wasted time

If I could go back in time, I would have gone about things a lot differently than I did. I would have not only recognized the red flags, but I would have also taken them as signs to back off from the relationship and set the boundaries right then and there. Looking back on these 16 years, I can clearly see where I had gone wrong and I am afraid that it is too late to start setting the boundaries.

It doesn’t take long for habits to form, just like it doesn’t take long to become comfortable with situations or even how a person is treated based on those situations. I had gone through a pitiful stage in the beginning of impressing him and his mother; oh, look at me, I will be a good girlfriend AND a great mother figure. Keep me please! I was so desperate for love and acceptance back then that I had literally threw myself to the wolves and allowed myself to be treated as a doormat.

I know his intentions were not to allow me to be the pitiful dumbass that I was being; but I do think he fell in love more with WHAT I was offering him in exchange for his love. I was the perfect match, the greatest thing since sliced bread, a wonderful asset to his chaotic and ridiculously unmanaged life with his young daughter. Someone to cook and clean and rear the child and also someone to cuddle with at night and be sexually satisfying once said child was put to bed for the night. I was a dream come true for HIM but the situation was beginning a NIGHTMARE for me.

My friends and family saw through everything and offered me advice. It was easy to see the red flags from the outside; his child was a hellion, his mother backed off from dealing with her, and he was clueless and lazy with parenting. I had begun the tireless talks with friends of how awful the kid was and how stressful my relationship was becoming because of her. It wasn’t long before everyone got tired of hearing me complain and told me to shit or get off the pot.

HER mother was a sad case of drug addiction, theft and mental illness. He had gotten full custody when the kid was 5 and the Golden Uterus had been no help at all. HE still loved and cared for her, even to the thinnest extent, but nonetheless he took forever to fully get over his ex and by that time, I had begun to fall OUT of love with him. I knew from the start I was a rebound but needed him so badly I looked past it and hoped that my eagerness to impress him would help move that along quicker. I don’t recall when he finally let her go and the secret texts and calls stopped, but by the time they both backed off from each other, I had already lost interest in him. I stayed because of OUR daughter, the real victim, the one he has indirectly pushed aside for his oldest daughter.

Now that my child is 14, I feel like I should begin to plan to move out with her and move on; she knows her dad loves her but she also knows he is preoccupied with her older half-sister---and her 3 year old son. We just don’t mean as much to him as they do, and as heartbreaking as it is, we have to put up the wall and try and build our lives around other things.