Take it From Me...

I've been through my share of relationships, and during each situation, I thought I was with the right person. It wasn't until after each one was over that I realized exactly what had gone wrong. I don't know about you, but when I commit, I put all my effort into making it work, and I refuse to give up until the situation becomes dangerous, or impossible to deal with on any level. That might be a flaw, now that I see it on paper, but I had always thought it was a quality characteristic, you know, the ability to stick with it and keep trying in the face of almost certain failure. Say, for instance, my first marriage.

I met my first husband when I was 14 and he was 19. I was a runaway, and he was facing incarceration in the CYA. I was fresh from my first real relationship, one that had begun when I was at the ripe old age of 13. It sounds young, I know, but I didn't have a real childhood, being bounced around from family to family for most of my formative years, I'd had to grow up early. Love was never present in those days for me, I have always known exactly what I wanted and didn't want, and foster moms weren't on my agenda. I was campaigning to get back to my own mom and nothing less would do. And I’m stubborn. I can and always have been able to wait anyone out. That is, until I met Joe. When Joe came to the foster home and fell for me, the affection he showered me with was impossible for me to resist, and I fell hard. Anyways, when the foster mom found out about us, they had him transferred and blocked us from communicating with each other after that. The whole drama must have had some effect on my man picker because after that, I didn't do so well. I ran away and my second week out I met Shell. I think I transferred my feelings for Joe, over to Shell. I genuinely loved him, but it wasn't the healthiest of loves. At that point I should have stayed single until my feelings for Joe had faded somewhat. But I was 14 and my upbringing was unconventional to say the least. I had no role models worth following, and no one had taught me anything a young woman should have been taught, growing up. Shell and I were pretty much an item for the next eleven years, with me putting up with things a woman should never have to deal with. Things finally came to a head when he hit me while I was holding our baby daughter. I have to own my part of that, I taunted him. Still, I had always vowed never to stay with a man who hit me, so after struggling to get away, (he was an intravenous drug addict by this time, and tried to prevent me leaving by force), I finally broke free of him and began again. This time I was 25, and had somewhat more experience of the world and people. Not enough to keep me from going round and round in the dating scene for the next five years, though. With a child and the scars I have inside and out, I had a hard time finding someone new to love me.

I met my boy's dad on my 30th birthday. By that time other influences dictated my decision making process. I was lonely and getting old, I thought, and felt like time was getting away from me. So I entered into that relationship for the wrong reasons as well. Even though I truly loved Jim, I didn't know enough about him to have children with him, and try to build a life together. But that's what I did. It lasted four years after I found out about his extreme alcoholism. I tried to make it work but he obviously couldn't put the same effort into it with his issue, so it didn't last, leaving me alone again, and this time with three kids in tow.

I bet you can't figure out why the next one didn't work. Again, I felt like time was my enemy. Here I was at 35, alone again. This time I felt like my boys needed a man around and I was unable to realize that I could do anything I wanted by myself, and that I didn't need a man to be a whole person. I met Jack in that state of mind, and again, I jumped in with both feet before I had given myself a chance to get to know him. This time I found out right away what his issue was, but it was complicated, and I thought I was being open minded and forward thinking when I decided to stay with him despite the things I had found out. And they were a deal breaker, let me tell you, but I convinced myself that I was in love with him and we were committed. By now you know me well enough to know that to me, that was a challenge, which I met head on. It took 10 years this time for me to get the message. Thank God I didn't have any children with him. By this time I was 47. Are you starting to notice a trend here?

Finally, when this one was over, and I had taken my time to get over him the right way, I found myself thinking about Joe. Just taking the time to heal correctly from the last relationship showed me that I had options. And they weren't all about finding a man, either, but it gave me the space I needed to think. I looked Joe up on Facebook and I actually found him! He was in North Carolina, (I live in California), and he was in trouble with the law. I went to see him to find out if the feelings we had for each other as kids were still there, and after four days with him, it hurt me to leave him there and go home. I set about putting in the paperwork to have him transferred here, and it wasn't easy, it took strength, determination and a lot of stubborn waiting to get him out here, but it was totally worth it. I chose the one that loved me and in the end it made all the difference. Now I know what a true equal relationship is like. It is free and easy when it's the right one. Don't get me wrong, we disagree. But we both know how to resolve it, and there's no name calling or even yelling. We discuss it and figure out a compromise we can both live with. Sometimes there's a re-visitation, but again, our compatibility makes it a pleasure to work things out.

So, first of all, your person needs to be a healthy minded person. If they are addicted to something, or if they are still committed to another situation, or if it's just that their aim in life is in the opposite direction yours is, it won't work. Oh, it might limp along for a while, but that's just wasting time. Don't let your life slip away in the searching, or the trying to make it work too long with the wrong person, like I did. If you aren't sure, then they probably aren't the right one. Better yet, talk to your significant other about it. If your imagined futures match, and you both want the same thing, push on. If not, you're better off alone until you figure it out.