Self examination: Relationships

I am 9 weeks away from giving birth to my first child. And with all this 'newness' coming into my life so soon it has made me think about and reflect about my past. I have to say that one of the things that came up in my mind the most was 'relationships'. Or in my case, my lack thereof.

A very brief backstory... I was 13 (2 months off from 14) when I met my ex husband online in a chat room. So at age 14 I was very very certain of myself that I had found my "soulmate". I would have said or done anything (and sometimes did) to keep us together. This is more or less a warning I guess you could say to those teenagers out there in the world. Please. Date.

My first "boyfriend" was my now friend Ben. We had very little in common except for the fact that for some reason I just started crushing on him really hard. This was waaaay back in the days of 7th and 8th grade. We "dated" which meant holding hands, basically. At the time I was still 110% LDS and I actually broke up with him because of religious differences. I didn't see us going anywhere in my immediate Mormon future. Ben himself wasn't so much of a Catholic but his mother was and I saw it leading to bad places in the future. Now I look back and I think about how stupid that was. Ben was, and is, a very decent guy. He was sweet, attentive, and we liked to hang out. He actually took me to my Senior Prom (he's a year younger) and I think we had a lot of fun. When I moved back home in late 2007/early 2008 for 7 months we also had another chance to hang out. He really is a sweetie and I'm glad to have shared part of my life with him even if it did end cause I was retarded.

Not too many months after Ben and I broke up was when I met "Halo" in 1998. I was new to the internet and AOL chatrooms. At the time I was also insanely devoted to my new Favorite show: Sailor Moon. I would frequent the chat channels on AOL that had anything to do with Sailor Moon. This is how I first got into roleplaying. I played the role of the main character (Sailormoon, Usagi, Serena, Serenity ect.) in her Princess form. One day by chance I ran into another character named Halo who had a hodge podge character background from a couple of different animes. So we started chatting, our characters got romantically involved and soon I found myself logging in every day to talk to him. I looked forward to it, but at the same time I did not see how dangerous and harmful this was to my social skills, physical activity, and emotional state. I was a teenager, what did I care about those things?

Things progressed. Halo soon became Mike. And then Mike and Jen (the nickname he gave me) were soon "dating". He was 3 years older than me and lived in Philadelphia. We were in a whirlwind romance of love notes and RP drama. It wasn't but a couple months in before I started to notice a 3 month pattern of his on becoming depressed and spiraling downwards into a pit of self loathing. But we were teenagers. This was normal. We thrived off the drama of it all. At the time I also stupidly was trying to hide my "love affair" from my parents. Mormons aren't supposed to date until we're 16. And even then the church encourages the youth to date around and not get serious with anyone. Surely my parents wouldn't understand my being in love so early and how I'd found my soulmate, even if he was an Atheist. This dragged out for 1 1/2 years until my parents found out about him. That was pretty much a HUGE mess between us and I rebelled against them in any way I could when it came to Mike. I wasn't going to let them take him away from me. Even though by now Mike had e-"cheated" on me a few times now and I had found out about them I was willing to forgive him. If I didn't I would have lost him. I had invested so much already I wasn't about to let any of that go and I was more stubborn than I care to admit about everything having to do with Mike. His Dad and Stepmom (who pretty much raised him) were going through a divorce, he was depressed, he felt unloved. I wanted to be there for him. I wanted to fix him.

This is where I messed up. You can't fix anyone that doesn't want to be fixed themselves. You have to let people be who they are. If they don't WANT the help when they get it they aren't going to take it to heart.

In my sophomore year of high school my parents pretty much forbade me to talk to him. But I found ways to do it anyways. By now Mike was in college and into a new game called Everquest. He was not logging in often if at all on AOL or AIM and I was becoming concerned. I quickly used my babysitting money to buy the game so that I could play with him and so I could be available for him to talk to if he wanted to talk to me. It wasn't long before Mike's first year of college turned to ruin. He was logged into the game more than he was going to classes, he flunked out and went back home for the summer ready to kill himself over the things that he let his life get to. Not too long after his Father found out about all of this Mike was enlisted into the Army. He wrote me love letters from Basic Training and I mailed him back letters almost every other day. I also sent him a Book of Mormon in hopes that maybe with his free time he'd read it and find something inside of it that stirred something inside of him. When I got home from Girl's Camp that year I was surprised with a call from Mike. He'd been baptized into the church. I thought nothing in my life could be going better. I was getting everything I wanted and hoped for.

As life usually does... the happiness died out and faded some. I was soon into my Junior year of high school and still seeing this guy from across the country. All my peers were out and dating and I was spending all my time connected to a computer just for the chance to see Mike. My grades soon slipped and I was banned from Everquest and sometimes even the internet until I got them back up. It wasn't that I couldn't get the good grades... it was just that I did not try at all. I was obsessed. I had to have Mike. We had to be happy. I had to spend every waking moment that I could with him. I was so blinded by my undying love for Mike that I did not take the chance or opportunity to date other people even when we would sometimes "break up" or he "didn't want me anymore". Eventually things always went back to a normal state with us. I think mostly it was because we were comfortable with each other, it was what was normal for us. Not being together was just too scary. I can't speak for him, but looking back on how I acted and everything that I did for him this is the only conclusion that I can come up with. I may have done some extremely messed up things to him way later down the road but when it came to our earlier online time together I never remember doing anything to wrong him. I bent over backwards to make sure that he was happy about things. Even when it was forgiving him for cheating, saying awful things to me, or trying to help him through another suicide attempt.

And because this blog could be SO LONG if I keep going I'm just going to limit it to the end of high school for me. By Senior year Mike and I were still together. Talking regularly on the phone and online and sometimes sending letters to each other. We were back playing Everquest and our characters Shintou and Kailena were together and everything seemed to be going perfectly. I was staying at home for college but we were planning on being together. In December of 2001 my parents invited him to come with us to Florida for a family vacation. He accepted and I finally got to meet him. We were both pretty shy about it all but we secretly held hands and shared our first kiss together. I was convinced that he was the one for me and I was going to do anything I could to keep us as a couple. My plan WAS going to work and I was willing to put his happiness and approval before my own needs and wants.

Just because we are now no longer with each other I am not going to say that we were not happy. I was with him for almost 10 years. We had some wonderful times together. I will never forget how he proposed to me. How he loved me. How happy that he could make me feel sometimes. I shared moments and things with him that were all firsts and he will always have that place in my heart. No matter how much I might not like what comes out of his mouth now about me or the hurtful things that were done and said when things were falling apart it doesn't change the good times that we had together.

My whole point of this post was just to the youth (and maybe older people too?) out there.

Please... date.

Date around.

That doesn't mean you have to get sexually active with each and every person you date. I'm not promoting that (although I do have an opinion on that... just too long of another post to do. Haha). But find out via different people what you like and what you don't in people. That quality time you spend with your peers and maybe with that special other person will show you the attributes in someone that you will want to one day marry. When dating please remember to be mindful of your partners feelings but at the same time DO NOT do things just because it will make them happy. In the end dating is about finding out about yourself too. Do not loose yourself in another person. You should be finding things out about yourself and other people too. Find out what you like and what you could do without. This might mean breaking up with people, this might mean losing a friend, you never know what could happen when it comes to matters of the heart. But you're young, don't get your sights set too high on one person so fast. It could end badly.

Myself... Mike and I were not friends before we were in love. I think that that says volumes about what happened with us. Now, I am lucky enough to be in a relationship with my best friend, the Father of my child, and I hope that someday soonish I will also be able to add the word husband to that list. I no longer believe in soulmates, but I do believe in people who are so completely compatible that you can see being with them for a lifetime and beyond (or just until your dying breath, whatever your preference on the matter is!).