Project Love: Day 13

Lost in love

Have you ever been so desperate to be in a relationship that you stayed in the wrong relationship? I am embarrassed to admit that I was once that weak. I’m happy to say that it only took one of these types of relationships for me to learn my lesson. And that lesson is, it’s better to be aching for love and alone than it is to be aching for love in a bad relationship.

As I look back on my relationship with “Mr. Buckeye” I cringe. I cringe because of the desperation I see in me at the time. I cringe because of who I became in that relationship. I cringe because I became everything that my parents raised me not to be. I cringe because I became someone I worked so hard not to be. I cringe because I became a weak and dependent woman in that relationship, and I HATE that I let myself become that person.

I met Mr. Buckeye, of all places, at church. He was the first and only guy I have ever dated that had, what I thought were, the same beliefs in God that I had. We took classes together at church and built a great friendship. We had a lot of fun together, which included one great trip to Hawaii. But unfortunately, there were more bad times than good in our relationship.

Two come to mind.

The first one being the time he came after me with a golf club in the parking lot, while his friend looked on.

I don’t remember all of the details of the fight we had had, but I remember the most important ones. We had gone out to have a couple of drinks one Wednesday night after our class at church. We always had fun together when we were drinking, unless Jagermeister was involved. This night Mr. Buckeye had run into a couple of friends while we were out which called for a round of shots, Jagermeister shots. And as usual with Jagermeister, you can’t just stop at one.

Mr. Buckeye was toasting shot after shot with his friends and became increasingly more fun for most, me not being included in that “most” category. Anyway in the course of the evening his buddies were laughing at him and his relationship with his ex-wife. You know, poking fun at him and laughing about the past. At one point I chimed in and cracked a joke too, unfortunately for me, it was funny to everyone but Mr. Buckeye. Mentally he checked out of the evening and his mood changed as soon as I made the comment. I can’t even remember what I said, but I do remember thinking he was crazy for being pissed at what I said. It wasn’t half as bad as what his friends were saying.

The evening came to a quick close and as we were walking out to our car he was yelling and screaming at me about how disrespectful I had been to chime into a conversation with his friends about a woman (his ex-wife) I had never met. I was floored at his reaction. But not as floored as I was about to be. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse or more embarrassing, Mr. Buckeye’s friend pulls up alongside of us to take Mr. Buckeye home. Mr. Buckeye opened up the trunk of his car to put some stuff in his friend’s car and in the process got a hold of one of his golf clubs and held it up like he was going to strike me with it. Thank God something came over him, (and it wasn’t his friend who was watching the whole scenario), before he slammed it on the ground instead of at me. Mr. Buckeye wouldn’t talk to me for two days after that night and continued to bring the events of that evening up throughout our relationship. You know in a “you must respect me” sense of the word.

Most women with a good head on her shoulders would have seen the light at this point in the relationship and walked away. However, at the time, my ex husband was still dating the woman he had left me for and I was desperate to show him that I wasn’t a “loser” but that I was, in fact, happy and in a loving relationship.

The second bad time that immediately comes to mind when I think of Mr. Buckeye is when I had just gotten home from a trip to New York with my girlfriends. I was so excited to see him. We had had a couple of good conversations while I was away and I felt like our relationship was in a really good spot. Ok…I’ll come out and say it, I really missed him when I was gone.

Upon my arrival home I went to spend some time with Mr. Buckeye. I got to his place before he did and I was just relaxing and chilling out when he finally got home from work. I had followed him upstairs so that we could catch up while he was taking a shower. Get your minds out of the gutter people…he was in the shower and I was sitting on the bed and we were talking!

Anyway when Mr. Buckeye got out of the shower the look on his face was horrible. Kind of like the Incredible Hulk, right before he turned green. I could just see in his eyes that he was pissed, but I couldn’t figure out why. His first words to me when he got out of the shower were, “what the hell do you think you are doing?” I was dumfounded, I had no idea what he was talking about. Turns out he was pissed that I was sitting on his bed in my jeans. That’s right people, apparently when you sit on someone’s bed with jeans on you are apparently not respecting him. I think I got at least a 30 minute lecture, well I say lecture, but it was actually a 30 minute yelling match as to all of the reasons why I disrespect him in our relationship.

When he was done talking…ahem…yelling, I quietly got up, got in my car and drove home. I didn’t hear from Mr. Buckeye for days.

Our relationship was not good after that. He slowly stopped calling, I slowly became desperate to hold on to him…it was ugly and finally ended a week before Christmas.

We didn’t talk for months after that. Thank God I never introduced my kids to him!

What I find funny is that a few months later Mr. Buckeye started calling me again. He had admitted to me that he was wrong and that I was one of the best things that had ever happened to him. He wanted to rekindle our relationship, but I had had enough time away to look back and see that I would rather be lonely and single than in a relationship like that.

I thank Mr. Buckeye everyday at the lessons I learned in our relationship. The most important being that I will never ever again let love blind me from being who I am. I will never settle just so I’m not lonely, because being single and lonely is so much better than being lonely in a relationship.

Love is a Battlefield.