6 months of seperation

I am sitting here watching Sex In The City (the movie) and all of a sudden I realized I was not done….Like yesterday, the memories of a failed engagement hit me all over again.  You see, this was the first movie I saw after running away from the world for two months.  Let me go back a bit further…this was my introduction back into the real world after being on a Navy ship in the middle of the ocean for 120 days.  How did I end up on that ship?  The grace of God!  The details are so clear as if I was watching my life movie in my mind…

Press Play:  We had dated for almost two years.  This was the first time I had been in a relationship 150%.  Previous relationships I had been in 100% but none like this.  I also had never been in a relationship that long.  Regardless, due to unforeseen yet divinely ordered steps, he got a job in another state.  For 6 months we were separated.  Wedding plans made, church reserved…and the day before the catastrophe I had ordered my dress online.  Prior to the planning, I felt that something wasn’t right.  Right down to the proposal on Christmas day.  I remember expressing it to my friends and they all said it was “cold feet.”  I expressed it to him but all I got was a bunch of mumbling and words that formed sentences but didn’t make sense.  I continued to pray about it and I asked God to show me whatever it was that I needed to know.  In the meantime, I continued planning….

Our second premarital session addressed infidelity, both emotional and physical.  It was a Sunday and he left that same day returning back to the other state.  That day, he left me behind too.  I just didn’t know it.  On Monday I got an email stating that he had something to tell me that might be detrimental to our relationship. 

Pause: Technology is nothing but a wheelchair for cowards afraid to walk when they have two perfectly good legs! 

Play:  I called but got no answer.  He continued to avoid me until Tuesday.  Tuesday!  We emailed back and forth but yet he still would not talk to me on the phone.  Finally he called me when he got off work.  I was calm.  Almost too calm but calm.  I prayed before speaking.  I then asked what could be so detrimental to our relationship.  In short, he tells me that he has “groped and fondled” other “women (plural)” as well as a string of other sordid details of things that I knew were the finale to our season together.  I merely replied “ok,” immediately got into my truck, and drove approximately 6 hours to get my belongings.  I laid eyes on him for 15 minutes and drove another 6 hours back home.  Two days later, I got a call about a job I had applied for 6 months prior.  There was no interview, just a call saying that they needed me on a ship within a week and I would be gone for two months.  I didn’t even ask any questions.  I just said “ok.”

In that week I had to undo everything that had been done i.e. reroute my mail back to my apartment, renew my lease, cancel the reservation for the church and yes…return my wedding dress which promptly landed on my doorsteps that Friday.  I didn’t even open the box.  By the following Friday, I had set sail and did not look back.  I sent an email to friends saying the wedding was off and to please not ask questions but merely pray for me.  That day, I was a coward. 

For two months, I was in a controlled environment not to be affected by the outside world.  To some it may have seemed like prison but to me it was like witness protection.  Of course he still contacted me via email and of course I went back and forth about whether I should give him another chance.  Fortunately I had enough will to say no.  My heart was still hurting but I knew I could not look at him without thinking about that terrible Tuesday when he caused my world to shift on its axis.

When I got back from my sabatical, my friends had planned a wonderful birthday return for me which included going to see the movie Sex In The City.  Of course they didn’t know that I would be so moved by the whole “stood up at the alter” scene nor did I.  I was thoroughly shook!  I kept it together because that is what I do.  And I continued to keep it together (so I thought) until last year when I began to question my lack of a successful relationship since. 

Pause: FYI, within 3-6 months after we broke up he had gotten married and had a baby on the way which I did not know about until his wife found his emails to me expressing how he still wanted to be with me and then contacted me to “tell” me not to contact her husband.  As if!  Had she read them carefully she would have known that I was not accepting his offers for reconciliation. 

Play:  In 2010 I have gone through every emotion there is and probably added a few trying to figure out “what’s wrong with me” while I continue to tell others that “I’m ok.”  And today it was as simple as a subject, verb, and predicate…I have abandonment issues.  This explains why I leave others before they can leave me.  Why I don’t return phone calls or will find the slightest thing wrong with men right at that moment that I realize that I like them.  Why I literally push men away as they try to get closer to me.  Sabotage some may call it.  I would prefer to call it “self defense.”

Pause:  There were also a slew of many bad seeds after my ex-fiance that lied, deceived, and other horrid details that I will save for my upcoming book.  But a knife is a knife and the scars were left all the same.  It’s a blessing that I am not bitter and cynical!

Play:  I am by no means a male basher.  And surprisingly I still have hope that there are some good men out there.  I have owned up to my dysfunctional thought process and am willing to face my fear.  But first, I have to make a confession.

My name is __________ and I have abandonment issues.  I am not “ok” but for the first time in a long time, I’m ok with not being okJ