MeToo

Hi everyone

To begin with, I'm just going to say that this is going to be a very somber posting. Also, if you're not into somber posts, please skip it. It will be one that is pretty much polar opposite of any of the postings that I have made before on this blog. Hopefully once I get this out of my system, I can continue healing from it.
As many of you are probably aware, earlier this year (or it may have been last year now) there was a MeToo movement. And I'll say right now, that I refuse to put the hashtag in front of that, as I am old school, and hashtag is also known as "pound" and having the movement be called "pound MeToo" is completely opposite of what the movement was about. If you don't know what MeToo is about, please google it. There, I even did it for you.

Before I got into my relationship with Justin, I was in a different relationship with, ironically, someone named Justin. For the remainder of this post, he will be referred to as F. If I ever talk about him in real life, I use his last name but I don't want to put that information out on the internet. I was in that relationship for 5 years. That was 5 years too long. It has been almost 9 years since I have left that relationship and I have only really started coming to terms with what happened in that relationship in the past year or two. With me coming to terms with it, I am also trying hard to work past what happened so that I can once again become the person that I was before F entered my life in a negative way.

I have known F since elementary school. I was horrible friend, as he also happens to be one of my friends ex's. We started dating during the summer that I was going into grade 12 (I think, I honestly cannot remember). One of the first things that happened in the relationship that should have been my signal to run away fast without looking back was the fact that early in our relationship he told me that if I ever broke up with him he would kill himself. The fact that he told me this while having the knife in his hand, was pretty convincing not to do it. I had already been thinking about breaking up with him anyways, because he had this stupid idea that he didn't want to be a virgin when he turned 18 (which would be in December). Being that I'm a nice person and I did not want to be the cause for him to kill himself, I did not break up with him. And also because of that, we ended up losing our virginity to each other, much to my dislike. I did not want to have sex. But with the fact that he would take his own life otherwise, I did not have a choice in my mind. It is never a good sign, when the female ends up crying after the first time.

So with the knowledge that he'd kill himself looming over me, we continued our relationship and he started controlling my life. I wasn't allowed to hang out with my friends (thankfully they still stuck around even though I pretty much vanished), he forced me to be involved with a blatant MLM (I knew it was from the start, yet he wouldn't take no as an answer), he had our taxes done together and they were filled as "married" (we weren't even common-law at the time. Unfortunately, I discovered that too late to have it changed) and he decided that we needed to open up a joint chequing account then proceeded to take out a $5000 loan in our name, which he used on a "vacation" to Australia.

So, Australia. With "his" cash in hand, he decided that he wasn't getting any younger and that he wanted to take a one month "vacation" to Australia. Now, this trip to Australia did not involve me going with him. Nope, he was taking this trip by himself. The plan was for him to take "his" $5000 and spend a month traveling the coast of Australia, enjoying life, while I sat at home and worked. Well, the guy isn't the smarted tool in the shed. He ended up calling me on his layover in Hawaii (plane needed fuel) telling me that he lost his wallet...Awesome. Thankfully, they didn't switch planes at all, as low-and-behold, his wallet was between the seats the whole time. He also complained that he thought that he was getting deep-vein thrombosis (6 hour flight so far, pretty sure it doesn't set in that quickly). So he eventually gets to Australia, where he proceeds to blow the entire $5000 in a week and a half. At least he was smart enough to save enough to get home. When he gets home, he takes me to a hotel as he has a surprise for me. We get to the hotel and once in our room, he opens his suitcase and throws a necklace at me. Literally, he throws a necklace at me. Congratulations, we are now engaged. Yeah, he proposed by throwing a necklace at me. Still wish I had the courage to walk away...

Wedding plans are made. A dress is bought. And I have been spiraling downhill for quite sometime. Needless to say I am good at hiding my emotions. Also, my intake in alcohol has increased. A lot. Just the thought of him touching me would make me sick to my stomach. I tried to avoid having to do anything physical with him as much as I could (I had a lot of headaches). He didn't really notice my increase in drinking, as at this time, along with living with me, he also had a place in New West that he shared with people. He had started his own tiling company and had been hired on to tile the skytrain station (which one, I have no clue now). So instead of commuting, he rented a room. I was just happy that he was away from me, although I'm pretty sure that he was sleeping with one of the girls that also lived in the suite. I tried to ask him about that, but he didn't answer my question (she was a ginger, and I asked him if he knew if it was natural or not). It was about this time that I had started doing some freelance work with a friend and ended up talking to this guy from Florida. Yes, I was attracted to him, however I was able to talk to him about what was going on and was able to get an outsiders view of what was happening. So with his words in my mind, and after talking to my mom a bit (although she doesn't know what really went on), I decided to grow a pair of gonads and break up with him. F, of course, blamed it on Florida and that I wanted to sleep with him. I told him, no, I had been feeling this way for a while and talking to Florida had just confirmed it. And with that I left. He insisted that I help pay back the $5000 for his trip to Australia. I didn't have the money to, but did what I could. As long as it got him out of my hair.

One of the first things that I did after I left him was got a tattoo of a hibiscus. He had said that I could never get a tattoo as long as he was around, so that was one of my defying moments. I now have 4 tattoos, with a 5th one in the design stage. After the final payment to the joint account loan, I blocked him on Facebook and have never looked back. All I know is that he lives in Saskatchewan now. No idea where, or what he is doing. And quite honestly, I couldn't care less. He can go ruin someone else's life now.

It has been a long and hard 9 years since I was able to get him out of my life. No one, not even Justin, knows exactly what happened in that relationship. They know bits and pieces, but I have never fully come out and talked about it. With the incident at the tool store, people kept referring to him as "my high school sweetheart." I hated it when they would say that, and even asked them to stop, which did not happen. He was in no way, shape or form a sweetheart. The main reason why I decided to write this out is because yesterday, Justin asked me why I now decided to go into the LAA program. I have always loved law. It was my favourite subject in school. But due to the toxicity of the relationship that I had been in, I could not go after my own dreams. Everything I did had to be to what F wanted. Not what I wanted.
It has taken 9 years for me to really start living again. It has taken 9 years for the pain and the hurt to start to subside. It has taken 9 years for me to even try to get my life back to what it was before F was in the pictures. I missed out on a lot in that total of 14 years that has been stolen from me because of F. And I'm only now just starting to get it back. There is no telling if I'll ever be able to get to where I really should be at this stage in my life. Needless to say, where I am now currently, was not where I had imagined myself being.
The road that we follow is not always paved for us, it can be paved by someone else. But if we can chip away at the materials that they laid down, we can eventually become back to our own paths, with our own paving. Or in my case, gravel. I am going to keep following my arrow on the path that I am currently on. Because my arrow will lead me to greatness, it is just a matter of time for me to get there.