I will never, as long as I live, forget the day of IDM's wedding. And in talking with him, he will never forget it either. As his bride was walking down the isle I was the only person in the church not looking at her. I was too busy looking at him. Hoping against all hope that he would change his mind, tell her he couldn't marry her and bolt for the back of the church.
He said he remembers me looking at him. He's supposed to be watching is new wife walk down the isle and there he is looking at me as I'm looking at him. He says I was giving him a death look, I think I was just signaling the end of life as he knew it.
I remember telling someone that it was the most loveless marriage I had ever been to. Their toasts at their reception were I always knew they'd get married. Nothing about how much they loved each other, nothing about how they were destined to be together.
She wanted to be married before the baby so the wedding was rushed and I just remember thinking that will never be my day. And ya know what, it wasn't. My wedding was fancy and overblown and took a year and a half to plan and while they are just as miserable as DH and I were they are still married and we are not.
So, I guess in a way, neither one of us seemed to have succeeded.
Saturday, September 12, 1998
Monday, August 17, 1998
Engagement
Sometime in the summer of 1998 my parents got a phone call I will NEVER forget. Someone called to tell them that IDM was engaged. I remember them telling me like it was no big deal. They had no idea that somewhere, in the back of my mind, I kept hoping he was my way out.
When they told me that my heart just SANK. I remember going to my room and crying and crying. I could not figure out why he would marry her if he had just been broken up with her a few months earlier. It was a few more months before I found out she was pregnant.
Part of me gave up the day I found out he was getting married. There was a part of me that just stopped fighting, stopped raging against what I hated in my relationship and just accepted that was my life and that was what it was always going to be.
18 years old and I felt like there would be no one else out there worth looking for so I gave up. Is it possible to go back in time and shake your former self??
When they told me that my heart just SANK. I remember going to my room and crying and crying. I could not figure out why he would marry her if he had just been broken up with her a few months earlier. It was a few more months before I found out she was pregnant.
Part of me gave up the day I found out he was getting married. There was a part of me that just stopped fighting, stopped raging against what I hated in my relationship and just accepted that was my life and that was what it was always going to be.
18 years old and I felt like there would be no one else out there worth looking for so I gave up. Is it possible to go back in time and shake your former self??
Saturday, August 15, 1998
25th Anniversary Party
My parents celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary on August 4, 1998 and in honor of that they decided to renew their vows and have a very large party. The date of that party was August 15, 1998. DH came to the party and about an hour into the party he told me that he had a movie that he had to return to the movie story.
His excuse was that his mom would be mad if they had a late fee and so he had to drive the movie back but he would be quick and be back right away. An hour later he was still not back and I was in my parents office trying to call him. Over and over and over trying to call his parents house and other numbers I had for him.
He didn't have a cell phone at the time so I was just trying to call anyone I thought of where he might have stopped. Two hours later he finally called me from a pay phone. He had been pulled over for speeding and he had gotten a ticket for no insurance along with the speeding ticket and just for good measure they had towed his car.
I spent two hours of my parents party in the office next to the phone and another hour gone because I had to be the one to leave the party and go get him.
I'm thinking the late movie fee would have been cheaper.....
His excuse was that his mom would be mad if they had a late fee and so he had to drive the movie back but he would be quick and be back right away. An hour later he was still not back and I was in my parents office trying to call him. Over and over and over trying to call his parents house and other numbers I had for him.
He didn't have a cell phone at the time so I was just trying to call anyone I thought of where he might have stopped. Two hours later he finally called me from a pay phone. He had been pulled over for speeding and he had gotten a ticket for no insurance along with the speeding ticket and just for good measure they had towed his car.
I spent two hours of my parents party in the office next to the phone and another hour gone because I had to be the one to leave the party and go get him.
I'm thinking the late movie fee would have been cheaper.....
Sunday, May 31, 1998
Graduation
When I graduated from High School DH showed up at my graduation party with a gift. Never in our year and a half relationship had he purchased me a gift without me knowing about it and so I was a little surprised. I can still remember where I was standing when I opened it, with him and his mom looking on.
It was a ring. A blue topaz, in the shape of a heart with two diamonds on the side. It is his birthstone. It was supposed to signify how much his heart would be with me when I went away to college.
I can still feel the sinking feeling in the bottom of my stomach when I opened it. I did not know it was possible to love and hate something so much all at the same time. I was excited that he had gotten me a surprise. Loved that it was a ring, I was into rings, I had one on each finger but I HATED the fact that it made me feel like I owed him something.
Now he had given me this beautiful ring I couldn't just break up with him when I went off to college. For me, it was always something. Always an excuse why I COULDN'T leave, even though I REALLY wanted to.
To make matters worse Impossible Dream Man (IDM) showed up at my party. Him and I had ALWAYS joked that he was going to come back for me when I turned 18 but I never... EVER believed that it was true. Yet there he was, I had turned 18 just a few weeks prior and there he was at my party.
He pulled me aside and told me that him and his girlfriend had broken up and my stomach just sank further. Inside, at my party, was DH and his mom and on my hand was this ring he had just given to me, yet standing in front of me was the man I really wanted to be with.
To this day I STILL kick myself for picking the way I did. I don't know if IDM and I would have ever even gone on one date. I don't know if we did if we would have liked each other. But I REALLY.... REALLY wish I would have given the ring back to DH and given it a shot. Now, I will never know.
It was a ring. A blue topaz, in the shape of a heart with two diamonds on the side. It is his birthstone. It was supposed to signify how much his heart would be with me when I went away to college.
I can still feel the sinking feeling in the bottom of my stomach when I opened it. I did not know it was possible to love and hate something so much all at the same time. I was excited that he had gotten me a surprise. Loved that it was a ring, I was into rings, I had one on each finger but I HATED the fact that it made me feel like I owed him something.
Now he had given me this beautiful ring I couldn't just break up with him when I went off to college. For me, it was always something. Always an excuse why I COULDN'T leave, even though I REALLY wanted to.
To make matters worse Impossible Dream Man (IDM) showed up at my party. Him and I had ALWAYS joked that he was going to come back for me when I turned 18 but I never... EVER believed that it was true. Yet there he was, I had turned 18 just a few weeks prior and there he was at my party.
He pulled me aside and told me that him and his girlfriend had broken up and my stomach just sank further. Inside, at my party, was DH and his mom and on my hand was this ring he had just given to me, yet standing in front of me was the man I really wanted to be with.
To this day I STILL kick myself for picking the way I did. I don't know if IDM and I would have ever even gone on one date. I don't know if we did if we would have liked each other. But I REALLY.... REALLY wish I would have given the ring back to DH and given it a shot. Now, I will never know.
Monday, May 11, 1998
05/11/98
Well, I'm still here, still with DH. Although I'm beginning to want out. I love him more than anything else in the world but what I want from him I'm afraid he can never give me. And every day it becomes harder and harder to leave but sometimes I want more.
He doesn't think pot is bad. He's a kid and I don't know if he'll ever realize that. He hasn't done it for a week but he says after high school he may go back to it. I don't think I can do that. If it's this hard to get out now, how hard will ti be later.
I love him, that I know but i hurt because of him. I wish there was no such thing as drugs and alcohol. I wish I never had to deal with this. Sometimes I wish I was dead. That way that hurting would stop.
What I want from him is forever; a clean forever. What will I get? Maybe a month. Tow or three more and I have to get out. Living like this is killing me. I want him, but I WANT HIM CLEAN!!
***************
I'm not even sure if I can express to you how much it hurts me to read these words. To know what my life became and to know that it took 11 more years of this and much, much worse for me to finally walk away.
11 years of my life and I will never know why. Why did I stay?
He doesn't think pot is bad. He's a kid and I don't know if he'll ever realize that. He hasn't done it for a week but he says after high school he may go back to it. I don't think I can do that. If it's this hard to get out now, how hard will ti be later.
I love him, that I know but i hurt because of him. I wish there was no such thing as drugs and alcohol. I wish I never had to deal with this. Sometimes I wish I was dead. That way that hurting would stop.
What I want from him is forever; a clean forever. What will I get? Maybe a month. Tow or three more and I have to get out. Living like this is killing me. I want him, but I WANT HIM CLEAN!!
***************
I'm not even sure if I can express to you how much it hurts me to read these words. To know what my life became and to know that it took 11 more years of this and much, much worse for me to finally walk away.
11 years of my life and I will never know why. Why did I stay?
Tuesday, March 31, 1998
03/31/98
**I'm pulling this verbatim from my journal. I'm not sure how I can paraphrase it or make it sound any better than it was already written to be.**
Well it's been about four months since I last wrote anything. Four months of pure hell might I add. Yes, DH and I are still together. However he's not clean. Then why am I still with him? I ask myself that once a day, really I do.
But I love him, more than anything else in the world. But there are so many times I just think, I want out, God help me. But then I see him or I talk to him and I fall in love all over again. Without him I don't feel whole, but with him I often feel empty.
Right now I don't think he's talking to me because of the latest pot incident. I just wish so much he'd get his act together and at least stop lying to me. I love him, and nothing he can say or do, besides cheating on me, will make me love him any less.
Who knows, maybe that's the wrong attitude to have. Maybe I should just do what MIL says and drop him and find myself. But I don't want to. I want to love him, I do love him. And so life stays complicated, at least for now.
************************
If only I could go back. If only I could leave the journal where my mother could find it or someone... ANYONE who could shake that 17 year old me and tell me over and over that I am worth SO much more than that.
Somewhere, somehow I convinced myself that love was all that mattered. If I loved him then I HAD to stay with him. Oh how I wish I could take that back now....
Well it's been about four months since I last wrote anything. Four months of pure hell might I add. Yes, DH and I are still together. However he's not clean. Then why am I still with him? I ask myself that once a day, really I do.
But I love him, more than anything else in the world. But there are so many times I just think, I want out, God help me. But then I see him or I talk to him and I fall in love all over again. Without him I don't feel whole, but with him I often feel empty.
Right now I don't think he's talking to me because of the latest pot incident. I just wish so much he'd get his act together and at least stop lying to me. I love him, and nothing he can say or do, besides cheating on me, will make me love him any less.
Who knows, maybe that's the wrong attitude to have. Maybe I should just do what MIL says and drop him and find myself. But I don't want to. I want to love him, I do love him. And so life stays complicated, at least for now.
************************
If only I could go back. If only I could leave the journal where my mother could find it or someone... ANYONE who could shake that 17 year old me and tell me over and over that I am worth SO much more than that.
Somewhere, somehow I convinced myself that love was all that mattered. If I loved him then I HAD to stay with him. Oh how I wish I could take that back now....
Thursday, December 25, 1997
The Ring
Somewhere along the way I had convinced myself that if DH gave me a ring, then it would mean that he was serious about me. That we were going to be together forever. Of course that's what giving a girl a ring means.
So I started dropping hints. Not subtle at all. Large hints. Elephant in the room hints that what I wanted for Christmas contained Emeralds and gold and could be warn on my finger.
Really subtle right?
So... imagine my surprise when on Christmas morning I opened a box and what did it contain. Why a ring with an Emerald in the center.
So I started dropping hints. Not subtle at all. Large hints. Elephant in the room hints that what I wanted for Christmas contained Emeralds and gold and could be warn on my finger.
Really subtle right?
So... imagine my surprise when on Christmas morning I opened a box and what did it contain. Why a ring with an Emerald in the center.
Friday, November 14, 1997
Broken Down
"I stopped by his house tonight and he was obnoxious right from the start. It was horrible. He told me he didn't want me there and that he had told me no before, which he didn't. Then he told me to go home. Then he told me I was at his house 24 hours a day.
He's the one who told me I could come to his house no matter whether he was there or not and that I was always welcome and now he's going back on that.
He embarrassed and hurt me in front of his parents and MS. It was awful and it still hurts thinking about it.
He basically told em I was a pest and a bother to him and he only wanted me there when it was convenient for him.
AND that hurts, more than he'll ever know.
The worst part is I can't cry: It hurts so much I can't cry."
He's the one who told me I could come to his house no matter whether he was there or not and that I was always welcome and now he's going back on that.
He embarrassed and hurt me in front of his parents and MS. It was awful and it still hurts thinking about it.
He basically told em I was a pest and a bother to him and he only wanted me there when it was convenient for him.
AND that hurts, more than he'll ever know.
The worst part is I can't cry: It hurts so much I can't cry."
Monday, November 10, 1997
College Choices
I can tell you right now that the number one reason I choose the school I did for college was because of it's proximity to my house. The fact that I ended up with a full ride scholarship there was a consolation prize.
I picked the school closest to DH first. But the cost was astronomical. So I picked the closest state school and ran with it. Looking back now I wonder what would have become of my life if I had the courage to venture a little farther. Attend a state school a bit farther away.
As it was, during this time I was looking at colleges but the only thing I was thinking was how do I find something that is the shortest distance away from where he will be.
I picked the school closest to DH first. But the cost was astronomical. So I picked the closest state school and ran with it. Looking back now I wonder what would have become of my life if I had the courage to venture a little farther. Attend a state school a bit farther away.
As it was, during this time I was looking at colleges but the only thing I was thinking was how do I find something that is the shortest distance away from where he will be.
Friday, October 31, 1997
Cuz Breaking Up is Hard to Do....
Another break up is listed here, in ye old journal and I can't help but wonder to myself why did we continue to do it. Did all teenagers break up this much so I just thought it was normal? This one lasted a whopping 6 hours. 3:30 PM - 9:30 PM.
His sister had poked holes in all of our condoms so we were in the throws of a baby scare at the time and he decided he wanted to be "free."
I, of course, was convinced I was pregnant and so I cried my eyes out for the tragedy of being a single mom and then two days later for the fact that I must have killed my baby in the throws of grief when my period came.
Seriously, are all teenagers this dramatic?
His sister had poked holes in all of our condoms so we were in the throws of a baby scare at the time and he decided he wanted to be "free."
I, of course, was convinced I was pregnant and so I cried my eyes out for the tragedy of being a single mom and then two days later for the fact that I must have killed my baby in the throws of grief when my period came.
Seriously, are all teenagers this dramatic?
Sunday, September 7, 1997
Family or Fun
Tonight was the night of his mom's birthday dinner. Tonight was one of the first nights I should have realized that to him, family ranked one notch below having fun with your friends.
11 years later I still remember this night. I called DH to ask him what time to show up, he tells me he's supposed to be there at 3:00 but he wants to do something fun first. 3:00 comes, 4:00 comes, 5:00 comes no one answers.
Finally at 5:00 I just call over to his Grandma's house where his family has gathered for the party. All of his family, except him. They tell me to come on over, he should be there soon. he went dirt bike riding with the neighbors.
It was 45 minutes later, after sitting there with his family wondering what the heck was going on that he finally called to tell them one of the bikes was broken. He should be there soon. More time passes and finally we eat dinner.
Another hour goes by, then two. All the while we heard nothing more from him. At 8:00 the search parties disperse. His dad goes one way, his mom and grandma another, me and his sister yet another. All of us worried something has happened.
It is 8:30 before he calls someone. 8:30 before he lets anyone know he is ok and then he is mad at us because we are all yelling at him. He has no concept, no understanding that someone might possibly be wondering where in the hell he ended up.
11 years later I still remember this night. I called DH to ask him what time to show up, he tells me he's supposed to be there at 3:00 but he wants to do something fun first. 3:00 comes, 4:00 comes, 5:00 comes no one answers.
Finally at 5:00 I just call over to his Grandma's house where his family has gathered for the party. All of his family, except him. They tell me to come on over, he should be there soon. he went dirt bike riding with the neighbors.
It was 45 minutes later, after sitting there with his family wondering what the heck was going on that he finally called to tell them one of the bikes was broken. He should be there soon. More time passes and finally we eat dinner.
Another hour goes by, then two. All the while we heard nothing more from him. At 8:00 the search parties disperse. His dad goes one way, his mom and grandma another, me and his sister yet another. All of us worried something has happened.
It is 8:30 before he calls someone. 8:30 before he lets anyone know he is ok and then he is mad at us because we are all yelling at him. He has no concept, no understanding that someone might possibly be wondering where in the hell he ended up.
Sunday, April 20, 1997
More of the Same
I remember thinking that once I slept with DH things would get better. He would be happier because I had done it. I would be happier because we would not be fighting about it, etc. However that was not the case at all. By the time I slept with him he already knew he didn't really want to be with me but to him, I was just another trophy. Another notch in the belt.
To me, it makes me angry that he would sleep with me, knowing it was my first time, if he didn't want to be with me. To him, I'm guessing the fact that I was a virgin never crossed his mind. Or perhaps it did....
Either way, things continued to go down hill. We went to prom together but ended up separate for 90% of after prom. He was with the girl he was cheating on me with and I was upstairs doing god knows what. Nothing like blatantly having your nose rubbed in it and turning a blind eye just the same.
I even went to his house the day after prom and slept with him again, for God only knows what reason, and this is when we had our first baby scare. I spent the next week completely alone and terrified. I am just weeks away from my 17th birthday and pretty sure that I'm pregnant and my "boyfriend" is treating me like dirt and running around with another girl.
Finally, I take the test and then within the week he breaks up with me...
Again....
At this point it is the 25th of April and I just shut down. I don't eat, I don't sleep, I just cry. I cry at home, I cry at school, I'm pretty much the epitome of pathetic. And ya know what? It works. He comes back to me on the 1st of May.
It is after that "reuniting of the soles" that I find out about the girl. The one he's been seeing on the side. And yet, I stay. I put my faith in him once again, throw myself into my new job, convinced that if I don't "bother" him so much things will be better, and I pretend that none of that ever happened.
Are you seeing a pattern here?
To me, it makes me angry that he would sleep with me, knowing it was my first time, if he didn't want to be with me. To him, I'm guessing the fact that I was a virgin never crossed his mind. Or perhaps it did....
Either way, things continued to go down hill. We went to prom together but ended up separate for 90% of after prom. He was with the girl he was cheating on me with and I was upstairs doing god knows what. Nothing like blatantly having your nose rubbed in it and turning a blind eye just the same.
I even went to his house the day after prom and slept with him again, for God only knows what reason, and this is when we had our first baby scare. I spent the next week completely alone and terrified. I am just weeks away from my 17th birthday and pretty sure that I'm pregnant and my "boyfriend" is treating me like dirt and running around with another girl.
Finally, I take the test and then within the week he breaks up with me...
Again....
At this point it is the 25th of April and I just shut down. I don't eat, I don't sleep, I just cry. I cry at home, I cry at school, I'm pretty much the epitome of pathetic. And ya know what? It works. He comes back to me on the 1st of May.
It is after that "reuniting of the soles" that I find out about the girl. The one he's been seeing on the side. And yet, I stay. I put my faith in him once again, throw myself into my new job, convinced that if I don't "bother" him so much things will be better, and I pretend that none of that ever happened.
Are you seeing a pattern here?
Saturday, April 5, 1997
Giving it Up to Keep Him
After he tried to leave me at the end of March something inside me decided that I had to do whatever it took to get him to stay.
So I gave him my virginity.
Of course I did. Why wouldn't I? It was only the one thing that I could only give to one person and that I had been holding on to all this time. Why wouldn't I pick this moment, after he had already expressed an interest in breaking up with me to give it to him?
Whatever the reason, it happened. Life happened and sometime in the beginning of April he took something from me I could never get back.
So I gave him my virginity.
Of course I did. Why wouldn't I? It was only the one thing that I could only give to one person and that I had been holding on to all this time. Why wouldn't I pick this moment, after he had already expressed an interest in breaking up with me to give it to him?
Whatever the reason, it happened. Life happened and sometime in the beginning of April he took something from me I could never get back.
Sunday, March 30, 1997
The First Affair
By March our relationship was on the rocks. I still wouldn't sleep with DH and it was becoming fairly clear that not only would I not sleep with him but I also wouldn't drink or get high with him.
I went on a school trip in the end of March and while I was gone he started seeing a girl who was in the grade above me. He even took her to his parents house. I got back on the 30th of March and on the 31st he broke up with me. Sighting irreconcilable differences. (i.e. I was still annoying him and the break away from me didn't help.) (aka... I'm seeing someone else and think she might sleep with me and party with me so bye... bye... ta... ta... nice knowing you)
Once again, I couldn't take no for an answer. I spent that entire Monday looking as sad and pathetic as I could every time I saw him. I would cry and cry and pout and eventually he called me and asked me to go out with him again.
On April Fool's day. Who was the fool I ask you??
I went on a school trip in the end of March and while I was gone he started seeing a girl who was in the grade above me. He even took her to his parents house. I got back on the 30th of March and on the 31st he broke up with me. Sighting irreconcilable differences. (i.e. I was still annoying him and the break away from me didn't help.) (aka... I'm seeing someone else and think she might sleep with me and party with me so bye... bye... ta... ta... nice knowing you)
Once again, I couldn't take no for an answer. I spent that entire Monday looking as sad and pathetic as I could every time I saw him. I would cry and cry and pout and eventually he called me and asked me to go out with him again.
On April Fool's day. Who was the fool I ask you??
Tuesday, February 25, 1997
02/25/97
"On Saturday DH got arrested for trying to steal liquor. It was an awful day. And the worst part is, I'm still with him.
I couldn't leave. Even after I swore over and over that I'd be gone, I'm still there.
You know I love him more than I've ever loved anyone else. He is SO important to me, which is why it just kills me.
Every time I think about it it's like someone taking a knife and carving my heart out.
It's not fair! Life is not fair! God tested him and he lost and it's not fair!
What's also not fair is that he is a good kid. I mean it's not like he doesn't know what he did wrong, or he doesn't regret it. I feel SO bad for him. He's just so depressed about it."
Alcoholism is a disease. A disease that touches every person who knows and/or loves the alcoholic. That's all I can think when I read that. How quickly I got sucked into all of it. How I knew then that there was something bigger going on. Some reason he needed to steal and some reason he felt remorse about it when it was over.
Yet, in the end, what I also see is a mother. Someone taking him under her wing and trying to fix him. How did I go from girlfriend to mother?
I couldn't leave. Even after I swore over and over that I'd be gone, I'm still there.
You know I love him more than I've ever loved anyone else. He is SO important to me, which is why it just kills me.
Every time I think about it it's like someone taking a knife and carving my heart out.
It's not fair! Life is not fair! God tested him and he lost and it's not fair!
What's also not fair is that he is a good kid. I mean it's not like he doesn't know what he did wrong, or he doesn't regret it. I feel SO bad for him. He's just so depressed about it."
Alcoholism is a disease. A disease that touches every person who knows and/or loves the alcoholic. That's all I can think when I read that. How quickly I got sucked into all of it. How I knew then that there was something bigger going on. Some reason he needed to steal and some reason he felt remorse about it when it was over.
Yet, in the end, what I also see is a mother. Someone taking him under her wing and trying to fix him. How did I go from girlfriend to mother?
Thursday, February 6, 1997
Parental Defiance?
There is a line from my journal that I just read that stuck out at me:
"DH will have been clean 60 days. The same 60 days that we get to rub in my dad's face."
I don't remember an overwhelming desire to stay with DH because I wanted to prove my parents wrong but I wonder if there was a part of me that did. And if so, that scares me because I want to know how to keep from making the same mistake with my son.
How do I make it so he doesn't want to prove me wrong? So he doesn't stay with someone that makes him miserable just to be the one who is right?
"DH will have been clean 60 days. The same 60 days that we get to rub in my dad's face."
I don't remember an overwhelming desire to stay with DH because I wanted to prove my parents wrong but I wonder if there was a part of me that did. And if so, that scares me because I want to know how to keep from making the same mistake with my son.
How do I make it so he doesn't want to prove me wrong? So he doesn't stay with someone that makes him miserable just to be the one who is right?
Thursday, December 5, 1996
12/05/96
In between every class DH and I meet in the hallway. He walks me to my classroom or I walk him to his. It's one of those things that teenagers do. Something that says I can't live a whole hour without you... here's another kiss to remember me by.
I remember the taste. The smell. Something I'd never smelled before. I asked him what it was. Nothing, nothing at all. I was in shop class, it's exhaust from a car. Somehow I knew that wasn't true. I still remember where we were standing. 2nd floor, top of the stairs, right outside of my Spanish class. 12 1/2 years later and it's still with me.
I don't quite remember who told me he'd been caught. How I got the news that my boyfriend was suspended from school for smoking pot in the shop bathroom. But I know I found out. I know my parents found out. I remember having to sit down with them and DH's parents in his kitchen and have a discussion about it. Explain to them that he was suspended and was spending time in a rehab facility.
I also remember the fear. That they were going to make me break up with him. But they didn't and I couldn't. All I wrote in my journal was "it's a long story and I would rather not discuss it right now." That seemed to be my standard answer. To shut down and keep the status quo.
Even now looking back I'm not sure what happened. I don't know why 2 1/2 months into a relationship I would choose to stay with someone like DH when that was not at all who I was or what I wanted from my life. All I know is I stayed, I always stayed.
Perhaps that's the magic answer. I wanted someone to love me no matter what and I thought in order to get that I had to give that. I just picked the wrong person to give it to.
I remember the taste. The smell. Something I'd never smelled before. I asked him what it was. Nothing, nothing at all. I was in shop class, it's exhaust from a car. Somehow I knew that wasn't true. I still remember where we were standing. 2nd floor, top of the stairs, right outside of my Spanish class. 12 1/2 years later and it's still with me.
I don't quite remember who told me he'd been caught. How I got the news that my boyfriend was suspended from school for smoking pot in the shop bathroom. But I know I found out. I know my parents found out. I remember having to sit down with them and DH's parents in his kitchen and have a discussion about it. Explain to them that he was suspended and was spending time in a rehab facility.
I also remember the fear. That they were going to make me break up with him. But they didn't and I couldn't. All I wrote in my journal was "it's a long story and I would rather not discuss it right now." That seemed to be my standard answer. To shut down and keep the status quo.
Even now looking back I'm not sure what happened. I don't know why 2 1/2 months into a relationship I would choose to stay with someone like DH when that was not at all who I was or what I wanted from my life. All I know is I stayed, I always stayed.
Perhaps that's the magic answer. I wanted someone to love me no matter what and I thought in order to get that I had to give that. I just picked the wrong person to give it to.
Saturday, November 30, 1996
11/30/96
Two and a half months in and we are already discussing breaking up and not being able to live without one another.
I remember this conversation. I remember talking to him about boundaries, the equator line I called it. I remember needing him so much and not being able to process why. Two and a half months in and we couldn't get past the no sex thing.
This is where it really started for us. Him wanting to leave and me wanting him to stay. I wrote in my journal that he thought about leaving me and that I "hyperventilated and banged my head against a wall." I think this is the crutch that it all comes back to.
He wanted to go, I begged him to stay and we were miserable together. For 12 1/2 years it was this way or the reverse, I wanted to leave and he begged me to stay. Twelve and a half years of co-dependency and misery started way back in the end of 1996.
I remember this conversation. I remember talking to him about boundaries, the equator line I called it. I remember needing him so much and not being able to process why. Two and a half months in and we couldn't get past the no sex thing.
This is where it really started for us. Him wanting to leave and me wanting him to stay. I wrote in my journal that he thought about leaving me and that I "hyperventilated and banged my head against a wall." I think this is the crutch that it all comes back to.
He wanted to go, I begged him to stay and we were miserable together. For 12 1/2 years it was this way or the reverse, I wanted to leave and he begged me to stay. Twelve and a half years of co-dependency and misery started way back in the end of 1996.
Thursday, November 28, 1996
11/28/96
Thanksgiving Day. We hang out with my parents in the evening and on my way to take him back home, he still doesn't have a license so I drive him everywhere, he wants me to stop on a gravel road. I refuse and I'm pretty sure there are words.
"He wanted me to stop along a gravel road and I said no. It pissed him off I think. He seems to be getting more anxious and upset every time I am being good. I hate to think he's using me for sex because he knows he won't get anything but he's getting worse and it's hard to deal with. It hurts and it bugs me."
At this point we had been dating just over two months. Looking back at it is hard. Knowing where things went, how things happened. I want to reach back to that scared girl and tell her that if all a man wants you for is sex there are so many better things out there in this world.
"He wanted me to stop along a gravel road and I said no. It pissed him off I think. He seems to be getting more anxious and upset every time I am being good. I hate to think he's using me for sex because he knows he won't get anything but he's getting worse and it's hard to deal with. It hurts and it bugs me."
At this point we had been dating just over two months. Looking back at it is hard. Knowing where things went, how things happened. I want to reach back to that scared girl and tell her that if all a man wants you for is sex there are so many better things out there in this world.
Saturday, November 16, 1996
11/16/96
Pretty pathetic, we've only been going out for two months, exactly yesterday, and I'm already head over heals in love with him. He's just like my best friend/boyfriend all in one. It's pretty cool. I mean when I look at him I just smile because he's just so cool and sucha great person (without the drugs) and I love him SOO much.
I mean this is so different then me and L. We're buds and then more.
All I can do is just stare at that. Two months and I was willing to change my whole life, my whole world for him even AFTER knowing that he did drugs. And all I can do is sit here, my current me, and wonder why. Why didn't I just walk away? What was two months? Why couldn't I just let go?
I mean this is so different then me and L. We're buds and then more.
All I can do is just stare at that. Two months and I was willing to change my whole life, my whole world for him even AFTER knowing that he did drugs. And all I can do is sit here, my current me, and wonder why. Why didn't I just walk away? What was two months? Why couldn't I just let go?
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