Love Hate Love
It’s been yet another long week. BFD was out of town, which always puts a strain on me; something about my man being out of town makes me incredibly paranoid…. it MIGHT have something to do with the fact that my ex met his little playtoy on company trips. And while he was on those company trips, phone calls were scarce, or short, or non-existent (and now I know why). The worst were when he would call drunk… and I knew he was out, I would be afraid, but I never in a million years thought it would actually BE with another woman.
It’s amazing how some people irreparably damage you. I have deep-seated trust issues because of that loser.
He didn’t deserve me.
It’s still hard for me to separate his behavior from others; after all… it was seven years of this. Seven years of whole-hearted trust and belief that this man could/would never hurt me. It’s funny… it’s the ones you never see coming that seem to do the most damage.
I can credit it all to Chad Whitworth. Chad was a tall, lanky redhead who loved horses and the outdoors. I used to have the same P.E. class as his girlfriend; she was a tiny little thing, a nice girl named Sherry. She was older than me, and she would sit with me and my friend Crystal as we would read Anne Rice’s naughty Sleeping Beauty novels, giggling at the hard-core porn for girls. I had no interest in Chad; he was the best friend of MY best friend’s boyfriend. We hung out a lot at the stables… late night bonfires, pickup trucks and the smell of fresh hay. During the course of my friend’s relationship, Chad & I hung out more & more; eventually he & his girlfriend broke up and I became an unwilling rebound. It started innocently enough; he needed a shoulder to cry on, and I’m a great listener. He had a wonderful family, and we would meet at his house for movie night or hang out on his family’s back porch in the balmy Louisiana nights. We spent many hours on that back porch, just swinging and listening to the quiet rhythm of the cicadas…
Eventually, I grew to depend on him. He tried so hard; we would pass notes back and forth in the hallway between classes. While I wasn’t physically attracted to him, his gentle demeanor slowly crept into heart, until one day I came to the realization that I’d fallen in love with him.
Right about that time, he realized he was still in love with Sherry.
This is where my Woman Scorned Psychosis began. When someone you are not initially attracted to wears you down, creeps into your heart, convinces you that he *is* the one, only to turn around and say “NEVER MIND” as soon as you acquiesce… well, YEAH, it kinda PISSES ME OFF. I admittedly went psycho; my teenaged hormones were out of control back then. I said horrible things about him, made up lies about Sherry… I was a horrible person. To this day, my behavior back then still bothers me; they eventually got married and had kids, and I never heard from him again. But this began a deep aversion to the “Nice Guys” I encountered thereafter. I only had two types of relationships:
a) The Bad Boy. Inevitably, they would cheat on me, steal from me, lie to me or emotionally abuse me. But I KNEW they were an asshole, so it was okay; I expected pain and they delivered. After a while, the sane part of my brain would overpower the masochistic side and scream “ENOUGH!” Which would lead me to the next relationship with…
b) The Nice Guy. That I would promptly destroy before he could rip my heart out. I shudder to think how many missed opportunities of a normal life I squandered because of fear… as we would fall deeper into a committed relationship, the fear would overpower me until I found a way out. Usually there was a Bad Boy involved. And so the vicious circle ensued.
At this point in my life, my eyes are wide open. I’ve been going through some serious self-evaluation lately, and I really don’t want to repeat past mistakes anymore. It’s hard to change life-long habits; you find yourself in some pretty vulnerable positions, and unfortunately, sometimes you get hurt. I’m trying to take the hurt in stride… one thing I’ve discovered is that men can’t read a woman’s mind. Even if they could, they have no idea how to translate. So the deeper I sink into this relationship, the more I realize that my demons are not dead, but very much alive and well and waiting to come out to play.
But this time, it’s going to be different. This time, I’m going Buffy on their ass.
It all comes down to a fundamental question, one as simple and yet frustratingly unanswerable as the “chicken or the egg” dilemna:
Can people change?
My answer used to be a whole-hearted and resounding NO. But then, that means that I cannot change, and there are those who would testify that I AM a different person. I have to believe that I HAVE changed, otherwise I’m doomed to repeat this vicious cycle for the rest of my life… and I can’t bear that thought, not only for my own sanity, but for the sake of my daughter as well.