A new feeling for me

I've been doing some soul searching lately, particularly about the serious relationships I have been in, of which there are only 3. Well at least 3 where I felt it was serious. I've been on dates, I've had one night stands and casual hookups in the friends with benefits category.

Anyway, I am looking at each relationship to find where I went wrong, what I did to help destroy the relationship, and maybe find a way to avoid the problems from repeating themselves. 

So here we go. 

1. The "I swear I will be getting a divorce, we don't even live together" guy

Let me preface by saying that when we started dating, I didn't even know I was the 'other woman' - in fact, I never wanted to be that woman. I found out he was married after we had been dating for 7 months. His wife called and I answered - oopsie. Turns out, the guy was not only married, he had 3 kids with his wife and another on the way. 

At the time, I was 18 and quite naive. However, the day I found out he was married, I ended the relationship. He tried to talk me out of it with the usual lines - We are separated, we will be divorced soon, I filed the paperwork already, we don't love each other, I will divorce her and marry you. 

I almost believed him. I wanted to believe him. But my childhood gave me a front-row seat for how this type of behavior hurts the children involved, how it can destroy families because that is exactly what destroyed my family early on and made my life hell as a result. 

Conclusions: I was young, naive, and foolish. I didn't ask the right questions and I was so caught up in the thrill of my first relationship and how special I felt when I was with him. I believed him when he said I was the love of his life, his soul mate, the woman he could see himself settling down with. That bubble of lies popped the day I found out about the entire family that he was hiding. 

2. The "I need to rescue you" guy 

A few months after the married guy, I started dating a guy who was and is genuinely nice. He is the knight in shining armor type. When I was about to be separated from the military, he asked me to marry him so I wouldn't lose benefits and so I could go with him to England. I really liked him and for a time I loved him deeply. 

We married after just 4 months of dating. He ended up leaving for England 2 months before my passport came. When I arrived, I discovered that he had spent the entire two months with the bartender from the small hotel the military put him up in. He wasn't the one to tell me this time, either. I think if I had been less observant on how she was acting toward him, I would never have thought to expose the secondary relationship. As in, I watched her touching him and laughing at things that were truly not funny at all and flirting with him. I watched his reaction, which told me that this was something that happened frequently and was accepted. So I walked over and loudly asked "I see you've met my husband. So, how was he?" to which she responded by starting to cry and yelling at him "I can't believe you told her about us!" 

He tried to explain it as an "Apples and Oranges" type of thing, as an "I was lonely, drunk and she was willing but I didn't mean to!" Considering the side relationship lasted from the day he arrived until the day I arrived, I would have to say that he meant to do what he did. My response to the whole situation was to get completely wasted. In fact, things almost ended for us that night but I thought back to 'married guy' and decided his infidelity was my karma for dating a married man, so I forgave him for it. 

We had been married for 11 years and 11 months on the day our divorce was final. Over those 11 years, we had ups and downs just like any couple. Our relationship survived multiple miscarriages, military deployments, and moves to new bases. We had a child together. What finally killed it, though, was when we decided to help a friend of mine who was in an abusive situation. Bringing her and her kids into our home was the beginning of the end. He started paying more attention to her. She started acting less like a guest or friend and more like a wife. As I watched this relationship form, I got more and more depressed. I withdrew from everyone except for my child. Then one day, right before I was to go for surgery, I caught them together. I didn't lose my temper or yell. I simply asked for a divorce. Why? Because I had watched the relationship form and knew I could not possibly repair the damage. I also received info from mutual friends that he would have sex with random people on deployments, TDY's and short trips. 

Conclusions: We got married before we even really knew each other and didn't discuss any ground rules for the relationship. I ignored many red flags in this relationship and didn't speak up when I saw things that upset me with his behavior. I bottled up my emotions and stopped communicating. Luckily, we have a better relationship now than when we were married. 

3. The "Narcissistic Guy"

I met this guy at work. We started dating about 3 months after we met and the relationship continued for 5 years. He lived with me. He met my child. We took vacations together. But there were these rules that didn't make sense to me. First, I could never tell anyone at the office that we were together. Second, I was never allowed to take photos of him with me or my daughter in the frame. Third, I wasn't allowed to post anything about him on social media. He was extremely controlling and often berated me for talking with my friends instead of him. I talked to my friends more because everything I had to say was 'unimportant' and he made it clear that he didn't want to talk with me about things that interested me. He just didn't want me to talk to anyone else. He even tried to control me going to visit my family members that live half an hour away, using the car that I pay for, because I should not be taking breaks from working if I am not bringing in X amount each month. 

For the first 4 years, he lived in an apartment that I paid for. I paid the bills. I took care of buying the food. He paid the cable bill because he liked renting and buying movies on-demand. Then I hit some financial setbacks in the 5th year that took me from a solid, reliable income to what I could bring in with freelancing while searching for another job. At first, he was okay with "helping me out on the rent and bills." That lasted about 4 months, then he started getting angry with me because I wasn't bringing in enough money. He started getting mean, lecturing me about my work ethic, my personality, the fact that I had gained some weight, even the fact that I was depressed and taking medication to try to course correct. 

He started spending heavily. He was paid a 5 figure paycheck once a month, yet he was always out of money by mid-month and would start demanding money from me to support his lifestyle. He started taking lavish trips without me. He picked up an expensive hobby (golfing). He flirted, explicitly, with other women he worked with while on the phone in the same room I was in. He stopped sleeping with me and started sleeping on the couch. 

Then came the threats. The "if you don't have a real job by X date, I am leaving". The threats always came mid-month, right around the same time he would start pawning our belongings. He felt justified in taking what little I brought in and even when I was able to give him money, it was never enough. His happiness was all that mattered. The threats started in May and lasted until October when he made his threat and I asked when he would be leaving so I could plan my finances for it. He gave me a date and he moved his physical self out but left his stuff in a giant mess in my house. 

When he left, he gave me a list of things he couldn't forgive - like that I had once told a coworker we were dating, that I sold something for $15 when he wanted it sold for $20, that he discovered he was locked out one afternoon because I wasn't home and he came home 4 hours early, that I told him I didn't enjoy going to Las Vegas with him, that I refuse to drop my "hobby" (The business that I started and that was bringing in money), and that I was not constantly thanking him for paying the rent on the place we lived in together.

The way he treated me, I felt like less than nothing. I tried to talk only to be shut down. I tried to ask what was on his mind and was shut out. As a response, I stopped asking, stopped talking, stopped caring that he was even there. I actually wanted him gone but in the depths of my depression, I came close to taking myself permanently out of everyone's life.

When he finally left, it felt like I had been freed from sticky tar - the worst of it was gone, but not everything. Its been 6 months, yet he still asks me for money by mid-month like clockwork. And for some reason that I cannot fathom, I had been giving it to him. I have been letting him store his shit in my garage for free (after I cleaned up his mess and put it in boxes for him). 

I will be stopping this last part. I am not an ATM - I am trying to run my own business and I can't do that if I keep giving away my money to people who don't care about me. He is a narcissist that needs to figure out how to control himself, but it is not my job to fix him. 

Conclusion: I met him after I had been separated for a few months, but what should have been a casual hookup became a relationship too fast. He was a rebound guy and a lesson that just because someone spends money on you and treats you well at first, that doesn't mean it will always be that way. And - I let myself be his secret. I should have ditched him then. When communication cannot happen because one party constantly blocks it, you aren't in a relationship. You are a flesh-light and an ATM.