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.

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?

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.

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??

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?

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?

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.

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.

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.

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?

11/12/1996

I had no sooner forgiven him than he was back at it again. On this night he went to a friends house and went out into the wood and got stoned on pot. Ok, two thing pop into my mind as I'm reading this.

#1 Where were his parents? If my 15 year old son had just come home drunk two weeks prior you can be damn sure he would probably still be grounded. And if he wasn't I would still be keeping a pretty good eye on him.

#2 Where were my parents? Did I hide this that well? Again, Catholic school is running through my head.

#3 WTF? Two months and all of my morals and ideals had just flown out the window? Really? I had gone from dating the guy who wanted to become a preacher to this? Why after two months did I REALLY love him enough to go through hell with him?

This night was the first night I learned the payoff of hurting myself. Not only to me as a frustration release but also as an attention getter. This was the night that I first cut myself. Not badly, like most cutters, but more of a scratching at my skin as a way to escape what had become my quickly deteriorating reality.

DH found out and we made a pact to both get better together. "Basically I'm not allowed to cut or injure myself anymore and he's not allowed to smoke, drink or chew. If he does any of it again he holds a knife to my wrists and cuts. Basically if he smokes, etc. it's like cutting me because he's giving me open range. I don't know if this will work but I love him so much that, I have to and am willing to, try anything."

This makes my heart heavy just to type it. Some part of me needed him that badly that I was willing to sacrifice myself just to try to help him. Something I would spend the next 10 1/2 years trying to do before I realized once and for all that I could not help him, only he could help himself.

And the Walls Come Tumbling Down

DH came home drunk tonight. On this night my world fell around my feet. "He never stopped chewing, drinking or smoking pot. He had lied to me about it all plus he had lied to me about some other things. It hurt me SO bad. But I met with his counselor and his family"

Wait… wait… wait…. Stop the train. I did what? I'd been dating the guy a month and a half I was 16 years old, please why didn’t someone stop me? The phrase walk away is just repeating over and over in my head right now. But somewhere, some how I had decided that I didn't want to fail. That I could fix him, and so I stayed. According to my journal because "I loved him so very much."

I swear if my father would have known half of this stuff he would have locked me away in a catholic school. (Or at least that's what I would be thinking if I were the parent.)

10/07/1996

Three weeks, one day and already I'm writing in my journal about how he's my best friend. MW and I had been friends for YEARS, we did everything together and already I was so willing to just shove someone else in her place. Why? What was I needing?

This whole entry in my journal is all about the angst between me and my sister. About how she was telling me that people don't like me and I, of course was letting her get under my skin. So I called DH and he made me feel so much better.

Is that what I was needing? Acceptance? I was sort of an outcast. Refused to do what it took to be part of the popular group but was just a little to popular to totally fit in with the nerds. Did I just need to fit somewhere and once I found it with him I didn't want to let it go?

10/06/1996

Today was our three week "anniversary" and it was all about the sweet talk. I wrote in my journal that "we had a rough night last night but tonight we talked and worked everything out. He understands that I don't want too much to happen and he's O.K. with that.

He said he loves me for me and that's not what he wants. I mean I know he wants it but not if I don't. He's being so sweet. I just talked to him on the phone and he said he almost cried when I left tonight because he misses his baby. He's hooked, bad.

And, he quit chewing for me which is like so great. He knew I didn't like it but I told him I was O.K. with it & he quit anyway. That makes me SO happy."

Reading this just makes me cringe. DH ALWAYS knew just what to say to me to keep me hooked. I can't believe that I was that naive. He told me he was quiting and I believed him, just like that. I guess I had no reason not to. I didn't know at the time how good he was a lying about things. He always knew just what would make me feel better and be ok with how things were.

The other thing that bothered me about that whole situation was the fact that I ever told him it was ok in the first place. Three weeks into our relationship and I was already so determined to "make it work" that I was compromising my values. Why not just say I don't approve of that and walk away? It was only three weeks.

10/05/1996

Merely three weeks into our relationship and DH had already begun with the sweet talk. By this point he had told me he loved me, probably mostly in an effort to get into my pants, and it wasn't working and he was frustrated.

I wrote in my journal about having a long talk with him about waiting until marriage and trying to enforce boundaries with him. This would become the topic of many more arguments in the future. I dated L for 9 months and spent the entire last two months TRYING to get him to have sex with me and now suddenly I was with DH and I was totally flipping my position.

I think somewhere, in the back of my mind, I knew that if I had sex with him our relationship would probably be over and I was not willing to let that happen. I wasn't willing to open up my eyes wide enough to see what he really wanted, which wasn't a long term plan with me.

Loss of a Pet

Four days after we officially became an item my dog died. It was a tragic day that I will never forget. I got a call from the office that I needed to meet my mom outside right away but no one would tell me why. So I went outside and stood on the corner waiting for her.

She pulled up in her old beat up car and as soon as I looked in the window I knew something was terribly wrong. There on the front seat sat my beloved dog. My puppy whom I got as a present for my 16th birthday was there but something was not right.

When I looked closer I noticed the blood and then the bone. His hip bone was sticking through the skin and out of his body. For such a serious injury I remember thinking that there should be more blood.

When I got into the car he tried to get closer to me and he wimpered in pain. By this point I was crying. What was going on? As we headed to the vet's office my mom explained to me that he had been following a trailer out back to the dump pile and he had tried to "heal" the tire. He got a little too close and had been rolled under the trailer.

The whole way there I kept thinking that he wasn't bleeding too badly, the doctor would just fix his hip and we would go on our way. However, when we got there the vet informed us that my puppy was parilized from the waist down. That even if he fixed the injury he would never walk again and that for this breed of dog with such high energy it would be devistating.

Then I had to choose. Let him live with no quality of life, or watch him go. This wonderful dog that I hadn't had nearly enough time with. The one that I got happy meals for and who slept with me and went every where with me.

As I sat there crying holding his head the vet gave him the shot. Then we wrapped him in a towel and took him home to be burried. I remember as soon as we got home Impossible Dream Man (IDM) was waiting for me. He was crying and I hugged him as he told me how sorry he was.

I should have stayed. Taken the rest of the day off, mourned my loss, but instead all I could think of was getting back to school. Back to DH. I was back by lunch time but the reaction I got was not one of sympathy or compassion. It was simply, wow, that sucks. Ok, I'm going to sit with my friends now.

As soon as he said it, as soon as I knew that was all I was getting I wanted to run back home and crawl into bed. But, I had comitted to being there that afternoon so I stayed and pretended nothing was wrong even though inside I was dying. I stuffed it down and decided to be strong instead.

09/17/1996

After two days of being in school and being a couple I was convinced that we were meant to be together. I wrote in my journal that "it is unlike any other relationship I've had. Which could be a good thing, I suppose, because none of the other relationships lasted very long. This one's like me and R's which lasted 7 years so I guess this is a very good thing. […] Although both sets of our friends know about us we don't hang on each other or anything."

We don’t hang on each other, looking back I find this funny. We met in between every class to see each other for just that brief 5 seconds and any other times I was too busy to notice that he was too busy with his friends to notice me.

Going Out

After the exciting homecoming dance it was up bright and early to go horseback riding with DH's family. I had been horseback riding since I was younger and even after my accident had never given it up. However, this would only be the second time that I had actually been on horseback riding trails, etc. Most of my riding was confined to fields and roadsides.

We loaded up my horse in the trailer and were off for the "park." DH and I rode in the morning and then in the afternoon we told his parents we were going to skip the afternoon ride and just hang out in "camp."

His dad had a large work van that we had used to pull the horse trailer and I remember that we were sitting on the bumper of the van with the back doors open. DH turned to me and said, so do you want to go out? It was as simple as that. I said yes and the deed was done.

Until we got married, this was always the day that we celebrated as our anniversary. We picked our wedding day as close to this day as we could. When we were married we had officially been "going out" for 7 years and 5 days. (With a few breakups along the way.)

Homecoming

So I went to the homecoming dance with some friends and DH went with my sister's friend. As most things were when I was in high school it was a night of drama. Two of my best friends were crying through most of the dance and I only got one dance with DH.

After the dance my sister's friend was spending the night with her so DH didn't have to take her home, or rather his mom didn't have to come pick them up since he didn't have a license. So DH decided to come home with me. Ooops. Talk about awkward.

We got home first and were sitting there on the couch talking with my parents when my sister and her friend walked in. So there I was with her date. Luckily it was late and DH left shortly there after and I went to bed.

Bonfire

As was the tradition at our school during homecoming week there was one night where there was a big bonfire. It was sort of a pep rally type of a thing. This was the night that my sister's friend found out about DH and I. I think up until this point she had thought that he was really taking her because he wanted to go with her, not because he just didn't have a date.

While I really wanted to be with DH I remember feeling kind of bad that night as I pulled out of the parking lot and saw her talking to my sister, all upset. When my sister got in the car she told me the story.

I'm pretty sure the words she used were not nice, as this was her friend and when we were in high school, I was not.