Hey.. Are you busy?

No.. Why do you not want to talk?

No, I do. Just seems like your busy. I can always tell if you are.

Oh? Well, I need to go talk to you later.

I always wondered to myself If I would of used a different tone or different voice on the phone. Something that would have made him stay. How would we be now. What we could have been. But I didn’t and that was the last time I heard from my first real love. I thought he was anyway. I was so sure of it. He hurt me though and I didn’t understand why. Why didn’t he just say something instead of leaving me? But the worst part was I had to find out that we were over on Facebook. Love has its way of fading … into the dark. I said to myself I’m young and still have many chances out there. He isn’t the end of me. I can only determine who is and when. He taught me a lesson and hey.. I still think about it every now and then but he’s only a memory, nothing more.

Where am I now? I moved out of MN and to NY crazy as it sounds …But I found love here.

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“Forever” lasted for about 3 years. I thought he loved me, but he really loved his Nintendo, college basketball, and our couch. He gained about sixty pounds after we said “I do.” The weight didn’t bother me much, but the fact that he refused to get off the couch and get a job did. Meanwhile I worked, cooked, cleaned, and did everything else and more that a good wife should do. He wouldn’t have anything done when I came home from work…not even the dishes! Then he would have the nerve to ask me what we were having for dinner after I had worked all day long. It wasn’t a really hard decision to say “I don’t” to that kind of a life. He can go back to his mother or find a maid, and I’m going to go find a real man to spend forever with.

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We were good friends for a year and then one night we both just looked at each other differently. We both knew from that look, that our friendship was never going to be the same. So started mine and D’s whirlwind romance. It was amazing in the beginning. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other, had a blast with going out and smiled when our friends would tell us what a cute couple we were. Things were going great for the first year, but then things started to unravel. I had been single most of my adult life while D was a serial monogamist and hadn’t been single for basically 8 years. All of a sudden my night out with the girls became an issue; calling to check in only twice a day wasn’t good enough, wanting to spend a night alone so that I could catch up on reading and just chill turned into arguments about me not wanting to be with him. It started to become too much for me and I questioned whether I could be with someone that was so co-dependent. But was I really going to break up with someone for wanting to spend too much time with me; for loving me too much? But one night, after a fight outside of a bar about me not calling “When I said I would”, I had had enough and ended it.

The next couple of weeks were great. I felt relieved and more like myself. But time went on and I wasn’t meeting anyone that I connected with. I missed him. I thought that I had made a huge mistake, and desperately wanted him back. So a 3 months later I tried. I told him that I was sorry, that I took him for granted and that I thought we could work it out. It didn’t work. He had already started seeing someone seriously and was over it. I was beyond heartbroken.

For the next year (yes, YEAR) all I could think about was how dumb I was to let him go and how I was never going to find someone that treated me that well. I idealized him and our relationship thinking only about the good times, while friends made sure to remind me of how miserable I had been-constantly anxious about needing to call, being afraid to ask for a night to myself, feeling weighed down. I finally realized that if I stayed with him, those feelings probably wouldn’t have gone away and it would have prolonged the inevitable. I realized that there was nothing wrong with me for being an independent person and that did not mean that I was not capable of loving or giving back in a relationship (Which is what he told me). It wasn’t me. It was him. His identity was dependent on being a “We” and that was never going to me.

I finally let it all go. The hurt, the anger, the confusion. And wouldn’t you know it—as soon as I did I started meeting guys, going on dates, and (Gasp!) having fun. A cloud lifted, my aura was more positive and I was more confident. I’ve been dating a lot more and have been meeting great people- people that not only accept, but appreciate my independence. While I still haven’t dated anyone seriously, I am hopeful that I will meet someone that recognizes that being in a relationship and being independent and taking time for myself are not mutually exclusive. Most of all I feel relieved that I trusted my gut and that I didn’t settle.

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I will never step foot on a cruise ship again. My ex-husband had a thing for them and for years I went along with him hopping from one cheesy destination to the next. Love will make you do many things you do not want to do, including getting sunburned. I know that bitching about vacations may seem odd, but I always begged for him to take me to places that I wanted to go. I had dreamed of going to Europe and exploring the pyramids in Egypt, not sipping margaritas on the roof-deck of an over-sized man-made ship.

Our disagreements in vacation destinations is not what ultimately led to the demise of our marriage. We slowly grew apart, love was lost, and the passion was gone. There was no epic cheating scandal, no Tiger Woods moments. Just two people who were not meant to be. Our ship had sailed.

He gave me this ring on my birthday on one of those god-awful cruise ships. It’s actually quite pretty, but like cruise-ships and my husband…just not for me!

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