Things were looking up. I was on top of the world! I had a job I loved, and was planning a new life with a man who made me happier than anyone else I'd ever known. He persisted with his suggestions about getting married. I still had reservations due to the sting of only recently being divorced. It got to the point that several times a day, he'd look at me and say, "Marry me". Finally, we were at work one day and I'd had enough. He came up to me and said it again. I asked, "Where's the ring?" Of course he didn't have one. Several minutes later, he asked again. I gave the same answer but turned around to find him down on 1 knee, holding a blue paper clip he had bent into a circle. "Okay, you win," I said. I insisted we needed to save money for the wedding and the new baby, so we decided to worry about a real ring later, but I wore that blue paper clip on my finger just as proudly as a woman with an extravagant diamond.
As time went on, I noticed he started getting extremely jealous. Everytime he saw me talking with other men at work he would accuse me of being interested in them. I tried to "social work" him. I explained that these feelings he was having didn't actually have anything to do with me, but were instead steaming from his own insecurities. I reminded him I was pregnant with his child and had no interest in anyone else. Shortly after he started behaving this way, I received an email at work. Though I have some ideas, I still, to this day, don't know who actually sent it. It was warning me that he was seeing an ex girlfriend behind my back.
Though we had some supporters, we also had a long list of haters. There were many people who couldn't wait to see our new found love fizzle out. I decided not to take the email seriously and figured it was likely meant to cause trouble between us. After all, he spent all his time away from work with me. We proceeded to make wedding plans. We decided on an October wedding at The Breaks Interstate Park on the Ky and Va border. We choose an over look with a beautiful view and an indoor reception. We paid the deposit and began looking for fall decorations.
Due to my age, prior surgeries, and previous miscarriage, I was a high risk pregnancy. He went to every ob appointment and was constantly trying to do little things to take care of me. By now his son and my children had gotten to know one another and though, still early, we were starting to feel like a family.
It was hard to believe such a short time ago, I would sneak him in after they went to sleep, then wake him up and make him go down the road and park somewhere until they left for school, because I wasn't yet ready for him to meet them. He never once complained or questioned how long I was going to insist he continue. He just got up at the break of day and slept beside the road in his car until I texted him the all clear. Now we were planning a wedding and he had decided to move in.
It was now late September, and only a couple of weeks away from the big day. I had just gotten ready for work when I heard a knock at my door. You can imagine my shock when I found his ex girlfriend standing on my porch. She wasn't a stranger. We had worked together for a few months when they dated. I invited her in and she proceeded to provide me with a realization that changed my life. She came prepared. She had an arsenal of messages, call logs, voice mails, pictures, and even videos that proved they had very actively been together the entire time.
Now, by this point in my life, I considered myself to be a veteran at break ups, especially those that entailed cheating boyfriends. I had been through some really bad ones in my day. I was no stranger to crying myself to sleep, feeling inadequate, and analyzing every detail trying to figure out if it was something I had done. However, I had moved on from all that and had grown, or so I thouhht. I had built walls that would make Donald Trump blush with envy, but nothing.....nothing prepared me for this.
I immediately went to confront him. He refused to admit it. I made several failed attempts to slap him. Anger and betrayal rushed through me. I was completely irrational and didn't care. Remembering his jealous rants, I made a very stupid attempt to get even by calling up an old boyfriend in front of him. He stood there quietly and listened to my call as I explained I needed someone to talk to and wanted to come see him. I got directions and stormed out of there with him pleading for me to not go.
I went home, gathered everything that belonged to him and threw it in my yard. There were clothes, cds, video games, pictures, and every love note we'd ever written one another. I then set out to travel across 2 counties to see this guy I hadn't spoken to in years. This was not just any old boyfriend. This was the one that wrecked my world in my early 20's, the one that set the mark for all relationships thereafter, and the one that I would remember every time my life got hard and I needed a push to go on. I would picture his face, remember the pain and think, "I survived that, I can do this!" Just picturing his face wasn't going to work this time. I had to look him in the eyes and remember how strong I was.
I pulled in and he got into my car. I was surprised at how different he looked. I immediately began explaining what had happened. He offered words of encouragement but they fell on deaf ears. I had always wondered what it would be like to see him again. I was surprised at how uninterested I was in anything he had to say. I realized he had no power over me anymore, and I was on my own this time. I told him I had to get home to my kids and thanked him for listening. He asked for my number and I gave him one I knew he couldn't reach me at. As he got out of the car, he leaned in to try to kiss me. I quickly turned my head and he stopped short of my cheek. I turned back in time to see the look of genuine surprise on his face. He hadn't changed at all. Still as smug and arrogant as ever. Driving home I couldn't fathom what I'd ever seen in him. Who tries to kiss a pregnant woman anyway? This guy I used to think of as everything I ever wanted but was never good enough for was suddenly repulsive and beneath me. Since knowing him, I had put myself through 4 years of college and had then gained several years of real world professional experience. He was exactly the same, it was the way I looked at him that had changed. He didn't matter any more and I was no longer that girl.
I got home and of course he was waiting. I'm sure my neighbors were entertained by my reaction and by the roses he had recently bought me flying off the porch, barely missing his head. I refused to talk to him. I deleted all voice mails he left on my phone and blocked him on social media. My instincts were now in charge. That's what I had learned. When you truly want to get over somone you don't peddle school girl ideas of them changing or entertain some random fantasy of you being the one them loosing somehow awakening a new found moral compass inside them. You avoid them and begin envisioning your future without them. I could teach a class on how to get over someone. I tried to change my mindset to just forget all the plans we'd made for our lives together and told myself that the person I fell in love with never existed because I never really knew the real him. All the things I taught myself that would be helpful. Only.....this wasn't like all the others and I knew it. This was deeper and caught my guard down. I immediately knew that as the years of my life passed and I looked back, this was now the only one that would matter.
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