you think you know someone

this week i found out some interesting information about my ex-boyfriend.

my ex (let's call him jake) was the first person i really felt a connection to. i was a late bloomer in the love department - i never dated in high school and didn't date much in college either. i was 19 before i had my first kiss. i was the girl all the guys wanted to be friends with, but wasn't attracted to. after college i lived in new york for four years. i went on a few dates but nothing serious. when i moved to nashville i started going out more and spending more time with my new friends - a big group of single girls. i started meeting more guys and dating some, but none of my relationships lasted longer than a month and a half.

then i met jake. one of those short term relationships had just ended and i met jake when i was at my favorite watering hole at the time. i was immediately attracted to him. he had the "bad boy" look i have become quite the sucker for - bald head, "chin strap" facial hair, a tattoo. we began talking and immediately hit it off. he had the look i wanted but also the intellect - he was well-spoken and engaging. i thought i had hit the jackpot - a good guy in a bad boy's body.

we had our first official date two days later, on a sunday evening. i was to meet him at the restaurant he worked at so he could serve me dinner. after a couple of confidence-boosting pitchers of margaritas, i was on my way.

when he poked his head out of the kitchen door as i was sitting alone at the bar, he looked just as cute as i remembered, even cuter with his chef coat on. he served me an awesome meal of steak, potatoes, vegetables, salad, washed down with my favorite adult beverage - maker's and diet coke. i paid for nothing. afterwards we went downtown to go "honky tonkin." we had a blast. great conversation, great attraction, the whole bit. our first kiss was extremely passionate and an experience i had never had. i had never had such an intense physical attraction to anyone before.

we immediately became inseparable. he cooked me dinner, we went out for drinks, we hung out at his house with his adorable two-year-old son. a little over a month later i turned 30, and for the first time i had a real boyfriend on my birthday. i had a huge party and he brought me flowers, along with a beautiful cake he had made himself. i had never been happier.

a few weeks later he told me he loved me, in the same spot where we met. i had never uttered those three words and certainly no one had ever said them to me. but i did feel like i loved him, and i told him so. i had never been in that situation and it was a wonderful, amazing feeling.

it was soon after that the wheels began to come loose.

right before thanksgiving we got into a very disturbing discussion. he was cooking thanksgiving dinner for the vanderbilt fraternity house he catered at once a week. somehow the subject of religion came up. i was raised southern baptist by the two most wonderful parents you could imagine. i was raised to love my family and friends, be polite, respect myself, go to church, and turn to God when things look bleak. jake had been raised to go to church as well but because of a bitter experience now shunned God and looked at religion with distaste. i told him going to church was important to me and i wanted to get back into going regularly. the conversation just didn't go well. it seemed we had come across a deal breaker but neither of us was ready to walk away from what we had just found with each other. we basically agreed to "table" the issue and deal with it later.

things just got harder after that. jake had a checkered past - drugs, jail time, etc. he also had a temper - more than once he ended up bloody at the bar we were at, either defending himself or a friend. none of these were things i wanted in my life. i have never touched a drug in my life and have worked hard to be a decent member of society. i was nervous how it would affect me if jake had "stuff" on him, especially if he was driving my car around town. on top of all this was the way he kept his ex from me. i couldn't understand how she wouldn't want to meet the girl who was spending time with her son. we also had a lot of fights because he never had money or time to take me out to dinner, but had both to take her out. when i would call and he was with her, he would pretend i was a guy friend, calling me "brother" and whatnot. it was all fishy but i dealt with it. i got pissed and we fought but i didn't want to break up over it.

things just got worse after our first christmas together. i gave him a huge stocking full of stuff i picked out with care, and i did not even get a card. he spent more time hanging out with his friends than with me, and would conveniently not answer his phone when he was with them. by the end of january i had had enough and ended things. we reconciled shortly thereafter but after more fights i ended it again. that was the year of 2008 in a nutshell when it came to our relationship - knock down, drag out fights, hurtful comments, breaking up and getting back together. one of the biggest altercations came when he learned my friend chris and i had dated several years prior. i thought it to be none of his business since it was so long ago and we dated only a month, but jake had a HUGE issue with it and i ended a friendship for him to earn his trust back.

he would be conveniently unavailable often - when i was out of town and he was supposed to be watching my cats he would disappear. his phone was often shut off due to unpaid bills and he rarely had a car. he would drive my car after drinking and then show up hours late to my house after going out with friends after work. we had a very rocky and tumultuous year. he hated that i went out with my friends and was extremely controlling. everything was a fight.

right after valentine's day the following year it all came to a head. i had gotten us free movie tickets and we had plans to go to the movie. poor planning on his part made us late, but i ended up getting reamed at for not being at his beck and call and picking him up when i was supposed to - i was 5 minutes late because i had to pick up the tickets. i had had enough. i told him how i felt about his behavior and that i thought this was not a relationship should be. it shouldn't be fighting and trying to hurt the other person and being jealous. he asked if i knew he was the one and i couldn't say yes.

it was an ugly breakup. he would get hammered and show up at my house unannounced. he would borderline stalk me when i was out with friends. he would beg me to take him back. one night he led me to believe he was going to hurt himself in some way. i called the cops and had them check on his wellbeing, for which i got berated for.

i moved on and dated other people casually, but found each new guy to be worse than the one before. one man had a pregnant girlfriend that i knew nothing about until she called me. another was jealous and manipulative and verbally abusive. i started to miss jake and think about the good times we had rather than the bad. i wondered if i had made a mistake. my feelings for him resurfaced. i knew he had dated someone else but he told me they were done. i saw him in august, six months after we split. i started to think i wanted him back and he led me to believe the same. but then he didn't call me for almost two months and i learned he was still with his girlfriend. i was hurt and angry and bitter and after a very angry email, we never spoke again.

i saw him again two weeks ago. he didn't mention his girlfriend and i was happy to believe he was single. i still had feelings for him and couldn't deny it. its amazing how much control your heart has over your actions, no matter how much your head is telling you what the right thing to do is. he promised to call me in two days after we had time to "process" what had happened and if we wanted to try to be together again. he finally did over a week later.

i didn't answer the first 13 times he called. he made me wait and i thought he should too. we did finally talk two days ago and he wanted to know "where my head was." i was at work and told him i would call him back later when i had more time to talk. when i did he didn't answer.

i needed to vent to someone who knew us both. i called his oldest childhood friend, who, strangely enough, i have become rather close to. he tried to reassure me and tell me i deserved better. then he dropped the bomb, a bomb he didn't even know WAS a bomb. i learned that jake had not one, but two children. he has a 15-year-old daughter, a child he fathered when he was 16 by a girl other than his son's mother. i had no idea. his friend didn't suspect i wasn't aware of this information. it hit me like a ton of bricks and i was in complete and utter shock. the man who accused me of being dishonest, of keeping things from him, the man who cut me down and made me feel awful about myself time and again, had a huge skeleton in his closet that he apparently felt he never needed to show me, the girl he loved and wanted to marry.

not only that, he was not single and evidently tells his friends he wants to marry his current girlfriend. he has cheated on her with not only me but i also believe with his son's mother. i have no proof of this but i have always had a suspicion he was not over with her when he and i dated. and based on his behavior i think i should trust my instincts.

it is a shame that my first real relationship has scarred me in such a way. i don't believe i can meet a man who is honest and true and loyal. i don't think they exist anymore. the ones i have met and given my heart to have looked me straight in the face and lied to me without so much as a blink of an eye. its amazing to me - some people have no conscious.

one good thing has come of it though. my feelings for jake are completely gone. i know i will not be tempted to speak to him or give him another chance. it's finally over. it's taken me over a year to get here, but i'm finally here.