Sigh
I fell for my first love at 16 and we have on and off for the last seven years. The relationship is one I could retell to Take a Break for a princely sum. He was older, had been to prison but used to call me petal, tell me he'd keep me and we'd have blissful hours in his house. He made me laugh, used to buy me little gifts, I used to leave silly notes, make him eat properly. I had a bit o' a bad time at home (father's evil new wife)I moved in with the ex and his mate to a house that was gorgeous but he decided it was a better idea to get a bit of a speed problem, get sacked and shag his mate's missus (who was supposedly my friend). She'd had previous too. She'd gone after an ex of mine but he turned her down(cheers Rich!). It all culminated in us having a scrap, which I instigated and came off worse in (I hasten to add he didn't actually hit me) and I moved out. Cue breakdown, me having to continue to pay rent on a house that I wasn't living in, dropping out of uni and all manner of fun like that.

Fast forward 8 months, me getting on with my life, a few disasterous, short-lived courtships (my 40 year old boss, a 17 year old with 'busy hands'), a new university course in the offing and a new pad I get messages from the ex and think it a marvellous idea to show him how well I'm doing. By the October I'm back with him.

I couldn't tell most off my family so I lived a strange half life with him and them. We would have days and weeks of loveliness but he would go through periods of wanting to settle down ('Why won't you move in with me? Why won't you have kids with me?') to him disappearing for days on end ('I feel trapped'). I've lost count of the number of times we've split up and got back. How many times I think he's cheated. How many nights he's gone missing. How many of my friends he has driven away. Yet there have been countless times when he's stuck up for me, protected me and made me feel like the only girl in the world. We split up again for six months and I moved in with a friend, then got back with him yadda yadda. Things have been getting worse for the last couple of months and we have been living increasingly separate lives (particularly cos he is spectacularly bad with money and has moved back home) but also cos he was arrested for certain 'dealings'. The climax was probably the night (and following day) where he threatened one of my male friends, followed me home shouted at another of my friends, railed from frantically apologising to smashing things and blaming me for everything. The next morning I reiterated that it was over and he proceeded to loc me in a room try and hurl furniture out of the window and attempt to set fire to a bed. What was weird though is that it just fizzled weeks later because he did another disappearing act. I recently wrote him a letter saying it was sad but over. This prompted lots of phonecalls, texts and one particularly unpleasnat late night visit.

Here's the rub though - I've been seeing someone from work and though he's lovely, sweet and besotted with me I still love my ex. But if he knew I was seeing someone else he wouldn't want to know anymore anyway. I think we'd be fine if there was only the two of us in the world. Turns out we are made for each other, but not very well. :(

Cheers b3ta. You've made my frickin' day.
(Bunnygirl, Mon 24 Oct 2005, 13:46, Reply)