Yep…I was a monster. I was a monster created primarily by my ex-boyfriend. Let me see if I can explain…
When I was 23 years old…I finally developed the courage to leave my almost four year marriage which was making me truly miserable. I packed up my two children – ages 3 and 7 and off I went. Stayed with my mom a few days and lucked into an apartment that my brother had been paying rent on even though he was basically living with his girlfriend. So I took over the apartment and boom…my own place.
Shortly after…I was ready to date again. I had been so miserable for so long that I just couldn’t wait to go out with a guy who would be nice to me and treat me like I was something special.
So off I went…into the bar scene…because I was 23 and attracted to boys with long hair. Bonus if they were musicians. This is where I first hooked up with this particular ex. He was everything I wanted in a boy. Tall, long hair, talented guitarist and beautiful. The first time he kissed me I thought I was going to melt into a big puddle in the parking lot of the bar we were at. However…I was soon to realize that he was nothing like any man I’d ever dated or, for that matter, known. His views on love and marriage and sex and commitment were completely skewed and different front anyone I’d ever met. So I set out to become the kind of girl I thought he wanted. A girl totally in control of her sexuality and herself. No attachments, no commitments, just out to have a good time. I tried to convince myself that I didn’t need a permanent attachment and that I never wanted to be married again…who needed it? I could just cruise through life and have a great time with anyone I wanted. I taught myself to completely separate love and sex. Sex was no longer about love…it was just about sex. Love was something different. Eventually that led to me believing that love didn’t do anything but get you hurt. Which led to me using that word…those three little words…as a tool to get what I wanted.
Wow…that was kind of hard to admit. But unfortunately it was true.
The more I tried to be what I thought he would like…the harder it became to get close to me. And I just got more and more aloof and closed off. I wanted to be with him more than anything else in the world and I played the game as hard as I could trying to be what he wanted. In the end…it kinda backfired on me. Because no matter how hard I tried to be exactly what he would want…he never wanted me permanently. Oh he wanted me…physically…but I had managed to turn myself into exactly what he did NOT want as a wife/mate. I was just fun on the side. An exciting side trip he liked to take when he could. I had reinvented myself…right into someone who was completely out of the running for life partner. All that hurt and pain and failure…built a wall around my heart that a jackhammer, a hundred pounds of C4 and a laser couldn’t get through. I didn’t want to be hurt anymore…and I’d convinced myself that this was the way to go. Don’t let anybody in and you won’t get hurt anymore.
For a while, it worked. Because believe me…for quite some time…the only person who could hurt me – was him. And because I was so obsessed and messed up…I just kept letting him do it.
One night, a guy who I’d once had a crush on got a little drunk and decided he liked me more than he thought. I turned him down and told him I didn’t want to ruin our friendship. He then told me I was a vampire. That I sucked the life out of the men I meet and then let them go when I didn’t need them anymore. For some stupid reason…I was proud of that. I WANTED to be like that. Then nobody could hurt me. Especially that one person who had a hotline straight to my heart through that big, thick, impenetrable wall that no one else could even see over.
Now before I go any further – let me say that I don’t think this man ever had any idea of the torture he was putting me through. I also don’t think anything he ever did to me was intentionally cruel. He never asked me to be a certain kind of person or to change my personality. That was all me. I don’t think he is a cruel person – I think he’s a good guy who was misguided for a long time and had a mile wide selfish streak that he was oblivious to. Fact is…I am still friends with this man and hope I always will be. He still has a little piece of me that I will never get back even if he wanted to give it to me. He’s not this bad person who did this to me. I did this to myself.
After about four years…I got so hardened that I was having one night stands and blowing through life like nothing mattered. He got a little jealous and he finally realized I was moving along and having fun without him. He decided he wanted me just for himself and I went along with it. So we became an exclusive couple. I thought I’d finally won. I even moved to another town and uprooted my kids to be closer to him. And I was happy for a while and wanted nothing more than for it to become a permanent situation. But out of nowhere…in January of 1999…it fell apart and he walked away. I have never in my life been as shattered as I was when we broke up. I have never shed so many tears or felt so much pain. Every time I saw him…every time I went somewhere that reminded me of him…almost every breath I took just hurt. We had been seeing each other off and on for five years at that point. Less than a year later when he married his second wife…I felt it almost all over again. What did she have that I didn’t have? I was so broken. That marriage didn’t last long and he and I shared a little random time after that but nothing serious. I was still trying so hard to be just the right girl. I always made it so easy for him to come and go. I thought if I was really easy to get along with…that things would work out. But it didn’t happen. About another year later…he married wife number 3. Again…I was broken. Not as badly…but broken. I had been in about ONE relationship since we had broken up and here he was getting married a second time since breaking up with me. The one relationship I had been in was just crazy and tumultuous and dramatic and while I cared about that guy…he had never really gotten inside that wall I’d built. So once again I was alone and he was getting married and I felt worthless.
Around this very time…I met someone new. I told this new guy “I can’t fall in love…I don’t even have the capacity for it.” Not in those words…but similar. I had hurt a boy or two in the last couple of years and this boy was a cute little 25 year old with a quarter of the life experience I had…and my being 31 and having so much more experience…I thought I’d warn him. He told me he has been really hurt recently too and that I shouldn’t worry because he was not looking for anything serious and there was no way he was going to fall in love with me. That was in September of 2001. Him with his leftover pain and me with my impenetrable wall…fighting to keep our heads on straight. By October 2001 we decided that we didn’t want to see anyone else but each other. Shortly thereafter…he dragged the “L” word out of me. I was so angry when I first admitted I had feelings for him. Not long after that…he dropped that same word on me. By October 2002, we didn’t want to be without each other…so he moved in. And that impenetrable wall? Well…it turns out that he had Superman powers…and the wall was not lead. We all know that Superman is stronger than the jackhammer and C4 and lasers. I mean come on…Superman can move PLANETS. Whether he was actually trying to do it or not…this man was chipping away at that wall I had built. It took a long time…but eventually he got through. He found a part of me that I didn’t think anyone would ever find again. And magically – the monster was gone. Over the next few years…the monster faded and slipped away and I became a girl again. No more hardass Lynn who didn’t need anybody or anything. No more tough and untouchable Lynn with minimal emotions and sarcasm to cover up the little that I felt. I was a girl…with a heart…and you could even see it. It was scary at first. But this Superman I had met…he respected it…honored it…nurtured it. He loved me.
Once upon a time there was a monster named Lynn with a heart of stone. But then Superman came and rescued her and made her a real girl again. It’s like five fairy tales in one. At least it has a happy ending.
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