Number 5, part 2 The Proposal & Wedding

So about 3 months after starting dating, we were at Wal-Mart shopping.  She was on food stamps at the time and we had filled the cart to the top with food.  We got in line to check out and she gave me her EBT card (it's a food stamp debit card) and told me the PIN.  Then she said she'd be right back.  I loaded the groceries on the belt, but when the time to check out came she still had not returned and I had forgotten the code, but thought I could remember it.  After keying it incorrectly 3 times in a row it automatically locks and you have to call them to unlock it.  Unfortunately they are only open Monday through Friday 8a-5p and it was like 8:00 pm on Friday.  Frustrated and embarrassed I got upset and when she got back I blamed it on her for not getting back soon enough and where the heck did she go anyways?

Well, aren't I just some fine piece of work?  She went off to go buy the Lord of the Rings movie that had just come out on dvd as a surprise for me.  And how do I thank her?  By making her cry.  I felt like the lowest dirtiest scumbag on earth.

I had been tossing around the idea in my head about asking her to marry me, but I had wanted to have a ring ahead of time and all that jazz.  Anyways, we're sitting in my truck and I'm apologizing to her for getting upset and taking the blame for it and the next thing I know it pops in my head that I should ask her now.  So I did, I asked her to marry me in my truck in the Wal-Mart parking lot.  No ring and her tears weren't even dry yet from me yelling at her.  Her response was, "R-r-really?"  To which I was taken slightly aback, but I said, "Yes." and then she said, "Yes."

During this time I also talked her into going back to school, so she enrolled with me in the fall (I had started going back to school one year prior).  The job that she was in was only a temporary position and they wouldn't let her take off the time she needed for school and basically told her that it was either school or them.  She chose school, but felt like she had been fired.  Right around this same time her divorce was finalized.  After this she went into a depressed state where pretty much all she did was sleep.  She would go to school and do her schoolwork, but pretty much spent the rest of the time in bed.  Nothing I did would change it and just before Christmas I was over it and was seriously considering breaking up with her.  Probably the only reason that I didn't was because I was afraid she might become suicidal if I did and I couldn't bear that thought.  Shortly after that she snapped out of it and started acting like a normal person again.

At some point, and I honestly don't remember exactly when this was, but I think it was early January, I did say to her that I thought we should put off the wedding for a while.  Wait until we could afford to have the wedding we want and all that.  The response that I received was one of, "You don't love me and you don't want to marry me."  I assured her that was not the case, just that I thought maybe we had rushed into this and should just give it a little time.  I wasn't breaking up with her.  Prior to that we had decided to get married some time in March.  Then about mid January (or maybe February, the dates are fuzzy in my head) something happened (I can't remember the details) that made me decide to go ahead and go through with the wedding in March.  We decided we would have it on March 27th, a Thursday with a small gathering of friends and family on the beach.  Then we would have a full blown ceremony where we invited everyone the following year (and since 2004 was a leap year that would put the 27th on a Saturday).  But the full blown ceremony never happened.  Once you're actually married, the ceremony thing becomes a low priority and life happens.

So, we were married on the 27th of March, with a whole lot of people mad at us because they weren't invited.  The truth was, everything happened so fast we were lucky that we were able to even have our marriage license (we got it the day of the wedding).  I wish things could have gone differently for the wedding, by the time the reception came I had a tremendous headache and was in somewhat of a foul mood because of it.  The wedding itself went well though, my father married us, the rain held off and the wind wasn't too bad.

My best man's speech at the reception could've been better, in fact it would've been difficult to make it worse.  I don't really believe in bad omens, but looking back on it, it just feels like it was doomed from the beginning.

More to come...

Number 5, Marriage, Kids & Divorce part 1

Sometimes I think I'm doomed to never be happy when it comes to relationships.  My fifth love is a long story.  I met her in 1996, she was dating one of my other friends on & off and I had an almost immediate crush.  She knew I liked her and she liked to tease me, but the truth was she didn't really like me enough to date me.  Then we lost contact for a few years.

We reconnected in 2002, I saw her at the Renaissance Festival and we traded phone numbers.  I honestly didn't know if I'd hear from her again or not, but a couple weeks later she called me while I was at a concert festival called Livestock.  It just happened that when she called I was packing up and getting ready to leave and we agreed to meet up and hang out later that night.  I don't remember what we did, but I do remember that she still smoked at this point.

Now during that in between time, she had gotten pregnant and then married to the same guy from 1996.  When we reconnected she wasn't divorced yet, but the paperwork had been filed.  Her son was 3 when we started hanging out again.

So after that first night of hanging out, I won tickets on the radio to a comedy club and invited her to go with me.  Her response was, "Really?  You want me to go with you?"  I didn't understand why I wouldn't want her to go with me, after all she was my friend and we had fun hanging out.  At this point I was still attracted to her, but didn't really have any interest in dating her, she was still smoking and trying to piece her life back together.

She was staying at her parent's house but they didn't really want her there and she kept having arguments with her ex over custody , etc.  Her ex was dating this girl that was brain-washing her son into thinking that she was his real mom.  They even went so far as to call child services on her for things that weren't true.  I'm not going to say that she was squeaky clean or the perfect mother, but she was not guilty of the things they were accusing her of.

Child services had her take a drug test and she ended up admitting to smoking marijuana.  Immediately after this point, she quit smoking that and cigarettes.  She also started staying at my house, sleeping on the couch.  I've had lots of my friends stay with me during their time of need.  I like helping people if I can.  After a few nights of her sleeping on the couch she was complaining that her back was killing her from sleeping there (I admit it was not a good couch to sleep on).  So, I offered that she could sleep in my bed with me and that I would not try anything or lay a finger on her.  After having so many bad experiences with men in her past, she felt it was necessary to give me the third degree about how she is not interested in dating me and I better not lay a finger on her or try anything.  All of this was fine with me, as far as I was concerned it was just a place to sleep and I told her so.  I'm not sure that she believed me, but she decided to sleep next to me anyways.

After two or three nights of sleeping next to me and me not laying so much as a finger on her or trying anything, I woke up to her kissing me.  Who am I to stop a pretty woman from kissing me when I'm single?  Basically she had never had someone be so nice to her ever before and she couldn't believe that I didn't try anything with her sleeping next to me.  Apparently it affected her.

Now what I was not aware of at this time was how damaged she was from the things that other men had done to her over the years and her first boyfriend worst of all.  Since she was already staying with me and sleeping in my bed, this didn't change after we started dating, except that now we were dating and living together.  She officially moved in and moved her stuff in.  I quickly realized that something was wrong, she would wake up screaming in the middle of the night from terror nightmares and it would take me hours to get her to calm down and go back to sleep.  Also, she wouldn't wear any clothes with bright colors.  Dark colors is all she would wear because she felt like anything else drew attention to her and people would stare.  It took some coaxing, but she finally started wearing bright colors and eventually the nightmares stopped (this took much longer).

We started dating in May and by August I asked her to marry me.

Fourth Time in Love

My fourth love was another girl that I met on IRC.  This one lived in California.  We had been chatting for a couple weeks (flirting and private chatting had only been going on for about 3 or 4 days at this point) when she asked me to come see her and bought my plane ticket.  I was floored, I'd been chatting online for many years at this point and had spoken with many women, this was the first one that bought a plane ticket for her or me.

A few days after she bought the ticket was 9/11/01.  My flight was not for a couple weeks yet, but I was afraid that it might now be canceled.  As it turns out, they started letting people fly again about 4 days before my flight left.  So I flew out to see her and we hit it off great (even though I was extremely nervous that she wouldn't like me after meeting me in person).  Even her mom liked me (even though she tried to hate me as she told me later).

So things were good, we fell in love, she came here next a couple weeks after my visit there and then I went there for Thanksgiving.  I flew from FL to CA and then to Reno (they have family there they decided to spend Thanksgiving with after my plane tickets were already purchased) with them and then back to CA for a day or two before I flew back home.  It was a fantastic trip, I finally met her father and all of her family and I got along well.  I flew back home after a nice stay, feeling like I was on top of the world.

She decides to buy me another plane ticket to come visit her about 3 weeks after Thanksgiving.  We buy the tickets and then I realize that the weekend we bought the tickets for is my friend's wedding.  We end up changing the tickets for the weekend before Christmas (about 2 weeks later).  Shortly after we change the ticket I find out that she's still in touch with her ex that treated her like dirt.. and still in love with him.  We spend many hours talking on the phone, me trying to understand what happened and her telling me how she can't make me understand what she doesn't understand.

I consider canceling my trip to see her, but end up going after all.  While we're in the hotel room one night, he calls just to let her know that he arrived safely in LA.  She chats with him on the phone for a bit and then tells him that she loves him as she's hanging up with him.  I am outraged and fuming.  I get up, put my shoes on and start packing my stuff.  My plane didn't leave for another day & a half, but I had to get out of there.  She sees me tying my shoes and asks me what I'm doing.  I said, "I'm leaving, I don't know where I'm going, but I can't stay here."  She ends up talking me into staying after me telling her how I couldn't believe how she could tell me she loves me with one breath and tells him the same thing with the other.  I end up staying and then flying home a couple days later.  When I get home I decide to tell her that she needs to make a choice between me & him.  I can't be the other man and he lives there, so what chance do I have against him?  She asks for some time to think about it.  I agree to a few days.  Christmas comes and goes and I ask her for her decision.  She tells me that she can't decide and asks for a couple more days.  After much arguing, I give in and tell her if she doesn't make a choice then I will make it for her and leave.

A couple days go by and once again she has made no choice.  So, I break up with her, even though it breaks my own heart in the process...

I stopped talking to her for a time and even stopped chatting on IRC not too much longer after this.  We have since let our past be our past and are now friends again.  She actually got married to a different guy she met on IRC and moved to Australia with him.  She seems happy and I'm glad.  I wish things had turned out so well for me...

Love the Third

Is it possible to have loved someone that you only know over the computer?  I say that it is because I have experienced it.  There were many years between my second love and my third and many broken relationships with women that I was never really in love with.  I lived with one of my ex-girlfriends for a short time (about 5 months) and after that failed, I spent pretty much all of my free time on IRC (internet-relay chat).  During that time I fell in love with a woman in Texas.  I think we "dated" on IRC for about 2 months or so, spending all of our free time talking to each other either on the phone or over the computer.  Then she decided that she couldn't commit to just dating me and I am not one that likes the idea of not dating someone exclusively.  I don't share.  So we decided to break it off, several days later I started dating my fourth love.  I know that seems fast, but she came on strong, I'll explain that story later.

I did finally meet my TX love about 6 months after we split up.  I was helping my parents move back to FL from Arizona and I convinced them to take a slight detour so that I could stop and meet her.  We arrived at about 11:30 pm, she came and picked me up, we went back to her place and I spent the night (no, nothing other than sleep happened).  The next morning, she got up and took her kids to school.  I never expected anything to happen between us, but while we were at her house that morning, she kissed me.  It was one of the most amazing kisses I've ever experienced.  There was a definite chemistry there.  Shortly after that my dad called because he wanted to get back on the road.  So, while I didn't have much time with her, it was enough to leave me wanting more.

What I had failed to mention to her was that I was dating someone back in FL when I visited her.  I told her about it when I got back to FL and I don't think she's ever forgiven me.  Now I know that it most likely never would have ended up working out anyways, she had no interest in moving to FL and I honestly had no interest in moving to TX.  But there was definitely something between us.

Fourth love coming soon...