I think this entry is where I'm going to end this series of posts about the early years. In other blog posts over the last year, I've reflected enough on the red flags and the change I saw in him and his parents after we moved in together, including a journal entry from January of 2004 where I realized I would never be his priority and that I didn't feel I could talk to him about it because his insecurities lead him to take everything as criticism.
My goal with this series of blog posts was to better understand what I had missed in those very early days in hopes that I will be more observant at the beginning of any future relationship should I ever find someone worth dating again.
This entry's focus is on how fast things happened and how out of control I felt.
I've lost the entry where I mention this but fairly early on in this first semester after we started dating, he got notice that he had not been accepted into the internship program he wanted. He was set to finish his coursework the next spring (2003) and then do an internship before graduating with his undergrad degree. He then was going to get his graduate degree from the same college as his undergrad. The school he went to for his undergrad was known for its business and accounting degrees. It was probably one of the better schools for those programs in the state. And it had a requirement that you couldn't be accepted into their MBA program without doing an internship first.
Yes, there were other potential internship opportunities but not getting the one he wanted was a huge setback to him. And then he learned that my college offered an MBA program that didn't require an internship. And skipping the internship meant, he could finish his MBA degree a semester earlier than he had planned. So he decided to apply to the MBA program at my school.
At the time, it felt like he was making this decision to be with me and I'm sure I was a factor. But as I re-read my journal, I realize it was probably more about taking the easy way out after he didn't get what he wanted.
College off-campus housing in my college town at that time was quite predatory. If you wanted a good place to live, you had to be prepared to sign a lease in the fall with a move-in date of the next summer. So in November (only four months into our relationship), we started looking at apartments. It was his idea to live together. And although I didn't say no, I don't know how enthusiastic my yes was. It all felt like it happened so fast that I didn't have time to think.
Here is what I wrote on December 9, 2002,
Ever see your life speeding ahead of you, feeling as if you have lost control? Where you feel like something is just pulling long and you really have no say in what you do or what happens. That is how I feel right now. Everything I ever knew disappeared from my site and something more exciting replaced it all. But I let it take over me and before I knew it I felt like I was backed up against a wall with no where to go. And that's when the doubts start. I'm not saying I don't like my life. I'm not even saying I don't want things to go the way they are going. I have a guy who loves me more unconditionally than I ever thought possible. A guy who would do anything to make my day. A guy who supports me more than anyone ever has before. A guy who knows how to just hold me when I need to cry my fears out and then when I'm done, wipes the tears away. A guy who still wants to spend the rest of his life with me even after he has seen so many of my imperfections.
But it all started the week he decided he would skip the internship next semester and be able to graduate then so that he could come up here for his masters. From that point until now I feel like so many decisions were just made for me to the point where I have no choice anymore. We got the idea that we wanted to maybe live together. And to get a decent apartment for next [year] we needed to sign a lease right a way so we started looking. We found one place we really like but waited a week and a half to sign the lease to make sure it is what we wanted. During this time his parents went out and basically outfitted our kitchen and such. And the excitement of getting this place together was just too much. But I went to turn in our applications only to find the place had been taken. So we looked again. And were shown another beautiful apartment, not wanting to loose out on it we turned in our application that same day so that we would be sure to get it. And we did get it and I have signed the lease. And his parents keep buying us stuff. They called just yesterday asking if we wanted them to get us matching coasters and tv trays. I did everything I could to convince them that we didn't need them because it's just gotten to be too much. [ex-husband] thinks I don't like the coasters and that I'm going to convince my dad to make us tv trays. The latter I probably will do but it has nothing to do with liking the coasters.
Anyway the point of it all is that I don't feel like I was making decisions based on what I want. This makes me start to question what I want. It makes me wonder if I'm doing the right thing being with [ex-husband] and if I really do love him. Well, I mean I know I love him. I just ask myself whether I love him the way he loves me. I'm not saying I don't. I just have all of these questions swirling around in my head. And I guess what makes it worse is I know that I've come too far. Even if I didn't want to be involved with him randomly I don't think I could ever break his heart like that. I know how much I mean to him. I can see how I've changed his life. And I really love how I do make a difference in his life. I know that sounds so selfish. But that is how I feel right now. I feel like I'm seeing everything through selfish eyes. Like this relationship is all about me. Maybe that's where the problem lies.
I need him. Or so I've come to believe. I am an independent person. I never wanted to be at the point where I needed anyone. But you don't realize what a difference his support makes. I've never had good support from anyone ever before. I mean I've had plenty of friends who have been there at times but none of them could really support me all that well through no fault of their own. And my parents have never given me much support. I've never had someone love me like this. No one has ever made such an impact in my life. And I've never felt so comfortable with anyone in my life. Well, excpet maybe Beth but only for a short time in 8 and 9th grade.
See my selfishness. I don't want to be together with him for selfish reasons. I never want to do that to anyone.
That all said, I think I've rambled enough. Just give me a couple days and all of this will have passed. Because I know I'm overly emotional right now. And every once in a while these doubts come back. But the second I see that love in his eyes or feel my heart skip a beat just at the sound of his voice or the slight touch of his hand, I know that this can be nothing but true love.
Until I re-read this entry, I had forgotten about the pressure from his parents as they basically outfitted our apartment with stuff before we had a signed lease, more than six months before we ever were going to move in together. So I was facing the intensity of his excitement as he pushed forward, the pressure from landlords to decide now, and pressure from his parents as they made it feel harder and harder to back out.
You ever get caught up in something that it feels like the only choice is to keep moving forward. The best analogy I can think of is my experience walking the streets of Manhattan in the evening. The crowd is so thick that you can almost just pick up your feet and still keep moving forward and it takes real effort to navigate a different path than the masses.
To counter all of that, my parents were adamantly against me living with him. My Mom didn't even like the fact that I was on birth control and spending nights with him. There are a few entries where my Dad asks if he can build anything for us and my Mom really tries to shush him because she doesn't want him encouraging us. I didn't have a great relationship with my parents at the time. It wasn't a horrible relationship but I felt like all they did was judge and criticize me when they weren't completely ignoring me. And I was immature, so I wasn't too keen on listening to advice from my parents.
I want to add that despite my prior impressions that it was the relationship with my first girlfriend and then him that fully pulled me out of my depression, after re-reading these entries, I'm not so sure that is true. I think it was underlying the entire time I was dating him and maybe even into our first years of marriage. I just think I learned more coping skills as time progressed. Even at my lowest moments, I was always a functional depressed person. I could get straight A's and excel at work even when my mental health was in pieces. Except for those who were close to me, people never even guessed I was depressed.
I wonder how that colored my view of everything in the moment and how that added to the feelings of being overwhelmed and struggling to process what all was happening so that I could make better decisions.
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