In the fall of 1993, Jenn met a man who changed her mind about being single. Randy Peters. He was just adorable. He made her feel so special. She never understood what he saw in her, but he seemed to be crazy about her. He was just five inches taller than her 5’3″ frame. He had short dark hair that tended to want to curl if not kept cut. He had the most beautiful brown eyes. He was kind of a little guy. He had plenty of muscles, but wasn’t bulky. He even liked Keith and his music. He accepted their friendship. In December of that year, Randy proposed. Since Jenn had just started nursing school, they decided to wait till she got out of school to be married.
Over that time, Randy developed some jealousy issues with Keith. He eventually got over them when Jenn broke their engagement. She had told Keith that she wasn’t going to be married to a jealous asshole. She had never done anything to make him, or anyone else for that matter, think she would be unfaithful or undeserving of his trust. She refused to put up with it. Keith tried to support her as much as he could, but he was having his own struggles.
He had some amount of success in Australia with his debut album, but he was struggling to make it in the States. He was having a hard time coping. And Sara was now gone. He had always thought that if he was ever not with Sara, he would ask Jenn out. But now she was engaged and trying to start her own life.
Eventually, Jenn and Randy got married. Things were great for the first year or two. But then things started to go downhill. Randy got into bicycling. Serious bicycling. Jenn was spending every penny she earned on either bicycles or bicycle parts. She was working lots of overtime. Even their vacations revolved around going some place that Randy could ride. It wasn’t as though Jenn didn’t like to ride her bike too. It was just that between four 12 hour shifts a week at work and trying to keep their house somewhat presentable, she was just too tired to ride the 30 and 40 miles he wanted to ride. She wanted to read or sleep when she got off work and had spare time. Randy would get irritated when she would gain a few pounds. It wasn’t that she would show the weight, but he would ask her how much she weighed and if it had gone up, he would fuss at her for getting fat. He was perpetually on her case about her weight, her eating habits and her lack of exercise.
Keith’s life was getting out of control. He was starting to use unhealthy things to help him cope with not making it in the music business. He tried to hide it from Jenn, but she eventually found out. She was the last person he drove away before he checked himself into a rehab in 1998. He fell back into using cocaine shortly after getting out.
Jenn pretty much told him to go figure out what he wanted from life and to go after it. He did just that. He went back to rehab and cleaned himself up. In 1999, he released his first U.S. album. He had his first #1 hit in February 2001 with the song “But for The Grace of God.”
Now that his career was doing well, he wanted to help Jenn. She had become so unhappily married. Randy was depressed and unpredictable. She was constantly worried that he was going to quit his job.
In 2001, Jenn looked at becoming a travel nurse, to earn extra money. It would work if they could sell their house and Randy just do side work. He was an air conditioning/heating repair person and had lots of job opportunities. But he hated the job. She thought that if he could just quit and ride the bike, he might be happy.
He wouldn’t agree to quit his job. She couldn’t understand. He was so unhappy, yet he wouldn’t let her help him. He was upset that they couldn’t have children. Jenn had some health problems and none of her doctors wanted her to try to endure pregnancy. Randy wouldn’t even consider adoption. His moods were getting more and more erratic. He had even gotten violent a few times. He had broken a window and some of the doors in the house, kicked a hole in a wall . . . Jenn was scared. Still she convinced herself that she should stay with him since he hadn’t actually tried to hurt her in any way.