Don’t Walk Away

By Sheila Whalum

Don’t Walk Away is a self-help novel for men and women who want to live their best lives, even in relationships. Single people will determine if they want to take the journey of togetherness in marriage, and married people will decide if they want to continue the journey.

Men and women are totally different in their assessments of their own relationships. Each sees the other differently from how they see themselves. The question is, Why couldn’t the couple stay married after investing so many years of their lives in a marriage they vowed to remain in until death do they part?

Here, you will meet five couples who are on the ride of their lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 2, 2019
• ISBN: 9781984570574

Book preview

Copyright © 2019 by Sheila Whalum.

Library of Congress Control Number:          2018914428

ISBN:              Hardcover                                   978-1-9845-7059-8

                        Softcover                                     978-1-9845-7058-1

                        eBook                                           978-1-9845-7057-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 01/16/2019

Xlibris

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Contents

To Apple With Love

Introduction

Chapter 1   Sincerely, Ann

God Bless the Child That’s Got His Own

Why Are You Hurting Me?

I Am Trying to Help You

I Am Now a Whole Different Person Than I Was

Why Are You Bullying Me?

It’s Not the End of the World

I Am No Use in This Marriage

Happiness Is Being Content with Myself

What Do People Know Me For?

Don’t Place Your Life Outside of Yourself (Prince)

He Had Me Running Around in Fear

Why Don’t You Like Me?

Don’t Give Up on Yourself

Applause Is Like Waves of Love

The Knowledge I Gained Over the Years

Called the Marriage Repairman

Chapter 2   Merry Christmas, Baby!

Staying Alive

He’s My Savior

Doctors, Lawyers, and Preachers—Oh My!

The Whispers

By Nature, Men Love Sex, and Women Love Men

Lace Up

Job Well Done

I Do, I Do

If You Strive for Perfection, You Will Come Close

I Dominate Because I Know Who I Am

Seasons of a Woman

Now or Later

I Am a Diamond

My Swag!

From Loving to Leaving

Chapter 3   Swinging the Wrong Way

What About Your Husband?

Hustle

Swing Low

A Wife or Lover

What Am I To Do?

I Had to Go

Where Are We Going?

You Can’t Get Away from Yourself

It’s Time

I Will Do a New Thing

What’s Love Got to Do with It?

Today It Ends

The Facts

Be True to Yourself

Chapter 4   Up from Here

I’m Winning

Inside of Me

I Got Educated

I Am Keenly Aware

Where Am I Going for the Future?

Spice Up

Drop It, Leave It, and Let It Go

You Crushed My Spirit

You’re Tripping

I Am Slayed but Looking Good

The Longevity of Marriage

I Was Married

How Dare You

Not Business as Usual

Thirty Whole Years

Chapter 5   Goodbye!

He Won’t Stop Looking

New Beginnings

My Promised Land

If That’s What It Takes

The New Porn—Social Media

Go Figure

The Fight

Well, That’s a Wrap!

Beat Your Ass

Where Is the Love?

Turn Me Lose

No Capacity for Love

A Man Has Got to Be a Man

He Used to Be My Guy

Nothing Else to Say

Author’s Note

About The Couples

Epilogue

Acknowledgements of Love

To the man who still treats me as his queen (thirty-six years later),

the one and only Dr. Kenneth T. Whalum Jr.

To my three talented sons,

Kenneth T. Whalum III

Kortland Kirk Whalum

Kameron Timothy Whalum

To my beautiful daughter-in-law,

Crystal Whalum

To my grandchildren,

Kenneth T. Whalum IV and Chandler Christine Whalum

In memory of some amazing and special women,

my mother, Margaret White Lee; my sister, Angela Ladale Lee Farmer; and Dr. Loretta Bobo Mosley

In honor of my mother-in-law,

Mary Helen Whalum Rogers (Ormer)

To my dad,

Willie Peter Lee (Dr. Mel Seymore)

To my siblings,

Kenneth A. Lee, Wanda Lee-Howell (Myron), and Margaret Lee Jackson (Charles)

To the beautiful White, Lee, and Whalum families

To the New Olivet Worship Center at Woodland Hills family

(10000 Woodland Hills, Cordova, Tennessee 38018)

To the married couples of the New Olivet Worship Center at Woodland Hills,

C.A.N.A. (Couples Achieving Newness Again) established 1999

TO APPLE WITH LOVE

T HIS BOOK IS dedicated to my beautiful friend Apple. Apple, the most beautiful and kindest woman I have ever met, became my friend just eight years ago. I knew Apple’s story because she told it to me every time I would see her. She would often tell me the story of how she had put her career on hold for many years to help her husband in his professional career. However, after he had finished all his schooling and training and as soon as she was now able to relax and enjoy the fruit of her labor and live the good life, as she put it, he left her for another woman.

Apple then moved out of the home and went to live down south with her two dogs (Yorkshire terriers). When I would see her after this life-changing event, she still could not get over the fact that her husband did that to her, especially after being married to him over twenty-five years.

I started seeing Apple on a regular basis to make sure she was doing better after the ordeal, and she would tell me the same story over and over and over again. She was so beautiful in every way but was also so very sad in her spirit. She was very sad that she stopped caring about herself. I saw it in her eyes, in her demeanor, in her chipped nail polish, and in every other subtle way. All that I could do was to try to encourage her to see the beauty in herself. I tried to help her realize that she did the right thing to help her husband, even though he later betrayed her.

After I got busy