Falling Off the Blog

Sometimes it’s just hard to fall in love. Sometimes it’s easy. For me, though, most of the time it’s a chore. I don’t mean I hate doing it, but it does take a powerful stand to let someone else into your life. To feel with them. To open yourself to them. It doesn’t come naturally to me.

The first love of my life, we’ll call her Maggie, was a woman that I opened myself to fully. Amazing woman. Full of feminine energy and spunk. A great dancer. In fact, I learned to swing dance just so I could be with her…and I recommend all men learn to swing dance… Because of what I thought were mitigating circumstances at the time, we broke up. Two months later…she’s engaged. Talk about a heart break. It wouldn’t have been that big of a deal if the woman that I had dated before her hadn’t done the same thing. Yep. Two months after we broke up…engaged. It happened twice in a row.
So you can imagine my anger and heartbreak about Maggie. Even though we’d broken up, you don’t just “get over” a love of your life. You certainly don’t expect someone to get over you like you were nothing and then get married to someone else two months later. Drag. Heinous. So take the way-back meter and push it forward eight years. This year in fact. I find another woman that I’d just as soon spend the rest of my life with. We’ll call her Sally. She spends a week in Vegas with her friend and comes back done. Conjures up a brilliant excuse having to do with the fact that I remind her too much of her ex-husband. Of course, I’m sure it’s true since I share his name… To be fair, there were some things that I was struggling with, and I suppose I shared my internal struggles a bit too much with her (that I did at all was too much I reckon). She decides that her career is more important than me, and indeed she was a mother of three – so the energy required to do career, mommy and “manage me” has her choose to go solo. I’m crushed. Naturally. Sure, it wasn’t all perfect roses, but I was on the cusp – and indeed had – figured out the kinks and I was excited for what the future held. Not now. No chance to see them to fruition. She was committed to being right about the fact that she needs to conserve energy. In the end, I was okay with that.

So, two months go by. Can you guess where this is going? Yep. You got it. Get a call from her that she’s engaged to her ex-boyfriend who she works for. Her life is wonderful, idyllicnow. Making tons of money, happy family times, everything she’s ever wanted. It feels pretty wonderful to hear that once she got rid of her “baggage” her life took off as it were. [sic]

If I look at the situation, we’re talking, after she vowed to take at least 6 months off of dating, 3 weeks into working with this guy (who she’d sworn off) they’re smashing face. And what’s really going on? I can only guess that her insecurity around being safe (since she was adopted, divorced and an independent contractor for years) has most likely blinded her to a situation (working with her ex) that is a simple framework of safety- the absence of which will render present all the same things that she hated about him in the first place. I mean, it’s possible that they really are perfect for each other…it just seems a little too convenient and doesn’t make a lot of sense. The worst part of it was that I told her it was going to happen…twice. I just didn’t realize it was going to happen within 6 weeks. Sheesh. I realize this is quite the rant, but the question for you is this: who am I being that draws women that really don’t want to be with me? Who am I that I’m deceived into taking their words of affection and commitment at face value? Who am I that I open myself to them?

..and what is there to do about this?

I’m open to suggestions from all and any. May this not happen to any of you…although if it has, I’d love to hear about what you did to get through.

Mark L.