The Ex Boyfriend

I tried sitting down and writing and entry about current happening with Douche Bag but the words just didn’t want to come out.

Instead, my mind is occupied with thoughts of my ex boyfriend.

There are three main characters to my life story: The ex husband, whom I was with from 16 to 26, the ex boyfriend, from 26 until 32, and the current Douche Bag, who I have been with from 32 until 36.

The Ex boyfriend “T” and I met when we were 14. He tried to date me but I was not interested and we settled into a friendship that waxed and waned in intensity over the next 12 year. At age 18, my ex husband and I became parents. It was not a planned thing and by the time our little one was born, we were in this situation of do we or dont we try to make it work? We had a kid together and I think neither of us were in love at that point. We sort of saw other people for awhile (well, he had an emotional affair and we agreed to both start dating). Nothing physical, (that I know of any way) but we were both spending a lot of time with friends of the opposite sex and in a pretty rocky place. It was during this time that I first realized that I had feelings for “T”. He kissed me on night, at it was the most passionate kiss I had in my entire life.

Shortly after, my mom helped us purchase a house together and we stopped seeing other people and were in a sort of comfortable relationship. I never told T how I felt and I thought the feelings would pass. 2 years later, we have another child and things are falling apart. We were not even sleeping together any more. Our anniversary came and went, we had obligatory anniversary sex and I end up pregnant with a 3 month old baby. T was in my life a lot then. We talked almost every night and I lamented about my unhappy marriage.

One night, I finally told him how I felt. He asked why I hadn’t told him sooner if I had felt this way going on 4 year now. I told him I didn’t think he wanted the same thing I wanted. He didn’t contact me for a week after that phone call. When he did, he acted as if I had said nothing. I finally forced him to tell me what was going on, and he admitted he wasn’t in a place to take care of me or be a step daddy to three kids.

I never told my husband about those phone calls. I told T I needed space and we didn’t talk for months. After our child was born, things in our relationship appeared to be taking a turn for the better. Looking back; I realize that I had unrealistic expectations of what a relationship should feel like which was a big part of the problem, but also, I was ready to grow and he was not. I wanted to experience new things and he wanted more of the same. Whether it be trying new things in the bedroom, going to a new restaurant, hell, I had never even been bowling!

The marriage fell apart and T decided he was ready to step up to the plate.

6 weeks later, he was in an accident that changed his life. He was now in chronic pain, had a TBI, and was disabled.

I wanted to be the doting girlfriend who stood by his side and I did. There were a lot of signs early on that things were bad but I was so head over heels in love, that I ignored a lot of it. Instead of addressing major issues, I just let them slide. The more I let it slide, the more he pushed my boundaries.

Verbal abuse started first. Pulling me out of bed and calling me a cunt because his drunk ass can’t find the jerky I bought him earlier that day.

There were many instances of him blowing up, disrespecting me, and blaming me for things that were out of my hands. After he came down which usually took until the next day, he acted like a beat dog. He wanted my sympathy for pulling me out of bed and calling me names, calling me a cunt, over fucking jerky. He never even fully apologized and it would be infuriating that he would twist it around to “well, if you didn’t provoke me so much when I was already upset…”

Around year 6 he began posturing when we were fighting. He would get into my face, stand up, puffing his chest, fist balled.

I didn’t back down. I told him if he was planning to fucking hit me, than fucking hit me and meet his posture until he backed down, even if he was taller and stronger than me.

On his birthday (birthdays seem to be bad holidays for me all around come to think of it), he got drunk. I was in bed. The kids were in bed. I had work the next day. I wake up to him hitting the front door so hard, he dented the metal. I got out of bed and opened the door. It was locked. He accused me of getting out of bed and locking him out of the house in middle of the night.

It was pretty obvious to me that he probably locked himself out when he went to have a smoke but he wouldn’t listen. He threw his rolled tobacco at me and told me clean it up. Things escalated and at some point I tried to return to bed. Angry that I wasn’t responding to him yelling any more, he told me that he was leaving, and I would have to figure out child care for work on my own the next day.

He packed his bag; a small tent, a change of clothes, some food, and his gun.

I told him that was fine, I would call my ex to see if he could watch the kids. His daughter was also staying with us for the week and he told me under no circumstances was she going over there. I shrugged and said he didn’t give me much of a choice. He threw the bag down, began posuring and screaming in my face. (I was laying in bed as he stood over me.) I began to cry because I felt so over whelmed with anger at him in that moment and he taunted me for crying. I told him calmly to leave me alone and get out of my face at least a dozen time, but he refused.

So I spat in his face.

His rage tipped over the edge and he jumped on top of me punching me with both fists. I had my hands up protecting my face and most of the blows were to my arms and chest. I am hypermobile and was quickly able to flex my legs between us and kicked his shoulder. He lost his balance, which gave me enough time to run to the bathroom. Some how, I had thought to grab my phone.

I should have called 911 right then but my first thought was not about my safety but about him getting into trouble. It’s funny how that works. I called his sister and asked if she could come. She lived a ways away but I knew that she and her boyfriend would get me and the kids out of the house safely.

The beating on the door suddenly stopped and I heard him walk to the other side of the room. I dared open the door and saw him pull the gun from his back pack. My first thought was that he planned to shoot me and then when he walked out of the room, I had visions of me standing in front of the kids as he aimed at them instead. I ran after him and at this point, the kids had woken up and were standing in the living room as he came out of the room. He said something to the effect of killing himself and my daughter ran to stand in his way. I screamed at her to move and she began crying but ran away. He left and I called 911.

We left, not knowing what he would do or if he would be alive the next day. The police met me down the street and took statements and his sister met us there and took the kids with her. I followed shortly after.

The police didn’t approach him that night. I guess they figured that a dead suicidal man is better than a dead police officer.

It wasn’t until the next morning that he sent a long email stating that he really fucked up and couldn’t believe what he had done.

I still made him move. I didn’t tell the police about him hitting me. I guess for two reasons; I didn’t want him to go to jail and in our state, protective services would get involved. I was sure that they were already going to be knocking at my door to make sure a suicidal man with a gun was not still living here.

After he moved out, we remained in contact for several months. He made all sorts of promises in the beginning, including getting counseling. He attempted to negotiate his way back into my house (i.e. I will go to counseling but it could take year for it to help and I don’t know if I want to wait that long to get back together). The more I drew my boundary about exactly what I expected from him and how long it would take, the more he with drew.

I would like to say that I ended things but that would be a lie. I begged and pleaded for him to get help but I would not back down from several boundaries; he was no longer welcome in my home until his counselor thought it was a good idea, he would have no contact with the kids and he would be honest about the abusive nature of our relationship over the last several years.

Instead, he wrote me that it was me that had brought out the worst in him. That he was never like this until I made him constantly not feel good enough and that he needed to move on.

I had been in love with the man for 11 years at that point. I know I can’t describe why I would put up with his behavior for so long. The best I can explain it. Sometimes I would just watch him, and it would feel like falling in love all over again. It was familiarity, like a sweet old couple, but also the lust of a brand new relationship rolled up into one, all of the time. His scent gave me butterflies. The shape of his hands, the way his hair curled at his ear, the way I could recognize his shins in a picture. The way he knew exactly what to buy me, and the way we could just be at home while he watched TV and I read a magazine and that was fine.

It took a long time to realize that those feelings were mostly for the person I had built in my head over our years as friends. They were only a small part of him. The narcissistic asshole that came out, more often as time went on, was also a part of him.