Surprises

You know, it always surprises me the extent people will go just to feel the fleeting moment of bliss in relationships. For example, my fiance had a relationship with this woman, for those of you who have read my previous blogs, you know what woman I mean. The relationship lasted for nearly 6 months, but it rapidly deteriorated through the actions of them both, not just one individual. He progressed it by hounding her relentlessly about her commitment and fidelity, she by dodging his inquiries and putting up a facade that allowed him to believe her, even though his guy instinct told him she was lying. The truth finally came out when she messed up royally and I won a coin toss (what a romantic way to decide on whether or not you are going to be in a relationship with someone, right?)

To be honest, I’m grateful that I won the coin toss. It allowed me to know the real him, he used a fake name and background with us both in order to keep his real life hidden and safe, and it gave me something to hold on to when I was being attacked by my blood family for differences in religious beliefs. In fact, if it hadn’t been for this relationship progressing the way it had, I have no doubt that my children will now, at this moment, be in the custody of their negligent and abusive biological father and I would either be 6 feet buried in my grandparent’s back yard or my body simply being lost and unable to be found. So, in essence, he saved me from death.

But did he really?

I mean, look at the current situation I’m in now. He’s still talking to his ex, well, not talking at the moment but she’s always on his mind, and my feelings about the situation are having to be shoved to the side because, as he puts it, “It’s not your business.”

I went through dramatic changes, for me at least, in order to better myself for him. I became more open about expressing myself, even though there are times when I am not very good at it and tend to make things worse when I try. But at least I’m trying. Nine times out of ten I’ll go to him with a problem that I need help with, the one time I don’t go to him is when I have a problem with him and that’s because in the 10 months we’ve been physically in the same house I’ve learned that coming to him when I have an issue with something he’s done will do nothing to rectify the situation. In fact, I’m more likely to be told “This is who I am, deal with it” than “I’m sorry that bothers you, I’ll work on changing it so that you won’t be hurt anymore.”

To some, to many, this may seem like an extremely toxic and abusive relationship, but to me, it’s nothing more than what I deserve. After all, to him and his friend, I’m the other woman. I’m the interloper. The one who can’t be trusted. If it wasn’t true, then I would have been the one he took room hoping when we chatted online, I would be the one he comes to with his problems. I would not be the only one who is changing for the other person. To him, she treats him as if he’s perfect the way he is. He can trust her. She doesn’t want him to be different. She’s calm while I’m not.

However, she’s also a bit of a wild card. She doesn’t have kids, refuses to even consider having kids. I have three. Raising kids isn’t the easiest thing in the world, even when they are your own children and you are having to raise them by yourself. He’s learned a great deal about child rearing, and is, in my opinion, a wonderful and loving father. He’s a man I would be proud to see my son emulate and my daughters find for themselves when they get older. But only if they find men that are like the way he is around them, not the way he is around me.

To put it shortly, he frightens me. Frustrates me. Angers me. And even causes me to doubt my self-worth.

The frightens me part comes from his temper. He has an awful temper. He will be playing a game, and if he starts loosing, or someone messes up and the game can’t be salvaged, he goes into a temper that reminds me of a 2 year old. He curses, throws things, and gets short with me if I do the smallest thing in the world that offends him. This is a side I don’t want our children to see, so I have started taking the blame if one of them messes up. Lying for them so that when he’s angry he won’t lash out at them. They mess up often enough, and yes I allow him to correct them, and no I don’t agree with some of the correcting he administers. Which is why I try to protect my children from his wrath, because I don’t want them to see him as some huge adult who is always angry at them, always punishing them, a person to be feared. I want them to see him as they have always seen him, loving, kind, carefree, playful.

He frustrates me a lot of the time. Mostly because he refuses to listen to what I have to say about certain matters, especially matters concerning his friend. I feel like she has him in her net, drawing him in because she knows he still loves her, or is in fact still in love with her and is only with me because I’m safe while he knows she will drop him like a bad penny or do something so horrible that he has to walk away from her for a while. In this, I still feel as if I’m the other woman. The weekend wife as it were. I don’t have his respect. I may have an aspect of his love, but I don’t have it fully. I know that if I had his full love, then he would remember the pain and anguish this woman has put me through and decide “enough is enough” and do away with her forever. But he won’t. He doesn’t want to hurt her. So, to me, it feels as if he’s willing to allow me to have pain and suffering if it spares her.

Another way he frustrates me is the fact that he gives up easily. He complains, not often, but sometimes, about not having a job and no work experience. Well, there are many places that hire people with no work experience. For example, McDonald’s, Cracker Barrel, Taco Bell. Yes, these are fast food places, but they are a start. Work there for about 6 months, Cracker Barrel especially, and you will have enough experience to qualify for a different job with a different company. But when I suggest, or someone else suggests, that he put in an application there, he might put it in. And then, he used to at least, go and complain to his friend about how he doesn’t have a job and doesn’t have any money.

He angers me, oh my Goddess does he anger me. There are times when I just want to strangle him, or hit him upside his head, because he’s made some foolish remark or done something hard headed. Like the situation with his friend. I told him countless numbers of times that she was using whatever information he gave her and twisting it to turn against me. When asked how she could possibly do that, I would give him examples. And sure enough, she did what I said she was going to do, and still he forgave her, continued talking to her. It wasn’t until just recently, when he asked her why she betrayed him the way she had, that he realized that she had been selfish this entire time. She didn’t care about his feelings or how her actions would affect him and me. All she cared about was proving to her new Boyfriend how much she cared for him. Yet, if I go by the way he’s talking currently, he’s going to take all the blame for the situation and forgive her. His unwillingness to work to change his current situation, employment and income etc, angers me. Here I am, working nearly all the time, developing plot lines for my book, testing out sentence structures and phrases to use. I work on articles that are up on order boards so that I can get a little spending cash to go towards toilet paper, soap and other things we need around the house. Yet he does nothing but complain about how we don’t have any money.

He causes me to doubt my self-worth. This is a biggie with me, especially since he was the one who insisted that I realize that I’m not worthless. He would tell me all the time “Quit saying that, if you were worthless then I wouldn’t love you, and I do love you”. It would make me feel special, cherished. But now, my intelligence is less than that of a 2 year old, I can’t be trusted to tell the truth, and I feel like I’m back at square one in the relationship. All the work I tried to do over the past 2 years to over come my own self-destruction is worthless.

And here’s my favorite new thing he’s been doing. Telling me that I’m acting like a victim. Saying that I’m only talking negatively about myself in order to get pity. That’s bullshit! To me, that just shows just how little he actually knows about me. Or at least, how little he’s been paying attention to me. If he knew anything about me, he would know that if I speak negatively about myself, it’s because, in my eyes, my ego is getting too big. To me, if I speak negatively about myself, it’s to remind myself that I’m not the best thing since sliced bread and that there are others out there who are better than I am. He gets angry when I repeat the harsh insults he has said to me in anger back to him. He says he’s going to try to change so that he won’t lash out at me, but isn’t that what he’s doing anyways?

I didn’t ever tell him he had to choose between me and his friend.  Not once did I harp on the bad things she had done in the past. Yes, I acted depressed, which to me is normal when I find out that the man I love isn’t happy enough with me to stick to his guns and never contact someone who has betrayed him. He accused me of cheating so often, that I knew that there would be no point in continuing the denying of it, nothing I could do to prove my innocence, that I admitted that I had cheated so that he would feel justified. This action was later corrected and now he feels horrible to have falsely accused me. But he caught her cheating on him. He had proof that she was unfaithful. And even if he did forgive her for that, and sought to be friends with her once more, he had proof that she acted in a less than friend like manner towards him. She betrayed him! Nearly caused us to break up, again!

And yet, he’s going to forgive her.

So, now I’m at my own crossroads. He knows that if he decides to forgive her and continue having a relationship with her, he is jeopardizing his relationship with me. In fact, he knows that I will see his actions as proof that he doesn’t care for me and is choosing her over myself and our children. He already knows that I have a support system now that won’t let me fall, and he knows that should he do something stupid and loose me and the kids, his family won’t support him. He will have to sink or swim on his own, without a safety net.

But how can I trust him to do as he says? For the past 4 months he’s hidden that he’s been in communications with her. It’s only through happenstance that I’ve discovered it at all and have been able to confront him and get the truth. He deletes text messages, waits until I’m asleep to bring up the chat rooms they participate in (for those who are curious, they use IMVU from http://www.imvu.com for chatting) and never talks about their conversations. I’m not important enough in his world to be brought into this aspect of his life. He doesn’t trust me enough to give me every aspect of his life, like I’ve given to him. He can say he trusts me all he wants to, but when he sits there and tells me “I don’t feel comfortable with you being around while I’m talking to Selene”, he’s telling me that even though he knows that he’s wrong in talking to her about things he wouldn’t talk to me about, I’m just not important enough to him for him to care.

So, do I go left and terminate the relationship now before I continue getting hurt?

Or do I turn right and continue trusting him, waiting patiently as I have always done, for him to realize what I’ve been saying this entire time is true?