DM - The relationship facts

Just got back from my best friend's parents house. Her dad died a couple of weeks ago and so she has been back from New Zealand for this week for the funeral, etc. Very sad about her dad but a blessing for him to be honest. Her and her mum both seem to be coping well, they have the funeral out of the way now and it has been very lovely to see her. I didn't go to the funeral, for lots of reasons, but saw her Monday night and then went over to see her mum tonight to take flowers and a card and generally pay my respects.

And it got me to thinking (as always) about DM and the way I feel, etc, and how much pain I have been through this year, and in a way it makes me feel selfish. DM has only been a part of my life for 15months, and only a truly fantastic part for 5 of those and look how long it has taken me (is still taking me) to deal with that. To come to terms with the loss. (It's ironic that the day we officially broke up, I called him "pathetic" for not having come to terms with his seperation from his wife of 8yrs after 2 whole year!! Fucking ironic. I bet he wants to throw that back in my face!).

And there are people like my best friend's mum who have spent 50 years with their partner!! How do you come to terms with that?? I can't even imagine what it feels like being with someone for that amount of time. I guess the only consolation is that when you get to the end of a life together you can begin to predict that loss, and in a way you expect it, even if it comes sooner than you had imagined. I wish them all the very best of health and love during this time and for the future.

One of the hardest things I have found during this thing with DM is that I didn't get to predict the loss. I didn't expect it (maybe slightly and superficially in the last few weeks) and I didn't see it coming. In fact, nobody expected it and nobody saw it coming. All my friends were as shocked as I was. And because I had signed my heart up to him I believed he had too. He let me believe that. And that has been one of the most difficult things to take forward really, to imagine myself in another future with another man and not be looking and waiting for that axe to fall. The other major difficulty is that I still don't know why. He still can't, or won't, tell me what happened, and that is really difficult. How can you fight or fix what you don't know?

Anyway. Feeling quite calm I guess it's time to lay down the story for you all. You've had the emotional meltdown post, you've had the not being concerned posts, and you've had the twatty embarrassing psycho posts! But for now lets talk about how it was, how I come to be here with this.

I gave you some previous relationship history before http://adayinthelifeoftheordinarygirl.blogspot.com/2006/09/dm-part-1.html but just to refresh, I have always been the kind of girl not concerned with getting married, buying houses, having kids (I ended up with X and Y anyway but hey ho!), settling down etc. Of course I wanted to be with somebody, to love them and have them love me, but I wasn't ready to hang up my single boots just yet thank you, and as for that commitment word... well, lets just say I'd had a few struggles with it before.

As an interesting aside, I've had many conversations with a variety of friends who know me to varying degrees, about whether I have "commitment issues". I even went to see a counsellor last year to try and resolve them (lot of good that was if you ask me! Needless to say I only went once!).

Anyhoo.... I have always maintained that I don't have a problem with commitment but that I just hadn't met the right person. Many of my friends would say I was in denial about this, and for a while I began to question this belief I held. I began to wonder if this pattern of meet a man, see them for 3months, get bored, leave the man (and it was a pattern!!! in fact I always used to tell new men that!) was in fact my commitment issues at work. I began to doubt myself. To clarify, and particularly after DM, I now still say with absolute certainty that I do not have commitment issues. Yes I find it a little difficult. Yes it is not in my nature to sign myself over to somebody willy nilly. Yes I like my freedom. Yes I hate the thought of being tied down. BUT, when I am in, then I'm in. If you get my drift. That had just not happened to me before.

So, here I am... June 2005, happy to be single but of course wanting to have somebody to go out with, have fun with, have sex with, etc etc. So I joined an online dating agency as I had done the online thing before and met some nice people and had some fun (3month!) relationships. Had not long been on and I saw and contacted DM. And it's funny because when I contacted him I didn't expect him to reply. He just seemed to have a life (lots of travel, no kids, etc) that didn't seem consistent with mine (no travel, 2 kids, etc), but something about his profile made me want to say hi and wish him well. He responded, we hit it off immediately and soon emails were flying at a rate of knots.

July 2005 (the 8th if you're interested!) we met for the first time after a couple of phone calls. I remember not being sure when I first laid eyes on him, but after a couple of hours the fancying feelings were beginning to grow, and we had such a good chatty time that we extended our date and went to a late night pub. By the end of the night I had decided I really quite liked him, and the fancying was in full flow.

The rest of July proceeded happily and nicely. We did fun things. Went to open air Shakespeare, visited local castles, historic towns, went to eat, to drink, to chat. We had fun and we got to know each other. We slept together on our third date (see what a good girl I was!), and even then I was aware that for some reason I wanted to play this one differently. That I didn't want to fuck and leave. That I respected his opinion of me. In fact, for the first time in a very long time I didn't set the start for the end by saying I had a really short boredom threshold and that I would probably be gone in 3mths. So early on I didn't want to play that part anymore.

That first night I stayed over was great. And indicative of the sex life to come! The first time was a little quick (hmm hmm!), but we stopped to have a cigarette and a breather, and then went back and did it again. And it just rocked. Straight away we fitted. Even though we didn't know what buttons to press and we didn't know how far to push things and we were both a bit shy and nervous and it was first night sex basically!!! We just fitted, and it was great! It wasn't the best sex I've ever had and it wasn't the best first night sex I've ever had, but it was right and good. And the best bit, and the bit I've never had with anybody else (and in truth believe he's never had either) is that we got up in the morning and quite naturally did a bit of a rundown of the night before. What was good, what felt awkward, just how it was, and that felt even more right! And to be honest that set the scene for how we would be for the next 5mths, and after as it turned out!

So July slipped into August and we carried on what we had started. We went out and had fun, we stayed in and had more fun, we talked and laughed and fucked and generally got to know each other, and life was good! About the end of August he had to go to the US for work and I was going away with a mate for a week. And it was about this time, just before we were going to be apart for a few weeks, that he told me that he loved me. And I remember that as happy as I was I wasn't ready to hear it. In fact I tried to put it off or avoid it when I felt it was coming a few times. I just felt it was too early and he couldn't possibly mean it if he could feel he loved me after just 6 weeks. I guess that was a sign eh? But we moved through it and while he was away I missed him so much and I began to take those tentative steps into real feelings.

September came and went. We continued to bond and to grow. To feel more comfortable with each other I suppose, and the sex got better and better and we fell more and more in love. I say we because I had (have??) no reason to doubt that that was how it was. Anyone of my friends would tell you that it was completely real, tangible almost, that we were both smitten, that we were so right together, that it was obvious how much he adored me, and that I had never been like this around anyone before.

September drifted into October. But before it did I remember the wobble I had. I don't remember what started it, but I remember driving back from his house late one Friday night, and for some reason I just questioned whether I wanted to be doing this. Whether I wanted to truly step on that path that could take me to somewhere risky and dangerous, (the path that would bring me here as it happens!). And I remember having the conversations in my head: telling myself I would be stupid to walk away from all of this. That I had never felt like this about anybody, that he was everything, and so much more than I had ever dreamed off, that I ought to grow up and be grateful for the opportunity to have something so great with someone so fucking wonderful. And just like that I stepped off that cliff. And it sounds freaky to say but it was almost like I took a big breath of all that anxiety and commitment stuff I carried with me and I let it go.... just like that! And in that moment, that he never knew about (still doesn't know about), I made my commitment to him, for the long haul, for the rest of my life.

October carried on as before. We had a bit of a spat in the latter half of the month. I had been ill and then he had been ill, and we had spent more time together for a longer length than usual, and more time with X and Y, and to be honest it was all a bit much. But things settled back down again and went back to smug and fluffy. To be true to how things were, we did have the odd row during this time, the occasional cross word etc, but generally there were no major falling outs or potential problems. (Rosy coloured spectacles? I don't know! Ask him...!)

(It's funny, as I write this, I wonder... would his version of things sound the same?? Is his perception similar to mine or far removed from it??).

November started off well. We had a firework party, and he bought tons of fireworks... seriously folks, more fireworks than any party can need!! He made rocket launchers, he set up a marquee, he was really into the whole thing. And it was one of the times I remember best about him, in his winter hat lighting firework after firework long after the kids had got bored and gone inside.

And then.... mid to late November everything just stopped! Almost just like that. Really. Just. Like. That!