The Journey Continues…Segment 5: Mr. Right and the Rocky Road

This is the fifth segment of my ‘series posts’ catching everyone up on my Journey to my Miracle Baby.

If you want to start at the beginning, feel free to go read them here: The Beginning, here: The Journey Continues…Segment 2 – Rebound Relationship: Abusive Hubby #2, here: The Journey Continues…Segment 3 – Kissing Some Frogs, and here: Segment 4 – Meeting Mr. Right.

Thank you all for your kind words, I appreciate the support! I apologize in advance that this post is so very long…I cut a lot out to make it this long (grin!) so hopefully what I edited out won’t cause context loss…and that the length won’t cause perpetual yawning and sleepiness… 🙂

The whirlwind romance with Mr. Right seemed to be going well, though one trip to visit him turned out to be a bit somber. He had gotten word that his father was deathly ill, and he was trying to figure out what he should do. He was a partner in a business that was lucrative because it was in California – the same couldn’t be said for running it from Pennsylvania or Maryland. He didn’t know if he should go ahead and move to be close to his dying father, or just go out on a temporary basis and see how things go. I could tell he was really struggling with making a decision – what would be right for him, what would be right for his dad, what would be right for his business partner. He decided to take a trip out East to check on his dad and see where things were.

When he got back, he had made his decision – he was going to move. He needed to be near his father, he was really torn up about how bad his father looked, how frail and helpless, when he had always been such a strong, independent person. We talked on the phone for hours – or should I say, he talked for hours, I listened. I felt bad for him – I knew it was tearing him up, especially since he hadn’t had the closeness with his father growing up like I had with my family, he had only gotten close with his father during the last 10 years and the thought of that time coming to an end so soon was weighing on him. He needed to be there, not just temporarily, he needed to be there to be with his father during his final days. There was no speculation on how much time his father had left, so just going out there temporarily wasn’t really an option.

I knew he had one friend out there from his childhood years, but that was pretty much it. He had no brothers or sisters; his other friends were scattered over several states – he really had no real ‘support’ system to help him through what could potentially be an extremely difficult time. So I offered to move with him, to be able to be there with him during this time. He was floored. He was ecstatic. He was appreciative. The decision was made – he would move by the end of the current month, I would give notice at work and at my apartment, and he would fly back to help me drive out there at the end of the following month. Plans were made, things were taking shape. I flew down to help him pack his belongings, then again at the end of the month to help him load the rental truck he would be driving across the U.S. It was a bittersweet moment, but we only had to wait a month to be together again.

Because of my family’s ‘cool’ attitude towards me (with the constant communication between them and my ex-abusive husband even after the divorce), and the gap that used to be open communication between me and them, I never told them I was planning to move. I had it in my mind that I wouldn’t even be missed, especially since any mutual activities were now limited to birthdays and holidays, unlike prior years where we hung out together all the time. I felt invisible. But part of me was glad I was invisible, because I still feared for my safety from my ex, even though a couple of years had passed since the divorce.

Moving all those many miles across the States made sense – not telling anyone I was going (except my closest friends) made sense…to me. I would no longer have to look over my shoulder; I would no longer have to drive major roundabout ways to make sure my ex didn’t find out where I lived. I would be safe. I would be with Mr. Right and not have to live in fear. I was excited about this next chapter of my life, about my new adventure.

Mr. Right stayed with his childhood friend and his friend’s fiancé and her family while looking for a place for us to live – he wanted to make sure I had somewhere to move to before coming out. He called me several times a week to talk and to update me on his dad’s condition, who was luckily not getting worse, but actually seemed to be slowly improving. That was definitely good news! He found a great house for us to rent that had a cute little fenced back yard for my dog.

The landlord faxed me the paperwork to sign, and we were all set. I packed like a maniac, my apartment quickly filled with stacks of boxes. As planned, the final weekend of that month, Mr. Right flew on a one-way ticket to Seattle so he could help me drive my rental truck across the States. He was so excited to see me when he landed, he kept giving me hugs and kisses as we made our way through the airport. I was on Cloud 9.

The weekend was a flurry of activity; we picked up the rental truck after hours on Saturday so we could start loading first thing Sunday morning. We wanted it to be all done before dark so we could thoroughly clean the apartment and head out early Monday morning. My friends helped us load the truck, and my younger sister stopped by with a friend to help as well.

I had to climb up into the back of the rental truck at one point though, because my OCD kicked in when I saw how it was being loaded all haphazardly – I knew if it was packed that way, there was no way all my stuff would fit…heh, heh! We finally got the truck all loaded up by nightfall, and we spent the next several hours scouring the apartment from top to bottom to make sure I would get my security deposit back – Mr. Right even pulled out the stove to clean behind there, just to make sure no nook or cranny was left undone! 🙂

We finally got to sleep about 3:00 a.m., so we knew we were going to get a start a little later the next day than originally planned. The next morning we were finishing up a quick breakfast and coffee waiting for the apartment complex office to open to do the final walk-through, when there was a knock on the door. I certainly wasn’t expecting anyone, the office manager was a friendly person, so I thought maybe she stopped by there to do the walk through before going to the office.

I had a moment of fear that my ex had found me, but was relieved to see one of my brother’s friends at my door – my relief was short-lived, however, because she was very angry that I hadn’t told anyone I was moving, and told me so. She told me that I needed to call my brother, because my sister had told him about my move (which is how she knew) because my brother had tried to call me but my phone was already disconnected.

I called my brother and we had sort of an awkward conversation – I explained to him that it was best because I had a feeling my ex was communicating with someone close, that no matter how many times I changed my phone number, I was getting harassed by the ex, even as the years had gone by. I didn’t want the ex to ultimately find me. I also let him know that I really felt that I wouldn’t be missed by him and our mutual group of friends, because I didn’t seem to ‘fit in’ with them anymore since the divorce. I felt really bad because he was crying, he was hurt that I was just up and leaving without saying anything, so of course I felt really bad, but I was already past the point of no return.

At the time I didn’t realize that my actions could and would be viewed as ‘selfish’, or that I was ‘running away’ – hindsight is, after all, 20/20. It would be years later when I would finally start to repair the bridge by having a heart-to-heart talk with my brother and his wife (and several of the mutual friends) to finally clue them in to what had really transpired during my previous marriage, and why I left like I did. Things, of course, were never really the same.

The drive across the States was uneventful – Mr. Right and I switched off driving the 20-foot rental truck, towing my car behind on a trailer. That was quite the experience for me – I had never driven something that large before! 🙂 We stopped and played ‘tourist’ at several landmarks along the way, enjoying each others company and enjoying the trip like a mini vacation. My dog was a perfect traveling companion – he’d sleep on the seat up front and seemed to be enjoying his ‘vacation’, too.

We arrived late at night in the small town where his friend lived, and since they have a long driveway that would not accommodate the rental truck (we’d never get it turned around), we pulled into a parking lot of a store not far from where the friend lived, took my car off the trailer to drive to the friend’s house. The rental house Mr. Right found was about 10 miles in an adjacent small town, so we had made arrangements to stop in at his friend’s house first to let them know we arrived safely, then head over to the rental house for the night to be ready to unload the truck first thing in the morning.

The ‘check in’ would serve as a way for them to know we had arrived safely, and also be a chance for us to make plans for unloading the truck the next day with their help. It was a bit overwhelming when I walked into this friend’s house – there were so many people there. Mr. Right’s friend, his friend’s fiancé, his friend’s fiancé’s ex-husband, the fiancé’s 1 adult son, 2 teenage kids, and 2 significant others of the 2 teenage kids, along with the fiancé’s brother and his wife and 2 kids. Confused yet? I sure was! Just wait…it gets even more confusing… 😉

Suffice it to say, the story about the friend and his fiancé and her family warrants its own special post – or a spot on Jerry Springer. The synopsis: Mr. Right’s friend’s fiancé (Queen B) lives in her late mother’s house with her ex-husband who turns out not to be an ‘ex’…yes, she’s still married – they decided they shouldn’t be married to each other years ago, but decided to be roommates ‘for the kids’ and still live together…but never got divorced. Though she did get engaged to Mr. Right’s friend.

At the time Mr. Right and I moved there, Queen B’s 1 adult and 2 teenage kids lived with her, along with her husband and her fiancé. 2 of the 3 kids still currently live there, her oldest son (who is now 30-something) says he’ll never get married, and plays blood and guts games on his computer all day and night. Her daughter is now married, and lives with her husband in the detached garage that was converted to living quarters. Queen B’s daughter turns over all her daily tips from her job as a waitress to help pay rent and utilities of the ‘living quarters’.

Queen B’s youngest son and his wife and kids (who we became very close friends with, in spite of Queen B’s best efforts to thwart that) were disowned by her (that story will come later), and they moved to Louisiana to make a new life for themselves. Queen B’s husband, fiancé and daughter all work full time and are the primary source of income for the entire household, aside from Queen B’s disability and social security checks. She has some medical issues as well as apparently 15 multiple personalities.

Why am I telling you this? Because it might help explain what transpired after Mr. Right and I moved out there. Queen B is a major control freak. She puts herself in charge of everyone. She calls all the shots. People jump to attention when she snaps her fingers. Mr. Right looked to her as a mother figure, since he had lost his mother to cancer when he was 18. He valued Queen B’s opinion on everything. Mr. Right and Queen B also joked about being part of the same club – the ‘Dead Mother’s Club’. Morbid, I know.

Queen B was very friendly at first, becoming very chummy with me. At least on the surface. We would spend hours sitting around their dining room table drinking coffee and talking until all hours of the night. Mr. Right’s friend had approached him prior to us moving east, and asked for a loan from Mr. Right so Queen B could afford to buy her late mother’s house. Because Mr. Right had been friends with this guy for so long he trusted him, so he agreed. To the tune of $12,000.00. Cash. In return, the friend and Queen B would subdivide the 10-1/2 acres the house was on, and give Mr. Right and me 2 acres to build a house on in the future. We were considered part of the ‘family’. It soon became clear it was a ‘dysfunctional family’.

We found out later that Queen B was a bit miffed that Mr. Right opted not to rent a room from her when we first moved out here, and chose to live with me in the rental house instead. So she started plotting – she’d tell me bad things (lies) about Mr. Right when he wasn’t there, then tell him bad things (lies) about me when I wasn’t there. Ultimately she ended up convincing Mr. Right that we hadn’t had a chance to really ‘date’, what with our ‘long-distance’ relationship out West – so she convinced him he needed to live on his own for a while, that the two of us needed to ‘properly date’…this was 9 months after we had moved out there. Then she hacked into my email and conjured up bogus emails (more lies) and made him think I was a horrible person, so he moved out. We broke up. Because of Queen B’s lies. Her plan sort of backfired on her, though, because she expected Mr. Right to rent that room from her (to supplement her income further). He opted for his own apartment instead.

I was devastated when he broke up with me, though Queen B convinced me it was for the best, based on more lies she regaled me with. I found out I was pregnant, which just added more stress because Queen B didn’t want me to tell Mr. Right because she said it would make him feel ‘trapped’. I felt lost, especially since I was so many miles from my friends and family, and had no one to turn to here. I called my brother to let him know what was going on and he coldly told me on the phone “You can move back here, but things won’t be the same since there are a lot of people who are mad at you for leaving. Don’t expect to be welcomed back with open arms.”

The stress got to me. That resulted in a miscarriage. I felt like my life was over – I felt worse than when my first husband ditched me for another woman, because at least then I had friends and family around me that I could lean on. I couldn’t burden my best friend with the latest, because she was in the middle of her own crisis – she had moved from Florida to be with her mom in Nevada because she and her hubby were going through a divorce. This time I had no one. I was alone.

I had a breakdown. I was despondent. I took a handful of muscle relaxants that Queen B had given me for my cramps, washed them down with a shot of vodka, but not before I called and left a message for both Mr. Right and Queen B to let them know they wouldn’t have to worry about me anymore. They called the police. The police called an ambulance and my stomach was pumped in the emergency room. Then I was transported to a psych ward for a 72 hour mandatory ‘hold’.

The results came back – I had not taken a fatal dose of medication, just enough that would have resulted in a good, sound sleep for a few hours. That meant I would be allowed to leave the psych ward at the end of my 72 hours, rather than have a mandatory stay of 3 weeks. I did, however, have to go to mandatory group therapy while in the psych ward, which opened my eyes to how much worse other people’s lives were. I had been so strong in the past with what I had already been through, it seemed silly to have buckled under this time.

After I was released from the psych ward, I was determined to get my life back on track. I couldn’t afford to move back across the country, but I also didn’t want to stay in the house Mr. Right and I had shared. It was just too painful to stay there. I needed to move to a smaller place locally. A fresh start.

I contacted my landlord and made arrangements to get out of my lease early. She was sympathetic to my situation and let me break my lease without having to pay extra or lose my deposit. I found a smaller rental – the second story of a house that had been converted into an apartment – it was perfect. The walls were a funky color, so I asked permission to paint them. The carpet was a funky lime green – I noticed it was loose in one corner, so upon further inspection, I discovered there were hard wood floors underneath – I asked permission to pull the carpet out and refinish the floors. The owner of the house lived on the first floor and was sweet – she agreed to let me fix it up before moving in.

The next several weeks were filled with packing my belongings and spending time at my future new home, repainting the entire apartment and ripping up the carpet. The new landlord had one of her sons come haul the carpet out for me after I got it all rolled up. I rented a floor sander and sanded the floors down, then put a clear coat of varnish on them – they turned out beautiful. The new apartment was perfect. At one point the landlord came upstairs to see how it was coming – she joked about how she might have to move up there instead of living on the first floor because it was turning out so nice.

Then came time to move into my new place – I had a temp job at the time, the people I worked with were really nice so they offered to help me move. The week after I moved, I got laid off – from my temp job. Some lame excuse about me not bringing the President of the company coffee every morning – did someone neglect to tell me we had time traveled to the 50’s? But I had a feeling that it was because they found out about my involuntary psych ward stay.

It’s a small town, after all, and people rabidly read the police blotter pages. I had some money saved, so I actually relished the idea of some time off – it gave me the opportunity to unpack all my belongings and really settle in to my new place. I wasn’t out of work for long, when I first moved out here I had gotten a temp job at a company who was impressed with my resume, so when they had a full time ‘permanent’ position open up, they called me right away – I had only been laid off for one week when they called. The timing was perfect. New apartment, new job, I was back on track.

Queen B started calling to check on me and see how I was doing – and filling me in on how Mr. Right was doing. I took everything she told me with a grain of salt – I was going to therapy on a regular basis, which made me wary of anything she said or did, but I was also a forgiving person, so it wasn’t long before I was joining in on the hours of conversation and coffee at Queen B’s dining room table. Then Mr. Right started showing up at the dining room table when I was there, too. We started emailing each other again – even though we lived less than 10 miles apart. But sometimes it’s easier to type words than it is to speak them, even though the emotion behind them can sometimes be absent. We started to reconnect.

Queen B didn’t like it.

Over the next several months Mr. Right’s dad recovered completely from his illness, much to our relief, and was doing very well. Mr. Right sold his partnership in his business out West, so he could remain near his dad in case he got sick again. During that time Mr. Right and I got back together – and broke up – 3 more times. We were never broken up for longer than a month or three, and each and every time the common denominator in the break up was the Queen B. During the final break up, I accepted a phenomenal job offer from a large company in New York and decided it was time to move on with my life, so I moved to NY. I went out on a few dates, but my heart wasn’t in it.

I got an occasional email or phone call from Mr. Right, then he invited me down to visit for a weekend. He wanted to talk. I drove down and we talked until the wee hours of the morning. We compared notes and discovered that we had allowed Queen B to poison our relationship – it was quite the revelation. Mr. Right had also realized that his childhood friend had changed in personality – the way Mr. Right described it, it was as if living all those years with Queen B had brainwashed him and he was no longer the same person Mr. Right had known for years. We decided we needed to distance ourselves from Queen B. Especially if we wanted to make ‘us’ work. He no longer considered Queen B his ‘mother figure’.

Mr. Right and I started dating again, albeit long-distance, since I was now living in New York. We alternated weekends – I’d come to PA to visit him, or he’d drive up to visit me. In between we’d spend multiple hours on the phone or on the computer IM’ing each other, keeping the lines of communication open. We were getting reacquainted with each other, without being tainted by the poison that is the Queen B.

We would both still occasionally hear from Queen B who had no idea we were ‘officially’ back together. We decided to keep it from her and see how things progressed. Mr. Right needed to keep the lines of communication open with Queen B, because now the $12,000.00 loan was becoming an issue – it turned out that the 10-1/2 acres would not be able to be subdivided, so Queen B and her fiancé were going to submit a promissory note to Mr. Right and pay him back when they refinanced the mortgage. Mr. Right wanted it in writing.

Things were going very well for Mr. Right and me, so when a job opportunity presented itself in the area that Mr. Right lived, I took it and moved back to PA. Along with his full time job, Mr. Right was moonlighting as a Resident Advisor for student housing for the Technical College he was an instructor at – we didn’t think it would be right for me to move into the apartment supplied by the school, and it wasn’t large enough for all my stuff along with his anyway, so I opted for an apartment of my own across the parking lot from him instead.

We finally revealed to Queen B that we had been back together for quite some time – and let her know that if we come to visit, neither one of us would visit her ‘solo’, because of her past meddling, lies and back stabbing. Since we couldn’t trust her, we didn’t spend much time over there – we enjoyed our time together instead. We had been talking marriage for quite some time, Mr. Right always referred to me as his ‘fiancé’, though he hadn’t gotten me an engagement ring or proposed to me as of yet. We knew in our hearts, however, that we were meant to be.

Join me next week when the Journey continues…Queen B antics, more revelations, the $12,000.00 fiasco, the disowning…all leading up to the moment you’re all waiting for – my Miracle Baby. 🙂