Lisa’s family truly liked me and her parents came to love me, I believe. They thought that being with me Lisa might finally be happy and that I had the stamina and emotional wherewithal to counter her bipolarity and related issues. And you already know that I thought so, too. But, the time came when it was all too much. One other incident I’ll recount here was very nearly the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Most of the time I was the one who got her daughter up everyday at 6:15 to get ready to go to school and then drove her there, which I thoroughly enjoyed doing. I believe, if memory serves, that Lisa only took her daughter to school when I was too ill with flu to do so.
Also, while the girl was in elementary school she did not like the cafeteria lunches, so I made her lunch every morning. Or, when she entered middle school and actually liked the food at this particular school she would buy lunch. I gave her the money to buy lunch every day. One day I had just come back into town that very morning and she called my cell phone and asked me to bring her lunch. I had given her enough money for her lunches that week before leaving to go out of town. She told me that when Lisa took her to school that morning on her way to work she took her daughter’s lunch money to go buy cigarettes. When I found this out, I was furious with Lisa, as was her daughter. It took a couple of weeks before Lisa and her daughter were back on speaking terms.
I don’t want you to think I’m some kind of blameless angel or too good to be true. I’m a fair and generous person, and I enjoy doing things for the people I love. I’m human, too, and I make plenty of mistakes. Perhaps, the worst mistake I made with Lisa after a couple of years of dealing with her behavioral issues was that I began to lose my temper in frustration. I almost was always right in my assertions of her wrongdoing or onerous behavior. But, whenever I did lose my temper and yelled at her, she just tuned me out and I was just another loud voice in her life. It got to the point that our sex life, once rich and very fulfilling, wasted away, a victim of our increasing estrangement. It became difficult and no fun for her daughter to come over to our house when it was our turn to have her because of the palpable tension and anger always present … though we tried never to argue in front of the girl. But her daughter was very bright, as I’ve mentioned, and she had already gone through this scenario once before.
We tried couples therapy, individual therapy with her therapists, and finally, in a last ditch effort to curb her drinking which was becoming obsessive and destructive I took Lisa to AA meetings. I went twice with her and she went a few times on her own, which is the way it’s supposed to work. Then Lisa began lying about going until finally she admitted to me she no longer attended meetings. C’est la vie. I knew then it was only a matter of time. In the last several months we were together, there were so many other incidents and issues that cropped up I now look back and wonder myself just why I stayed with Lisa as long as I did.
Well here it is. And most of you have been there, I’m certain. The reasons are simple. I loved her. I realized that you have to work hard, and keep working at it, in order to make a relationship successful, whatever that means to each couple or individual. Plus, as I noted before, I thought that through my love and caring I could fix her and make her better, and thus, make myself better and more fulfilled. Well, it didn’t work.
