These men that are my friends are not even exes. That’s why I don’t trust him. He may love me- or it just may be his version of love as he is able to experience it- but I just don’t have an easy time believing him. He was so mean to me and so hurtful in our first two years together, I just can’t be at ease around him. And now I’m so messed up, I want out, I just feel drained of the will to make it happen. I pray to God. Get’s me nowhere and nothing. I think it’s depression and PTSD- because he was that destructive. My life is shit. My kids- our life was something else before he came into the picture. It was good. We were close. We lost our place in a natural disaster, came to stay with this guy because he was a friend and said he could help out and then he held us needing a place to stay over my head and as a bargaining chip. If I ‘didn’t do this’ or didn’t do that’ it was ‘get the fuck out of
my house’- and I honestly had nowhere to go. I live in a shit state in the middle of nowhere and there are no shelters just readily available. And what resources there are are reserved more for women with young children not women with teenage boys. Plus, you pretty much have to have your head bashed in before they take any interest in helping you. He was smarter than that. He would shove me around and bruise me up but it wasn’t until he went nuts on an ex girlfriend that the police got involved. But hey, he went through counseling and his temper is much better and he doesn’t hurt me or break my things anymore… but I can’t stop walking on eggshells. It scares me when he’s nice to me. It’s one of those things where I’m waiting for him to pounce because my guard is down. He used to do that. He was cruel like that. Or just when I would relax some chick he worked with would show up on the doorstep telling me that they were messing around. I had to get myself tested for STD’s. S
o now, I just never let my guard down around him. I just don’t. Too much trauma. And I pray to God for help, for strength for anything to help get me back on my feet. What a joke. I miss my kids and the close relationship we had. If I had the money (and a car), we three would just fly away. Away, away, away….

This lasted just a few weeks.  Then, suddenly, he wanted to end things
(though I didn’t know initially).  He stopped talking to me first, but
finally I wrestled the nasty truth out of him.  I begged and pleaded
for him to make it work.  He’s leaving in a year, and he’ll be gone for
five years when he does leave.  By the time he returns, I’ll be
finishing up graduate school. I told him I was okay with him leaving for those
five years if he gave this one year an honest chance.  His relationship
issues kept him from making the commitment.  We haven’t talked in
almost three weeks.

I miss him.  I say I don’t miss the relationship, and on one level I
don’t.  On other levels, however, I can’t stop thinking about kissing
him, sleeping next to him, waking up with him, holding his hand…those
are all small prices to pay, however, if I can keep the friendship.  I
don’t cry when I think about the loss of those things, but sob for
significant periods of time when I think about the friend I’m losing.

He says we’ll talk about it when I return from my vacation.  I get back
in four days.  I want to do this in person, I want to see his face
when we talk about whether or not it’s feasible to continue our
friendship.  I want him to see my face when I start to cry if and when he says
that our friendship is over.  Four years of my life cannot end like this.
I will not lose him.

A part of me still believes that we’re meant to be.  He’s the only
person I can ever see wanting to marry.