Who TF Did I Marry, a Cautionary Tale 

The Backstory 

It’s 2020. Reesa Tessa is living in Atlanta and dating online and comes across Facebook Dating - red flag number one because the men I’ve come across on Facebook, honey, run and run fast! But she connects with a man who for the purpose of the story she calls "Legion." In their first phone call, he tells her that he’s a former arena football player who’s moved to Atlanta post-divorce to start over and he asks to take her to dinner. In route to meeting him at The Cheesecake Factory, her tire blows out. Teesa in hindsight realizes this is a sign from God but instead of canceling the date, she calls Legion and he saves the day, shows up to fix her tire, buys a new one, and still takes her on a date.

The first date if you ask me had love bombing on the menu - but again I am not here to judge my good sis. I am just a messenger who did the Lord’s work by watching all 52 parts to recap so you don’t have to. During dinner, he tells Reesa that he wants to be married, have children, and he’s ready to get out of these streets. He’s killing her softly with his words and she feels like she’s finally met the one. This is where things speed up for the worse. COVID lockdown starts and y’all know what they say about pandemic love, it was moving fast honey!

Legion moves into Reesa’s home because he only has a studio apartment despite going on and on about how much money he has. Speaking of money, he appears to be a good man, Savannah. He’s paying all the bills due to a new job where he’s a VP at a condiment company. He is also family-oriented, something they share in common, and he talks to his brother daily. He’s promising our girl Reesa Teesa that he will not only provide, but he will buy them a home, take her to London, get her a luxury vehicle and, in the words of the late great Whitney Houston, be all the man she needs.

She finally has the soft life Black women online have been talking about, she feels like she has the man she’s prayed for. But life comes at them fast and the cracks in the relationship begin to show.

When the "Man of My Dreams" Turns Into "Who TF Did I Marry?"

me when I got to Part 40 of the Who TF Did I Marry series on TikTok: pic.twitter.com/uRjAI9MOdf

— Ron (@ronthacreator) February 18, 2024

A few months in, Reesa gets pregnant and Legion appears to be ecstatic although Reesa, who has grown up with a religious upbringing, didn’t feel confident in being pregnant and living with a man that she wasn't married to. Legion tries to assure Reesa that they will be fine and that he is approved for a $699,000 home and will buy her a house. They begin touring houses too many things are not adding up. He has all this money but he’s living in a studio apartment. He wants to buy her a home but every home they tour when asked for proof of funds he puts up a fight and refuses to show it.

Reesa unfortunately miscarries but is relieved to some extent and discovers that Legion has been lying about the house-hunting process. Determined to see it through, they get married and there is peace in their world for all of two weeks and then all hell starts to break loose. They stop having sex, he starts lying (even more) and she doesn’t know what happened, but she knows something is wrong and wants to get to the bottom of it. Reesa realizes that the lies are not adding up as they’ve toured house after house.

After a conversation with a real estate agent who can sense that something is up and a job application Reesa fills out to go after a new position, she realizes her husband has given her a fake identity. She needs his social security number in order to apply for the job and after some research, she discovers he not only has never been a VP, he has no contact with his family and has not spoken to anyone in years, and he has a criminal record.

She also discovers how many lies he has told. He told her he had only been married once, but found an additional former marriage he kept from her. He told her he lived in California at a point, but never did. He told her he had siblings that never existed, he told her his grandmother died in 2020 but died in 2008, and the brother he spoke to daily did not exist, this man was diabolical. Does she get all the answers she was looking for when she learns the truth? No, but she does discover that Legion is nowhere near a VP but his twin brother in fact is a successful VP who drives a luxury car and lives the life he always dreamed of.

Not only has Legion lied about communion with his family, but she discovers that he has no job, never played football, never lived in California. In the end, Reesa is eventually able to move out of their home, have Legion arrested, get divorced, and start a new life.

The Takeaway

If you’ve watched the series you might have asked yourself multiple times, girl, what TF were you thinking? But there was a moment where Reesa said, “I just thought it was finally my turn” and I realized that Reesa, while she did not fact-check absolutely anything, yearned for love just like many single women. Over 48% of Black women in the United States are unmarried, Reesa Teesa was one of them and she thought this was her chance to leave the single life for good. Did she move too fast? Yes. Did she not she think clearly? Yes. But ask yourself for a moment can you understand that she thought she’d met a man who was the answer to her prayers not knowing he was the narcissist of her nightmares?

One of the main things that you can take from this story is that if something does not feel right, investigate IMMEDIATELY. Keep the people close to you updated when you meet someone new and if the relationship doesn't feel right, leave at the first red flag. Don’t wait for the second, third, or tenth flag - leave at the moment you realize something is off. And lastly, pour into yourself. In a world where we now have women saying healing is a waste of time and you shouldn't take time to learn to love yourself, this is why you need to do the work.

When you learn to love yourself and heal, you tolerate less. You invest in yourself more, and you become a version of yourself that you could have never dreamed of.

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