I'm skipping ahead in my trail of failed relationships to the one that I know affected me the most. I was engaged awhile back to someone I'd been friends with for about eight years. We met in 1998 and became really good friends. There was nothing more to it, no one secretly lusted after anyone else. She was one of the people there for me when I woke up from the coma. That was a time in my life when I really weeded out who was a true friend and who wasn't, and even found some friends I didn't know I had. She was one of the good ones, or so I thought.
We ended up out on the road together, completely by the hands of fate. She wasn't supposed to go but at the last minute someone dropped out and I had to call her as a replacement. We were thrown together in close quarters and things were sort of falling apart with me and a few friends. We just saw things very differently and we didn't talk as much as we should have. So I turned to the next closest friend that was with me and it was her. We talked a lot, spent a ton of time together and after about a month, we started dating. Well, as much as we could given the circumstances. It went very well. Three months into our new relationship, and I remember this very clearly, we were in a hotel room at like 3 in the morning and she said. "I wanna marry you." Just like that. I was totally blown away. Six months into the whole thing, I proposed. I was sure that this was it.
I was wrong.
We never should've been engaged in the first place. I don't know why she said 'yes'. The little matter of her not wanting to have kids had been a sticking point for me early on since I want kids. But I was caught up in the relationship and decided to overlook that. I didn't think I could change her, I just put that part of my wish list in the back of my mind and forged ahead. So what if I never have kids, that's just how it was meant to be. We were engaged for two months and it was good. Everyone in our families got along and, for the most part, they were supportive. Then, come December of the same year, about 8 months after we'd started dating, she grew very, very distant and we didn't talk much. When we finally did, she said she was done and she left. I was floored and upset and had no clue why it'd happened that way. How could we just be done that quick?
I tried to get her back for a few months and then in March I heard from an acquaintance who'd been unaware of our relationship, that she was seeing someone she'd worked with in the past. And then, I heard she'd been seeing him for six years, but they'd just decided to make it public because he had been married up until that time. His divorce coincided with her leaving me. But she'd been seeing him all along. I went from sad to pissed off. I was more upset that she'd even agreed to marry me, knowing what she was doing, than the fact that she'd been cheating. True, we'd never actually gone through with it. In the months afterward I tried to get answers from her and they were always different; she cheated, she didn't cheat, I didn't understand. And the more I found out about her...other activities during out relationship, the more I fell into a sort of depression. It was like two different people, like I didn't even know this woman I was in love with. And just thinking about the real her and how she could do something like that made (makes) me sick. I didn't date for a year. I hooked up with ex's off and on while I was getting over it. And she continued to see the man who's marriage she'd ended. In fact, they're engaged now and have gone on about their lives as if none of this ever happened. Isn't that funny.
I used to be upset, even after I'd moved on, which took a very long time. But I don't know, I guess you realize that they'll get theirs and you move on. And I know things aren't as good as she lets on. I mean, once a cheater, always a cheater and they both did it so...whatever comes her way, she deserves. I don't usually think about it anymore. She's out of my life and I'm happy and I'm so glad I never married her, since I don't think I want to get married period. I learned from it. But I still wish it'd never happened.
