The Costly Misakes that we make....
I don't even know where to start in this situation. SO I apologize in advance for the long post. Please give comments. I will be pouring my heart out hoping to get some perspective and insight on this situation.
I guess it was about 10 years ago, I used to see this really big, but quiet and polite guy sweeping the floor at my gym. He was about 17 and I about 22 at the time. He was alwyas very cordial to me and over time we developed a very nice little rapport
. We would periodically hang out and talk about our pasts and personal issues. It was common knowledge that he had been in foster care for the majority of his life. In many ways, he was a success story becuase he bacame an accomplished bodybuilder. I was really proud of him and had asked him to come to my school to speak with my students. He was quite articulate and very inspirational. During this time he was still in and out of institutional placement, but he looked like a grown man, I was aware that he had adult women who, often times, he would live with so that he wouldn't have to stay in the group homes, etc. His relationships with these women were usually sexual in nature and didn't turn out well. I knew this becuase over the years I was him with several different women.
I have my own personal history with physical and emotional abuse. So I have to say that I have my own set of abandonment and insecurity issues. I have been in abusive and dysfunctional relationships. Over the years I have been in therapy to try to get tools to better deal with my issues and try to be a healthier person. My relationships with men have been difficult because of my own personal history. I ended up becoming involved with a woman (who wound up being like my domineering mother, but to make a long story a little shorter, I stopped having physical relationships with men for about 7 years (between age 22 and 29). I pretty much relgated myself to a lesbian identity.
I ended up leaving that domineering woman and met another who I loved very much. She was a recovering alcoholic, but was well into her recovery when we got together (about 7 years sober). We fell in love, but when I look back on it, it was so premature becuase I jumped from the domineering woman straight to her with no real time in between.
After our first or second date, I moved in with her, and there I stayed for about 2 years. (Incidently, she also went to my gym and I used to see her there all the time over the 7 or 8 years that I trained there).
Now, after me and the domoineering one broke up, I stopped going to the gym, my competitive bodybuilding career ended (she was my coach and training parter...she trained at my gym and she was stalking me) and I became extremely depressed,withdrawn and reclusive. My new girlfriend was worried about me and wanted me to go out and make some friends. After some time, I returned to the gym and was trying to find a new training partner. That's when I ran into my young friend again, except now, he was a grown man (25 years old). Though we were really cool over the years, we both lived our own respective lives but would have our cool conversations and hang out periodically.
My girlfriend encouraged me to train with him and we became extrememly close. We had so many things in common. After the gym he would come over to our little apt and would sit for hours and talk. We were like little kids in so many ways, we would giggle together, play
and have deep conversations about every and anything. I loved him as my friend dearly. My girlfriend appreciated his presence also becuase he seemed to be integral in pulling me out of my despression. I didn't sit in front of the computer all night anymore. I started to get some sleep, and things really began to look up.
Since he was my friend, I never judged him and would spend hours talking to him about his issues.
At that time he had recently married a woman who wanted to get her green card. The arrangement was that he would marry her and she would take care of his basic needs (food, clothing, lodging, etc). She going go assist him as he prepared for him bodybuiling competitions also. They had a sexual relationship from time to time, but he was not committed to her in any way. I didn't think this was such a good idea, I thought that he should be trying to develop ways for him to take care of himself, particualarly since he was so ill prepared for life once he was released by the state (they released him to a homeless shelter).
I have always been one to try to please my partners and would often times do whatever they would ask, sometimes not thinking about the ramifications of doing what they asked. My girl was really into s/m. I enjoyed it as well, it allowed me a "safe space" to deal with some of my sexual issues. It also appealed to my need to "please" my partner since I was the bottom and she was the top. I trusted her and would do anything for her. That's why when she told me that she wanted a big muscular man to invite to our bed, i agreed. Since my friend was so much like me in respect to the fact that he wanted to be loved, wanted and needed. He also saw me and my girlfriend as a family unit. My girlfriend really coaxed him to expose his vulnerabilities and participate in our relationship. It was in our S/M scenes and our "processing" sessions afterward when we would talk and share our feelings that I really began to realize what had happened to my friend during his years in the system. Though he had told me things over the years that I knew him, I never really put it all together until this time.
My physical relationship with him started out very differently from my girl's. They had a very passionate and highly sexaully charged relationship. Though I was also having sex with him, we felt ackward with one another (in fact, we couldn't even look each other in the eyes for months...it almost seemed as if we were doing something wrong) Things continued to progress. Everyhting was going well. We did everything together. He practically lived with us. I loved having my friend around and even when I realized that he and my girl were conducting a sexual relationships in my absence. I came to terms with this and decided that I was OK with it. I loved and trusted them both not to abandon me.
THINGS FALL APART:
My friend was preparing for a major bodybuilding competition in Eastern Europe where he had the opportunity to go pro. He was not prepared to make this trip alone. I promised him that I would go, since by that time I had already competed internationally and was more than well aware of the intricacies of competing under those conditions. My girl wanted to go, but she was in the process of opening a business and knew little about contest prep. While away at the competition, we called her everyday and gave her all the information about what was happening.
It was also during this competition that my relationship with my friend began to take on a different significance. Basically, I realized that I was beginning to fall in love with him.
When we returned to the states, I tried to discuss this with my woman. I was trying to tell her that I wanted to offically bring him into our relationship as an equal partner (I had done some reading and reseach on relationships of this type). This did not go over well with her at all. She decided that she wanted to end his participation in the relationship, she went as far as to say that he was no longer welcome in our home. I begged her not to do it. I knew that he was extremely attached to us and that the effect of her doing this would not be good for him. I tried all that I could to try to make things work, but she was steadfast in her decision. She eventually told him. He didn't handle it well. Things continued to spiral. soon they spiraled out of control.
Things between him and the green card lady weren't really very good becuase he spent the better part of a year an a half living with us. So it was very ackward for him to go back there (although he did) little did he know at the time that my girl (while we in in Europe) spoke to the green card lady and told her the type of relationship we had been conducting. Needless to say, she wasn't happy about that. He felt that my girl had violated his trust on numerous counts.
To try to soften the blow of him being ousted, I spent as much time with him as possible. I remember sitting in my car in the dead of winter sometimes until the sun came up talking and being his friend and his bing mine (things were not going well with my and my girl...i resented her for running my friend away). I felt so bad about the whole situation becuase I felt that I had failed him as my friend. I had also fallen in love with him by this point and was devistated that my girl put him out. Again, needless to say, this took a significant toll on my relationship with her. I was to find out later that she told him that she was in love with him and would leave me to be with him (but this only came out after she left me too).
I really resented her for encouraging the two of us to open up to her an be honest about our feelings only to shut down the whole relationship becuase it began to take on a life of its own.
Now, I eventually moved out and got my own apt. He pretty much came along with me. We never said that we were in a relationship becuase neither of us were in that place, but it was so clear that we loved each other in so many different ways.
Becuase we were so distraught by my girl leaving us, we isolated ourselves in my apt and developed no outside frienships. I guess one day I woke up and realized that I was in the midst of something that looked like a heterosexual relationship, somehting that I didn't want and was not prepared for. I considered myself a lesbian and could not commit to a man. Additionally, he was still married to the green card lady, had no job, didn't want one and decided that he would become a male exotic dancer to make money. Though he wanted to dance for women, he ended up dancing for men. As things progressed, or digressed, as it were, he began prostituting himself. By this time I knew that he had been sexually abused by men. I didn't think that objectifying himself this way was wise and I wholeheartedly discouraged it. I had already lived that life and knew that complications that went along with it. I danced for three years. It probably took another three years to get over it. That is a very nasty and damaging underworld. But he was committed to doing it.
I painfully sat by and watched him exploit himself. He would go to bookings and literally walk away with train fare. Since I knew the business, I ended up making bookings for him, just so that I could AT LEAST make sure that he got paid. I hated doing this, but I hated the idea of him picking some dude up at the club and being cheated more. I was also able to attempt to set up some boundaries since I communicated with the patrons, not him.
This was short lived, becuase I couldn't take it anymore. There were times that he would come over to my house and cry, but wouldn't tell me exactly what happened. I felt like I had to separate myself somehow. I kept begging him to stop doing this to himself, but he seemed hell bent on his own self destruction. I spent many nights crying with him. I also spent many nights crying alone, espcially when I was unable to find him.
Around this time I tried to reclaim my identity I decided to start hanging out with my gay friends. I started dating openly and didn't really consider the effects that it would have on him or our relationship. I guess I could't really see him as my man for a number of reasons. First, I was gay, second, he was married, third, he was degrading himself on a daily basis. Among other things
Things continued to spiral...First he totaled my car (and caused me to get sued for 25,000...he hit a fire hydrant that flew up into the air and broke some guy's collar bone), he assaulted me in my own apt (he started taking steriods...) and I found out through his wife, that he was having a sexual relationship with another woman. All of this within a 2 month period of time. Needless to say this took a serious toll on our relationship. I was so angry about all of this that I evetually got really angry and told him to leave my apt. (AND NEVER COME BACK!). My issues had bubbled over. I was scared, frustrated and angry.
There were just so many complications that was making loving him next to implossible. I knew that things could not go on the way that they were, but I still loved him. I still saw him as my little friend and I wanted him to get better. I just didn't know how to help him without doing damage to myself and making myself feel unsafe.
He really resented the fact that I asked him to leave. He ended up packing his stuff and leaving the state. He didn't say goodbye to me. I was devistated. About 2 months after he left, I packed my stuff, quit my job and moved to the west coast. I couldn't bear living there without him.
HELLO....AGAIN
I was here for about a year and change before I was able to make contact with my friend again. I neve stopped thinking about him, loving and missing him. I thought so many times about all the things that we did wrong. I felt that we could be a productive and loving couple with the right support and therapy. After all, we did love eachother dearly and communicated about everything (except about that girl that he dealth with...but he was to explain all of that to me later)
When I finally found him, I found a man who had mad signifant changed to his life. He had a straight job, was working on his art (he is an incredible self taught artist), got a car, opened a bank account, was paying his bills and felt so much better about himself. He was becoming the man that I knew that he wanted to be. I was so proud of him! We talked for about 6 months regularly over the phone. We talked about everything, clarified many of our questions and was very open, honest and candid with one another. He told me some things that were very difficult for me to hear. But I still loved him and never judged him. In the two years that we had been apart, I had an opportunity to come to terms with my sexuality and found myself wanting to explore with him now, what we had been unable to explore in the past.
I ended up getting on a plane and flying 3000 miles to see him. It was an intense and very emotional meeting and I decided that I would never let him go again. I love this man and haven't stopped loving him all this time. I know that I am a healthier person today than I was 3 years ago. I know that I still have my issues, but I am better equipped to deal with them now than before.
He had not exactly come to that place yet. He is still wounded by his childhood abuse and the abuse that he subjected himself to as a man. He doens't trust anyone, and is really working on trying to trust me. I am encouraging him to seek therapy, but he doesn't seem to be ready. I don't want to seem as if I am pushing him, but I am scared. I would be a liar if I said that I wasn't. Recently he told me of even earlier sexual molestation that included incest (as early as age 4 or 5). I don't know how he can deal with all of this pain with just me at his side (I am committed to being there....I love him and refuse to lose him again). I also feel like he needs to work through the craziness of our earlier situation, becuase it also caused him so much pain. He says that he forgives me for the mistakes that I made, but I wonder if he forgives me in his heart. I know that he still has major issues trusting me (although he tells me that he loves and and wants to be with me everyday). But, he often times needs to talk on the phone with me for well over 5-6 hours(one day we actaully talked for an entire day...24 hours...no exaggeration). He is afraid of me going on vacation, or taking business trips (my new job requires me to do this periodically...personally I don't see why he has an issues with that...I live 3,000 miles away from him anyway...perhpaps someone could give me some insight here). He doesn't like the fact that I have friends (it just makes him feel uncomfortable...he sees them as a threat). He is also extremely apprehensive about coming to visit me. (I have been flying out to see him, but honestly flying back an forth like this is physically draining, not to mention that I really don't enjoy flying).
I am scared becuase I don't know how we are going to overcome all of these obstacles. Can anyone give me some perspective. I am pouring my heart out here!
I guess it was about 10 years ago, I used to see this really big, but quiet and polite guy sweeping the floor at my gym. He was about 17 and I about 22 at the time. He was alwyas very cordial to me and over time we developed a very nice little rapport
. We would periodically hang out and talk about our pasts and personal issues. It was common knowledge that he had been in foster care for the majority of his life. In many ways, he was a success story becuase he bacame an accomplished bodybuilder. I was really proud of him and had asked him to come to my school to speak with my students. He was quite articulate and very inspirational. During this time he was still in and out of institutional placement, but he looked like a grown man, I was aware that he had adult women who, often times, he would live with so that he wouldn't have to stay in the group homes, etc. His relationships with these women were usually sexual in nature and didn't turn out well. I knew this becuase over the years I was him with several different women.I have my own personal history with physical and emotional abuse. So I have to say that I have my own set of abandonment and insecurity issues. I have been in abusive and dysfunctional relationships. Over the years I have been in therapy to try to get tools to better deal with my issues and try to be a healthier person. My relationships with men have been difficult because of my own personal history. I ended up becoming involved with a woman (who wound up being like my domineering mother, but to make a long story a little shorter, I stopped having physical relationships with men for about 7 years (between age 22 and 29). I pretty much relgated myself to a lesbian identity.
I ended up leaving that domineering woman and met another who I loved very much. She was a recovering alcoholic, but was well into her recovery when we got together (about 7 years sober). We fell in love, but when I look back on it, it was so premature becuase I jumped from the domineering woman straight to her with no real time in between.
After our first or second date, I moved in with her, and there I stayed for about 2 years. (Incidently, she also went to my gym and I used to see her there all the time over the 7 or 8 years that I trained there).
Now, after me and the domoineering one broke up, I stopped going to the gym, my competitive bodybuilding career ended (she was my coach and training parter...she trained at my gym and she was stalking me) and I became extremely depressed,withdrawn and reclusive. My new girlfriend was worried about me and wanted me to go out and make some friends. After some time, I returned to the gym and was trying to find a new training partner. That's when I ran into my young friend again, except now, he was a grown man (25 years old). Though we were really cool over the years, we both lived our own respective lives but would have our cool conversations and hang out periodically.
My girlfriend encouraged me to train with him and we became extrememly close. We had so many things in common. After the gym he would come over to our little apt and would sit for hours and talk. We were like little kids in so many ways, we would giggle together, play
and have deep conversations about every and anything. I loved him as my friend dearly. My girlfriend appreciated his presence also becuase he seemed to be integral in pulling me out of my despression. I didn't sit in front of the computer all night anymore. I started to get some sleep, and things really began to look up.Since he was my friend, I never judged him and would spend hours talking to him about his issues.
At that time he had recently married a woman who wanted to get her green card. The arrangement was that he would marry her and she would take care of his basic needs (food, clothing, lodging, etc). She going go assist him as he prepared for him bodybuiling competitions also. They had a sexual relationship from time to time, but he was not committed to her in any way. I didn't think this was such a good idea, I thought that he should be trying to develop ways for him to take care of himself, particualarly since he was so ill prepared for life once he was released by the state (they released him to a homeless shelter).
I have always been one to try to please my partners and would often times do whatever they would ask, sometimes not thinking about the ramifications of doing what they asked. My girl was really into s/m. I enjoyed it as well, it allowed me a "safe space" to deal with some of my sexual issues. It also appealed to my need to "please" my partner since I was the bottom and she was the top. I trusted her and would do anything for her. That's why when she told me that she wanted a big muscular man to invite to our bed, i agreed. Since my friend was so much like me in respect to the fact that he wanted to be loved, wanted and needed. He also saw me and my girlfriend as a family unit. My girlfriend really coaxed him to expose his vulnerabilities and participate in our relationship. It was in our S/M scenes and our "processing" sessions afterward when we would talk and share our feelings that I really began to realize what had happened to my friend during his years in the system. Though he had told me things over the years that I knew him, I never really put it all together until this time.
My physical relationship with him started out very differently from my girl's. They had a very passionate and highly sexaully charged relationship. Though I was also having sex with him, we felt ackward with one another (in fact, we couldn't even look each other in the eyes for months...it almost seemed as if we were doing something wrong) Things continued to progress. Everyhting was going well. We did everything together. He practically lived with us. I loved having my friend around and even when I realized that he and my girl were conducting a sexual relationships in my absence. I came to terms with this and decided that I was OK with it. I loved and trusted them both not to abandon me.
THINGS FALL APART:
My friend was preparing for a major bodybuilding competition in Eastern Europe where he had the opportunity to go pro. He was not prepared to make this trip alone. I promised him that I would go, since by that time I had already competed internationally and was more than well aware of the intricacies of competing under those conditions. My girl wanted to go, but she was in the process of opening a business and knew little about contest prep. While away at the competition, we called her everyday and gave her all the information about what was happening.
It was also during this competition that my relationship with my friend began to take on a different significance. Basically, I realized that I was beginning to fall in love with him.
When we returned to the states, I tried to discuss this with my woman. I was trying to tell her that I wanted to offically bring him into our relationship as an equal partner (I had done some reading and reseach on relationships of this type). This did not go over well with her at all. She decided that she wanted to end his participation in the relationship, she went as far as to say that he was no longer welcome in our home. I begged her not to do it. I knew that he was extremely attached to us and that the effect of her doing this would not be good for him. I tried all that I could to try to make things work, but she was steadfast in her decision. She eventually told him. He didn't handle it well. Things continued to spiral. soon they spiraled out of control.
Things between him and the green card lady weren't really very good becuase he spent the better part of a year an a half living with us. So it was very ackward for him to go back there (although he did) little did he know at the time that my girl (while we in in Europe) spoke to the green card lady and told her the type of relationship we had been conducting. Needless to say, she wasn't happy about that. He felt that my girl had violated his trust on numerous counts.
To try to soften the blow of him being ousted, I spent as much time with him as possible. I remember sitting in my car in the dead of winter sometimes until the sun came up talking and being his friend and his bing mine (things were not going well with my and my girl...i resented her for running my friend away). I felt so bad about the whole situation becuase I felt that I had failed him as my friend. I had also fallen in love with him by this point and was devistated that my girl put him out. Again, needless to say, this took a significant toll on my relationship with her. I was to find out later that she told him that she was in love with him and would leave me to be with him (but this only came out after she left me too).
I really resented her for encouraging the two of us to open up to her an be honest about our feelings only to shut down the whole relationship becuase it began to take on a life of its own.
Now, I eventually moved out and got my own apt. He pretty much came along with me. We never said that we were in a relationship becuase neither of us were in that place, but it was so clear that we loved each other in so many different ways.
Becuase we were so distraught by my girl leaving us, we isolated ourselves in my apt and developed no outside frienships. I guess one day I woke up and realized that I was in the midst of something that looked like a heterosexual relationship, somehting that I didn't want and was not prepared for. I considered myself a lesbian and could not commit to a man. Additionally, he was still married to the green card lady, had no job, didn't want one and decided that he would become a male exotic dancer to make money. Though he wanted to dance for women, he ended up dancing for men. As things progressed, or digressed, as it were, he began prostituting himself. By this time I knew that he had been sexually abused by men. I didn't think that objectifying himself this way was wise and I wholeheartedly discouraged it. I had already lived that life and knew that complications that went along with it. I danced for three years. It probably took another three years to get over it. That is a very nasty and damaging underworld. But he was committed to doing it.
I painfully sat by and watched him exploit himself. He would go to bookings and literally walk away with train fare. Since I knew the business, I ended up making bookings for him, just so that I could AT LEAST make sure that he got paid. I hated doing this, but I hated the idea of him picking some dude up at the club and being cheated more. I was also able to attempt to set up some boundaries since I communicated with the patrons, not him.
This was short lived, becuase I couldn't take it anymore. There were times that he would come over to my house and cry, but wouldn't tell me exactly what happened. I felt like I had to separate myself somehow. I kept begging him to stop doing this to himself, but he seemed hell bent on his own self destruction. I spent many nights crying with him. I also spent many nights crying alone, espcially when I was unable to find him.
Around this time I tried to reclaim my identity I decided to start hanging out with my gay friends. I started dating openly and didn't really consider the effects that it would have on him or our relationship. I guess I could't really see him as my man for a number of reasons. First, I was gay, second, he was married, third, he was degrading himself on a daily basis. Among other things
Things continued to spiral...First he totaled my car (and caused me to get sued for 25,000...he hit a fire hydrant that flew up into the air and broke some guy's collar bone), he assaulted me in my own apt (he started taking steriods...) and I found out through his wife, that he was having a sexual relationship with another woman. All of this within a 2 month period of time. Needless to say this took a serious toll on our relationship. I was so angry about all of this that I evetually got really angry and told him to leave my apt. (AND NEVER COME BACK!). My issues had bubbled over. I was scared, frustrated and angry.
There were just so many complications that was making loving him next to implossible. I knew that things could not go on the way that they were, but I still loved him. I still saw him as my little friend and I wanted him to get better. I just didn't know how to help him without doing damage to myself and making myself feel unsafe.
He really resented the fact that I asked him to leave. He ended up packing his stuff and leaving the state. He didn't say goodbye to me. I was devistated. About 2 months after he left, I packed my stuff, quit my job and moved to the west coast. I couldn't bear living there without him.
HELLO....AGAIN
I was here for about a year and change before I was able to make contact with my friend again. I neve stopped thinking about him, loving and missing him. I thought so many times about all the things that we did wrong. I felt that we could be a productive and loving couple with the right support and therapy. After all, we did love eachother dearly and communicated about everything (except about that girl that he dealth with...but he was to explain all of that to me later)
When I finally found him, I found a man who had mad signifant changed to his life. He had a straight job, was working on his art (he is an incredible self taught artist), got a car, opened a bank account, was paying his bills and felt so much better about himself. He was becoming the man that I knew that he wanted to be. I was so proud of him! We talked for about 6 months regularly over the phone. We talked about everything, clarified many of our questions and was very open, honest and candid with one another. He told me some things that were very difficult for me to hear. But I still loved him and never judged him. In the two years that we had been apart, I had an opportunity to come to terms with my sexuality and found myself wanting to explore with him now, what we had been unable to explore in the past.
I ended up getting on a plane and flying 3000 miles to see him. It was an intense and very emotional meeting and I decided that I would never let him go again. I love this man and haven't stopped loving him all this time. I know that I am a healthier person today than I was 3 years ago. I know that I still have my issues, but I am better equipped to deal with them now than before.
He had not exactly come to that place yet. He is still wounded by his childhood abuse and the abuse that he subjected himself to as a man. He doens't trust anyone, and is really working on trying to trust me. I am encouraging him to seek therapy, but he doesn't seem to be ready. I don't want to seem as if I am pushing him, but I am scared. I would be a liar if I said that I wasn't. Recently he told me of even earlier sexual molestation that included incest (as early as age 4 or 5). I don't know how he can deal with all of this pain with just me at his side (I am committed to being there....I love him and refuse to lose him again). I also feel like he needs to work through the craziness of our earlier situation, becuase it also caused him so much pain. He says that he forgives me for the mistakes that I made, but I wonder if he forgives me in his heart. I know that he still has major issues trusting me (although he tells me that he loves and and wants to be with me everyday). But, he often times needs to talk on the phone with me for well over 5-6 hours(one day we actaully talked for an entire day...24 hours...no exaggeration). He is afraid of me going on vacation, or taking business trips (my new job requires me to do this periodically...personally I don't see why he has an issues with that...I live 3,000 miles away from him anyway...perhpaps someone could give me some insight here). He doesn't like the fact that I have friends (it just makes him feel uncomfortable...he sees them as a threat). He is also extremely apprehensive about coming to visit me. (I have been flying out to see him, but honestly flying back an forth like this is physically draining, not to mention that I really don't enjoy flying).
I am scared becuase I don't know how we are going to overcome all of these obstacles. Can anyone give me some perspective. I am pouring my heart out here!