Sucker Punched At The End

As a young child, I always had a self-conscious attitude towards myself. Coming from divorced parents and making the decision at a young age to stay with my father instead of my mother. Which is not the normal thing to do even when I was young. I thought that I would be better off with my father and in many ways I was. Me and my brother keep each other company, getting ourselves into trouble as young kids do. We lived in the family home and once my parent were divorced it was different in many ways. My mother was absent a lot of the time, as she had taken up with my father’s best friend at the time. Resentment for me had started at a young age towards my mother.

Over the years, me and my brother would go and visit or stay for the weekend with the my mother and now husband. We always felt like we weren’t welcome on my mother’s husbands part. Which is many instances, he made it perfectly clear that we would never be welcome, like a child would like to be. Telling my mother, how we felt was just not going to happen as children. Would she even listen to us, probably not. Surprise, surprise we were right. Going to visit my mother, I always felt like I had to walk on eggshells. The one of many instances that I remember, I was coming downstairs in the morning to make some breakfast at their home. The next thing, I now my mother’s husband, start yelling at me that “how dare you, this is my house and you will have to ask permission to make anything here.” As an adult now, what hell right did he have to treat me like that.

There were times that I would travel up by bus, to visit my mother but never felt like we connected because he husband was always around. Her husband tried to pretend like he was glad that I was there, but I always knew it was fake. My mother having to be careful with what she said or did, so he wouldn’t get irritated and be an ass.

As I got older, the relationship with my mother deteriorated. She and her husband had moved numerous times from Richmond, White Rock and then up to the Okanagan. The one time, I remember a family friend telling us that my mother’s husband had bragged that he had taken our mother away from her children. What kind of person would gloat about ripping a mother away from her children, especially when he had kids of his own? I guess that shows you the type of person he is. Once the move was made out of BC for my mother, there was really no relationship or communication at all. On the odd occasion I would get a phone call or a card for certain occasions.

My mother would come down and visit with her sister, who lived in Richmond. I would never know when or how long she would be staying. She would call me at the last minute and expect me to drop everything to come and see her. When I have a life and I am an adult now, I would see you when I had the time to do so. The visits never lasted very long unless we were with a bunch off people. Phone call, if we did have any would last a maximum of about five minutes and then she basically wanted to get off the phone.

As an adult, I had some health issues that landed me in the hospital. You would think a mother, would want to be with her child even though I was an adult. But nothing, no call and no visit, but why would I expect anything else. My trust, confidence and attitude gradually deteriorated as a child into my teens and wasn’t in a good way. How could I trust anyone, when the one person I am suppose to learn from was never there for me. My confidence had been damaged from an early age and my attitude followed.

I had to learn the hard way, that you can only count on yourself and maybe a handful of friend and family. I had learned from my childhood best friend, what family was all about. My friend’s family always treated me like another daughter, this is what saved be from going down a path that a may not have been able to turn back from. Don’t get me wrong, I guess my mother loves me but in a way that she only knows how to show.

I have had relationships with few men, as it seemed there was never the connection there for anything that would amount to a actual relationship. Learning as I go, things happened for a reason. As I saying goes: People come into your life for a reason, A season or a Lifetime. When you know which one it is, you will Know what to do for that person. Then, without any wrongdoing on your part or at and inconvenient time, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end. Sometimes they die. Which is so true.

When I finally did get into a relationship, years later. I was happy that I had a man that wanted to be with me for me. We had a successful relationship for a number of years. Like any relationship, you have your ups and downs. We plowed through any issues that would come up with his or my family. He was an avid weed smoker, which didn’t bother me. However, he tended to spend a lot of time gaming and near the end of the relationship, this became an issue. It was just the gaming, but he would never want to do anything together or he would go hang out with other friends and would end up, crashing at a friends place for days on end. It got to the point, where I got used to it and he didn’t seem to care that it bothered me.

As we hit the thirteen years of being together, with the last three seeming like we were like ships passing in the night. One fateful night, I am at home relaxing in a chair and he comes home after work and says we need to talk. I was like okay, what is up? He said, I am not happy in this relationship anymore and it’s over and I was stunned. What!! Do you not love me anymore?

His response was, I do love you, but I am not happy. Me: How long have you felt this way? Him: For that last 3 year. My response: why didn’t you tell me, so we could have done something together to maybe fix what was going wrong. No response and then he said I will grab a couple things and stay somewhere else. I asked: is there another women and as quickly as I asked he said “no” but I knew there was something more that he wasn’t telling me. He wouldn’t answer the questions and gave me a hug and left.

I sat there stunned and balling my eyes out, what had just happened. Had I just wasted thirteen years of my life on this man. Call my best friend, I couldn’t even get the words out on what just happened, when I did, she was livid at how this person who I had been with for so long, could just walk away. After some time, I realized that if he wasn’t going to end it, I would have eventually. It just wasn’t working for either of us.

The scary thing: I was out of work at the time and had a mortgage, how the hell was I going to do this, knowing I was not going to get anything for him. He had admitted that he would not be helping me with any bills and that any bill that were due at the time he would help pay and that was all.

Well, things happen for a reason and not long after I did get work and I realized I could do this on my own. Pull up my big girl pants and I did it all on my own. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

Would I ever know the real reason, this happened. The answer in short: NO and i have had to learn how to deal with the fact that i will never know.

Fast forward, I am single and happy. I have great friends and an amazing family.