I Was An Emotional Prostitute Part 10

I also had a onetime sexual encounter with another man, before I married my now ex-husband, Pat. I met Teddy Bear in a message room on the old computer Bulletin Board Systems. We met in person at a Bulletin Board User meeting. He was very nice. He invited me to lunch one fine day and by the time I left; we’d had more than lunch. We’d had each other. I didn’t cry all the way home this time, I simply felt guilty for what I’d done. I realize now the reason I cheated on Pat was the same reason I cheated on Andrew. My emotional needs were not being met. Unfortunately, I was too needy and hungry for love to see anything else, even how bad a relationship was for me.

Just before I broke up with Andrew, I took a job as a security guard. I worked several different sites in the course of my job and it was at one of these that I met Pat, the man I married. When we first met he was so nice and understanding and pretty soon I was crying on his shoulder about my relationship with Andrew. Pat often said he would treat me differently. Shortly after my breakup with Andrew, Pat and I started dating.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that I was on the rebound from my relationship with Andrew. Because of that I wasn’t seeing things as clearly as I should have.

He was very considerate of me and as time went on I got the impression he wanted the same things in life I did. I remember he even talked in his sleep one night saying something to the effect of, “Mayone, take the kids to the car.” I was thrilled. He’d proposed to me by this time and I honestly thought he was the perfect man for me.

We moved in together a few months before our wedding, as it was more economical to do so. Pat was going to college and I supported us both for a time. Pat tried working through a temporary agency, but after working one job through them, they didn’t have any more jobs for him. College didn’t go as well as we thought it would for him because the college found out it wasn’t teaching the students in his program enough of what they needed to know. Consequently they revised the program and Pat had to re-take some classes separately he’d already done together. As a result he ran out of grant money. Then he wouldn’t go to the college to ask for more money, so he didn’t get his degree.

During this time, I began to have thoughts about calling off our wedding. I couldn’t put my finger on any reason why and I felt committed to marrying Pat so I didn’t call it off. I realize now there were little things that made me realize marrying him would be a mistake. He didn’t always listen to my requests to not hug me when I was working the kitchen. Our kitchen was so tiny I could barely work in it; if he came in I was trapped. There were other things as well. We only had room in the bedroom for one dresser and because I didn’t own one, we used his. He was only willing to clear out one drawer for me out of the 4 or 5 it contained.

If I were superstitious at all, I would have run for the hills on my wedding day. A lot of things went wrong. When my attendants and I were getting dressed, I noticed that the flower girl’s dress was not the style I had originally specified and the lace trim was not what I wanted either. I was not happy about that. I learned later that the original pattern couldn’t be used for reasons beyond anyone’s control and no one had bothered to tell me. I never did learn why the wrong lace trim had been used.

The special nylons I had bought didn’t fit and neither did the spare pair, my sister-in-law, Danice brought along, just in case. Then to make matters worse, the friend who was supposed to be watching over the guest book didn’t show. Fortunately I had made other arrangements just in case because I had a feeling that would happen. My mother was late for the ceremony because she hadn’t finished making her dress, even though she’d had six months notice about my wedding. Then after the ceremony, I noticed that the person serving punch was my friend Kathy, when it should have been someone else. I was extremely grateful that she noticed the problem and just stepped in and took care of it.

My husband Pat, was a little boy emotionally whom I married thinking that he would grow up once he got away from his father’s control. His father had been a Sergeant-major in the army and ran his family the same way. If he said, “jump,” his family asked how high on the way up. Pat’s father even decided which branch of the service Pat would go into. Pat wanted to go into the Coast Guard, but his father didn’t consider that to be “real service” and pushed Pat into joining the Air Force by having an Air Force recruiter come to their house to meet with him.

I learned a couple of very important lessons there. If you’re going to marry someone, you had better be very sure that you can live with him or her the way he/she is for the rest of your life with no expectation of change. You had also better be very sure that you see eye to eye on all the major issues in marriage, such as money and how it’s handled and having children. Those two issues had a lot to do with the breakup of my marriage.

It seemed I could spend money and charge things as long as we could afford the payments. But when it came to paying off the bills and working towards being able to have children, I got no real help from my husband. Every time the subject of having children would come up, Pat would tell me we couldn’t afford to have children. Pat also told me that he would see about getting a second job to help pay off our bills. Pat never even looked for a second job, but I tried working two jobs twice. Even when I paid off some of our bills, Pat would still tell me we couldn’t afford to have children. Only now, he would get up and walk away after saying it. End of discussion as far as he was concerned. I honestly thought when we married that he wanted children too. As time went on in our marriage, I began to see this wasn’t true. That as far as Pat was concerned I was too pushy about the issue and why did I want children so badly anyway? I realize now that he didn’t really want children the way he said he did or he would have made more effort to make it possible. He knew I would not have married him if I’d known he didn’t want children.

I Was An Emotional Prostitute Part 9

Prior to our breakup, we’d made plans to go on a trip to Canada with David, a man we knew at church, and another friend from church, Patty. When Andrew and I broke up, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go if he was going too. Then to make matters worse, David came to see me after work one day to tell me that I needed to get back together with Andrew before we went. I told David that under no circumstances was I going to get back together with Andrew, even if it meant missing the trip. He’d hurt me too badly for me to consider it, even though I really wanted to go.

I did go on the trip with the three of them, but only because Patty came and talked to me. She assured me I didn’t have to go back to Andrew despite what David had said. It was an interesting trip. Andrew kept trying to get me back and I kept trying to run away from him. I ended up verbally sniping at him a lot in the car on the way to the ferry. We must have just about driven poor David and Patty crazy.

When we got on the ferry to Canada, Andrew followed me around like some kind of lovesick puppy. I couldn’t get away from him. Even when I used the ship-to-shore phone to call Pat whom I was dating, he would wait a few feet away. The only way I could have escaped him during the crossing would have been to spend the whole trip in the ladies room.

Thankfully, Andrew took me to dinner the next night at a very nice restaurant in Victoria. During a sumptuous main course consisting of rack of lamb, I set him straight once and for all. I told him point blank that his current efforts to get me back were too little; too late. He had hurt me too much for me to want to even think about trying again. The rest of the trip went very well after that. The next day, we even went shopping together and had a pleasant time.

Just before we broke up, I quietly and gradually withdrew from the church I’d attended for years. I could see things were not as they should be. I couldn’t prove it although, even if I could have, no one would have listened to me. God was connecting people together for mutual healing, but unfortunately some people got carried away. They divorced their spouses in favor of marrying the person God had connected them with. The church leadership even put connections ahead of the marital relationships.

I learned this after I sought the advice of a church counselor in regards to Andrew’s seemingly higher interest in his connection, my friend, Kathy. The counselor told me point blank, that their relationship was more important as it was an eternal one, but our relationship was only for as long as we were here on earth. I learned later that his attitude was wrong. That I could have and probably should have sought other counsel within the church. Not everyone saw it the way that counselor did. There were counselors who saw that the God given connection was to serve a healing purpose in people’s lives, but was not meant to take the place of any marital or engagement relationship or to permanently become more important than those relationships. It was to be more important for a time, but not forever. However, I was too hurt to even think about it and to take the risk of a similar attitude. I later wished I had talked to our pre-engagement counselors regarding Andrew’s attitude, but I’m not sure how much it would have helped. I know now that we would never have succeeded as a married couple anyway.

I need to be completely honest here, regarding my relationship with Andrew. I wasn’t perfect; I did cheat on him, just once. I was at a family reunion in Eastern Washington, when it happened. I’m ashamed and embarrassed to say that it was Don I used that weekend: the same man who abused me as a child.

I was in a very high state of arousal that weekend. I knew that if I worked things just right, I could seduce Don. We’d played strip poker a few years prior when I was staying with him at his home in Everett as a teenager, so I figured if I could get him alone for any length of time, I could get what I wanted. Well, I got him to go for a walk with me and as we walked, I worked the conversation around to where I wanted it to be. We found a secluded spot and flipped a coin with the loser removing clothing, etc. I felt so ashamed and guilty as soon as it was over, that I cried all the way back to camp.

            For a long time I asked myself over and over why I had been so aroused that I would have sex with any man, including him. I finally realized that my emotional needs were so strong, they were driving me to do things I wouldn’t have done otherwise. I think that in my relationship with Andrew I expected him to meet those needs and when he continuously failed to do so, they got so strong that I couldn’t control them. It was like trying to hold the lid down on a volcano. You can only do that for so long until it has to explode then, watch out!

I Was an Emotional Prostitute Part 8

Trigger Warning: Nasty Car Accident

The second thing, which opened my eyes to the truth of our relationship, was a car accident I was involved in. One evening while working for Domino’s pizza, I was hit head on by a man making a left turn in a pickup truck. The accident was so bad, that paramedics thought I’d be a body, although I didn’t know it then. It must have been a shock to find me not only alive, but conscious.

All I remember about it is that one minute I’m heading back to the store, the next I think I see a reflection of light in front of me. I wasn’t sure, but no one was behind me, so I hit the brakes. The next thing I knew there was rain coming in where the driver’s side window had been, an ambulance was about 100 yards away coming my direction, and the steering column was in my lap. My first reaction was, “Oh, my god! I’ve destroyed a rental!”

            Then, for some reason, I decided I needed to take the keys with me. Don’t ask me why, because I honestly don’t know. When the ambulance arrived, one of the paramedics opened the passenger door then got into the car with me. He told me they were going to get me out of there, but I needed to trust him. Other personnel tried to open the driver’s side door, but it wouldn’t open. The car started rocking, so the guy inside hollered that they needed to stop what they were doing.

            I told him I could just crawl over and started to do so. He looked at me, held up his hand, and said, “Stop.”

            I said, “Why?”

“We don’t know if your neck is broken.”

Then he told me they were going to have to cut the door off. That I needed to trust him as it was going to be noisy. I said, “Okay.”
            I heard them start the saw up, then the next thing I knew the saw was being shut off and they were removing the door. I remember thinking in surprise, “That wasn’t noisy at all.”

            Several years later I realized that I must have fainted.

            As they were putting me on the backboard, I heard someone say, “She came out of nowhere, man!”
            I thought, “What? I had my headlights on!”

            When I was loaded into the ambulance, someone asked me whose fault the accident was. I said, “I can’t say.”
            I’m surprised I had the presence of mind to say that. I wanted to say it was the other guy’s fault, but wisdom prevailed.

            Thankfully, the injuries were fairly minor. I had whiplash, bruises across my chest and belly from the seatbelt, and had to have six stitches put in my right knee at the bend, which required a splint so I didn’t accidently bend it and rip out the stitches. The stitches bothered me the most. I’d never had to have stitches for any reason before the accident.

The resulting shock had me sleeping most of the time for a week. On one of the few occasions when I was awake, I asked Andrew to come out to the living room to sit and talk with me for a few minutes, just the two of us. Andrew refused on the grounds that I needed rest. I couldn’t believe it. He would rather sit in the dining room with everyone else, than spend time with me. That hurt. The only time I saw Andrew during that week was when I dragged myself to the dining room to have dinner with everyone else. This made me feel like some kind of lovesick puppy following her master around wanting some of his attention.

Shortly after this, Kathy and her husband split up for good. Kathy moved to Oregon and stayed with her family while she looked for a job and a place to live. Andrew drove down to see her one weekend, but didn’t come home till several hours after he’d said he would be. I was working when mother called to tell me that Andrew had called to say he wouldn’t be home on time. I immediately got suspicious, especially as mother couldn’t give me a reason.

As it turns out he had stayed late in Oregon because he was looking for a gift for me. I was so angry with him I didn’t care about the gift. In my eyes it was an excuse for him to spend more time with Kathy. No one seemed to understand that Andrew keeping his word to me was more important than any gift he could have bought me.

To make matters worse, the gift he brought home to me showed me how little he understood me. It was a ceramic cat, curled up as if sleeping. It had some sort of blue pattern on it. Had it been a solid color or looked like a calico or tabby cat, I probably would have loved it. The blue design was just weird to me.

A few months later I moved out of mother’s house again. That’s when I finally felt free to break up with Andrew. The nice thing was that Andrew said the very thing I needed to give the deathblow to our relationship.

One night Andrew came to the apartment I shared with my friend, Clara. He’d bought a truck recently that didn’t have seat belts in it that we knew of. He wanted me to go with him to a nearby store to find new sheets for his bed, as he’d recently moved into another apartment close to ours. I refused due to the lack of seatbelts in his truck.

He tried to convince me to go by reminding me the store was less than a mile or so away. Given what I’d just been through a few months prior, there was no way I was going anywhere in his truck till the seatbelt situation was remedied. He finally left.

I went to a movie instead with a co-worker, Pat and my roommate, Clara, instead. We got back kind of late and I knew that Pat had a long drive ahead of him. So, I suggested he stay the night in our apartment on a cot I could set up for him. As we were getting it set up, Andrew called. While we talked, he asked what was going on so, I told him. Andrew said he wasn’t comfortable with that idea. I told him that it wasn’t his decision and that I would never leave him for another man. He laughed, then said, “I hope you wouldn’t leave me for another woman either.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. I felt like he’d just put a knife in my heart with the fact that he could even think such a thing. I told him I needed to go. He sensed something was wrong and questioned me. I told him to let me go. He did, but reluctantly. He hated for me to be angry with him and not talk about it. He would push at me to talk until I got so angry I not only told him what was wrong, but said some things I wished I hadn’t; despite warning him to back off. But this time I had my way. He let me off the phone without forcing me to tell him what was upsetting me.

Pat left because he didn’t want to be the cause of any trouble between us. What I didn’t tell him was that the trouble was already there; his presence only brought it to the surface. Andrew called the next day and told me he’d meant that last part as a joke. Joke or not, it still felt like I’d been stabbed. I told him I needed a few days to think. He called me a couple of days later to say he wouldn’t wait forever. I said that I hadn’t asked him to wait forever; I just needed some time to sort things out. Well, that last phone call from him sped up my decision. The next day I went to his apartment, picked up anything that belonged to me and left him the key.

Andrew pulled into the parking lot just as I was leaving and wanted to talk things over. I was so angry I didn’t care. All I wanted was to leave him behind. I’d had it with him and everyone else who had thought he was so perfect for me. They could not or would not see how the things he did hurt me.

I Was An Emotional Prostitute Part 7

We didn’t become sexually involved until several weeks after I moved out of mother and Bill’s house for the first time. Andrew came to my apartment one night to tell me he wanted to make love to me. He was torn though. Andrew wasn’t completely convinced it was right for us to do so, even we were planning to be married. He asked me how I felt. I was sitting on my bed. I held out my hand to him and drew him to me. We had sex for the first time that night in my twin bed. The next night we went to his apartment as he had a full size bed. After that, sex was a regular part of our relationship and I regretted ever allowing it to happen.

Unfortunately for me, Andrew wasn’t exactly the most considerate of lovers. There were two occasions when our sexual activity nearly got us in trouble, despite my saying something to him about it.

The first time was at his apartment. Andrew’s mattress had a tendency to slide one way or the other during our sexual activity. On one occasion, the mattress had shifted to such an extent that I was hanging over the edge of it myself at such an angle that I was scared we’d roll off the bed and into the dresser a foot or so away. When I told Andrew about my precarious position, he asked if I could hold on just a little longer as he was almost there. After that, we made very sure we were always in the middle of his mattress. But that one incident always bothered me as it made me feel his pleasure was more important than our safety.

The second time we nearly got in trouble, occurred at my mother’s house. By this time I had moved back to mother’s house, as a live in job I had taken, had not worked out. We were in my bedroom going at it, when I heard my mother’s dogs start barking at something. When they persisted, I told Andrew that maybe we should check on the dogs to find out why they were barking so much. He said they were just barking as they always did and not to worry about it. Moments later, we heard mother’s husband, Bill, get up to check on the dogs then come back. Andrew got up just in time to keep him from opening the door and seeing us in our birthday suits. Bill yelled at us through the door about why we hadn’t checked on the dogs when they barked. Andrew made some excuse while I found my clothes and dressed. I was mortified to come so close to being caught doing something that almost surely would have gotten me kicked out of the house. I was also upset with Andrew for not listening to me - again.

In the later months of our relationship, a few things brought the reality of our relationship home to me and caused me to end it. One was our mutual friend, Kathy. Andrew became so enamored of her, that he often put her ahead of me on his priority list and no one thought anything of it, except me.

One Valentine’s Day, Andrew gave me a fancy doll and Kathy a handmade card. The doll was very pretty, but I didn’t understand why he’d bought such a thing for me. Again, I had never indicated a desire for dolls, fancy or otherwise. I would much rather have had the handmade card. No one understood that to me the handmade card was a more personal thing to give someone than an elegant doll bought in some shop. Although at that point, I would have resented anything Andrew gave Kathy; especially on Valentine’s Day.

Another time, I had a small accident with my car due to poor lighting, which caused a mechanical problem. The car was still drivable, but it swayed like something was out of place. I called Andrew to ask for help. He brought Kathy with him, and she drove my car while I drove his. I was really upset and asked that he ride with me. He told me he was going to ride with Kathy, as she was nervous about driving my car. Looking back on this, he should have driven my car, while I was a passenger and had Kathy drive his car.

The other thing, which really bothered me, was that Andrew and Kathy would go off somewhere to spend time together, but I wasn’t allowed to know anything about their whereabouts or how to get hold of him. Yet if we went anywhere, one or the other of them called to see how they each were. I finally told him that it had to stop. If I wasn’t allowed to intrude on their time, she shouldn’t be allowed to intrude on ours.

Then one day, on our way home, Andrew moved into a left turn only lane that led to the street Kathy lived on. I asked him where he was going. He told me he was going to check on Kathy. He also said that he’d asked me if it was “ok” and I’d told him it was. I made it very clear that I did not remember saying such a thing and I certainly did not want to go to her apartment for any reason. He insisted on going anyway.

The moment he parked, I started to get out of the car. He asked me where I was going. I told him I was going to walk home. He told me to get back into the car, so I did. I wish now that I’d told him where to go then walked home anyway. Or even gotten out of the car while he was at her door.

I didn’t break up with him then because I didn’t want to face censure from family and friends who thought we were so right for each other. I knew that mother’s husband, Bill in particular would think I was an idiot for breaking up with him and I didn’t want to hear it. I’d had enough of his lectures about what I’d done wrong at different times in my life. The last thing I wanted was him telling me that breaking up with Andrew was the wrong thing for me to do.