"So lonely in your company..."

I’ve always been shy, but I never let it hold me back from accomplishing all the things I wanted in life.  I pride myself on being independent and needing very little from others.  I don’t ask for much, and I certainly never asked him for much at all.  I’ve always given much more than I’ve ever asked for in return, but even that was too much for him.  The sad truth is that being in a relationship with him meant learning to be alone.  Everything was on his terms - You talked when he wanted to talk, stopped when he said you were done, and saw him when he wanted to see you (that was usually when he had nothing else to do or got tired of hearing you complain).   He couldn’t make a decision with another human being…aside from his mother…he would make up his mind and I was usually the last to know.  He just didn’t understand how to go through life being accountable to another person.  More importantly, he never wanted to learn. 

So, I learned to take care of myself and I learned not to count on him.  He wasn’t there when I was sick and he wasn’t there when I had surgery.   Nothing was ever serious enough for him to stay with me or call out of work – NOTHING - not even the time I went to the ER after going blind in one eye.  That wasn’t serious enough to stay either.   Instead, he left me home alone to figure out what to do.  My parents and siblings were all away, it was literally just me, but work was still too important.  Yet, I can’t count the number of times he dropped EVERYTHING to be with his mom when she didn’t feel well.  He even cancelled our plans one night, the only night we saw each other that week, to be with his mother when she had a stomach ache.  He literally walked in the door, and walked right back out when she called for him to go home.  She wasn’t alone, she had her entire family with her, but of course, she needed him.  Without so much as a second thought, or an apology, he went. 

I accepted those things not because I liked them, but because he always promised things would change.  He had an excuse for EVERYTHING, and it was rarely ever his fault when things didn’t work out.  I believed his false promises because I believed he loved me.  They all turned out to be false, but I didn’t know that then.  Hope can be a horrible thing; it forces you to hold on to things you should probably just let go.  Hope is almost as delusional as love; at least it was for me.