LIGHTBULB MOMENTS

The post I wrote yesterday titled My Secret Admirer was about a disastrous 5-year relationship I had with a man named Sal. One might wonder how an intelligent woman would get hoodwinked into such a relationship. I've asked myself that question many times. I think the best answer I can provide is that I was at a low point in my life when Sal came on the scene. I had just given up drugs and there was a huge void in my life where drugs had been. That void was where all my self-destructive tendencies seemed to play out. I replaced drugs with work and Sal. They became my new addictions. Plus Sal was a master manipulator. He knew how to get into people's heads and how to work them. He was very clever at it.

I know we all have had relationships with people that were not meant to last for one reason or another. So why do we get into those relationships in the first place? Why don't we think things through from the beginning and sidestep the ones that are only going to end in pain? Are the relationships that don't last meant to be learning experiences to take with us into the ones that do last so we'll know what not to do? Is there never any foresight in relationships and only hindsight?

My situation with Sal grew dangerous and involved the two of us owning things jointly even though we never married. I did have some wisdom to never do that even though he asked me to marry him almost every day we were together. When it had gotten to the point of no return and I had gotten arrested (a story for another time), I had no choice, but to do the rational thing and that was to pack my car with what I could, put my children in it, drive away and not look back. Sometimes you just have to cut your losses when you can before you lose your life.

On the flip side I've also been the recipient of unrequited love, the situation started as a casual one, but  realistically how many of those things ever stay that way the more two people see each other especially if great sex is involved? Okay! I know men and women look at sex differently most of the time. I do know men can have sex as just a physical act and it can be just that and only that without feelings ever being involved and that's okay if that's what the initial agreement between the two people is, but if no such "talk" was had to begin with and then it's a whole entire ballgame! In my case, no "talk" was ever had to keep things light and casual. As the two of us spent more time together, I developed feelings for him and he didn't for me. He monopolized my time because he liked the sex. 

All the situation it did was kept me hanging onto to something I never had any chance of calling mine and ultimately it made me feel used. The nicer thing would have been for him to have been honest with me than for him to be a "nice guy" and to keep coming around because he needed someone because he was lonely and at a lowspot in his life. All it did was kept me from moving on and finding someone who would and could love me the way I wanted to be loved. I wasted a great deal on time and effort on him for nothing. He just wanted how I made him feel whenever we were in bed together and that's it. This woman needed much more than to be someone's booty call. From start to finish the relationship if you can call it that lasted over two years. Looking back, I can't believe I let it drag on that long. I guess I did him a favor by ending it because when I did within a year after that he was married.

I learned a lot from those experiences, but also those things robbed me of much that I'll never get back. While the Anti-Christ (Sal) may have stolen a piece of my soul, the thief who stole a piece of my heart may very well be the reason I found Sal or he found me. The sting of being used and feeling unworthy stays with me still to this day. My ego was badly damaged in ways I never thought it could or would. I give myself all the pep talks, but nothing I say seems to help. Yes, Sal may have been the Anti-Christ, but Johnny was the real snake in the grass.