All by myself

During those first three months it was as if I was at the beginning of a drug addiction.

Bombarded with affection and grand gestures of "love". Announcing how he'd met the perfect person and that we should live together, in fact, we should be married! It was all heady, romantic stuff but we never went on actual "dates" where we dressed up, went out, and he paid. Now I am not materialistic in this way but I am traditional and did expect some of the "wooing" that comes with dating but none of that happened. I also noticed that lack of foreplay in our physical lives and he never initiated any public affection - I did.

I was caught up in the rush of it all. Here was this strong, handsome man sweeping me off my feet declaring his affection but in the back of my mind were a few things that cropped up - he was HUGELY in debt but kept shopping and spending as if it was nothing and already he had missed his mortgage payments and I covered them as he said he didn't want to go to his family again and he would pay me back - after all we were going to be together forever right? Also he kept taking a large amount of prescription pills. He seemed to take enough codeine to knock out his horse! Also each day he went on about how he was the victim of a conspiracy at work that were trying to get rid of him because he cost too much to keep due to budget cuts. Everyday it was all about his issues and problems - rarely did we talk about more a then a few minutes about my day without it moving on to him and his issues. Now understand that this is all hindsight - at the time the nurturer and fixer in me was feeling pity for an injured man who was not educated to an extent to understand what his job was trying to do to him. All I saw was a man that needed a strong woman to stand beside him and help him through. All along he was learning and watching me and working on what it took to manipulate and control me, to find a way to make me think I was crazy.

In the weeks following my birthday I went to visit my friend in London for the day and evening. As we had worked out I would text him when I got there safely and I did. He continued to text me through the day with cute things but when I went to dinner I put the phone in my bag and besides the restaurant had bad reception and it's rude to use the phone while having dinner as well as I had not seen my friend for quite awhile and I wanted to have a catch up.

Once I got out of the restaurant I checked my phone and he had texted me at least 6 times and called 4. Each text got angrier and angrier and the voicemail messages were full of accusations. I went to ring him and he did not answer. I called Mr. Wonderful's sister and she said he wasn't talking to me because he thought I had cheated on him because I had not responded to his texts. I was upset and confused. Why would any normal person think that in the hours I had spent with my girlfriend I had cheated? When he finally answered the phone after i was back in my home on the coast he sounded drugged up and stated he had an ex that had gone off and cheated on him in this manner so he thought I had done the same thing. I didn't realise this is how the it all begins - the manipulation and isolation - I didn't realise it then but I began to spend less time with my friends because after all, this was the man that I loved so why would i want to hurt him?

A couple of months after that I went on holiday with my family and he had been invited but once again he found a reason to not attend but while on that holiday he skyped my father and asked for my hand in marriage. My father said yes and i was ecstatic. It seemed perfect and everyone was happy for me.

I didn't realise his words meant nothing, it ALL meant nothing...