Love Isn't Always the Answer

By Shelley L. Levisay

This extraordinary true story of survival and redemption will leave you feeling empowered and inspired. In Shelley Levisay's heart-wrenching memoir, she recounts her battle against a manipulative and violent partner, and the life-altering consequences of becoming ensnared in his web of crime. Winner of both the 2022 Oklahoma Writers Federation Unpublished Nonfiction Book of the Year and the 2021 WriterCon Memoir of the Year, this book is an empowering story of surviving trauma and finding true happiness. 

 

What's included in this book:

- An inspiring story of overcoming domestic violence and finding joy despite the odds 
- A captivating exploration of how trauma can infiltrate every corner of society 
- A powerful reminder that true happiness can be found without a romantic partner 
- Insightful advice for those currently facing similar experiences 

 

This book also includes Shelley's personal reflections on her coercive relationship, her feelings of guilt and worthlessness, and her journey to finding inner peace. Buy now before the price changes and be inspired by this courageous true story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shawnee Litigator Press
• Release date: Feb 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215758403

Shelley L. Levisay

Shelley L. Levisay is the "Shawnee Litigator" a criminal defense lawyer and writer living in Shawnee, Oklahoma.  She also hosts a true crime podcast covering true crime and victim issues in Oklahoma. She enjoys reading, playing the piano, and singing when she isn't working. She is a furbaby momma to Mayhem, Phantom, Shadow, Buster, and Shelby. 

Book preview

Preface

I wrote this story from my perspective. I did not intend to hurt anyone with my telling of this story, but this is how I felt and what I experienced. I have changed the names of the people in this story to protect their privacy unless they are or were close friends of mine and I knew would not mind. I am writing this to help other people avoid or going through similar experiences to overcome and survive. I will give a trigger warning here in that this could cause secondary trauma for some or bring up trauma in your past. As a professional, you may not like or agree with all of the decisions I made. I made mistakes, but I, like all of us, have fallen short and still feel stupid because of those mistakes. I continue my journey of overcoming and surviving.

Remember, red flags aren't romantic!

Chapter One

Deputies surrounded me as I walked out of the courtroom and started down the steps after a hearing. I need you to come with me. My first thought was, wow, he really did it. I should have believed him . Followed quickly by the thought of Greg was right: the officers were waiting on me. It felt like a jolt of electricity, but also I felt numb. I looked around. Why are there so many of them? Did they think I would run or fight them, or did they all want to see the show?

            I quietly followed them into a room downstairs where they cuffed me in front. The steel felt cold on my skin. I was off-balance as I headed down the stairs outside but refused help from them. The officers led me across the street to drop my files off while one of my clients walked beside me and asked me if I was okay. What a stupid question.

            The taskforce officers told me they were arresting me on a warrant for harboring a fugitive with a $10,000 bond out of another county in Oklahoma. The fugitive was my abusive boyfriend, Matthew. Matthew missed Court on his revocation hearings and had warrants for not appearing, which is why the Court labeled him a fugitive. On December 27, 2017, I told the Court he was in the Veterans Affairs (VA) psychiatric ward in Oklahoma City. The VA released him a couple of days later over the weekend. The following Monday was the recognized New Year's holiday. I reset his court date on Tuesday after consulting his attorney's schedule for the 31st of that month. His bondsman—one of my best friends Bree—didn't pick him up since he had a date to go to Court. Officers arrested him and raided the trailer where he was staying on January 24, 2018.

            Officers placed me in one of the District Attorney fleet vehicles' front seats and drove me to that county jail about fifty minutes away. They showed professional courtesy by taking me

straight to the other jail rather than letting me sit in my county for days waiting on the other county sheriff to pick me up.

            As the driver put his seat belt on, he said, You can call Amber to meet you and post the bond. Everyone knew Amber Van Brunt, another local bail bondsman, was my other best friend. She answered on the first ring. Hey girl, what's up?

            I've just been arrested and going to Cleveland County. It's a $10,000 bond. Can you meet me there to post the bond?

            When will you be there?

            We just started driving there.

            I'm getting in the car now, but I'll call my posting agent to get a head start.

            Thanks.

            A $10,000 bond for an attorney who had never been in trouble was excessive. Why didn't they give me a chance to surrender and take care of it? But I knew why: it would hit the news this way. Later, I learned that the District Attorney wanted to let me turn myself in. Still, the First Assistant, Troy Newman, told them to arrest me at court when his boss left the office. The local taskforce officers investigated and stopped me—not the county where the charges were.

I refused to cry. I texted my mom, and of course, she called me, but I wouldn't talk on the phone because I thought I might cry. Little did I know that my friend and fellow defense lawyer, Carlos Henry, was on his way as well. He tried to get the bond reduced to my recognizance (OR), but that didn't happen. Amber only charged the cost she had to pay to her boss, so only $270 rather than the full $1,000. The drive to the jail took almost an hour. I was inside for about an hour, but time stood still.

            The jailers said, State your name.

            Shelley Lynne Levisay. They photographed me. The news media outlets showed my mug shot all over television and the internet. Then, they fingerprinted me. They didn't make me dress out into any coveralls because my bondsman posted the bond, but they took my shoes and socks and made me wear these plastic sandals. What was I going to do with socks and loafers?

I sat in the lobby alone. Goosebumps covered my arms. I didn't want to touch anything because who knew how many germs lingered. I had nothing to do with my hands. Sitting still was something I struggled with on a good day, but with my heart, blood, and mind racing, it was impossible to sit there with nothing to do. Even now, when I watch television, I am working, writing, or doing something on my phone.

            They released me after I signed all the paperwork and agreed to return within ten days. Amber and Carlos waited in the lobby to support me and to take me home. Amber drove me back, and within minutes of us getting into the car, reporters were already calling my cell phones for a statement. I didn't answer, but Carlos spoke on my behalf as my attorney. The news stations plastered my mug shot next to Matthew's in several stories.

            No one knew what had gone on for the past three years. I have always been a private person. My grandma's refrain played in my head, Now, don't tell anybody. She added this to the tail end of any potentially harmful or embarrassing topic to anyone in the family. Carlos, who referred Hanson to me, knew more than anyone else, but I even sanitized what I told him. I blocked out troubled times and memories.

            Amber drove me back to Shawnee. I held back tears until I made it to my mom's house after the release from jail. Nolan Clay from The Oklahoman newspaper called me on the way back. I sent him to Carlos. People from my church called my mom and me to offer support as

soon as they saw the story on every local news channel that day and the next. Social media trolls and former friends wrote horrible things about me: she used to be smart, and look at her, she couldn't get anyone better. The television news coverage was one-sided and exacerbated all the salacious details.

            The humiliation of the arrest was overwhelming, but so was being wrong about the man I thought I loved. Part of my selfish motivation to stay in the relationship was embarrassment and shame. People I thought were friends cut off any contact with me. I had no one else: I couldn't lose him too. Despite what had been the worst public moment of my life, I knew life wouldn't stop and that I couldn't give up. Despite everything, I had a peace. Even after the arrest hit the news, I defended a client in McClain County the next morning. I knew evil wouldn't prevail. I knew that God was with me and that I would survive.

Chapter Two

Iwas born and raised in Shawnee, a suburb about forty miles east of Oklahoma City. I was born two weeks early and my heart rate plummeted the day I was born, but Mom told the doctors to save me. She had been trying to get pregnant for eleven and a half years. My mom took fertility drugs, which may have contributed to her breast cancer later on, so she considered me her miracle baby. My parents divorced when I was ten. I heard them fight all the time and covered my ears, but many times, my father would just tune Mom out and keep watching his baseball game and not respond to her, which only fueled the fire. He left when I was five for a few weeks and came back promising to never leave again, but he did five days before my tenth birthday.

            He and I never bonded: seems an odd thing to say but it’s true. The only thing I ever really remember doing with him was occasionally playing video games. He would grunt, gripe, and groan if I asked him for a drink of water and send me to Mom if she were home or make me wait until a commercial break. One time when Mom left to go to the store, I became sick and vomited. When Mom got home, she got me a washcloth and asked him why he didn’t help me. His reply was swift. She didn’t ask. He griped that I didn’t want to sit in his lap like the other little girls did with their daddies. I never called him daddy and never wanted to sit on his lap because my spidey-sense went off. He didn’t respect boundaries, and I walked backwards because he would sneak up behind me and grab me or hug me. I would always pretend to be asleep when he came in the room. I could feel a presence, and he would just stare at me. When I would never wake up or respond, he would leave.

            Every night when I said my prayers, the family would come in. One night I went to bed before Mom was home. He told me I was praying for people in the wrong order and that I needed to say Dad, then Mom, then Grandma, etc. He and his mother tried to get me to lie and hide things from Mom. He was a narcissist in every sense of the word. Mom and I were like trophies to him out in public. When they divorced, he attached strings to everything. If you come with me, I can get you this, etc. With him, I did the right and only thing you can do with a narcissist have no contact with him. If only I had done so with Matthew.

            During the divorce proceedings, Judge Gardner ordered him and I to attend counseling. In one of those sessions, he told me that if I didn’t fix this relationship with him, I was going to end up being a lesbian or having problems with men my whole life. It stuck with me and irritated me to no end, and I had a gnawing need to prove him wrong. Later, the same judge order supervised visitation. A counselor that went to our church offered to do the supervised visitation and to cut his rates in half, but his response was, I’m not paying to see my daughter.

            Prior to school, the only kids I ever spent time with were my cousins Jacob and John Michael. I was a lifer at Liberty Academy, a Christian school attached to my church, Liberty Baptist, attending from kindergarten until high school graduation. I graduated as valedictorian with multiple scholarship offers. To be fair, my class had only four girls and eight boys, but I made straight As and took several concurrent college classes. I was most certainly a geek or an academic, competing and winning several interscholastic meets. My classmates and I had grown up together since elementary school. We were more like family than friends, but even at that, I was a loner.

I longed to be popular, but loved my time alone. I played the piano and read for hours on end. I checked out several classics along with every Mary Higgins Clark book from the library in junior high.

            I always related more to adults, and while I had friends, something about the connection wasn't right. I often commented to my mom that people only called me when they needed help with homework. Helping the guys in class stay eligible for basketball and study for tests was how I got attention and made friends. My people-pleasing and doing things in exchange for friendship started early. I often taught math classes when teachers were gone and quizzed my classmates to help them remember the science answers and the math test formulas. I did have one best friend, Meghan starting in junior high. We were close and stayed that way until we drifted apart in college and beyond, but we keep up with each other on Facebook now.

            High school teachers always told me I would flourish in college and to just wait because my social life would take off. I grasped onto that hope. I had academic and music scholarships at Oklahoma Baptist University. Since I was ten, I wanted to do two things: be a lawyer and professional singer or musician. I ended up taking the piano scholarship and double majored in musical arts and political science. While I made more real friends in college, I remained single while most people were engaged before we graduated. It was so common that OBU bison had a term for it, ring by spring and even mocked some woman for coming to get their Mrs. degree. I even joined a women's fraternity, Sigma Alpha Iota. I stayed the night with one girl—something I had never done with anyone but family prior to college. Still, something was missing.

            Socialization came easier for everyone else. One time, I was excited to go two-stepping with a group of fellow music students because it was a club without alcohol. We couldn’t dance on campus at the time. The University followed very conservative Baptist theology, so no alcohol. Nervousness overwhelmed me, compelling me to seek a ride back to campus with a friend. I felt awkward because no one asked me to dance, and the crowd was confining. When we had formals in high school, even if I didn’t have a date, at least my guy friends would dance with me, but not at OBU. I went without a date to the music formal during my sophomore year, and not one guy asked me to dance. I never went to another one.

            Those close friends from college moved away while I was still living in my hometown. I taught piano, worked for my mom, and had little to no social life until I started law school. When I started at the University of Oklahoma, I commuted and knew no one in my year. Fortunately, I made a group of friends in the first week, and we stayed close for all three years. While I did have a core group of close friends, no one asked me out the entire three years. I always embarrassed to be the only single person when I went anywhere with my friends.

            I excelled academically and received Am-Jur Awards (highest grade in the class) in Constitutional Law, Trial Techniques, and Criminal Procedure II. I also earned awards for my editing and oral advocacy, including the Calvert Moot Court Competition outstanding speaker and the high honor of Order of the Barristers. I was even a note editor on American Indian Law Review, but I felt inferior despite the success. Everyone had fun, dated, and married, but those high school teachers' predictions failed: years later, I was still single and lonely.

Chapter