My First Four Relationships/Life Lessons

I was really lucky in my first four serious relationships.  They all treated me like a princess.  I know other women weren't as lucky as I was. 

I met my first serious relationship when I was 18.  He was a few years older and he had a great sense of humour..  I felt like the luckiest woman ever.  I was still immature and he was so worldly and he refined me so much and made me have an appreciation for culture.  He encouraged me to try new things and he added so much wisdom in my life.  It seemed like this would be the man that I would spend my life with.  There was only one problem.  He was Asian and I didn't know how my parents would react to me being part of an inter-racial couple.  Now, I know they wouldn't have even noticed but decades ago, this was an issue.  I was on the verge of telling them of my love with I unexpectedly went to his apartment.  What happened next ended our relationship.  I found him in bed with a good friend of ours.  It was our friend, Doug.  I was devastated and so was he.  He really cared about me and he thought he wanted the white picket fence life with me.  But, it wasn't who he was.  We both cried lots of tears but parted as friends.  I felt a lot of things but was void of anger.  He really advanced my life positively.  I couldn't be mad. 

My second relationship didn't happen long after.  Physically, we were taking things super slow and that was fine was me.  In many ways, it was like dating my father.  I mean that because he listened to every word I said, he laughed at all of my funny observations, and he valued my opinions.  We talked about current affairs and he fostered my love of all things news.  He made me feel very secure as a person.  What I said mattered and I was free to be who I was.  I am quirky and he made me feel that this was alright.  He cemented my self-esteem and he really was a great guy.  Years later, whenever my self-esteem takes a significant blow, I do my best to remember him and how valued he made me feel.  It helps me to recover.  Most of our relationship was by distance.  He wrote me the most beautiful love letters.  In the last letter he wrote me, he talked about the agony he felt because he had met someone else.  When I read the letter, I phoned me and asked about the new one in his life.  I wanted to know his name. 

I was still in my twenties and I was pretty devastated.  What was wrong with me that gay men were attracted to me?  It took me a while to understand this. 

You would think the third time it happened, I would atleast develop a sense of humour about the situation.  Also, you think I could have seen it coming, but no, I didn't. Unfortunately, this guy chose to come out in a very public way and didn't give me a heads up about it.  Again, this was a long time ago.  I saw it on the local morning news.  He was starting an Association for gay men.  This was on a Monday and on the Saturday,  I was attending my niece's wedding.  I had so much anxiety about this wedding to begin with and now, I no longer had a date to the wedding.  I wish he would have waited a week, because I was pretty humiliated.  I was angry for a while.  Thank goodness, he chose the right man.  His partner thought it was important for us to resolve our issues and we went on a weekend trip.  I shouted, we both cried, and we left as friends.  He added a certain spark to my life.  He was adventurous and an unapologetic risk taker.  He brought a sense of whimsy to my life.  The model Tara Banks often talks about being "fierce" and that he is what he was and I was lucky enough to gain some edge through the relationship. 

A couple of more years past and a friend in my social group asked me out.  I wanted to ask him, "but, you know you're gay, right?" but stayed silent.  I knew he was struggling with coming out and I figured I could help with this by being a supportive non-judgmental person.  We had a number of unique experiences and I have the best memories of our time together. 

Then, there was my husband.  It is possible that I married him on the rebound and just because I didn't "turn him".  It was a horrific experience for both of us and it ended badly. 

Now, that time has passed, I really feel nothing about my ex-husband because I have so many happy memories of the first four guys.  Some women get out of bad relationships and they just assume that there are no good men left.  Because of my experience, I know for a fact there are great men out there. 

There is a phrase that is used when one is being taught how to do clinical assessments.  It is that "when you have seen one case, you have seen one case."  I know lots of people say that when it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it likely is a duck.  What that basically means if use your experience and knowledge to make the right assumptions.  However, also be prepared that it is disguising itself as a duck. 

There is another phrase that you can't judge a book by its cover. 

Unfortunately, when you have been seriously hurt in the past it is almost impossible not to borrow from the past when meeting new people.  I have a girlfriend who had a bad relationship with a football player.  Unfortunately, she assumes that all |jocks| are going to be jerks.  She has closed off many potential friendships and relationships.  In essence, she bleeds over people who have not cut her. 

Hurt is a continuum and some have minor emotional scars and others have major physical scars.  Either way, if you continue to carry the hurt with you it becoming heavier and heavier with the passage of time. 

You need to heal.  You need to forgive.  It is not something you are doing for someone.  It is a gift to yourself.  It allows you to move on without bleeding all over someone else that didn't cut you.  It is approaching people with a clean slate.  It is allowing yourself the possibility of happiness.  It allows you to accumulate more moments of enjoyment.  It is those moments of enjoyment that, when allowed to accumulate helps build a life worth living.