Allen (26:09)
He'S very smart and so these things would happen, but it would always be flipped in a way to where I would either feel bad for him and the stress that it put him under or what he was going through. He would become distraught that I was distraught or he would become upset that I was upset. And so I felt like, well, if he's having those feelings, I didn't feel like I was being duped. I felt like, oh, we're in this together and this is crappy situation. And I felt like we were kind of on a team against this person who if you could just go away, it would be so much easier kind of thing. His behavior flipped a lot right after that fourth of July weekend and when we were initially together. So prior to that he was always available, answered every call, gave me so much time, was on phone calls, FaceTime, texting, all this stuff. And then after that is really when you see the behavior start to flip a little bit. And it's not that he wasn't there, it's just that a little less available or would miss a phone call or I'm really tired, can we talk tomorrow? Or I would get a little less and less and it would change a little bit. You know, that's after I'm already hooked and in and it would shift a little bit. It was definitely a turning point. It left me. A phrase I kind of always use is just strung out. We spent a lot of time together and I really met his extended family. And then he's in town. He came in, he was going to meet my parents. We're around that day. We had talked about marriage before. We had talked about kids, how we would want to raise kids, what we want that to look like, everything. So we were having very serious conversations. This wasn't just where do you want to go for dinner type of relationship. And we were out that day and he said, do you want to go to a jewelry store? I'd really like to go look at rings. So this was, you know, a prior conversation and I said I kind of knew what I would want to do in terms of a ring. I kind of have a plan with some jewelry that is in our family. And I also knew that the jeweler here, it's a small town. And I was like, I know that that will get back to my mom. I said, it's okay. We don't need to do that. We talked about it at lunch. What type of ring would you want? What do you want it to look like? We had that conversation. Then we go to dinner with my parents. It's great. We are at home at my house, and he's on cloud. We're both on cloud nine, but he is just over the top. And it comes out, you know, would you marry me? And I said, yes. And he's crying. He's so just elated. We were having a really intimate conversation, and he said, oh, my gosh. You didn't even say yeah, you said. You actually said yes. And I. I was like, yeah, this isn't an LOL moment. Yeah, I said the full Y E. Yes. You know, and that was that. And I don't think I was hesitant to accept it because I was so in love, and I knew that this was the person I was gonna spend my life with. It also was not at all how I envisioned accepting a proposal. There are things where I felt like, I want the one knee. I want the ring. I want him to know my brother. He didn't have a chance to meet my brother. And at that point in time, there were some things that were going on in our relationship that needed to be worked on. So, again, I felt like, I'm in love with you. I accept this. This is a commitment that I'm making, but this isn't something that I'm, again, going around and sharing. He says, we need to call and FaceTime my sister. And I love his sister. I said, I really don't want to do that and tell people. I don't feel right about that. My family and I are extremely, extremely close. And I would feel. I don't feel right telling part of yours and not telling mine. That's not how I do it in my family. I know better than that. And he said, please, she loves you. She'll be so excited for us. And he worked me, worked me, worked me, until finally were sitting on FaceTime calling his sister, and she's screaming, crying, elated, asking how he did it and all this stuff. So his sister's the only one who knew. We asked her not to tell anyone. I never told anyone. I knew it would eventually happen, but I never told anyone in my family. I told my mom would ask and I'd say, we've talked about marriage. I said, I think I'll be engaged by the end of the year. We had those conversations. So she knew it was coming and everything. But didn't know that we'd actually had that event occur. But when we were with his sister, she would introduce me to friends or to random people or whatever as his fiance. And so it was a very double life, a little bit that we lived there. It's separated and done. The night after he left here, after the engagement is the first night that I heard another woman in the background. And that was her. And that is when I realized that she was not gone and that he was not truthful. So he had, after the engagement, he had left here, but after I had gotten home, I mean, I think we had a cycle of. I would usually send a novel text and be like, we need to work on this. I'm not tolerating this. And it would come back around to, I love you, I'm sorry. I agree. I'm working on it. We're working on it. It's going to be great. And tomorrow was a new day. The conversations really just were honestly surrounding housing. That was kind of our conversation at this point in time was, I need to get out. Basically he was saying, you know, we're both on the lease. I can't get her off the lease. And he said, I've, I've talked to police, I've talked to everyone. I, I've talked to my landlords. I have to be the one to leave. So I can't, no one can make her leave. And I said, okay, great, let's find you somewhere. At that point in time, I was basically being a little bit of a mom. And I had my, my spreadsheet going and I was looking up places that were month to month that would accept his dogs, that would whatever fit the criteria that we had. Because I just wanted him somewhere safe, easy, that he could be, that I could come visit. And that would work until we moved into his house. During this time, he'd be so, either so upset at night. She's awful. She's crazy. I need to get out of here. What have you found? Or he would be, behavior wise, very, very picky. I was kind of busting my butt. And he would come back and no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And maybe there was one. Yes. And you know, I was like, you can't be this picky. And it's not forever, it's maybe for a month or two. And I was like, come on, dude, it's not that big of a deal. And then he would say, you know, schedule me a showing. I want to go see it. And I'd schedule it. And then he'd say, I can't make it. And he'd call the next day and say, hey, when's my showing? And I was like, I. I canceled it. You said, you can't make it. And he's like, ah, I can. I can do it, you know. And so it was really this kind of cycle, and I would be working on stuff. He would be golfing on the weekends, then he'd come home and be super frustrated. And it was a whole thing that I was extremely frustrated by. That month as a whole was what I refer to as dark. We didn't see each other much that month, and it was really, really trying to try and kind of navigate that, but feel like I didn't have his full assistance in working on that. There was gaslighting, but, you know, one day I had said, can we please FaceTime on Saturday? And we hopped on. And it had been hard to track him down that week. And very early on he had said, oh, I think we should just swap locations. Like, that would be kind of good, you know. And so we had each other's locations. He was never doing kind of anything different necessarily. And so I would see that and get frustrated when I wouldn't hear back sometimes. And so I said, let's FaceTime on Saturday. I haven't. We haven't really talked much this week. I want to kind of run some housing stuff by you. And I remember we got on and he said, babe, I really don't want to get into this. I really don't want to get upset before I go golfing and throw off my golf game. I just remember being gobsmacked and saying, what are you talking about? You are not Tiger Woods. It's a Saturday. Maybe you're going to go hit some. Hit some balls or do, you know, a few holes. But I'm not planning on being in an argumentative state. And so can we please talk about this tomorrow? Sure. Okay, great. And pops off the phone. We never talk about it, but we started spending more time together. I feel like we had a good little run of time in September. Anytime we were together, it felt good. And we had time with his family. Anytime we had time with his family, I felt like that was really grounding. And so I always was encouraging of that. We had a good time with his sister and her family and friends, and then time with his parents another weekend. And I felt like that would always kind of get us on track. They didn't know all the details, but they knew some bulk of what was going on and what we were facing. And so they were helpful in navigating that. And we were just kind of going through it. We had a move date. I had a move date of October, the end of October. We were kind of pushing towards that. We didn't know where we would be at housing wise. We had a few things up in the air, but basically it was, I'm moving, and we're either gonna get something temporary here or move into this place. And that was that. I had been ordering stuff to start packing up my place here. I had started shutting down my life here. I guess I started not rescheduling with my hairdresser and not rescheduling the dentist and doing things to just phase out, I guess you could say more. So. And people knew that and they knew that I was moving. And I made a pro con list, you know, spreadsheets and pro con list. That's me to a T. I guess after Labor Day, he really screwed me on that intentionally, unintentionally. The travel on that got really, really messed up. We were both supposed to be flying into the same place and it just became a total mess to where, you know, he's saying last minute, oh, I can't go. I have a sister texting me, saying, I can't wait for you guys to be here. I'm so excited. And I am saying, what? You haven't told your sister? I said, I'm not telling your sister. This is not on me to break her heart that we're not coming. And also, I haven't seen you in a month, so if you're not going, then I'm gonna be coming out to see you. And he said, I don't think that's a good idea. And what do you mean that's not a good idea? Why can't I come see you? And I'm frustrated and I'm annoyed. And so I cancel my flight because I want the credit. And at the very last minute, he says, oh, I can make it to the airport. And I'm left sitting there with no flight and I want to see you. It's been a month. We've been having so many issues. His sister's like, you need to come. You need to be on the. I need to see you. Like, you have to be here. And I end up getting in the car and driving a whole day there. And just. I was like, what are you doing? You don't do that to someone you love. You totally just screwed me, kind of. And, oh, I changed my return flight. I'm gonna Drive home with you and then fly home. And he would always kind of do it, always kind of make it up a little bit. But I remember coming home from that and making a pro con list of things that I felt like this is getting hard and the X was far more present but I'm still getting heavy feedback of. I've never seen my brother more happy. He's so in love with you. You're a phenomenal person. I can't wait for you to be my sister in law. Like he's never been like this before. He's sitting me down, telling me you're everything I've been looking for, you're my person. I know that there's issues but they're gonna be finished and done soon. And so yeah, I was in this really rest spot. My family is pretty ride or die. Obviously they don't ever want to see me upset. I think the narrative that I was providing was he's working a ton and he was and that I feel like they thought that it was just hard distance wise for us to be apart. And so I think they were supportive of, well go be together, figure it out. His family's great to you, he's great. They met him, they loved him when they met him. They're like, he's so great, he adores you. It's going to be okay. Just like get through this rough patch. I just felt like we were hitting wall after wall and I think every goalpost was moved every single time. And here's our timeline for moving or here's our plan for getting you out or here's this or that. And everything was changing down to even the location of where I ended up moving to change over Labor Day weekend. That was another curveball that was thrown and change, change, change, change, change. And so I definitely grew in frustration. But we just had magical times together. There was a lot of love there. I think again I keep going back to family, love his family, wonderful, wonderful people. But I think to me even, even knowing that there was an engagement you have that at least just get to a move, be together, live together, get the day to day going and I think it will be a lot better because the main stressor honestly was not being together and was his ex. And I just felt like if we can close that gap, we're going to be okay. And we had talked about a lot throughout the weekend with his parents. We down to talking about a wedding date and when would you want to get married? Where would you want to get married? I mean we had talked about a lot of things, and I'm not going anywhere. I think my focus is just making it happen. And I had a lot going on in my family at that time. I had two sick family members, and that was also a big focus. And trying to juggle that on top of this. And I just go into kind of automatic what needs to be done mode. And that was kind of how I functioned or navigated that. I think I had not been, I want to say, allowed at his house. Something had happened with his dog, and I was asked by him to go in and leave medication for the dog for his ex to give to the dog. No one was home. He wasn't even home. I went in and did that, and it does look kind of like a guy lives there, but at the same time, there's market lists on the fridge and there's a soccer schedule posted. And it became very apparent that this was still a very integrated life or that she was very present still. So fast forward a few days. He had been out of town for work, and he said, you know, I'm not going to make it home in time. We were supposed to go out of town again together. She's gone this weekend. We can stay at my house. And I wavered, and I felt like he was letting me in a little bit. And we were months into this. Months and months at this point into this relationship. And I said, he's actually letting me in, and I'm okay. And so he was getting home very late, and he said, go on in. And I had one of his dogs at that time. And so I went in and I was there by myself. And whenever I was without him or had his things, I would wash his truck and get fuel and vacuum it and do his laundry and fold his clothes and all this stuff. And I am so clean and such a organizer and all this stuff. And I went into the house, and there were two rooms, and he had told me we stay in separate rooms. And I. One's very clearly a woman's room. One is very clearly his room. I go up in there, and I'm like, I'm gonna wash the sheets, wash his clothes, everything. And I'm just pulling stuff, and I lean down, pull something, and out comes lingerie from under his bed. And I just froze. And I look under there, and there's also a woman's shirt and a purse. And I'm thinking really fast, how do I want to handle this? I texted him and I said, why is there lingerie under your bed? And he responded and said, why are you going through all my things? And I just remember I was on his floor and I started sobbing and I said, how stupid am I? Like, it hit me like a wave. And I. How dumb am I that I am in this situation and that you just said that to me? Then he backtracks and he says, this is totally her personality. She would just throw that in there. She knows that you're around, and she's done that before, and that's totally like her to plant something. I was so hurt that he would even say that to me to begin with. Like, why are you going through my stuff? Because it had always been, what's mine is yours. And also, I was just rude. And there were a few other items in there. And I said, what are these? And I said, why are these here? And he said, that's just like her. She would totally put those in there. And I just didn't respond. And I shut it down. And I. I was like, I can't be here. This is not good for me. I started looking at hotels. I have his dog. What do I do with his dog? He's not going to be home till late. All this stuff. And I have my bag in the car and all this stuff. And his sister called, and, you know, how is it? How are you guys having fun? And I was like, you would not believe this. No. And she totally talked me down. She said, allen, that's something she would 100% do. You have to know that. And she almost laughed at it. She was like, that's comical that that happened. She said she would 100% plant that. How could you not see that? And I was like. I was speechless. I'm still kind of speechless. She said, you know, he loves you. You know that you guys are in this together. She said, that woman is evil. She will do anything to bring him down. You have to know that. She said, you rise above it. You throw it back in her room, and you have a good weekend together. And that is what I did. So I calmed down, I ordered dinner, I did his laundry. I found another thong doing his laundry. I threw it in her room. Turns out later that that was not his ex's thong. That was another woman's thong. So I was just really doing the community's laundry at that point in time. He got home late, and I was still angry, but I had gone to bed. And he came up. He flips the lights on. He said, you're really gonna fake asleep right now? And I said, I'm really gonna be asleep right now. And he said, well, calm down. I haven't had. He said, have you eaten? It's, like, late. And I said, yeah, and I'm gonna be downstairs. So I go downstairs and, you know, he had another present. It was this whole. I had this whole other birthday present for him. It was out. He had opened it and everything. And he's so happy. He's in this good mood, all this stuff. And I said, well, are we gonna talk about this, you know, now or maybe tomorrow? You know, I'm tired. I'm so worn out. And he says, no, we can talk about it now. And we're sitting there on the couch, and he says, you know, it's nothing. He said, you also. You knew what you were getting into with this. And I've always told you from the start that you don't have to be in this relationship and you don't have to do this. And I was floored, because that has never been a conversation. He's always teared up and started crying. If I've ever said anything to the effect of, I can't do this, and if she continues to be in our lives, I will not be here. He has been so upset. And so he's sitting there nonchalant. It's not a big deal. You're overreacting. You know, I've told you this. I don't know why you're reacting this way. And I got so upset again, I'm not an argumentative person. I finally just got up and walked away. And he said, oh, there you go. Yeah, you would walk away right now. And I got up, I walked up, I went to bed. He came up, didn't shower, didn't brush his teeth, anything, hopped in bed, put his arms around me, goes to sleep, and the next day, it's normal. It's fine. And it bugged me. Anything like that irks me. And later in the afternoon, I said, I just. Are we okay? He goes, what are you talking about? And I said, obviously, what happened? Like, where we're at? And he said, allen, I don't dwell on anything. Absolutely not. We're fine. We're working on our future. We're good. And then that was that, and we moved on, and we had the conversation. I said, if you ever don't want to be with me, you need to let me know. I said, please let me go. I said, I would rather you be happy and be with her. I said, I. I've been cheated on before. This is a very big deal to me. I said, please. And at this point in time. I'm crying, I'm so emotional this weekend. And I said, please let me go. I said, I I don't ever want to stand in the way of you being happy. And he all over me, holding my hand. I would never do that. You're who I want to be with. I would never cheat on you. I don't have the time for that. No one has the time for that. Why would I ever do that? This whole conversation he said, babe, just hold on. Another few weeks and you're gonna be out here, we're gonna be living together, she'll be out of our lives and it'll be great. That was that weekend and it was a huge blow up to me. But it was just another day for him kind of thing.