Lots to read, from a very confused girl
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| Thu, 01-03-2008 - 12:08am |
I'm a new member here as of about an hour ago. But I had been browsing some previous posts for a while and thought it best to type out my story to get it off my chest and hear from some people who have been in the same or similar situation. Thank you in advance for reading my tale which I'm sure may take you a good 20 minutes... :]
Jeremy and I met about two and a half years ago now on an online video game called EverQuest. I don't play it anymore, although it's still a huge hobby of his. After meeting him in game, it took only about two months for him to come from Michigan down to New York to meet me. By the time we met we had spent a great deal of time talking online and on the phone to eachother and I felt like I was really getting to know him. We spent a weekend together and had an amazing time. I guess I should mention that I was happily involved with a wonderful person at that time - and after talking with Jeremy for a while I ended up breaking up with Patrick even knowing that Jeremy and I wouldn't get to see eachother very frequently.
Right off the bat Jeremy told me a lot of new and "scary" things about himself. I was 19 when we met, and he was 27. He has a now 8 year old daughter who he no longer has custody of (he told me that he pays child support but wanted the mother to take care of her so that there wouldn't be any fighting between the parents as Anna grew up). He had a history of drug use - making, selling and using crystal meth mostly - but for some reason I was amazed and even attracted to his stories and the fact that he had changed. It has been about 5 years now since Jeremy was really into drugs on a regular basis. He did it one time in 2007 (back in January) and has not done it since. He has been very honest with this about me because I told him all along that I can understand that it is addictive and it must be frustrating to go without. I guess what attracted me to his stories is that I haven't even so much as used marijuana - which I feel the majority of people my age have done or do regularly. (Maybe I'm wrong - but it definitely feels that way at college). This huge difference in lifestyles was intriguing.
Anyway... Jeremy told me also right from the start that he used to be involved with many women. One of the first times we ever talked on the phone, as a joke, I asked how many women he had been involved with when he first told me this. When he responded "72" I laughed for about ten minutes at him, because at the time I never thought I would get involved with him. Well, this number ended up haunting me later, but we'll get there in a few minutes.
He came down to see me again in July. At this point in time I had moved back to my hometown from school back to Connecticut, so he came over to meet my friends and attend a concert with me. For some reason my gut instinct was not to tell my parents that he was coming. In fact - now that I think of it - I don't think they even knew about him at this point in time. I think the combination of him having a daughter (something my parents would worry about) and having a "bad" history (although now changed) were things that contributed to this gut instinct. I ended up paying for a hotel room for us for 2 nights, and it also ended up as a wonderful weekend together. This was also the first time that we had sex, and I remember feeling so completely in love with him and telling him so. At this point in time I think our relationship was more based on attraction however, because he didn't really reciprocate this feeling at the time.
In August I moved back to school where I was a resident advisor for my second year. While going through RA training week, I was extremely stressed and ended up talking with Jeremy online one night and breaking up with him because of a bad mood. I can't believe it was only a month after I had last seen him... and this break up was the most terrible thing I could have done to add to my stress. It was here that Jeremy didn't talk to me for about two months.
My birthday came around in October (we're still back in 2006 here) and he made a post on a shared forum we are on saying Happy Birthday to me. It was the first time he had made any contact with me since the breakup, and in my mind, the best day of my life at the time. I sent him a message almost immediately thanking him and telling him I missed talking with him. I should mention that after August I stopped playing EverQuest, but when he started talking with me again I went back to it so I could talk with him more. It was all just friendly talk but it gave me hope.
A few days later, I was playing EverQuest on a weekend morning. Jeremy wasn't online. A girl I knew from what is called a guild (a group of players who aim to achieve similar goals by contributing their strengths as a group) was talking about cybersex and for some reason this jumped out at me. Jeremy and I had fooled around on webcams before but this wasn't the reason it stood out - I recalled him having mentioned "cybering" people a few years ago from EQ. Knowing that Jeremy was single and used to be a player, my gut instinct told me that he had been cybering with this girl. Frustrated for having paid for my EverQuest account and knowing exactly what had happened, I called him out on it and at first both of them denied it - then he finally ended up telling me a few weeks later. (She denies it to this day). It doesn't bother me anymore, but it's just something in a long chain of events.
I decided the best course of action might be to move on about a month later. Ray was a police officer who worked in my residence hall who I used to chat with, and one day I was up late working and he was around on duty. I ended up talking with him for a few hours and we went out for coffee two nights later.
As I type this, I'm sort of half-laughing / half-worried about how clear this all still is in my mind. Mainly because I can remember the specific date now... November 22, 2006, Jeremy called me while I was at my best friend's house on Thanksgiving break. He called to wish me a happy Thanksgiving. It was here again that we broke the NC. We started talking regularly again for the next two months. He was really proud to have just gotten a new job, and I was glad to have a friend back. Ray and I were pretty happy together, although I knew I wasn't in love with him, so (not on Jeremy's behalf) I ended up breaking up with him in early December.
January 10th, Jeremy called me to say, "We need to talk." We hadn't been talking every single day, but maybe once or twice a week at that point. Out of nowhere, he comes out and says, "Alex... I'm in love with you. I've been in love with you since I met you, and I can't get over you. I want you back so bad." This drove me crazy. I knew that we had been on and off so many times before that it would never work. But I took the chance and decided to say yes to him.
March rolled around and for spring break I flew out to see a friend in San Diego. On the way home, I took a 5 day layover in Michigan to visit Jeremy. We had an amazing time visiting his family and friends, relaxing together, and so forth. One day he woke up earlier than me to go take a shower and grab us lunch. While he was out I was feeling romantic, so I went to his computer and opened up Yahoo Messenger to pull up a message from back when we had been planning my stay in Michigan. Well, before I got to this message, I saw another message in his archive from a girl he worked with. His first line was "Hey sexy" and this literally forced my hand to scroll down and read the rest. A long story can be summarized in this phrase I still remember to this day... Jeremy said "You realize I'm in a long distance relationship? ... With someone who lives 500 miles away. She would never know. I want to have sex with you Amanda..." Jeremy returned a few minutes later with house fried rice from a local Chinese retaurant and three white lillies for me. I sat down on the couch without a word, and he got down on his knees and handed me the lillies to be sweet. Instead of thanking him for his kind gesture, I said "Who the f*ck is Amanda?" and he said, "Oh my god I'm so sorry" knowing that I must have found his conversation. From there, I ended up crying in his bed for a few hours and him trying to explain that he had only slept with her because he thought it might give him a chance at getting a promotion. Jeremy has a very persuasive personality. After literally proposing to me my mind went back to a fresh clean slate and I was still in love with him. It's possible that this feeling was also created because I was in an unfamiliar place with no way of getting out, so I had to trust the only person I could... who apparently I couldn't actually trust.
So, clean slate... maybe not entirely. During the summer I felt bitter about it still and we were still technically "together" but I didn't entirely feel it. We didn't call eachother as frequently, and I was starting to feel better about the possibility of leaving him. He called me in August and said, "My dad wants to put it on the market for more money. I'm moving. I was considering New York." I went silent... and then I was crazy about the idea. I moved back up to school after my summer break on August 31st and I was out having dinner with my parents when he texted me to say "<3 I got a job... in New York!" and on September 21st he moved 500 miles from his home to find an apartment, a job interview, and me. He ended up getting a beautiful historic apartment a 15 minute walk from me and a job that he really enjoys.
And then we fought. On a regular basis, my emotions took over our regular dinner dates. He would come over for dinner and I guess I got "clingy." He tried explaining that he wasn't an emotional person as much as I was and I would get upset when he wouldn't give me a quick hug. After a while I think I realized that I need some sort of regular show of love. I expected more lovemaking as well I guess, and that became more and more rare as the weeks passed, which he blamed on being tired from work. My jealous and worried self (with a good reason because of him cheating on me back in March) brought up thoughts of the possibility of him getting it elsewhere, but I think I have come to believe that he's really just an overworked fellow and doesn't sleep around anymore. The only thing that really bothered me anymore was when I watched him check other females out, although I guess most guys probably do that, lol. I think it became especially worse when after moving he got back into the cycle of playing EverQuest every single night. I wasn't as interested in it as he was, although I did go back to it occasionally, and I sometimes felt as though I was being put second on his list.
Him moving to New York was amazing most of the time, however. On days when I was stressed out, I would come home to my residence hall where he had snuck in to leave a message on my door saying, "I'm sorry you had a rough day. Meet me down the street for sushi." Or he would randomly come knock on my door after he himself had a rough day just to surprise me. He even sent me flowers randomly one day that were custom-designed in my favourite flowers and colours. Jeremy seems to be an amazing guy, but maybe it's just a compatability issue.
Well. Jeremy doesn't celebrate Christmas, and I think this very family-oriented holiday really brought up terrible thoughts in my mind when I started to think back to how Jeremy asked me to marry him. We weren't technically engaged but the thoughts were often talked about and it really made me feel special because he always said he had only been in love one time before me (with the mother of his daughter) and after that the people he slept with was more out of frustration of losing them both. But on Christmas, I told him I thought it was important to hear he loved me before I went to sleep and he said, "I shouldn't have to constantly prove that to you" and hung up on me. I went into that vicious calling cycle that I read about on this forum. I called him repeatedly for maybe 15 minutes straight until he finally said, "If you call one more time, it's over."
I took no time to weigh any of the above in my head. I am madly in love with this man, but he has hurt me so many times before by being stubborn or sometimes inconsiderate for how he shows or doesn't show his affection. I called him back one more time, and it was over. This was at 10:59pm on Christmas.
I feel terrible about it because he moved across the country to see me. I feel bad about it because I will miss it when I go back to school and can't randomly surprise him or have him randomly surprise me with a visit. I feel bad about it because I know that I care deeply for Jeremy - and I don't know that we are necessarily compatible but I feel it is my fault for aggressively calling him over and over.
I went onto EverQuest two days after the breakup to see if he would talk with me. He said, "We have nothing to talk about" and I asked him to please call me after he was done playing if he was up for it. He said, "I may." and we stopped talking. No phone call that night.
The next night, I went onto EverQuest again and asked if he was up for talking. He said he was busy and then added, "And just so it's not mean of me, I just want you to know that your EverQuest account is going to expire on the 29th." Now sad and frustrated I told him that I wanted my mom's quilt back when I was back at school. He told me that I was not allowed to call him until that day to arrange a meeting time so he could give it back and that he wanted no communication with me until then. That same night I told him that I just wanted to talk because we all make mistakes. He said, "What are you referring to?" and I suggested that I had been able to forgive him for cheating on me in March, to which he responded, "I knew you would bring that up." and he logged off after telling me to leave him alone.
I guess the point of this post is to get some outside perspective and especially to get this whole story off my chest. I think Jeremy will come off as a "bad guy" because of some of the stuff I mentioned (most people are scared away about drug addiction, but this really isn't an issue to me because he doesn't do it anymore). Others are afraid he is still a player, but I'm a forgiving person except for how I sometimes get jealous and worried.. I honestly don't think he has cheated on me since March anyway. Part of me wants to see if we can work this out when I am back at school, and part of me wants to let go. Please don't yell at me for wanting to get mom's quilt back, as I know most people would say just let it go - but that quilt is important to me so I can't do that, lol!! So I know I will see or at least speak with him someday after January 12th. From previous experience of you readers... I guess based on what I have written... is Jeremy going to try to restart the relationship? I honestly haven't made up my mind about what I want, and I don't know what is healthy anymore...
I'm so confused about all of this, especially because it feels like it just happened (well, 7 days ago now) and it feels like such a blur. I'm such a mixture of emotions both angry, sad, and almost happy to be "free" at the same time. I've read a lot of the general posts about coping, thought replacing, avoiding repeatedly calling and so forth... I guess I'm just looking for specific advice or support.
To everybody that read all of this... Thank you so much. It means a lot to me that you took the time. My friends are very supportive of me but they are also defensive, so it's hard to get honest opinions from them that aren't one-sided. I am greatful to have found this site.
Sincerely,
Alexandra

OK, Yes, I think Jeremy sounds like a jerk, and not because of his past actions before he met you. Everyone has dirty laundry and no one
Welcome to the board goddess_anc86,
While Jeremy may have cleaned up over the years, doing right by his daughter, he still cheated on you and doesn't want to talk about it. In order to rebuild trust and heal the betrayal, well, most couples need help with that through counseling.