I first met Jay during my junior year in high school. My sister introduced me to him and there was just something about him that I wasn't able to put my finger on but he was a very nice person and was ambitious.

We went to prom that year in 1993 and had a good time. Then we had ended it for a while and then got back together. Then in late 1993 things started to get really serious and he had asked me to marry him.

then after we had graduated from high school he went into the US Navy for four years active duty and that was really hard because he was always gone all the time and we didn't spend that much time together at all because he went out to sea alot.

Being a miltary wife was very hard and believe me I don't know how I did it even!!!! Then I got pregnant with our son Brandon and he was born just in time for my husband to go on his next six month voyage in 1997 and that was very hard too.

I was on my own with our son for six months at that time and it was tough.....then after he had decided to end his active duty career in the navy he transfered to reserves. He liked that alot better and also was working for the orange county sheriffs department at that time in 1998 or 1999.

Around that time his best friend Donnie had comitted suicide and I remember my husband being so crushed and so angry at his friend for what he had done and they were unseperable too... they did everything together....

THAT was when I saw him for his true self and it was ugly, he wasn't the man I thought he was because he started being verbally abusive too me and would punch holes in the wall of the house we were renting in moreno valley,CA. I remember him hitting me a couple times too and being horrible to our little boy also and I remember when he used to yell at me in front of our son and in front of his mother and she thought nothing of it.

I will tell you that around the year 2000-2001 our marriage was going down hill very fast and he never wanted to go to counseling because he figured it was a waste of time and that he was mister know it all and he was very greedy when it came to money!1!!!!! that was all he cared about at the time.

And then he used to accuse me of cheating on him so much that everytime I would ask him about if he ever had he would get so mad at me that he was hiding something.... anyways then he began to keep to himself alot and not even talk to me about anything because he would be doing his over night shifts and I would be working during the day all the time and I remember everytime we would all spend time together we would get into a fight....

He used to call me all kinds of names and get on me about the way I looked as far as my weight and everything else because yes I was over weight big time but the stress that he was putting me under was just making it worse.......

Then things started to fall into place to where we had a talk two months before he had died and we had admitted to each other that we were not as attracted to each other as we were when we first got married.... and we both new that we were drifting apart and that our personalities and everything had changed and the stuff we thought we had in common at the time wasn't there anymore and the spark in the marriage wasn't there anymore........

I knew I was less attracted to him because of the way he was treating me and that is a "big turn off" I knew he had felt the same way too and then no one would ever call me at home because of the type of person he was he would always ask who I was on the phone with and all that stuff and I couldn't live with someone like that.

I was soooo close to taking my son and leaving him and I wanted to do that so bad because of the way he was to me and how he used to force himself on me when he wanted sex and I wasn't in the mood for it..... that was the biggest pain of all!!!!!!!

Then we talked about what was happening and tried for one last time to patch things up and it was going well until that September day when I came home from work and found him dead.....

I have never suffered so much pain like I did that day.Now that it has been a little over a year since his passing I have forgiven him for everthing and for what he had done to us and released him.

Story by: Gwendolyn D. Gutierrez-Rainey
wife of Jay Joseph Rainey
11-30-75 to 09-28-01
GRainey690@aol.com

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