If Real Love Exists, It's Going to Have to Break my Nose

It's been a long week. A week of crying, a week of emotional despair. A week of writing sad poems, a week on the phone tearily to my closest girlfriends.
I have come to the end of Relationship 4.
Aaron, John, Glenn, Elliot..
4 men. 4 things in common. Broken promises. Statements promising to marry.. Promises to never leave.
I know in life there are things we can't change, or control. But what amazes me is how the few things I seek out of this life.. are just so rare..
What I seek in other human beings and especially out of a portential life partner or husband.. whatever you want to call it is this.. Honesty, Loyalty, Dependability, Reliability, and Consistency of Character.. I think it's time I add to that list and add on 'Integrity'

What breakups have I experienced? Well.. Aaron was in the hardware section of Kmart Armadale.. Every day we'd tell eachother we were eachothers best friends.. He was behaving in ways that when I analysed to myself.. were not cool.. His mum would be critical of me, and he wouldn't stand up for me.. a definate deal breaker for me... At the start of the relationship he was all gun ho about supporting my christian beliefs.. but by the end he was resentful of them.. It went from 'when we get married I'll come to church with you and the kids' to 'when we get married you can take the kids to church til they're 3.. then they have to decide for themselves'... And finances.. he didn't have a job for the first 5 months, and if he had money he'd spend it on himself. When he got a job he finally felt too good for me.. and moved on I guess.. Which is something the book 'he's just not that into you' says the jobless boyfriend will do!

Why did I stick around? He wrote me poems, and was good with his words.. He'd cook and spend hours talking to me every day.. But at the 3 month mark I discovered he had a photo of an ex girlfriend in his wallet.. behind some stuff. "I didn't know that was there!" he said!
He told me he never wrote his ex girlfriend any poems.. or told her he loved her, but that he did love her.. but never told her. I met her through a friend of her sisters.. one of my good guy friends had gone to school with Aaron and arranged the meeting.. She had dozens of poems he'd written and said that he said the 3 little words all the time.

I regret staying in that relationship past the 3 month mark.. It lasted 7 months.
The relationship was 7 months, and I wasted another 5 feeling sad about it!

The next 18 months was full of first dates.. and a lot of 'getting to know you's'
I remember a date when I was 22 with a 28 year old guy named Todd.. He was telling me all about his ex wife.. and how her pedophile fathers court case destroyed their marriage.. Needless to say there wasn't a date number 2.. Although he made a few random phonecalls to me at 11pm at night! To which my reply was.. 'why are you calling at 11pm at night?' !!!

I remember a night in a club where this guy Rowan looked a bit sad.. and I asked why and he said it was his birthday.. he'd just turned 19.. I tried to cheer him up and encouraged him to dance.. that turned into me getting stuck with him hanging around me.. I made the mistake of giving him my number.. again a mistake made out of pity! He texted me to say that he'd been thinking about suicide until he met me and I changed his life.. WOW I was onto a winner! I agreed to a half hour catch up with him.. at Mcdonalds.. and set my alarm and pretended a friend was in hospital! whenever he texted me after that I told him that my abusive ex boyfriend was back in my life and that I'd get in trouble if I was caught messaging him.. I tried to soften the blow.

I remember one morning I took my bike on the train around 6am on my way to work.. sleep in my eyes, no makeup, and a bike helmut, and I may not have even brushed my hair in such a hurry.. and I was hit on by an extremely cute guy who lived in apartments around the corner from me.. He must have asked for my number and he tried to get in touch with me a lot and one night I ended up catching up with him in his Star Wars obsessed apartment.. The guy was cute and very nice.. but he was as dumb as nails..
he had no IQ points whatsoever... I stopped answering his calls.
Being in his sheer presence regardless of how cute he was.. and how toned his abs were.. I felt like I was losing brain cells just being around him!

I was planning to travel to the states for 3 months.. New Orleans, Florida, OC/California and Seattle.. and Camp America and there was somebody I cared about over there so earnning, saving, working was my focus.

August before I was going to book my flights I had a stupid bike accident and broke my foot. That was it.. my savings disappeared very fast and I couldn't travel. This is one of the main reasons that I just don't gamble with skiing or other high risk sports.. I could no longer go to the states.. and.. I became sad!

Something that I honestly don't know is my downfall or a good thing to believe in.. but my belief in KISMET.. - destiny.. fate.. I will have to post a post on that in itself..
But a guy I had thought was maybe a little cute from my church had been showing some interest.
I will say if you don't believe in 'the rules' then you should.. I talked to him first I'm sure..
There were a few times that I asked if he was getting the train to church.. (we both worked in the city) and he was evasive and unconversational!
At the time I broke my foot he began visiting me.. apparently just as a good deed but that turned into more.. He began calling me with weird excuses.. like that his mother had a dozen eggs she didn't need and would I like them, or that he had a bag of oranges from his mothers farm that I might like to have..
Needless to say before long we ended up dating.. and it snowballed into a relationship.
He was critical of my lifestyle in terms of really bagging out my tiny urban apartment.. I lived within 4 miles of town... He had grown up on a farm.. To make the long story short after some preassure about how much he disliked my apartment he suggested I move in with 2 guys from church. The 3rd guy was moving out to get married and the other 2 couldn't afford the rent. I moved into the 2 story home and was paying $120 for the master bedroom.. when my apartment that was closer to the city was $100 for the whole place! 8 weeks later the guys said that they were not renewing the lease and I had nowhere to live. There was nowhere I was going to find another $100 a week apartment. His mother suggested I move into the rental property of theirs that he lived in and that she would move in until we got married.. That brought me to the next point.. Entrapment. Things in the relationship started to occur that made me very unhappy. Both him and his father pointed out things about my personal appearance that they didn't like.. His parents were again critical and there was no defence.. I felt trapped in the situation.. This time I had moved into an even smaller bedroom.. and had to get rid of a lot to fit into it!
We got engaged around that time and when we had the compulsory pre marital councelling sessions they did nothing but spark massive fights between us!

Knowing I didn't really love him and confused about my trapped situation I told him I didn't want children. What this really meant was "I don't want YOUR children' but I wasn't nasty enough to say that.. My friends asked me 'are you in love with him?" and I responded 'I don't think 'in love' exists.. it's just a Hollywood term...
I remember feeling ill saying that.. and just pushing it out of my mind.
There had been 3 men in my past whom I'd professed to being in love with.. In hindsite I am not sure I was in love with any of them but at the time I felt like it could have been..
Well one of them definateley wasn't.. The other 2.. (including Aaron) maybe were.. I thought they were at the time.. In fact at one time I thought I was in love with 2 guys at once and it was a horrible place to be. So this time around I'm saying I don't even feel like I'm in love.. Yikes! Alarm bells for my friend, but not so for me..

I spent many hours crying about my trapped situation, and calling girls asking if I should break up.. and the response I got was 'you're a cow.. he is so nice' - My mother was a fan of him.. 'oh you might regret it' and he and I even went to speak to 2 pastors about the fact that we didn't have a 'spark'
Bad advice unfortunately.. and 5 years later.. back to square one.
I would never have broken the promises I made despite my unhappiness.. but for men it seems it really is a challenge to find one who will keep his word. This guy played Xbox.. worked away, our marriage was long distance and he never called me.. EVER!
He worked away 2 weeks and was home for 1.. The relationship was a joke. When he was home he would choose XBox over me.. I could have been completely naked! so.. there you have it.
He walked out.. He left..