I Was An Emotional Prostitute Part 35

One night I received a phone call from a friend, Rick M. inviting me to his apartment to play backgammon. I stopped long enough to brush my hair and be on my way. As I went down the driveway to my car, mother poked her head out the door and called to me. I stopped and looked around. She looked at me and said, “Ok.”

When I asked what that was all about, she said that she just wanted to be sure I hadn’t dressed up like I was going on a date. She claimed she was protecting Rick M. I didn’t think anything about it at the time, but it wasn’t her place to tell me how to dress for anything. Not only that, but he’s an adult and I’m sure he would tell her that he was capable of taking care of himself.

I dated a man, Frank, who happened to live on a houseboat. I usually stayed overnight with him. The first time I came home after sleeping on his boat, she asked me where I’d slept. Although I didn’t say it at the time, my first thought was, “What the hell makes it your business where I sleep when I stay with him?”

I told her I slept on his couch, although the truth was that I slept in his bed with him. I still don’t understand why she thought she had any business asking me that question. I wish I’d had the courage to tell her it was none of her business.

In fact, she seems to make it a habit to poke her nose in my life. I remember house sitting for some friends of ours when I was around 20. A male friend stayed with me one night and left early the next morning, which caught a neighbor’s attention. Our friend asked me about it in front of mother. The friend didn’t have a problem with it as long as it was someone I knew. Mother on the other hand asked me if we’d had sex. I realize now that was none of her business. My life as an adult is mine to live as I please. She has no business poking her nose in it.

I learned in more recent years that mother interfered in other relationships I had as well. A friend of mine was in a jewelry story looking at diamond earrings when mother saw him. Apparently he told her he was considering buying me a pair. She told him I didn’t need them.

Another man I dated was seriously considering asking me to marry him. He came to the house one day when I wasn’t there and mother told him I wasn’t ready for that kind of relationship.

Then there was Al. A man I dated in my early 20’s. The church I was attending forced me to break it off with him as he was a very new, immature Christian. I didn’t like it, but I felt that I had no choice in the matter. I learned several years later that he thought mother had forced me to break it off.

She never told me that she cheated on my father with other men and therefore my brother, Mike had a different father. It’s one thing to not tell me as a child; it’s another to not tell me as an adult. Especially after she told me she had left my father because he beat her once. I had to learn the truth of this matter from my father. It wasn’t fair to him or me, to tell me the bad things he did, but leave out the rotten things she did. She didn’t even hint that he had as much reason to leave her as she did him.

Not only that, when I confronted her with it and asked why she hadn’t said something, she told me that she wasn’t sure until then that Mike had a different father. How could she not be sure? Michael looks nothing like Von. I saw the difference the first time I saw a picture of Von but was unwilling to believe it. I know she told me she was no angel, but she never told me he had just as much cause to divorce her, as she had to divorce him. As far as I’m concerned, this is a case of “the pot calling the kettle black.”

As I’ve written this I’ve begun to see motives. She wanted to keep me tied to her so that she could use me as her emotional fuel tank, which is why whenever possible she chased guys away or interfered in my relationship with them. She also wanted what I had, from my clothes to my figure and even the relationships with some of my boyfriends, in particular Andrew. That’s why she borrowed or tried on my clothes without my permission. It also explains her interference in my relationship with Andrew. This also explains why she was so late for my wedding. She wanted the attention I was getting that day. She simply couldn’t let me enjoy what I had, because she wanted it too.

Even now, I see signs that mother would control Caleb and me if allowed to. There was an incident at Caleb’s after school group, which required stern measures and affected his being there the next day. As she was going to be affected by this, I called her to let her know what was going on. As we talked, I also told her how I planned to handle the situation. She told me that she thought I was being a little harsh in the matter. Even after I told her I’d had similar trouble with him in the past and this one just happened to be the most serious. I finally told her that my decision wasn’t open for discussion. She said she’d say one more thing and then shut up. I let her say her thing, then I started to restate my position. She tried to say something else. I told her to “shut up and listen!”

I finished what I had to say, then told her that she wanted to control the situation and I was tired of it. She’d done it to me more than once and I had had enough. Then I hung up on her.

She called and apologized for how she made me feel, but she didn’t apologize for her actions. She has a bad habit of avoiding her responsibility to apologize to me for her actions unless I really make a huge fuss and I’m tired of that too.

Then to make matters worse my mother has had the nerve to tell me about respecting Caleb when he says “no” to something.  Considering that she has not always respected me when I say something, where does she get off telling me to respect my son’s “no’s?” I do a far better job of that with him than she ever did with me!