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What screws us up most in life is the picture in our head of how it is supposed to be.

My parents met when they were young and going through a training course in the military. They hit it off pretty quickly as they both enjoyed adventure, parachuting, pushing their limits, dancing, partying, and trying new things. They followed all the right steps; they became friends for about a year, became official and dated for a year, lived together for three years and then finally married. They bought a house and continued with their lives together for an additional three years before I was born. So why after 30 years of marriage did none of that help? They literally took 8+ years to get to know each other before committing themselves to marriage and now they are getting divorced.

I’m 27 this year, and I’m just starting to go through this process with my parents, and it is quite different dealing with them as individuals rather than as a couple. I’m not a little girl being told not to worry about things and that mommy and daddy still love me and that everything will work out for the best. I’m being thrown into the middle with no holds bars. My mum won’t stop crying in front of me and telling me all of my dad’s faults and how awful he has been to her. My dad hasn’t even discussed anything with me in relation to the divorce or my mum, he’s just completely closed himself off and has started seeing someone new (it’s only been a few weeks since the official break up). No one is comforting me at all, it’s completely the other way around. My parents need me to help direct them and tell them I love them, that things will be alright, and things like that. My mom has been asking me to help her create a new resume and to find a new place to live an hour away from me. I feel like I’ve become the “parent” and they’re just lost little kids who can’t think straight.

It’s a weird feeling to see something you thought was rock solid just liquify in front of your eyes. It really scares me that I’m in a 3 year old relationship right now and that even if we date for another 5 years and things get better between us and we marry, it won’t keep us safe from divorcing. Marriage itself seems like a saboteur of love; you love someone so much that you bind yourself to that person and after getting married something shifts and marriage becomes a chore and a negative aura hangs over you that you have to try and live with… until you can’t.

I understand that people change over time but I don’t understand why people change separately and not together. Circumstances change, so you both change with it; I think that’s how it should be, but obviously easier said than done. My mother is a free spirit who now loves the arts and reading, her adventurous side changed from taking risks to being an introvert. My dad on the other hand is a free spirit who goes out of his way to follow his passions, but he doesn’t commit to those goals once he has it or gets close to it, and then he’s off and onto the next thing.

They took little trips together here and there and they both decided to work together, get the same matching cars, volunteer together, and basically do everything together. So the fact is that they started changing to have some alone time and that became their goals until they had no use for each other at all. Why was it so hard for them to find different individual interests earlier in life that the other could support? Instead my mom writes poems and does crafts which my dad could care less about and he has never supported this little passion of hers. And my mother has always supported my dad with everything he did, but she didn’t mean it. She did it because she felt she had to, or that if she did that then they could maybe spend even more time together. She didn’t genuinely feel happy for my dad for following his passions; maybe she envied him, but in the end I know she full heartedly resents him for it.

I love my parents to death, they have always been there for me and I’ve always had them look out for me and my best interests; there’s nothing they wouldn’t do for me. I know they love me and they’ve shown it time and again so I’m very grateful for that; I was very fortunate in the parent lottery.

What I’m having a hard time with is having my mother cut my dad down into a huge asshole and my dad showing me that he doesn’t care about hurting my mum by dating already. My dad has kept in touch with me otherwise, he might not be talking about any of the drama, but he has gone out of his way to make sure I wished my mom a happy mother’s day and to ask about my day and about things going on with me. He hasn’t talked about anything regarding the divorce but he also hasn’t bad mouthed my mum either. I love both of them equally and I don’t like that I have to see them in a new light; which is that they aren’t the nicest of people. It breaks my heart to think of them as anything less than good, honest, loving people. Because of all this, my perception on everything has changed and I feel like being alone is inevitable. That even if I find my true love and we settle into a life together, that won’t mean I won’t have to restart my life over at 55 because we end up hating each other.

I watch shows and movies where the grandparents are in their late 70’s and still gaze at each other, hold hands, have a beautiful home, have a fixed but comfortable income, have loving family members who come over for holidays and special occasions; and all I can think about is how my parents will never have that. They have to start from square one by themselves, and figure out how they are going to support their new life financially. From now on, they’ll have to share or trade off holidays and visits with me and that’s how it’s going to have to work. I’m also anticipating many more conversations about how awful the other one is for years to come. They’ve been together for well over 30 years so I’m sure there’s a lot of dirt I have yet to find out about. When I broke up with my ex-boyfriend of a couple years, it took me almost the same amount of time to start seriously dating again. I know that they are going to be in for a long road ahead and I just think this whole situation is just so sad and devastating.

I think this would almost be easier had they divorced when I was younger. I wouldn’t be treated like a sounding board who has to nod along to stories about how crappy of a person the other one is. I wouldn’t have to listen and watch my mom cry her eyes out. I wouldn’t have to know that my dad has already moved on. I wouldn’t have to help my mom find an apartment and a job while keeping it secret from my dad. I wouldn’t have to deal with their personal relationship details good or bad. I would also have a lot more time to process the situation so that when I was an adult I would already know how to approach the idea of marriage.

I have no clue right now, as of this moment in my life, relationships themselves just seem like a bad idea that are full of nothing but impending hate. I might not feel the full effects yet but I’m sure it’s coming. Everyone just ends up hating everyone and I’d much rather just live in a little cave by myself then have to hate and be hated. It’s just all so defeating… Why try?

The “D” Words: Divorce, Drama, Done & Depressed

My personal life has always been a private matter for me, I hate opening up to people about sad and depressing things that are going on with me. The only person I don’t mind opening up to is Hunter because he normally helps to calm me down and keeps me collected. Recently, my parents decided that it would be best for them to get a divorce, things are already in motion and I’m already caught in the middle of two sides. The idea of my parents separating really hurts me to my core because their marriage was the only thing that was strong and stable in my entire life. Between all the moving, uncertainty, new faces, their military tours, starting over again and again – I always had them and our family bond to rely on which helped in making me so adaptable – kind of an “us against the world” mentality. They were my rock as a power couple, but separated I feel like that was all just an act and I put my false feelings of security in something that didn’t really exist.

Divorce seems like such a normal thing considering most of my friends had divorced parents but I never thought mine would follow suite. I even had a friend tell me that my parents were her idea of an ideal marriage and if they ever got divorced she’d lose all her faith in love. She thought this because they still hung out, held hands, kissed goodbye, would do anything for the other and talked to each other respectfully. They were my idea of an ideal marriage because I knew they weren’t perfect together but they still worked towards making it work; that is up until now. It really shatters my idea of love itself, that you always fight to hold on to the one you love no matter what and that’s enough to make things work. Kind of naive thinking about it now, I know every couple has their issues, but I doubt they’re all in a constant state of feeling like they’ll lose the other person at any moment if they don’t keep trying to make things work all the time.

I’m also such a hopeless romantic because of their relationship and it feels like I’ve been thinking about love all wrong. It’s not a blossoming flower that gets better and better, it’s a struggle that gets harder and harder.

So back to reality, I had a good cry and confided in Hunter about their impending divorce; he worked days all last weekend so he invited me to come out after he finished work any day. I decided I’d go up on the Saturday to give myself some alone time, but I looked forward to having someone to console me and hold me until I felt better. Hunter texted me early on Saturday to let me know he was thinking of me and that he was excited to see me that night; he also let me know that his mum was home all day if I wanted some company. That Saturday afternoon I felt really alone and decided to get in touch with his mum (let’s call her Tina) to let her know that I was coming up. She didn’t know anything about my situation and she told me to come over any time; I was looking forward to having some wine and talking about anything positive. When I got there though, no one was there, I texted Tina asking where she was but I didn’t get a reply. So I ended up sitting by myself for almost two hours before I got a text from Tina saying she thought she had sent me a text to explain she’d be out for a while but it didn’t go through. I was irritated but things happen and come up so I let it go, she told me she’d be back in about ten minutes.

When she got there, we had about a half hour of happy conversation before some drama reached her and she became very upset over it. She calmed down after a while but I could tell she was still very affected by it. Around seven Hunter showed up but before I could say anything his father just basically looked at him and said “ahh what now?!” out of nowhere which got Hunter upset right away. Hunter didn’t even look at me, grabbed his dog and went for an hour walk. I became upset with Hunter because the whole reason I was even there was to have him be there for me, and instead he just left. When he got back he still didn’t even look in my direction and started picking on non important things to his parents which created more tension. At some point around eight thirty or so I happened to walk by him and he just gently grabbed my shoulder and I responded sarcastically saying “wow, finally”. Probably not the right thing to say because I escalated his temper from 60 to 100. He flipped out, yelled down the hallway about his life and slammed his bedroom door.

I hung out with his family for a while longer and decided pretty quickly that I was ready to go home and that going there was an obvious mistake. Hunter came back down around nine or so and stood in the kitchen quietly not saying anything. His dad started showing me something from his collection and I pretended to be really into it so I wouldn’t feel so awkward. After another half hour of that Hunter stormed by and angrily said that he was going to bed. I pipped up and said “well, thanks for all your help today, you knew I was going through something and I really needed you.” He completely blew up at that and eventually told me to leave if I wanted to (I really did at that point) and that we were over. I apologized to his dad, thanked him for dinner and told him that he’d most likely see me again. I headed out the door to the car and Tina intercepted me and kept telling me not to drive home while I was that emotional and that she’d make a bed for me and things like that. All I wanted to do was to go home to cry my eyes out more than anything, Tina still stuck to her guns about me staying and kept talking to me so I wouldn’t leave; and also in that conversation I told her about my parents and how I really needed Hunter before everything went to garbage. While I was making up my mind on what to do, Hunter ran out of the house, got in his truck and left; he then sent me a text apologizing for not being the boyfriend I needed. At that point I was concerned for his well being so I went back to their house to make sure he made it back home okay. It wasn’t long before he screeched back into the driveway and we went out back to talk.

My biggest argument is that I just wanted to be comforted by him and instead he put my anxiety and emotions through the roof which I really didn’t need. He told me that my comments set him off and that I could of gone to him at any point so it was my own fault that we didn’t get any time together. We fought back and forth over the details for at least an hour, lots of yelling and finger pointing. When we were both reaching our limits with this fight he told me it was up to me if I wanted to break up, because that’s what he was thinking. I cannot stand when he throws that at me and I promised myself if he ever said that to me again I’d take him up on it. I told Hunter “fine! We might as well break up because I don’t trust you, you’re always mad at me or blaming me for your own issues, you can’t be there for me when I need you even though I’m always there for you and apparently I make your life miserable so sure, lets break up”. He was really caught off guard and asked about the trust issue. I told him that I can’t trust him because of the messages I’ve seen in his phone to other girls and that he told me he does it because he is bored; so every friggin time he tells me he is bored, guess what I think he’s doing? He told me that this made him really upset that I still thought that and that he learned from the last time I brought it up last year that it was beyond wrong. After that he told me that he tried his best to be there for me the days prior where he did send me nice texts to try and make me feel better. He told me too that he feels really sad that I think he’s always mad at me because he rarely is, and when it does happen it’s normally displaced anger about something else not something I did or didn’t do so he apologized for that. He let me know also that I’m not making him miserable its just all his own problems becoming bigger and bigger and so he concentrates on that and I unfortunately get clumped in to “everything in my life is horrible and everyone’s against me”.

I told him that I appreciated all the nice things he’s done but that I’m going to stand up for myself, if I didn’t do it, then I’m not to blame! End of story. So we talked more and eventually things calmed down somewhat. I cried a good cry and he just held me; I just couldn’t deal with everything anymore. We went and sat down after that and just made small talk, keeping things light. He brought up a friends ex-girlfriend and how they had been talking about funny drama in her life, and that she was excited to meet me and thought I was really pretty. He showed me their texts and asked if talking with her was alright. I told him that I don’t care if he talks to women so long as there’s no flirting on his part or theirs and he seemed to grasp that (hopefully).

We’ve since moved on I guess and we haven’t talked about the fight or anything since it happened. I’m supposed to go over to his place this weekend since he’s off, but I feel so embarrassed about everything that I’d rather just hide out at home. I feel like I made the right call in staying, but I can’t take that kind of behaviour forever. I still think things will end eventually over his own issues but for now I’m still in the picture. On top of all that, I still feel dumb for staying but I also feel optimistic that I got all of my concerns out to him so he knows exactly how I feel and what I’m thinking. This fight probably actually solved a good few of our past fears and concerns so I am very grateful for that.

Relationships are so fragile, and after everything with my parents it’s hard to have hope for this one between me and Hunter to work out; i still have my little voice inside that says everything will work out between us, in that hopelessly romantic tone, but it’s getting harder and harder to listen to it.

Queen Bee of Justification

I feel so obsessed with Hunter’s online world because it’s so closed off and mysterious, I really wish it was an open and transparent means of communication. I was talking with his sister last week and she had recently broken up with her boyfriend over a few issues and one included him flirting with other girls online and while she was discussing this with me, she added “you know, the same thing that Hunter did to you”. In that moment I felt like I was so stupid for staying and just kind of nodded along with the rest of her story.

As of right now, I feel at a loss of how to feel about Hunter; on one hand I really love him and want him in my life, on the other I want to castrate him, let him wallow in his regret for crossing me and never see him again.

I’ve always loved gossipy dramatic shows like Dr. Phil, I’ve been a viewer since my early teens and I still watch it fairly regularly. Yesterday’s episode was about a really screwed up couple with way worse problems that mine and Hunters; but like me, the woman found online conversations between the man and other women. I started paying more attention to what Dr. Phil would say and how he would deconstruct the guys lies. Instead, he looks at the guy and says something along the lines of “you’re not a puzzle, there’s all this evidence to prove your behaviour and it’s obvious that you’re in the wrong”. Then he looks at the woman and says “you’re the puzzle! What other evidence do you need? What don’t you know? What information are you waiting for?” and so my brain gears started turning right then and there.

The evidence I have against Hunter are all the texts and messages that I’ve read with my own eyes and the confrontation arguments we’ve had over them. The fact that I’ve caught him multiple times for the exact same behaviour after we had those arguments and discussions that he “didn’t know that was considered flirting”. Also, I dread watching shows with him or being in public with him when there is a gorgeous and voluptuous curvy woman to be seen because he never fails to make a comment to me about how amazing she/her breasts are or to make an audible “wow” tone.  Like I’m just one of the guys, flat as a board, blind apparently and can’t see her myself; he makes me feel like I might as well be a lamp when there’s someone prettier/bigger breasted then me around (he doesn’t ever say or make noises and things like that when I walk into a room).

The things I don’t know and the information I’m waiting for is if Hunter is continuing with his flirting online or if I can actually start to trust him again. I don’t want to start unnecessary fights if there’s nothing happening behind my back; and that would be the best case scenario. But I’m also waiting for the day I get a message from one of these girls who feels bad enough for me to speak up about his emotional cheating and to forward me their conversations as proof.

So why do I stay?

I’m the Queen of justification, everything I do and act on is because I told myself things like: it’s fine, what’s meant to be will be, everything happens for a reason, we’ll get through this, etc.

I think about all the great things about our relationship and then try to imagine being alone and secluded. Hunter goes out of his way to make a trip down to see me at least once a week (he lives about 45 minutes away), if he can make it down more or for a longer stay then he does, he’s chivalrous with me, he takes me out on roadtrips, ATV’s, boats, and other toys, he genuinely wants me around as much as possible and he makes me laugh. We do so much together but we also have a good amount of space so we get alone time too.

In my perfect world, Hunter and I would be in the same situation as we are now, only he would be more serious about our relationship and respect it entirely . We would also be able to talk about our fears and problems without it turning into a fight where we just try to “win” the argument.

I get frustrated just re-reading the above paragraph because I see the strong potential in our relationship and I’m so upset and saddened that there’s two main problems and Hunter isn’t receptive whatsoever to taking responsibility for his actions or being level headed enough to talk things out to the fullest (which I think I deserve at this point). I hate that we’ve discussed this at least three times in the heat of an argument over about three years and I never feel closure from it. Afterwards, I always feel like I still don’t know the whole story or that anything was even fixed or that he even understood what I was trying to get across. It’s like pulling teeth to get him to engage in these kinds of conversations with me, and when I have brought it up in the past, instead of discussing it further he gets upset that I don’t trust him and that he can never do anything right; and then we get so off topic that we never actually end up talking about the actual problem I had with him. All I want to do is bring it up again later on but I never do because it’s just a losing up hill battle; unless I have his phone in my hand and shove the conversations he’s had with other women in his face, and even then he tries to talk his way out of it so we never get to the root problem. That’s all I want to do and I don’t understand why he doesn’t take that more to heart.

I’ve thought about leaving lots of times, but it just doesn’t feel right to me. I fantasize all the time about him proposing to me, what ring he would buy me, what house we might buy, where we would have the wedding, how many kids we would have, all the adventures we’ll have together and happy lovely things like that. I just have so much hope for our future together that I put my feelings on hold, vent online instead of to him, and wait for his light bulb moment to happen. But I think the only way for that to happen is for me to specifically break up with him over the above problems. But that only helps his next girlfriend(s) and they get the benefit of a great mature guy while I end up alone as per usual, or I meet someone else with the same or worse problems.

I feel really alone in all this and I wish I had someone to confide in, someone to be my support system that isn’t my mum or dad. I feel so pathetic.

Hey white liar, truth comes out a little at a time

“Here’s a bombshell just for you, turns out I’ve been lying too”

White lying is something I’m very good at, I’ve been doing it since I was really little, sometimes just for the thrill of it. As I’ve gotten older though I find it’s morphed into less of white lying and it’s turned more into omitting the truth to save face.  I do it because I believe its saving me from unnecessary drama and fights with Hunter or my boss and that way I get to do what I want without causing any issues for anyone.

With my boss I do it specifically so I don’t get lectured over something I forgot to do or that I hadn’t done yet. I tell him something else came up, or “I already sent that e-mail, server must be really slow today!”; and general things like that. With these scenarios I feel pretty proud of myself for getting myself out of the situation right on the spot and then promptly doing whatever it is I should have had done already. I go to sleep that night without worrying about the consequences because all my loose ends are tied up and it’s done with.

With Hunter,  I find it a bit more difficult to keep innocent things from him. He is a very jealous person; to the point where he will get upset with me if a man checks me out instead of proud that he’s the one with me. He’ll even make it a point to be snobby with me if a guy on my Facebook likes too many of my posts. To be fair though, I’m a pretty jealous person myself but I make the distinctions between the girls I know he’s dated or seen and girls that are literally just his friends. I know the difference; and I could care less if he went out for coffee with one of the girls that I’ve met and seen with my own eyes that they are honestly just good friends. He doesn’t even do that though because he still feels like he’s cheating or something (really contradictory of the online behaviour, I think that just makes my point too that he thinks online interactions aren’t real life or something).

Anyway, my boss likes to take me out for lunches and outings every once in a while, just a few times a year with the contractors because he knows how isolated I am at the office; so whenever he asks if I’m up for it I always try my best to get out there. It’s always a lot of fun, my boss pays for everything for everyone and it’s 1000% platonic. I don’t dress like I’m going clubbing, I don’t flirt and I make sure to bring Hunter up whenever I can. So what’s the problem then right? Hunter comes from a small town, where my boss and all the contractors are from, and Hunter is acquainted with most of them. I make sure not to tell Hunter I’ve gone out because I know all the chaos that would come from that including a very possible break up scenario, so I’m always worried that it will somehow get back to him. I really wish he could understand that there’s nothing going on and believe me so that I could tell him and he would have a positive reaction. I really would love it if all he said was something like “too bad I’m working tonight, sounds like fun! Have a great time, and tell everyone I say hi!”

I hate how guilty I feel for going out because I want to tell him the funny stories that came up or the gossip between the contractors (for a bunch of old men, that’s all they do & it’s pretty great to witness). & I’m sure that Hunter goes out after work with his friends every once in a blue moon too and doesn’t tell me; but his reasoning would be that he was with his guy friends & not a bunch of women if I did ever bring it up.

I find the biggest thing missing in our relationship is trust. Hunter has convinced himself that I’m interested in anyone but him – in real life, day-to-day scenarios and I’m convinced that he wants anyone but me in an online virtual reality kind of way (I believe he thinks that he’s stuck with girls at my level in real life [I’m probably a solid 8 & so are most of his exes by the way] and he thinks he deserves better/the best of the best; and the only way he can get better than me is by trying his luck online – *Insert sarcastic tone* obviously because women online are all perfect 10’s just by looking at their profile pictures).

When we had our last big fight and he had calmed himself down enough he actually did bring up the article I found a while back that described men in relationships who only flirted online or through texts who were missing something in the relationship and it wasn’t directly related to the girlfriend lacking anything. Hunter asked me to re-explain the points in the article which I did, and then I asked him what might be missing for him, that he feels so compelled to do that. He told me that he does it when he’s bored in the relationship. The vibe I got was that it’s just something that gives him a bit of a rush and that’s all it really boils down to. It’s not that he wants to leave me for any of them, it just makes things more exciting. Which I think re-affirms my point that he is the creme de la creme of all drama kings. He’s literally creating tension in our relationship to liven things up just for himself (he never intended for me to see those conversations).

I just want to keep bringing this up with him, because every time it comes up I end up re analyzing everything and coming up with new questions days or weeks later. Like – is this going to keep happening forever? What would make things so exciting that you wouldn’t feel the need to do that? Is there something else that could give you the same rush without you having to be king supreme of the assholes? Have there been any girls who actually went with it? Should I be worried that this rush might fade and you’ll move on to physically cheating? How can you prove to me that you aren’t doing that anymore? Can you make me trust you again & how would you do that? When I get bored in the relationship (which does happen for me too) should I try this with my guy friends because it obviously works so well for you?

I guess we all have our secrets and reasons for doing what we do, but it just seems to be more trouble than anything. At this point I feel like all relationships are built on lies and omissions; both parties trying to get everything they want without hurting the other. But like Miranda Lambert says “truth comes out a little at a time” so as much as my group dinners might piss Hunter off if he finds out, I’m not doing anything that would directly hurt him whereas his behaviour from his boredom directly hurts me. It tarnishes our relationship and makes me look worthless to the girls he’s flirting with. It’s to the point that I’d like to give him a taste of his own medicine but it’s really not in my blood to do that. It’s so weird to love someone so much and at the same time to wish them so much bad karma!  I honestly swear that the idea of what love should be and the reality of what love has actually turned out to be will be what drives me insane. For me at this point, there’s no such thing as real unconditional love outside of my immediate family and as far as I can tell, “men” are all horny immature teenagers who are incapable of really, truly, loving someone.  Really starting to regret not applying for that Mars mission…

Drama King

I’m in a terrible mood today because of relationship problems so right now I’m going to vent about my boyfriends irrational- hyper-emotional – rages.

I’ve always known him to blow up at the smallest things; the first time I witnessed it, we had been dating for about a month maybe not even. He really wanted a burrito but the tortillas that he bought were old and all stuck together. He tried to be careful to separate them but he ripped the top one in half. He then proceeded to yell things along the lines of “everything’s unfair”, “why does this happen to me!?”, “Everything bad happens to me” and he then angrily proceeded to whip the broken tortilla at the fridge, like he really meant to hurt it or something. It was like watching someone suffer a life altering loss and falling into a noticeable deep depression in minutes. I honestly started laughing because I thought he was putting on a drama filled show to be funny or something. He actually was not as I learned pretty quickly.

There are a lot of stories like this one except one big difference, he doesn’t blame the tortillas anymore, he blames me. & Before I go any farther I’d like to put a disclaimer out that he has never gotten violent with me or threatened me in any way.

I have a few stories that really stick out on this issue, and the more I think about them the more I see this relationship failing without some kind of divine intervention; but since I’m more or less on the Atheist side, I don’t see much help coming from the heavens, but there’s always Dr. Phil I guess though.

Anyway, My next story involves a ski trip to one of our local ski hills in town. I had skied once when I was little and decided that since skiing was a passion of his I should give it a shot again. When I was little I took it up really fast and on the day we went I think it’s a miracle I didn’t die (maybe from actual divine intervention). My Boyfriend (lets call him Hunter) has a big ego about being a great teacher whether it be skiing, boating, ATVing, carpentry, etc. So the day that we were there he took it upon himself to teach me (sort of). I did well going up the chairlift and getting off without falling over which probably gave me a false sense of competence. As I started to make my way down the hill, Hunter told me some quick basics about doing the pizza with my skis and telling me how to go back and forth to stay in control. I tried really hard to do what he told me but every time I started to gain too much speed I’d either fall or start bombing the hill even faster. I couldn’t control my body and the skis and the more I fell the more he yelled at me for not listening to his instructions. It was a really frustrating and defeating day and I felt like Hunter knew nothing about teaching. His philosophy was that if I followed the two sentences of instructions he gave me and just watched him that it would make me a pro. That was most certainly not the case, since I managed to get a grand ovation from the people on the entire chair lift. There’s no way I’m not in one of those “biggest fails” videos somewhere.  I ended up sticking around more with one of his friends that was there because he was mellow and tried to encourage me even though I was not doing well; I gravitated to him because he wasn’t stressing me out and I think Hunter liked that he could leave me with him so he could get some real runs in. I only finished three runs before I decided that it was enough, & I wanted to go to the bar. Hunter still wanted to get a couple more runs into his day which was fine with me so he went and did that while I hung back with his friends. We decided to play a game of pool and I was having fun because I’m not terrible at it. After a while I happened to look up and Hunter was standing in the corner watching me and he was fuming. I went over to ask him what was wrong and he started accusing me of flirting with his friends and showing off my cleavage (how much cleavage can I really get from being an A -cup? If there was any at all I think he should of counted his blessings instead). I got defensive and told him he was creating drama over nothing, I was literally just playing pool – I wasn’t going to sit at a table by myself and wait for him to finish skiing while his friends that I hung out with all day were in the bar too. I was also pretty intoxicated at this point and took what he said to heart because I felt guilty even though I did nothing wrong. I sat in the back on the way home because Hunter decided to give me the silent treatment and I was expecting him to break up with me as soon as we got to my house. I know it’s really dumb but I made sure to be as social as possible with everyone else but him and to be as annoying as possible. In my mind if he wanted to see a show I’d give him a real one considering things were over in my mind.

When we reached my house I jumped out as quick as I could, grabbed my stuff and before I could run inside, Hunter stepped out and wanted to talk. He brought up the whole breaking up scenario but never actually broke things off. We had it out in the driveway for a good ten to fifteen minutes and left things where they were. Somehow over the next couple of hangouts it didn’t get brought up and we just kind of moved on from it.

The next year we ended up having some more fights like this but the biggest one was in the summer over a boating trip. Hunter called me just enraged about how the other couple coming with us expected us to feed them all weekend. I tried to settle him down and told him we could just get a pack of hamburgers and bread and stuff like that and not to worry about it and that I would take care of it (we have a deal where I buy all the food and beer while he buys all the gas for the boat, it actually evens out pretty well). Hunter would not calm down about it and instead of blaming his friends for being inconsiderate, he started yelling at me about not giving him every detail about the food items I was bringing. I got upset with him for yelling at me when I didn’t deserve it and started crying. He got even more angry and told me not to bother coming because I was just going to ruin the weekend for him with all my crying and then he hung up on me.

I get this weird impulse where instead of being done with things, I want to prove just how great I am and how I can put things back together. I stopped crying, did my best at groceries with what everyone was requesting and got to his house almost an hour early by flying down the highway to make sure I wasn’t late. When I got there we didn’t talk but when Hunter finally said something he told me that he went and did groceries and bought a bunch of stuff; so basically I had just spent almost $200 in groceries for no reason.

We were supposed to meet up at his house for around 4:30pm and leave by 5pm – his stance was that if you weren’t there by 5pm he was leaving anyway. His friends were not there by 5pm, because they had to do groceries… They showed up around 6:30pm and I was expecting fireworks; I really thought he was going to lose his mind with them and just go off on them (the guy is his best friend and the girl he’s known since he was around 5 years old). When they came over, all he said was “glad you guys made it!” and “oh, don’t worry we were behind schedule anyway”. Had things been the other way around and it was me who was that late, the whole neighbourhood would of known about it or he would of just left at 5pm and not of told me. I was in a horrible mood after everything and gave him the silent treatment for the rest of the day, he eventually insincerely apologized the next day after I brought up the fact that if he can’t yell at his friends then he needed to apply that same respect to me because I’m his good friend too & obviously he can control himself, and we left it at that and moved on.

Last night we got to have it out because of his own issues and mood. I had a great day up until he was done work and started to blame me for everything that went wrong with his day. He has a work ski trip that he earlier on invited me to and I accepted on the terms that he get over his ego and understand that I need real lessons. That didn’t go over well the first time I brought it up because he thinks he’s God’s gift to the world and if he can’t do it then no one can. He kept telling me things like “I was a trained ski instructor, the person who teaches you won’t even be close to the level I was at; I probably taught people at his level!” To give some more context he’s skied all of his life but in the last 5 years he maybe makes his way out once or twice a year and that’s it.

Anyway, my Grandmother is in the hospital and my mom needed a car to visit her so she used mine; I assumed since I live along the way to the hill, Hunter could just pick me up no problem. When I mentioned that to him he had a total melt down about how he wasn’t even going to go anymore, everyone wants too much from him and so on. Later on I told him that I worked it out with my mom where we’d both drive up to his house and she would take the car from there. He then proceeded to yell at me about not saying that sooner and that he already tried to work out new timings and schedules with the other people coming with us. He then continued to blame me for all our relationship problems and how I never take the time to put his needs first and to think about doing/saying things before he asks me to.

I lost it on him and told him that my grandmother was my priority right now, not his stupid schedule to get to the hill at exactly 8am – it’s his friends, his plan and his schedule so why is everything my fault? I kept trying to tell him that we figured out the problem and we had a solution; I just really wanted him to drop it. That set him off and then he was just mad about everything, he said he wasn’t going anymore, that I took all the fun out of it and we would just end up fighting like we did the first time.

His biggest argument turned into the fact that I tend to go after his ego about the things he loves like skiing and boating. He recited a couple stories of when I did that and I’ll admit that I was off base and that I’ll have to start watching what I say when it comes to those topics. My issue with that is I’m socially awkward about those things and all I know to say are how bad I am at them – and Hunter is the one who tries to teach me about them (which he sucks at). So then Hunter becomes the butt of the joke; I meant it all in good fun to lighten things up and to be a part of the conversation. I’m going to try and do better at not doing that, it’s just hard to stick to a commitment like that when Hunter loses it on me, it feels almost like if he’s going to knock me down, then I’ll do it right back; super immature of me, but that’s been one of my coping technique.

We fought on the phone for about 3 hours in total, our fighting styles don’t match and we end up just setting the other person off more. He gets accusatory and I get really sarcastic so that’s why it went on for so long. In the end he ended up asking me what I wanted to do next and if we were over all together. I told him that I still wanted to date because I was in love with him and then he said the same about me. We started joking about something and had a somewhat awkward but nice little conversation and then said our good nights like everything was fine.

I don’t know if we can overcome this, because honestly by the end of the fight I was hoping he would just end things. When he handed me the decision I couldn’t do it and I’m not sure if I’m happy about that or not. It feels like we’re so wrong for each other and we obviously have major relationship issues on both of our parts; but there’s something inside that keeps telling me that we will work out because I fit in so well with his family and lifestyle and when we get along, we really do get along well. This is only my second real relationship and I feel like no matter what I’m going to make the wrong decision and I’ll probably end up all alone.

My Body is a Temple; a sick one with too many fat layers in the wrong places, but a temple none the less

I don’t know when you can say that you’re cured from a sickness like bulimia, it’s just always kind of there, even if I’m just thinking about it. I haven’t binged and purged in a good few solid months, and it hasn’t been as present in my mind as it once was. I’ve been struggling with it for the last five years or so, I thought it would just be a phase where I would lose the weight I wanted to, get back in control of my body and then stop when I was happy with the results; but I’ve learned that my body will never be perfect so stopping all together is really hard.

I went to Greece for a month in 2010 for a university credit to finish my minor in Classics. As you may know, the main food choices are all high calorie things like feta, tzatziki, fatty meat, pita bread, beer, etc. Even if I ate something that was pretty good for me, I ate huge portions of that which probably didn’t help anything either.

When I got home, I noticed how tight my clothes were fighting but when you gradually gain weight it’s hard to tell just how much, so I decided to weigh myself. I’m a 5’3″ girl who has always believed 120 lbs would be around the heaviest that I would be, but when I weighed myself that day I came out to 142 lbs and I went into a bit of shock. I still remember the number because I couldn’t stop staring at it, and re-weighing myself to make sure the scale wasn’t broken.

I started to get really depressed and I tried to motivate myself to work out but it just felt like I was too far gone at the time. My best friend at the time (Jen, from the previous post) had told me the year before that for about a month she struggled with bulimia and that she basically started up because she was stressed out and once she was passed that stress she stopped. I figured I could do the same, it would take care of my weight, I could be lazy and I could feel in control again.

Over the course of a few months I was back down to about 120 lbs but that still didn’t feel like enough. I wanted to be skinnier so that I would feel more beautiful and comfortable in my skin. At this time, I was also in a transitional phase – I had graduated from University, I had about $35,000.00 to repay in student loans, I was living back at home and I was unemployed with no prospects, no friends in the area and no boyfriend; I was overwhelmed.

I got more and more active during the year, I was running a couple miles every day, I would walk my parents dog for an additional 40-60 minutes just about every day as well (it just depended on the weather) and I was gaining a lot of core strength and muscle. I still couldn’t stop the urges to purge though, I was still so stressed out and purging was the one thing in the world that I could control for myself.

Over the year it got more intense, to the point where I honestly had no appetite and I wasn’t ingesting more than a couple hundred calories a day. Mostly because I hate the taste of coffee when it comes up my throat, so I would keep that down. When I ate a few bites of anything, my stomach felt overwhelmingly full and I felt like I absolutely had to purge, not even just because of my wanting to be skinny, I just honestly felt sick from feeling full. I lost control of it at that point and I knew it.

My mum was seeing a therapist around March of 2011 and she knew that I was on the depressed side but that’s all she knew. She recommended that I go and see her therapist and maybe that would help. Her therapist was this old lady who instead of asking me details about my life, kept handing me pamphlets and quizzes to fill out. She determined from those that I was extremely depressed. At the end of the session she asked me if there was anything else she should know and I quietly told her I was bulimic and cried. I never went back to her or any other therapist for that matter.

In October of 2011, it had been over a year at this point with my bulimia, I still hadn’t told anyone besides the therapist and I was starting to get scared. I went to a Halloween party, and I was drinking pretty heavily and I got it in my mind that I wanted to confide in Jen. Her reaction was very much what I expected, soft crying and trying to wrap her head around it. More than anything though, I wanted to know how she stopped so quickly and I think she wanted to know how I could do it for so long. The next day I was really mad at myself for telling her anything, bulimia was my thing & I was upset that it wasn’t just my secret anymore. In the year following I partied a lot with Jen and I was still binging and purging but my hangovers were doing a lot of the work for me. I was looking and feeling really skinny and my self esteem was higher because of that. One night we were pre-drinking before going out with a group of our friends and taking selfies and being silly. After Jen had taken a few pictures of me, she kept saying things like “wow, you look so skinny!” “you look really great, I wish I looked like that” “I feel so bloated” and so on. After a few minutes she kind of repeated herself, but she said it much louder this time “wow you look so skinny! I would too if I were cheating to get thin!” -I wanted to die.

Luckily, somehow everyone else was too preoccupied with what they were doing and nobody seemed to have heard her (or they didn’t want to get involved); so I just carried on like I didn’t care that she said that and went to talk to other people. I am someone who holds grudges and I am still mad that she would try to embarrass me. Bulimia is a private lonely sickness and for me to have told her was a huge deal, I didn’t tell her for over a year for a reason. That act of stupidity just showed me that I really couldn’t trust anyone with this information so after I kicked her out of my life I haven’t told anyone else.

I do think that my mum knows on some level, actually not too long ago, maybe just a couple months ago we were talking about whatever. I mentioned that something made me physically sick a lot (I don’t honestly remember what I said though), and my mum said “Oh, I was wondering why you were throwing up so much.” I quickly changed the topic, and now I avoid conversations that might go back to that topic.

Since about mid 2013 I’ve lessened my bathroom visits to purge by at least three quarters. Something that I was doing multiple times a day became something I did once or twice a month, and now its more like something I do three or four times a year. I do think I’m getting over it on some level, my teeth aren’t rotting out of my head, I don’t have puke breath all day and my throats not always sore from the acid anymore. The biggest reminder of my past with bulimia are the little scars on my middle finger, I try not to look at them though. I think I’ve slowed down because I feel more in control of my life, I have a job, a boyfriend, a puppy, my debts are paid off and things like that. I still have my days though where its just something I need to do, but it always comes back to not being able to deal with something and feeling out of control. I’m hoping one day, when I feel like everything is falling apart I can just deal with it and move on.

As of today, I am probably pushing 125-130 lbs, I really want to relapse because I know it works but I haven’t yet. I live in a cold climate so right now its around -30 outside and I can’t get out and motivate myself to work out. All I want to do it sit around and eat and magically get skinny. I’m still a work in progress but I’m hoping that when the weather gets milder I’ll get motivated again to lose weight healthily and that way I can actually tell people how I look so good & I’ll get to be proud of myself for that!

Good friends come and go… but mostly they just go

Lance Clayton: “I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up all alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is ending up with people who make you feel all alone”

I’ve only ever had one real best friend that I knew for about 10 years or so, someone I thought who would always be there for me, like a long lost sister or something. I still hold a lot of resentment, anger and sadness about losing her as a friend because even though I know it’s for the best, I feel like I’ll never have someone in my life again that I can be that close to. It takes so much time and effort to build a strong friendship and I feel like everyone I try to get close to already has a tight knit pack of friends, who have been friends for many years, with no room for me.

My first encounter with the person who later on became my best friend (lets just call her Jen), was actually really bad; I did not like her. I was new in town and took the bus to school and wanted to sit with a girl that lived down the road from me she was already sitting next to someone, so I took the seat next to the one she was in; and unbeknown to me, next to Jen. A couple stops later another girl got on the bus and she started talking over me to Jen, a minute later they were hovering over me and telling me I had to get out of their spot. I didn’t move and so Jen changed seats and they angrily sat behind me and made a lot of jokes at my expense. As a quiet, small and passive little twelve year old I made sure not to sit there again. But it was too late, they already had me in their sights and made fun of me to my face anyway.

A couple years later we were in high school and I hadn’t bothered to talk to her since the bus bullying incident. I had gotten close to a couple girls and of course they were also friends with Jen. She quickly introduced herself as if we didn’t know each other, looked me over and started complaining about how much she hated girls who didn’t have to wear foundation (she had an acne outbreak). I wanted to be friends with the other girls and to be in the group so I told Jen that I wore lots of it too, & that she probably couldn’t tell because of the bad lighting. After that, she got really excited that I had a flaw and she immediately became nicer to me, because she thought she was better than me in some way.

We didn’t get really close until a few years later in university when we both found ourselves in Ottawa for post secondary. I was really happy to have a good friend as I was having a horrible time with my roommate from hell and also trying to keep a new relationship above water. I can honestly say that she was there for me and I was there for her. Together we had a great way to deal with drama and events that happened in our lives & I am still so grateful for that.

Late one night in May, the summer after Second year, I got a phone call that Jen had been in a serious car accident and was at the hospital. There is a big hill in our hometown that people try to fly over to make their stomachs jump, the guy driving tried to do that at over 120 kl/hr, crossed lanes and hit another vehicle dead on that was doing about 80 kl/hr. If any of the people who were in the car didn’t have their seat belts on they would have died, no question.

I got to the hospital as fast as I could, and I made it a point to see her and stay by her side. I even lied to the staff and told them we were sisters so that I could stay past visiting hours & stay overnight. She had multiple surgeries and broken bones but she wasn’t critical which was a big relief. I hung around the hospital with her every day, watching TV, wheeling her around the halls, getting her ice chips, trying not to laugh when she got applauds from the nurses for farting (she had intestinal trauma, so passing anything was a great sign), having coffee dates, and so on. I was there with her for  just over two weeks until she was released.

I knew she had changed from the trauma she experienced, a lot of things in her life seemed uncertain but even though she broke up with her boyfriend and battled with low self esteem, she still confided everything with me; including the huge lump sum of money she was going to receive from the insurance companies. She became obsessed with money and her spending habits and budgets.

We talked daily, just like before, but now all she talked about was money; how much she made an hour before and after taxes, how much she made that day, week, month, year. She would read her receipts to me and tell me to the cent what she had spent on extravagant make-up, clothes, furniture, trips, etc. How much she had in savings, how much she was still expecting to make, & brag about all her raises and what she was saving for next.

After a while, I also noticed that besides her money fixation all she wanted to do when we hung out was to go out and meet guys and drink. I was all for that for the longest time, but I was unemployed, broke and it got boring after a while. Then when I stopped going out as much, she started down a road of dangerous dating; meeting guys online and meeting them in secluded areas alone. I felt like we weren’t in a friendship anymore, she just wanted to self destruct and she didn’t want any help from me; anytime I did try to intervene she would pretend to listen and then do everything I told her not to, because it was dangerous.

Out of the blue, Jen and another friend of ours ambushed me one day for my birthday with a mystery trip to Montreal. I was so caught of guard and so happy that they thought to do that for me. That is up until we stopped for lunch and Jen said now you have to do this for me and take me to New York City, and the other friend piped in, yeah me too & you’re going to take me to Cuba. So I felt like the trip wasn’t for me at all, it was for them to guilt trip me into planning and paying for expensive trips for them. During our stay I was constantly reminded about how much they paid for the hotel and how “broke” they were now. I just ended up feeling bad about myself the whole time, like I owed them the world or something. There was also an event that happened; I don’t want to go into details about it because I’m really ashamed and disgusted in myself about it. To this day, I still blame them and myself for what happened – that was not something I ever thought I could or would do and I’m still upset over it. I wish they never brought me to Montreal to begin with, I loved that city and they ruined it for me.

Over time, Jen became incredibly braggy, jealous and competitive with me, if something good happened to me she would make it about herself. One of my breaking points with the friendship was when I was hosting a pro bono charity fundraiser night for the Children’s Wish Foundation. It was a classy sit down dinner event and we couldn’t start serving meals until everyone was there. Jen came trotting in about a half hour late, I didn’t say anything besides “okay, good your here, go through that door and find your table, quick please!” She stood there and glared at me for a second and said “..but don’t you notice anything?” I quickly replied “no”, and she almost had a fit in the hallway because I didn’t notice her hair was a shade blonder. The whole night she made comments like “wow, I thought this event was really going to suck”, “I won at a silent auction! Even though the items aren’t that good”, “the food was okay I guess”. I had spent 8 months of hard work putting it together with a team of event managers and I got everything for FREE! 100% of the benefit went straight to the charity (we raised about $12,000.00), but I guess that wasn’t very interesting to Jen.

A few weeks after that I won a scholarship to go to Africa for a month from the school I was associated with. Jen wanted nothing to do with me at that point, she stopped calling every day, she didn’t come to my graduation (which was held just a couple blocks from her house), and when she did call it was about her promotions, raises, new apartment or whatever. She just could not be happy for me, and that really made me furious considering how much I did for her the last few years from the point of the accident to never complaining about her bragging, and dealing with all the good and bad that came her way. I really felt like I was being used, I had to be there for her but there was no effort on her part to be there for me.

The week before I left the continent I tried to call her a few times to touch base but she never answered. The day I left, I got up early, packed and was just about to take my SIM card out of my phone when she called. I let it go to voice-mail because I was so furious with her. She left me a stupid message, it was something along the lines of, “sorry I didn’t get back to you – but I had a really busy week” and then proceeded to tell me all that she did that week. No have a safe trip, e-mail me when you get there, bring me back something cool – just nothing. I was really scared of what I had gotten myself into and I just really actually needed her, and she wasn’t there for me.

During my trip she messaged me once or twice but it was all very impersonal, again not asking me any questions about my trip or culture shock, just what was going on with her. And when I got home she again didn’t call or message me for almost a week. She finally got in touch after that and let me know that the day I came home, she left on a girls trip to go to a cottage and relax. I really needed something like that and it never even crossed her mind to invite me. When I wrote back to her I lied and told her I was too busy to see her and all she wrote back was “fine, let me know when you actually have time for me…”. I wanted to explode!! How could she make that about herself on top of making everything else about herself! It was like inception for a redundant narcissist queen.

I never wrote back and that was the last time we communicated. It’s been about three years or so since, and I’m still friendless and catch myself thinking about getting in touch with her. She really was my person at one point and it hurts that she ruined it & can’t see that.

There were a lot more stories that I could of included to even further my point but I think I got all the main points across in this. I have a really hard time connecting with people now on that level because they’ll do or say something that reminds me of her and I walk away from it. I find I kind of hate everyone now and I’m really cynical; there’s always something that rubs me the wrong way or bothers me about people. Even thinking about it right now, I can’t say there is anyone I know that I can honestly describe as a genuinely great person (including myself). I know too that everyone is flawed in their own ways, but its always to the point to where I can’t stand being around them. I’m sure that vibe also resonates from me and that doesn’t help in gravitating good people my way, but it’s how I am right now.