Thoughts.com Blogs - Hopeless Hoping

What have I learnt from my grown up relationships/the men I've been with? (Fake names so I don’t confuse myself!)

Simon: Another bloke who would tell me about all the girls he’d hung round with instead of coming and seeing me when he said he would; who wouldn’t keep secrets private; who manipulated and used me. A man who made me think I needed him and couldn’t live without him. I learnt:
1. A boyfriend who takes advantage of you in your sleep doesn’t love you.
2. A boyfriend who leaves you for your friend likes it too much when he has the attention of you both.3. Being nice to someone after they’ve treated you badly may start out as being amusing as they squirm but it takes more effort than just ignoring them as they just adapt and start taking advantage of your kind nature.

Carl: A guy twice my age, who’d just come out of a serious relationship, had children, the eldest of which was 3 years younger than me, and ended up going back to the woman even though his kids hated her and loved me. I learnt:
1. If the only time you see each other is when you're both drunk he isn’t really what you want.
2. If you find texts on his phone saying he misses his ex and arranging to meet up he’s probably lying when he says he hasn’t seen her since you’ve been together.
3. When his ex rings and asks you if you’ve slept together before she decides whether to take him back or not you don’t have to answer.
4. When he has a history of slashing the tyres, breaking windows and whatever of his ex’s he’s not a good guy to try and get on with afterwards.

Mike: A man in the pub who plied me with drinks just after breaking up with Carl. From my 5th drink I remember nothing until I woke up in his bed in the middle of the night. I didn’t know where I was but I knew he didn’t live far from the pub where my car was which was on ‘rape alley’. Four girls had been raped in the 3 moths I’d worked there so I was too scared to leave at night. I thought I’d just lie still and pretend I was asleep but even with my back to him he climbed on top. I told him no more than once.As soon as it was light I was out of there. I went to the supermarket bought drink and painkillers and went and locked myself in my university room. I had about 5 half full packs of different anti-depressants (my doctor at the time changed them every week - clever guy hey) and whatever else from hayfever tablets to ibuprofen. I woke up the next day… gutted I was still there. I hallucinated for about 2 days. Didn’t really know where I was or what I was doing and kept falling over which was embarrassing on campus and at work. I quit soon after. I learnt:
1. Drink is the bane of my life
2. ‘No’ means very little to an overweight pissed guy.

And now I'm with my current guy. Another good catch hey!? Every time I thought I’d learnt something from a relationship I find I'm learning it again in the next. They start when I’m very lonely & I think that I can ‘save’ these guys but I probably really want them to save me.

My reputation got shot my pub job and now at my new job. Should I be surprised that my current boss comes on to me and in my pub job one man tried to rape me and my boss there held me up against the wall and tried to have sex with me on my last shift? Should I be surprised that men think they can take advantage of me? I'm not ‘easy’ and I'm nowhere near being a slag but in each situation I have managed to paint myself this way based on one mistake. I've always only dated one man in each place because I felt that I needed to repair my reputation after giving in to someone who’s treated me like shit. I go in, people find out I'm a Christian, and I become some kind of challenge.

My current man asked me from the start where my boundaries lay. He asked me what would happen if I’d been drinking and couldn’t drive home. I told him that a bed can be for sleeping and nothing else. And he told me that he appreciated me being clear and giving no wrong signals or ideas. He talked about how he just wanted to hold me, play with my hair, tip my head back to see me smiling and to make me feel safe. And when I went round I did feel safe. Safer than anyone has ever made me feel - even when we started sleeping together and to this day.

It wasn’t until the 3rd night I stayed over that we had sex. We were doing lots of other stuff and he’d told me we’d need to stop if we weren’t going to go all the way. But by this time I was too horny and found him respecting my wishes all the more attractive as no other man I've been with has thought that. So we stopped but I told him that I really liked him, he made me happy and that I wanted to do this. We’d both been drinking but I knew what I was saying and he took much persuading. I knew what I was doing. And obviously that hasn’t been the only time.

Before we got together I’d been single for about 3 years. I’d told myself that the next person I would go out with would be the man I married. I really, truly believed this. But I got so lonely. Ten of my good friends have got engaged or married in the last year; 8 of whom are my age or younger. I guess that’s just enhanced my loneliness.

I managed to work day in day out with 5 men last year. They were my age, lovely, into the same kind of things as me and Christian. Yet none of them fancied me. Girls were outnumbered 4/13. That’s 3 guys to each girl! I couldn’t get one!I fancied one of them for the whole year; from pretty much the 1st time I saw him. I never said anything. I thought that if it was going to happen it would. We weren’t allowed to date co-workers for the 1st year anyway and when the year was over I just waited, silently to see if he felt the same. Obviously he didn’t and that’s ok now because I realised how he saw me simply as someone who was thick, needed protecting, had too many problems and was too much effort. I suppose I'm not saying that’s not true but that the perfect man for me would accept me and support me and not think I was too much effort. He would just love me and care for me and let me do the same back.

I don’t think anyone who suffers proper depression lasting long periods of time can be low maintenance. If they are given that impression then they will never be able to open up and be honest with their partner. I think that if they aren’t allowed to feel comfortable and accepted as they are they will become more introvert, paranoid and insecure.

I can hold out hope for there to be a one true man for me who will accept me as I am but I don’t know if I believe it will actually happen. So in the meantime am I just condemned to a life of settling for less? And how much damage will I do to myself while I hopelessly hope?

Not too much I hope.