Why You Can’t Trick Someone Into Loving You…

I received quite a few emails from my last post, “The Truth About Being Single”. One woman emailed me something that I felt so moved by, I wanted to share.  She says I told her story, but from reading her email, I believe she told mine.  With her permission, she wrote and I quote:

Thank you so much for writing this.  I feel as if you peeked into my life and wrote my story!  Like you, I am recovering from a very bad break up with my fiance of seven years.  He was seeing another woman behind my back and I only found out after she called me and told me she was pregnant and if I was a real woman, I would have had his baby a long time ago.

I was absolutely devastated, so much so, I didn’t eat for months, lost 45 pounds and thought long and hard about whether or not I even wanted to live anymore.   It was not the cheating the hurt the worst, it was how it happened.  How sheepishly he handled it.  You said that your former mate never apologized to you, well, mine didn’t either.   And I loved that man when he was at his lowest; when he didn’t have a pot to piss in, I took him in.  I got him into AA because he was so depressed he began to excessively drink.   He began to get better, so much better he decided to honor it by getting involved with another woman when things turned around for him.

How soon he forgot that when he was at his lowest, nowhere to live, no car, no money, I was there with no judgments.  Even though I was in school myself working on my Master’s and opening my own business; I found time to make him a priority.  How soon he forgot who was there for him and he instantly became loyal and impregnated a woman whom he barely knew.  He said I was acting like a bitch.  Well, yeah, I probably was, I had a shit load of pressure on me.  My finals were coming up, I had just been rejected for a business grant I thought I was going to get and I was having to pay all the bills.  But I was still loving him.  And the times he acted like a “bitch” I sure as hell didn’t punish him by getting pregnant by another man.  Why is it he had a right to his low points, but I didn’t have a right to mine?  Why couldn’t I have taken comfort in his love for me, the way he took comfort in my love for him when he could be an absolute asshole?  Why did I have to be perfect to be loved, but he didn’t?

And as soon as he got on his feet, as soon as he started earning enough money to help me out, he leaves.  And not only does he leave, he allows this woman to call me and say these things to me and he defends her.  Seven years of this bullshit and this is how he repays me.  It was almost as if he was jealous.  Like he resented my success.  She was needy, didn’t earn a lot of money, had a lot of children from previous relationships (yes, plural) so I guess he felt more like a man with her.  They had the baby and I hear he is drinking again.   The times he has attempted to contact me, she has intervened.  He isn’t allowed to speak to me.  I laugh at that, because she reaps the benefits of my hard work.  The man she claims she loves is a direct result of my effort, knowledge and devotion and she forbids him to speak to me and he allows it.  And now she wonders why he is deteriorating.   I don’t know what to do.  I read your blog and how you overcame all of this and it gives me hope.   I, too am very ambitious and after this, I don’t know if I ever want to get involved again.  I would love if you were to write something about this, please feel free to use my email as a reference point.