, and us bonding with each other. All that has stopped in my mind now. So many things got dropped between you

Reviews for I Took You For Granted

[Catherine Blair · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I really really enjoyed this book. It was well-written. I've been with men like this, men who are unable to love.