Window Gazing in 2017

J is my fiance. Things aren’t what they were before, but life is better than it’s ever been, though less satisfying. We met at work almost 4 years ago. He was my supervisor and I was the hot commodity because I was working a “mans” job… Literally, I was one of two women who worked there, and the other wasn’t real feminine. She prided herself as being one of the boys, actually. She was a friend of mine though, and she convinced me to come on board. Immediately it was a mistake, but J made it a lot better. He took me under his wing and shielded me from a lot of the job, which was difficult later on because when I finally had to do the job alone, I had no clue what I was doing so he didn’t exactly do me any favors. But during that time, he and I grew extremely close and crossed the line, if you know what I mean. Seriously crossed the line. Especially because we both had someone waiting for us back home. Not just someone, but an entire family. Neither of us were happy, but neither of us were in a position to do anything about it.

Another person at work though convinced me that I could do something about it, and in fact he helped me do so. We became very close in the meantime, and we ended up a couple for several months. Those months felt like a lifetime to me. Although initially J took my breath away and made me feel alive again after having been in such a bad relationship, I was overcome in a way by what was unfolding with this other man. He put me on a pedestal as if I was a prize, and offered to take care of me, although there was a price. He did not get along well with my child, had no interest in my family whatsoever, and insisted that I let go of my friends who I heavily relied on for support emotionally at that time. He thought I was consistently putting myself into risky situations and accused me of being lazy, cheating, and whatever else on a regular basis. It was heartbreaking, because I wasn’t any of those things. I was just… I was obsessed with feeling so special; so lucky. And in hindsight, he wasn’t wrong in any of the things he said. I can see that now, as I have become the person he wanted me to be then. He was just wrong in his communicative approach, and also wrong in belittling me. Making someone feel like a lesser human is not a way of getting what you want. In fact, it’s the opposite. He and I ended badly. It was very emotional… I ended it, and regretted it. It was too late for us… I ended it, and he moved on, though asked me to wait. He asked me to live my life without hatred toward him, and although he didn’t want me to physically wait for him, he wanted me to keep in the back of my mind that should we both find ourselves available, that we should try again.

Eventually I left that relationship fully go, and J’s other half left him, or rather booted him out. I was there for him as a friend, and it turned into something else. I don’t like to think about how we got to this place, so I’m not going to talk to you about it. There are certain things in life I don’t want to hang on to… I don’t want to re-enact the experience, even if just mentally. These experiences live in a box in my head, and sometimes when I’m not thinking about it, the box opens up like Pandora and let the evils within flood my zen. Don’t get me wrong, I am not unhappy with J, but the process it took to get here, had someone else told me the story of it, I would be disgusted with them. The things J and I did; the events that unfolded during that time, absolutely disgust me and probably ruined a lot of what could have been. For example, I refuse to interact with his family, which is not at all what I wanted. I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted a mother-in-law. I wanted to expand my family, not make it smaller. But now I can’t stand to be around them… partially because I don’t agree with their values but also because I’m embarrassed about all of it. And, he has a daughter, just as I have a son. I wanted to be part of his daughter’s life, but the reality is that he had his daughter with his aunt. Granted, aunt by marriage, not blood, so they aren’t genetically related. However, in a literal sense that makes his daughter also his cousin, and during family functions I run the risk of seeing someone related to her. Just a few short weeks after getting together, J and I went to a family reunion that he pressured me to attend, which was held at his aunt/mother of his child’s sister’s house, in which we also hung out with her mother, and she was not pleased to see me. And the whole thing is weird in a Jerry Springer back-woodsy kind of way. And to make matters worse, his aunt/mother of his child is extremely racist and wouldn’t even allow J to see his daughter for over a month because neither myself or my son are white. J would miserably cry all the time, hurt and afraid, and it was my fault. Not directly. I didn’t do that. But it was my fault because of things that I cannot change. I can’t change the color of our skin, not that I would want to anyway.

So, when J finally got his daughter back, he was extremely paranoid about every little thing. I was constantly scrutinized and watched over because he didn’t trust my parenting. He didn’t trust that I could keep her safe, even though my son was 6 years old at the time and perfectly healthy. He was afraid that he, or myself in this case, would screw up his daughter in some way and he would lose her forever. So at this point in my life, after being weaponized for being Hispanic and punished for interacting with his daughter, I avoid her like the plague. And it isn’t personal. It’s not about her. She’s a dear little girl. She is very sweet, though she has down syndrome and J does not try to teach her the skills she needs to grow and develop which is a shame because its hard to tell if she’s lacking because of her handicap, or because nobody is teaching her. My son on the other hand is extremely intelligent and independent. He’s actually a few grades beyond his years- tested and verified. I have a lot to offer as a parent, but for J’s daughter, I just can’t be involved. The idea, which I wanted wholeheartedly in the beginning, now gives me extreme anxiety so the weekends that she comes over, I either work late, go in early, or just try and find some place else to be. And what makes things worse is that here lately the one place I want to be is the one place that I should never, ever go again. It’s funny because when we agreed not to speak anymore, my ex and I, he acknowledged that I am younger than him and said that in several years I wouldn’t even remember being with him at all. It’s been 2, maybe closer to 3 years since we’ve been apart, and yet the memories I keep feel like yesterday. What makes that worse is that he has no idea. I wish he knew that I never forgot. But I’m glad he doesn’t know. And if J knew, it would kill him.

When the ex and I broke up, he ended up getting back together with the woman he was with prior to me. They had been together for years, and she was more established and they had more history. A lot of history, actually. And their relationship worked so much better than ours ever could. But he told me that while he loved her, he was in love with me, so he was choosing to stay with her but I would always be with him. I didn’t understand that then. Why not just be with me if that’s really what you wanted? I get that now, because I do love J. We have a home together, and have taken the steps to buy a bigger one. We share everything. We have a bank account together, and we’ve essentially yet unintentionally cut ties with our old lives because we are so hyper-focused on our own. We are discussing the idea of having a child together, but I don’t want my child involved in his life outside of the one we share because I just don’t agree with it, so it probably won’t happen. We are very financially stable and comfortable… we have more money in the bank collectively than I have ever had in my entire life. We are debt free. We have very little worries. Life, on the surface, is really good. But emotionally, while I love J, I’m in love and have been in love with someone else for a very long time, and now I understand why when given the chance he wouldn’t be with me before. He couldn’t because it would have hurt her too badly. And I couldn’t, because it would kill J. He couldn’t do that to her, and I can’t do that to him. And I don’t know if this is what life is supposed to be like as an adult, or not. All I know is that I don’t want to go to my grave feeling like I could have or should have made other choices.