Arsenio

I met the future ex at age 16 in typing class. He picked a fight with me about the pronunciation of the word tarot. 

More than a decade later, married to him with two kids and having bought a house, I finally learned that he did so "as an excuse to talk to a pretty girl." So much for my theory that I initiated the relationship with my best friend.

So we were good friends for about year before we got romantically involved and he was recently dumped in an ugly, backstabbing way. I seriously didn't think he was ready to commit or anything but we had a longstanding habit of saying "Penny for your thoughts?" and he said that like two weeks into the relationship and I admitted I was thinking something like "If you keep eating that way, I'll be a widow at thirty."

So I'm fully expecting "Woah! No. We just got together. I'm not ready to talk marriage." And that didn't happen. 

I was seventeen and with him basically saying nothing, I was like "He's OKAY with marrying me!!!!!" And I proceeded to tell all our friends we're getting married. 

After six months, I realized I'm the only one saying it, so I asked him "Do you want to marry me or don't you?" and he said "I don't know." So I dumped him and a week later he's ready to marry me. 

So I realized recently this is the origin of me being stuck on some fantasy that I'll meet some guy and dump him or whatever and we will get back together later and make it work. 

So that background and that fantasy helped keep me emotionally stuck on a fly young man I'll call Arsenio. He was a few years younger than me and in the military and we never really broke up.

We had a misunderstanding and it hurt his feelings and he quit speaking to me. A few months later, I heard through the grapevine he was married. His buddy tells me he's not over me but he's going to be faithful to the new wife.

To be clear, I wasn't trying to get him back. I just happened to talk to a mutual friend. 

So I moved home to Columbus, Georgia and I don't have closure. And there's a big military base there that does a lot of training.

So I spent some years imagining I would run into Arsenio and he would be divorced and we would sort our misunderstanding and live happily ever after, in part because I had this theory that getting back with some guy after time apart would let us course correct. 

It kindvof worked for me that one time -- enoughbto be married for 22 years -- and that idea probably helped foster some on again, off again relationships where I kept trying to put my foot down that X is not okay but I still like you.

And I'm more of a mind these days that you shouldn't take an abusive relationship back because it always gets worse. It convinces them of the exact opposite of that message -- the message I kind of like you but X must stop -- and they decide you will just put up with their crap because something about them is so important that you will tolerate the abuse.