Last night while shopping for last minute Christmas gifts with my daughter I ran into an old boyfriend whom I thought at one point I was going to marry.
I dated him for three years. In the beginning I wasn’t so keen on dating a man 13 years my senior, but he pursued me with beautiful cards, expensive dinners, gifts, and poems until I fell in love with him. He had a bit of an Oedipus complex and still lived with his parents (at 35 years old!!) His mother never thought I was good enough, she told me that I was ugly and didn’t have a good enough job. I was working as a wet chemist at a sewerage plant at the time and I hated my job as well. When I couldn’t continue on to Medical school due to my mother’s cancer crisis and my little 5 year old sister needing someone to care for her, I needed a job with benefits when I graduated college so I took it. It seemed to me once I really started to love him and become attached to him, he didn’t want me anymore. He was always so critical of me and I was always afraid to eat lest I gain any weight and afraid to speak my mind lest I offend. I never felt relaxed and when I was generous with someone he told me I was weak. My mother made sure I had zero self esteem so I was grateful I even had a long term boyfriend that had a good job and a college education. Yes I thought those things were important. The last draw was when I got pregnant and he looked at me with disgust and said, “I will tell my mother you trapped me, you stupid girl.” I was terrified, struggling to keep my apartment and pay my bills. I couldn’t face my parents and deal with the stigma of being an unmarried woman with a child so I panicked. I never thought it through I just scheduled an appointment for termination of the pregnancy and hurled a soul back into God’s face. After everything was done it started to sink in and I just wanted to die. I hated myself for being such a coward. I hoped God would punish me and never allow me to have another child. My heart still hurts every April thinking that I would have had a 16 year old son or daughter. I broke up with him shortly after because I hated him for abandoning me and pushing me to such an awful choice. He wanted to continue seeing me after the event and acted as if nothing happened. I just couldn’t look at his face anymore. When I ended things he thanked me and told me that I was never good enough for him and my job was an embarrassment to him and that I was too ugly. Well he was 5’ 6” weighed 135 lbs and was bald. Looking back at old pictures I was a goddess compared to him.
Anyway shortly after, I met my husband and fell in love right away because he was the only man I ever met that had the same kind and generous heart. The first time my friend introduced us he made a comment that I will never forget. He said that I reminded him of his sister. I asked if that was good and he said of course it is because she is smart and very beautiful. He loved me for me not for my face or my job, I was good enough for once in my life. He also gave me my precious daughter who is as sweet as she is beautiful. So as I stood in the aisle as this old bent man approached me I was shocked when he told me who he was and that he recognized me right away because I still looked the same 15 years later. He looked so sad, he had recently buried both parents and never married. He said that I was the best thing that ever happened to him and he regrets everyday the pain he caused me and losing me. He had tears in his eyes when he looked at my daughter and spoke to her briefly about her holidays. I felt so bad for him I didn’t know what to say except to wish him the best. For years I wondered what became of someone that threw me away so easily and I wanted him to suffer for it. Seeing him such a state breaks my heart and I hope that he finds his own happiness one day.