i've honestly started about four or five different blog entries today and gave up on all of them, i've got so much on my mind lately and i know i need to get it all out... but i'm so nervous because some of it is so personal that i'm not even sure if i can share it with anyone. just as i feel like i get brave enough to type it all out for the world to see i second guess myself and decide to take it down. so bear with me because this won't be my best writing, it's just me venting and getting everything off my chest and out of my mind, whether someone else is listening/reading or not.
as the few of you that are close enough to me to know, i recently broke up with my boyfriend. it has been one of the hardest experiences i've been through in awhile especially due to the fact that one minute we're back together and the next we hate eachother all over again... even though we weren't together for years, i still felt a very close bond with this man and we were inseparable for the majority of our relationship. i basically lived at his house, and even though there was a considerable age difference between us we talked about a future together. i trusted him with my entire heart and soul and i truly believed that he was a good man with good morals. he's an amazing father to the children that he already has and he has a strong sense of family. he was everything i thought i wanted to be with.
i live in a small town where rumours run rampant, everyone thinks they know everything about everyone. i know first-hand how it feels to have someone assume they know things about you simply because they happened to hear a piece of false information through another person. so when i began hearing nasty things about my then boyfriend, i chose to brush them aside. on one hand i didn't believe what people were saying, i thought they were just trying to stir the pot. and on the other hand, a part of me did believe what was being said. but i didn't want to be the judgemental bitch that couldn't get over someone elses past AND i loved this man, i wanted to be with him. i decided i wanted to learn from my own mistakes and do things my own way.
in the beginning, everything was perfect. he was the person i fell asleep next to and the person i woke up beside everyday. we went on dates, he made me feel special, he was who i wanted. but it was only a couple of months into our relationship when i noticed a change in him and i soon realized that he was every bit the person that people told me he was. i wasn't allowed to go out with my friends anymore and if i did, it called for a major argument followed by days of the cold shoulder. if i went to the gym with my cousin-which i did almost everynight- he had to be aware of who i was there with, when i would be home, what i was wearing... he told me that if the relationship wasn't all about him then it wouldn't be about anyone, that if i didn't start doing what he wanted that he would leave me. i was torn, i didn't want to be alone but i didn't want to be with someone who dictated my life either. i made the decision to stay in hopes that if i changed what i was doing, the way he treated me would improve.
things only continued to snowball out of control. i received a phonecall from a woman informing me that she was also dating my boyfriend and that if i knew what was good for me, i would leave him immediately. one day i was at the chiropractor when an obviously very pregnant woman that i had known for quite some time let me know that my boyfriend was the father of her soon to be born child. but i think the last straw for me was when i went home after having drinks with friends and finding an empty house at 2:30 in the morning... only to find out that he had gone to the bar with his "ex" girlfriend. (he had posted about their outing on facebook the next day when he got home.) after a heated confrontation, i decided to get my things together and start spending most of my time at my parents house again. my boyfriend and i broke up and we decided that i would come back for the last few things after we each had time to cool off...
a couple weeks later i decided to head over one night to gather the last of my belongings and say good-bye for good...
i don't fully feel comfortable going into detail of what happened that night, things got much more intense than they probably needed to and i think we both instigated eachother into saying and doing things we didn't intend to.
i was always the girl in my group of friends that said if a man ever abused her, whether it be physically or verbally, i would be gone so fast he wouldn't even know what to do with himself. but it is so different once you're actually put in that situation, it puts things on a completely different level. i almost feel as if i've let myself down in a way... i always believed that i was a strong, confident woman. i would never let someone walk all over me and i was more than capable of standing up for myself and telling someone where to go and how to get there. but because of what i let myself go through, i won't ever look at my relationships with men or the way i feel about myself the same ever again.
it's still hard, i feel guilty a lot and sometimes i still cry because i feel like i miss him. but i know it's not actually him that i'm missing, it's the idea of that perfect fairytale we had in the beginning that i'm missing. i feel like i've let myself down because i wasn't raised to be a weak person, i was taught to stand up for myself and speak my mind... but before i get too wrapped up in the way i'm feeling now, i guess i should let you know the things i've learned from being put in a situation such as this. it is not what happens to you, but how you respond to what happens to you. awful things happen to people everyday, it's just a matter of how you take it and apply it in a positive way to your life. i was reading one of my good friends blogs and i came across a quote she had that really spoke to me... "when something bad happens you have three options. let it destroy you, define you or strengthen you." i refuse to let this destroy me, i refuse to let it define me but i will let it strengthen me. i am not a victim and i won't go down without a fight. i am a beautiful, intelligent, strong woman and i have every reason to hold my head high.
