Leah, part 1

Since this blog is new, I should include a bit more information about my most recent relationship and how it came to its long-overdue ending.  This is NOT the purpose of this blog, however: this blog is about how I intend to accomplish my resolution this year.  But I can’t put Leah out of my mind and move forward: I need to remember what she did.  I need to remember why I can’t let her back in my life.  I need to remember, if I am alone this year, why this is better than the alternative. 

Leah never hid her mental illness.  She spoke of borderline personality disorder from the start.  Given that our first “date” was meeting at her parents’ home, she also didn’t hide that she was still living with and dependent on her parents.  She was working part time in retail and going to college part-time.  She seemed to have a fondness for older men: I am 15 years older than her, and I was actually young by her standards.  Leah didn’t have delusions of preferring older men because of some maturity on her part: she just liked having an older man take care of her. 

Leah came off quirky and amusing.  Some oddities came out.  One night we were chatting on the phone, and I mentioned something in the book “The DaVinci Code”.  Leah said that the book was about Jesus and, as such, she wasn’t interested in it at all.  I tried to finish my thought, but she spoke over me: “I don’t care!  I don’t care!  I don’t care!”  I found this to be surprisingly rude and obnoxious.  Another thing I found odd at the time was that on our second date, she started speaking about how, if she moved in with me, she would insist on having a kosher kitchen: we could eat what we wanted outside the house, but she insisted that inside the house we would keep kosher . . . even though we are not Jewish.  This seemed an odd topic of discussion for our second date!  I assumed that this was whacky-quirky-Leah not realizing that she was crossing some “creepy” lines.  I realize now that there was something pressing on Leah’s mind: her father had told her that in 2 ½ years (when she turned 25), she would need to move. 

It turned out that Leah was also seeing someone else, and she chose this other person over me.  She didn’t handle this well, and I was more than a little annoyed at her.  Interestingly, the other person also owned his own home, although his home was in the city (I live in the suburbs) and he had no kids.  While she considers that decision a huge mistake in her life, I have little doubt that she made that decision because of purely practical self-interest. 

Despite having dumped me, Leah wouldn’t leave me alone, and started exhibiting some “stalker-ish” behavior.  She kept contacting me, via IM’s, e-mails, and text messages.  Sometimes, in an effort to have something to discuss, she started detailing her sex life with her boyfriend.  When I told her I didn’t care to hear this, her response (I am not making this up) was “tough”.  I made myself scarce, but any time I resurfaced, it never took long for her to start contacting me.  She has never explained this behavior, but I now realize: her boyfriend had not committed to giving her a place to live when she turned 25.  Until then, she wanted to keep me available as an option. 

I quickly spotted that there was something wrong with her relationship with her boyfriend.  When I told her how I felt, she got angry . . . but it was never long before she came back.  She never felt comfortable to talk to him, while I couldn’t get her to shut up.  She described him as being very uncaring to her and inattentive.  I don’t know if any of this is true.  Another way to explain what she has described is that he must have grown bored of her, but didn’t have the heart to send her away and he couldn’t get her to take the hint.  Note that she found this relationship to be quite emotionally abusive, yet she never spoke to her parents about him. 

I was involved with another woman at the time, and she soon moved in with me.  Leah became friends with this woman, and one day came to her with a request.  There were major problems going on between Leah and her step-mother: could she stay with us for a few weeks?  My girlfriend-at-the-time came to me and I agreed.  My girlfriend-at-the-time used this opportunity to convince Leah to break up with her boyfriend.  She and I marveled at how long it took before her father finally contacted Leah to see how she was. When he did contact her, it was a simple “how are you?” . . . not what you would expect given that his daughter had to move out in an emergency because of his wife, and not what you would expect given how many days had passed with no word at all!  It was as though everything was fine in his world.

Leah stayed with us for a few weeks and then moved back with her parents.  Then, she came out on weekends.  She told my girlfriend-at-the-time about how she needed to move out when she was 25, and we speculated on her renting a room in the attic.  She spoke of an old boyfriend from when she lived in Virginia.  The story of abuse at his hands was almost unbelievable!  After telling us about what she went through, she admitted that we were the only people in the world that knew.  She hadn’t even told her parents!  My girlfriend-at-the-time and I also encountered Leah’s depression episodes: she lay in bed unresponsive.  Once, we both tried to get her out of bed, and Leah responded by sharply kicking my girlfriend-at-the-time. 

My girlfriend-at-the-time and Leah had been very good friends, but soon that relationship soured.  Leah stopped coming out on weekends.  I don’t actually know what happened after this time.  I understand that, in depression, she started drinking heavily.  I also understand that, after cleaning herself up, she got involved with another boyfriend.  She did attempt to contact me several times, but I was going through too much as my relationship with my girlfriend-at-the-time was spiraling downward. 

Soon, Leah pushed her way back into my life, as my “special friend” that would be there for me as my relationship was falling apart.  As my relationship with my girlfriend-at-the-time was collapsing, she started having problems with her boyfriend.  He was a recovering alcoholic, and Leah was seeing clues that he had fallen off the wagon.  Leah, by the way, is a recovering alcoholic . . . when it suits her.  It should be noted that Leah had a year to move out, and her constantly-unemployed boyfriend could not provide her with a place to live: it didn’t take long when Leah entered my life that she told me she would leave her boyfriend for a chance with me. 

Right after my girlfriend-at-the-time moved out, Leah was there.  She started pushing to be my new girlfriend.  She engineered a reason to come out every week – the official story was that my friends were worried about me after the breakup, and Leah’s job was to keep an eye on me and make sure I was okay, but this was a complete myth.  She took things I might say out of context and twisted things, in order to get some hope that she could be my girlfriend.  She started talking as though she was my girlfriend.  I don’t recall exactly, but I think this was when Leah started showing she was open to not keeping kosher.  She applied a constant pressure, and saw nothing wrong with intensifying it when I was feeling particularly lonely.  She knew how to play me.  She knew I am the sort that doesn’t like hurting a person’s feelings, so she would use that to corner me into agreeing to be her boyfriend. 

Why did Leah behave like this?  We joked that she stalked me until I agreed to be her boyfriend, but this was actually quite accurate.  Was she so in love with me that she didn't grasp that she was crossing some major lines?  Or was it because she only had a year before she needed to move out?  Time was running out for her, and I was the only option?  Before Leah left, I asked her: at that time in my life, didn’t she think I had gone through enough?  Didn't she think that my ex-girlfriend had put me through enough?  She clearly didn’t care.  Her concern was for herself, start to finish.

The official story was that, after such a bad breakup, I wasn’t ready to date again.  In truth, I thought Leah was cute and whacky, and we had fun together . . . but I wasn’t attracted to her.  I started talking to another woman and we hit it off.  When I went out to spend some time with this woman, Leah was heartbroken.  She called that night and I told her that I was spending the night.  She ranted to our mutual friends.  How could I do this?  I was being so irresponsible!  And so on.  After I came back, for some reason (I don’t recall why, I think she needed me to drive her somewhere), I picked up Leah.  She was quiet and was wearing dark glasses.  She complained about having a headache.  Sure enough, she admitted that she had a hangover.  When she learned I was spending the night with this woman, she started drinking heavily.  The implication was obvious: if I see another woman, recovering-alcoholic-Leah would start drinking again.  I found myself having to hide my visits from Leah.  Even then, Leah started acting anywhere between sad to annoyed at any sign that maybe the woman and I were hitting it  off, and maybe were developing a nice relationship. 

This woman was moving to Oregon, and soon she left.  My heart was still hurting, and Leah was continuing her pressure.  At this time, I enjoyed having someone so eager for my company.  It didn’t hurt that she got along tremendously well with my kids.  She loved the sort of father I was, and she loved the time I spent with my kids. 

Something unusual started happening at this time.  Leah started complaining about major back-pains.  They would come and flare up, and then go.  She told me that this was something that happened every year at that time (even though I didn’t see this the previous year . . . and truth be told, I didn’t see this in any subsequent year).  She told me that the doctors could find nothing.  Leah was convinced that this was the result of the abusive ex-boyfriend in Virginia.  In her mind, he was some grand wizard, and every year around the same time, he cast a spell on her giving her major back pains.  One day, she was experiencing these pains.  I tried to calm her, and she said “she doesn’t have to listen to you!”  The voice was deep, and later she had no memory of having said it.  This was the first time I encountered a supposed "alternate personality" in her.  I interpreted the statement as “if you want to help Leah with this situation, you need to agree to be her boyfriend . . . otherwise she will not listen to you.”  Even at the time, I wondered if she had faked this: it did, after all, fit in to her agenda and played on my desire to protect someone I cared about.

Leah cornered me into taking her to an SCA event.  I knew it was a bad idea, but she had answers for all of my concerns.  She knew that I couldn't bring myself to simply say "I don't want to take you," and she played on that.  At this event, she cornered me into giving an answer, yes or no.  I answered “no”.  The next day, she was sad, quiet, and wouldn’t even eat.  I had said “no”, and Leah wanted me to see what that did to her.  Could I live with having done this to her?  She knew I couldn't: in a couple of days, I called her and said I had changed my mind. 

In truth, I still did not feel any real passion for her.  But, she was sweet and at the time wanted so much to be with me: perhaps I felt like I needed that in my life.  As for the lack of passion?  I saw what passion had brought me, and maybe I needed a little less passion and a little more of “everything else”. 

That was how she convinced me to be her boyfriend.  At a time when I should have been alone, to let my hurting heart run its course, Leah decided that her agenda was more important.  She was very much a "rebound" relationship, but that didn't matter to her.