Day Four: Broken Bond

Marriage.

As little girls, we’re trained to believe that marriage is the ultimate goal. Often times, we’re taught the importance of having a man in our lives before we’re taught our own self worth, let alone the importance of a career. I don’t think our parents mean to jade us in this way purposely, but I’m afraid the pressures of definitive happiness with someone makes it seemingly impossible to be happy alone. And if you are alone, you’ve somehow failed. There comes a point, in order to combat those feelings of failure, people race with time. Some feel that marriage has to come by or before a certain age, so it’s not a care of who they marry, rather when.

But then, there are real life fairy tales. There are true loves and eternal bonds. There are marriages worth having.

And then there are facades. With those facades, I’m reminded again how we can think we know a person all of our lives yet somehow not know them at all.

Patrice Owens, 33, knows this reality far to well. She knows what it feels like to be catered to, loved, held on a pedestal, and admired for not what she does but for whom she is; she knows the joys of a fairy tale marriage. But she also knows the agony of deceit, lies, and fraud. Last night, we reminisced. Patrice provided me access to a space that only her deepest thoughts occupy, and together we found peace. This is her story.

Tell me about your love life. Are you single, dating, in a relationship, married, it’s complicated?

I’m in a relationship. It’s not complicated on my end, but it’s complicated on my ex’s end.

How so?

I feel like he purposely forced me to keep a place in my mind for him. I won’t say my heart because I believe that that was gone a long time ago. But I do feel he forced me to keep a part of my mind reserved for him until he was ready to move on.

Do you think that you’ve fully moved on from your ex?

After today, yes.

What happened today?

Today, I was at work, and we don’t really communicate like that. Not even on a close friend level unless it has something to do with the kids. Usually, we’ll meet up and I’ll get Lily, or he’ll get Lily, but today was exchange child day. I contacted him this morning about what we were going to do, what time we’re going to meet up, if we’re going to meet up today, etc. It wasn’t a long conversation. It was probably maybe two minutes. At work, I get a text message that says,”They should be there soon. Put a shirt on. That’s not for you. My fault.”

How do I explain this? When I first read that message, my initial reaction was confusion. I was confused, because the whole time we’ve been apart, every time I mention him being with another female, dating another female, he’s always, “No, no, no, I don’t want no females around my kids.” But when I got that message today, I was like, “Okay, so, you finally let somebody around the kids.” But, then again, I’m thinking he’s very childish, because he wanted me to know. It wasn’t by accident he texted me that.

I tried to find all sorts of ways to justify it, but that was done purposely. He’d never text me and say, “oh it wasn’t for you, my bad, sorry,” in all the years I’ve known him.

How long have you known him?

It’s been now, maybe 14 years.

How did you feel the moment you realized this was something that you no longer could do?

I felt bad. I suppose that’s because I knew that the kids were involved. If I was by myself I think it would be a different story. But because I have my kids, I knew that they had no clue about what was going to happen. That part made me feel bad. But after a while, I felt like I had to do it, not for everybody else, but for me.

Doing it meaning staying in the relationship?

Right. I could not keep forcing it to work.

So, how did you feel learning he’s bringing another woman around the kids?

I was mad! First of all he was not in the house. Second of all, the kids never met this person before. So how could you let her meet them like this? Just walk into the house and someone is there? That’s crazy. You don’t do stuff like that. It took me years before my kids met the person I’m in a relationship with. Years. And he was telling me all these times the boys never met her. And they come home to her from school. That was scary for me, I don’t trust people.

Why don’t you trust people?

I don’t know, I feel like most of my emotional scars came from people that I trusted the most. So for me right now, trust is a huge issue.

How does that work in your current relationship?

Oh boy. I think I ignore a lot of things when I know that I’m being driven by a trust issue.

So if your current person says or does something questionable, you won’t acknowledge it?

It’s not that I won’t acknowledge it, I choose what to acknowledge. So it could be something like … he works at night so during the day when I’m at work, he’s at home, most of the time and he’s asleep. So for example if I call him and he doesn’t answer his phone, it’s easy for me to say,”Oh my God he’s cheating on me.” And the fact of the matter may be that he’s sleeping because he works at night. And in my last relationship, when the shit hit the fan, the phone was a very big issue for me. It was always: “Why aren’t you answering your phone?” Are you with that person? And nine times out of ten I was right.

So, that’s why I choose what to pay attention to and what not to when it comes to trust. I know that I can easily ruin every other relationship I have because I feel like I’ve been through every trust issue that you could possibly go through.

With the ex?

Right.

Was it easy for you to let all those years go?

No. Absolutely not. Because unlike the average relationship that involves infidelity, my ex never changed the way that he treated me. He never changed anything that he did. It was just that eleventh finger that was hanging around. But nothing else changed. So yes it was very hard for me because honestly, emotionally I don’t think that anybody else could ever fill the void that he did. So I’m telling myself, you’ll never get 100% of that again, so from this point in, you have to settle for 98. That 2% that’s missing, is a lot. So it’s very hard. Well it was hard but I’m okay now. I’m good.

Are you good or have you settled?

I think it’s a bit of both. I think I’m good because I decided to settle. Does that make sense?

Yeah. It does make sense. Do you feel as if you love the person that you’re with now?

I do. And that’s crazy because I feel like if I didn’t I would probably go back with my ex.

You would still go back? Knowing everything that you do?

Yes. The reason why I would is because … that 2% is missing, emotional happiness for me is this big deal. And emotionally, I feel like even though I was already a confident female, he helped me to get to that level where I feel like I’m untouchable.

I get that. After everything, what were some of the steps you took to heal?

There were so many and I catch myself still taking steps, because I have this question of, am I really healed? Or am I telling myself I’m healed? So one of the steps I took, was praying like crazy. I became so close to God that I feel like I could just turn to him and he was right there. I fasted a lot. And after my fast, that’s when I started to get a lot of answers. So those are just the first and most important steps I took to like heal. The next step that I took was trying to figure out in my mind, can I be without this person? I actually forced myself to hold back a lot because I didn’t want to give everything after finding out that you could give everything and still get hurt like that.

So I just wanted to check myself, like what I was doing, what I was saying, how I was feeling, how I was making him feel. There’s so many things I did. I cut a lot of people off, because I felt like I was in a space where nobody understood me. Even though they say they did, nobody had ever been through this. Who the hell has been with a person that cheated on them and the person never changed what they did for you? You hear about people getting cheated on but then the guy is not coming home, or changed his number, he’s not doing this anymore, he’s not doing that anymore.

This person still did every single thing that got me to be with him in the first place, while cheating on me. How do you do that?

To this day it blows my mind. He never missed a night out, he never missed a holiday. He never missed a birthday. He didn’t even come home late. So how did he manage to do all of that and still maintain this so called respect or pedestal that he had me on. That’s crazy.

Have you ever asked him?

No, I never asked him that question. And that’s something we never talked about. We talked about a lot of things, but I’ve never asked him that.

Do you really want to know how?

Yeah I feel I do. I do want to know how. Because I feel like if I didn’t want to know, it wouldn’t be a question that’s always in the front of my mind.

So why haven’t you asked?

I don’t know… I think because I always take it as a thought, it never comes out, as a question.

In the conversations you’ve had before with him, has he been open about the infidelity?

Very. Extremely. Luckily I’ve had that kind of communication with everybody else I’ve been with. Even my current relationship. I feel like we tell each other everything, even when it hurts.

Have you told him you feel as if you’re settling?

In my current relationship? Yes, I did absolutely.

How did he feel?

He wasn’t happy about it but at the same time he understood because he’s very honest about himself and his actions. From us just talking he knows what kind of relationship I’ve been in, he knows what I’m used to, knows what I like. He knows everything. And he also knows that he doesn’t do 100% of those things. So when I tell him I’m settling he fully understands what I mean. But he feels like he needs time to get there. So he’s not upset about it but it’s kind of offensive to tell somebody that.

He loves me so much that I feel like he respects the fact that I told him that. Because he wouldn’t have known any other way, I could have just left him there like I’m not settling for this. I think he respects the fact that I addressed it instead of just acting on it. Because even though it’s offensive, when I actually told him he was like, “Well damn.” His reaction to it was positive, it wasn’t negative. He just felt like he needed time.

They say in order for a woman to get over a guy she needs to get under a new one. Was he your rebound? 

I don’t believe that at all. I feel like that’s where a lot of people make big mistakes. When they act on their last relationship like that but no, I don’t think he was a rebound. When I started talking to him, I never thought that we would be where we are today. We were really just friends. I wasn’t looking for a relationship.

Are you happier without your ex?

Happier? I wouldn’t say happier because my kids are attached to it.

How has it been for them?

They thankfully … and I thank God for this, they’re mentally stable. They’re okay, they fully understand what’s going on. I feel like at one point, they started to be upset with me. My oldest, he didn’t understand why I wasn’t there. And I think he thought that I left them. Or I don’t want to be in their family anymore. It was important for me to go into everything with them from scratch. After I did that, I was like … they’re okay, my kids are okay now. I’m still happy about that. I’m just sad about the fact that we cannot see each other every day.

But they doing okay in school. Their life with their friends is really good. They’re well rounded, they’re very intelligent. So as of now I wouldn’t say they’re being affected a lot but you know once again, you never know. You just never know what they’re thinking.

So, you’ve made the necessary steps to move forward with this new person in your life. Whether it be this person that you’re with right now, or maybe in the future, what are the three qualities that you feel like they need to have in order for you to be happy and for the relationship to work?

Communication. I am a talker, I will talk from sun up to sun down. I will explore a situation a thousand times before leaving it alone. So communication is a big deal for me. The second one I would say is faith. I don’t know why I didn’t pick that as my first one. Can faith and optimism go together?

It’s your list, what ever you feel works for you.

The reason I want faith and optimism to go together is because a lot of things that I’ve accomplished in life came through faith. I believe I put the effort and I let God do the rest. And I feel like if I’m with somebody that’s a pessimist, that’s going to bring me down, that’s going to drown me. So, faith and optimism go hand in hand as a quality that I need.

The third one will have to be honesty. But at 33 years of life I feel like thats unattainable. Because who knows who’s really being honest?

Isn’t that a shame?

Right. It is and that’s why I put my age on it because when I was twenty, I would’ve definitely said honesty.

But that’s a problem. You’re automatically compromising something that should come gradually with a relationship. It’s hard to be with somebody if at any point you feel as if they’re dishonest with you. So how can that not be a qualifier?

Right, you’re absolutely right. But 14 years of damage, of brain damage will make you eliminate a lot of things. It’s almost like I was living in a real life dream-world, does that make sense?

What do you mean?

Ten years ago my life was freaking perfect, anything would go, anything I wanted. Anything you could think of. Having a family, honesty, all those things were real. But here we are ten years later and they’re not real to me anymore. So were they ever really real? Was my life that way, or was it just a façade for what was about to take place? And I don’t regret anything that ever happened because I had so many great stories, so many wonderful memories. But was it real? Is that still attainable? Are there people out there like that? Is there relationships like that?

I feel it is attainable, look at where you are now. You are in something that you feel is dream-like, no?

Yes, and I get goosebumps when I talk about my relationship now. People are like what are you doing? But I’ve been so happy inside that I’m like what the fuck do you mean what am I doing? I’m good. This relationship is kind of interesting because he works so much to be the perfect guy for me and he’s closer now than ever before, that keeps me interested. I’m waiting to see, what are you going to do next? Instead of everything just being in front of my face, it’s nice to see there’s a hidden mystery there.

I’ve heard before that as women sometimes we have to teach men how to love us. 

Absolutely.

Do you feel as if you’re teaching him now?

Yes, and I feel like he’s learned a lot since we’ve been together. I feel like there are different women in the world, in life, and different women do love differently. I feel like different women want different things when they do find love, and for me … the way I want to be loved is very unique. I don’t think I ask for much because I’ve had it already, materialistically and emotionally. Attention, yes I want all of it. But I know it’s not gonna happen, but as much of your attention as I can have, I want it because I feel like that’s what I do for you. In other words, he loves me and is still learning how to love me. In the end, I need him to love me the way I love him and vice versa. Everything else will fall into place.