Up to now

After my divorce, I started going out more.  I met a lot of people and dated plenty.  One mistake I made was getting involved with a taken man.  He was living with someone because she had become pregnant with his child and told me he wanted to “do the right thing” although he did not love her.  How stupid could I be?  Stupid enough to believe him.  He was in and out of my life (my bed?) for nearly four years while still living with this other woman.  Eventually when she became pregnant with a second child, I wised up and moved away.  FAR away.  It is always said, “You can’t run from your problems,” however, there are times when it makes things much easier.  If I couldn’t drive by his house to see his car, if I didn’t run into him out at a club, if I couldn’t leave him notes or contact people who knew him, I had a much better chance of letting his relationship to the mother of his children heal without my wicked interference.  I am not proud of what I have done.  Please know I have much remorse, but I was young and naive and very much in love.

I lived for many years in my self-created exile.  I became engaged to another man and thought eventually the dreams and thoughts of the other would fade over time.  I was wrong.  I destroyed photographs of him, I cut all contact with anyone who knew him so that I might not be reminded of him, but still the dreams came.  I would wake feeling guilty as I looked at my fiance lying next to me, hiding the emotions welling up as I thought about my dream, my lover, my past. 

Things between the fiance and I went from bad to worse.  We fought constantly and I was in a resentful place, often daydreaming that the other would come and rescue me “on his magical, white horse” like some kind of knight.  How ridiculous. 

Anyway, I came back.  I finally came back.  I was visiting family and decided that with things spiralling downward with the fiance, what did I have to lose?  It was my curiosity, and I let it kill the cat.  He was single.  I had to be with him.  I packed everything I owned, ten states away, and drove to be with him without him even knowing I was coming!  SURPRISE!  We were both happy to see each other.  Elated!  We caught up.  We hooked up.  We’ve been together ever since.

You may think it’s a happy ending, but the journey has only begun with this one, and we’re in trouble.

Starting

If you’re interested in a quick history, here it is….

First I was born…. just kidding…. I’m clingy.  I analyze myself and others.  I’m a psychology major, senior year in college.  

My first boyfriend, at 17 years old was the cat’s meow.  I mean, he was the most handsome man I’d ever seen, he was in the Army Reserve, he was funny, he liked to party and best of all, he loved me!  We met my first semester of college and dated 3 wonderful months.  Then, over Christmas vacation, he was killed in a car accident.  I had never told him that I loved him.  I hadn’t even said goodbye.  We left on break with the assumption that we’d see each other the next semester and phhht, he was dead.  That was a slap in the face from the man upstairs, let me tell you. 

I was a virgin until I was 18.  The idea of sex scared me.  When I finally lost it, it was only TO lose it, no other reason.  I was tired of people saying, “OMG!  You’re a VIRGIN!!?”  So I ended that.  It sucked.  It hurt, and the guy was very unsympathetic.  In fact, because I wouldn’t “go again” he kicked me out of his dorm room and refused to acknowledge me in the hallways or around campus ever again.  So… that’s what sex was all about.  *If I want attention, I have to have sex, period, and don’t say no or men will be mean to me.  Got it!*

So the next boyfriend I had, I married.  I didn’t want to take the chance of not saying or doing something and then he’d be gone, either because he was mad that I’d said no to sex one too many times or because he was waffled by an eighteen wheeler.  I also worried that my mom wouldn’t make my wedding if I waited at all, because she had breast cancer.  She died nine months after the wedding.  I wasn’t there for her enough.  I should have visited her in the hospital more; I should have gone to the house more when she first got sick.  I was scared.  Before she got sick, I visited her often and she visited me; we were finally getting past the “you’re a bitch! - no, YOU’re a bitch!!” stage and becoming friends.  I avoid much contact with my family.  I don’t want to deal with it. 

I divorced shortly after mother passed.  My husband was the type to say “why are you crying AGAIN?” etc.  He just didn’t understand how profoundly the death of my mother was affecting me, and didn’t care to help me through things.  We fought too much and occasionally it became violent.  He even told a marriage counselor that he was “on his way to becoming a wife beater.”  I’ll never forget those words, or when he told our therapist that sex with me was like “any other girl, not special at all.” 

That’s life up to my mid 20’s.  I’ll write more later.  Stay tuned.