My Very First Breakup

We've all been through break-ups. Some people are pro's at breaking up with others. Some feel as though they've been the ones that got dumped every time. I don't know much about breaking up.

My first breakup came when I was 16 years old. I had been dating a 19 year old - and how my parents let that one happen I have never comprehended. I was a very innocent 16 - even for the 80's. Had never been kissed - much less lived through the multiple boyfriends and sexual experiences that many of my schoolmates had. Jeff was oh - so good looking. He had a hot car - was romantic and attentive. And I was NOT ready for a relationship. I loved the IDEA of having one of the cutest boys in town as my boyfriend - but I was scared silly. After two months of dating, Jeff broke it off. I felt relief. The pressure was off. 6 months later he was engaged to a school mate just 17 years old. WOW was I relieved!! lol

My second breakup came at the beginning of my senior year. My boyfriend of 6 months had graduated the year before and was starting college in the town 30 miles away. I wanted him to come to my homecoming - he didn't want to go to a 'silly high school dance'. I said I wasn't missing my senior homecoming and asked a friend to go with me. Roy broke it off with me. Whatevuh.

My third breakup was with the same dude! We got back together just a few weeks after homecoming when he 'came to his senses' and we dated through the rest of my senior year. Well - all the way up to - Senior prom this time! And yup - same crud - so I went with a friend - he broke it off with me a couple days before I graduated and then I headed into a summer of hell - drinking - partying and date rape. Without stopping to even tell anybody about the rape or deal with the emotions of that - but burying it all under MORE drinking - partying - and acting out - and with no resolution to my emotional nightmares - I headed off to college.

My fourth breakup (are you ready for this?) - same DUDE!! Yup - he came crawling to the next state to find me in school at Thanksgiving that year. Life was good again and in February he flew me home for Valentine's Day weekend. We got engaged and I came home from college. He was a convenient excuse to leave school before I 'had' to. But that's a 'whole 'nother blog'. And no - I don't mean pregnant. :) Our engagement lasted 6 months. Summer brought him living his life - me left alone with no friends back in my hometown. I ended up with another man 12 years my senior and a perverted predator to boot (and oh BOY is that another blog - more like a novel) and ended the engagement. First time I had ever initiated a breakup. And really - it was passive. I just treated him like shit (and he really didn't deserve it) until he broke it off. But I take responsibility for that one because I pushed it to make it happen. But I made HIM utter the words 'we're through'. Pretty chicken-shit of me.

I ended up living with and then marrying 'John' - the man who ended my engagement that summer. Walked from the frying pan right into the fires of hell. Lived the abuse of that relationship for 6 years until 'John' died of cancer. Does that count as a breakup? Hmmm - not really. Though there are times that I feel as though God intervened in my life in answer to prayers being cried on my behalf and offered me a second chance at a life following His desires for me.

So obviously I'm not good at ending relationships - either with class or dignity and CERTAINLY not in an assertive manner of standing up for myself. It took me until I was 38 to break off a relationship in that manner. And I'm sure that my class or dignity would be argued strenuously by the party I broke a relationship off with - but of course this isn't their blog - it's mine! :)

I blogged a few days ago about some realizations that have been a long time coming that had to do with an online group that I have been involved with for a year. At the time - I could tell that I had reached the point of 'filing divorce papers' but had planned to go through the usual 'I want a divorce' talks and discussions before I actually filed the papers (i.e. removed myself from the group). I waffled - I wobbled - I hesitated even publishing my blog for I knew that it was likely that the people I was closest to in that group would see it before I brought it up. Again - not the most assertive. :) I also had very mixed emotions for just as a divorce has fallout - particularly if children are involved and thus the MULTIPLE relationships impacted - I knew that there would likely be serious fallout from this decision. My best friend - my 'sister I never knew I had' was also part of this group and had been encouraging me to stay and work it out and 'deal with' my frustrations with the group dynamic. And I HAD stayed several times because of that. I'd been talked off of this particular ledge three times in the last year - but this time I wasn't going to be talked off. I was ....oh such mediocre metaphors...taking the plunge. I knew it was best for me and that it was a selfish decision and I was concerned that this had the potential to alter my friendships with some of the group forever. I hoped to have 'part time visitation' of my friends from this group - but knew that it would be very different communicating via email - or phone - or other on-line boards like the one we had all met on in the first place. Some were involved there still - and I knew I'd 'see' them there - but others I wondered whether our friendship would survive my being out of the group and moving in a different direction and no longer sharing the day to day bonds that we had.

Life has a way of handing us an entirely different playbook than we are expecting. Of course - because of my faith - I consider this to not be fate - but rather God. When life does a hairpin curve - I start looking around for what God is wanting me to see. I have not always done that. It took many years of going around hairpin curves and totally ignoring the idea that God may have placed that in my way to slow me down and have me pay attention - and only seeing when I got a LONG ways down the road - how God had His hand on the wheel the entire time. At the point the hairpin curve showed up - I generally just felt frustration or anger that I was being slowed down and my 'progress' was being impeded. It was only after that particular part of my journey had ended and I was looking back over the road that I could see it clearly. Gazing from the bottom of a mountain I might see the cliff I would have driven off of had that hairpin curve not been there. Gazing from the top of the mountain - I might see how that hairpin curve brought me through the most beautiful woods I had ever seen - and would have been missed had I continued straight. So now - when coincidences or hairpin curves come my way - I do an abrupt stop and start looking around. For those are Holy Spirit moments in my life. Sometimes - I see the reasons right away. Sometimes - I simply have to go forward trusting that if I have asked God to guide my path that He is indeed doing so. That step of faith.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom - in the early 80's - I was a 14 year old sitting by the cute guy five years my senior from my church in a dark movie theatre - not knowing then that this man would come back into my life 12 years later after the death of my first husband and that today we have now been married for 13 years and have two children. I had a mighty crush on that 19 year old but he was already a gentleman and not about to make a move on a 14 year old GIRL. But I remember being there with him - my awareness of his arm being next to mine - and the scary movie up on the screen is indelibly etched in my mind. In one scene of the movie, Indiana Jones came to a point where he realized he needed to cross a chasm in front of him but could see no way across. That trusty whip was simply not long enough to help him out. But the message was 'have faith'. TRUST. And so - he put his foot out into thin air as though there were in fact a solid surface in front of him to catch his weight rather than open space through which he would hurtle. And it was at that point - and that point only - that he could see that in fact there WAS a clear-as-glass way to walk across that chasm. That scene has stuck with me all these years - and is the best visualization of my walking forward TRUSTING that God will support me as long as I am following His will in my life. Two feet to the side - death. 6 inches to the other side - death. But His way - life.

So coincidences hit - the playbook changed - and suddenly my hand was forced. It was time to serve the divorce papers to this online community - days - maybe weeks - before I had thought it would occur. So with assertiveness that I have never shown in a breakup before - I broke off the relationship of Sophia+Group=4ever. And I gotta say - breakups suck. They hurt. I knew I needed to leave - but of course I don't want anybody not to LIKE me! lol Oh yes - the very reason I've never initiated breakups before and have in fact stayed in relationships long beyond the time I should have - including relationships with no commitment. And certainly no God-centered covenant like a marriage. I 'knew' intellectually before I made the decision to get divorced from this group that there would be some pain - that I may not get the visitation arrangements I wanted and in fact some of the group may choose to have nothing to do with me. I didn't expect that any of them would be coming to 'live with me' - but I DID want those visitation rights. I knew that even WITH visitation rights, the difference in 'living' with this on-line family day to day and instead just visiting might hurt the friendships long term. But I also knew - had FAITH - that God needed me to cross this chasm and trust him.

Today - I do not see the full picture. I am not entirely clear on why this step needed to be taken. I'm still operating on faith. But I do know that I have been granted visitation rights by my best friends and will work to keep those friendships alive with the work that entails. I know that I have been looked upon as a traitor by some who, it appears, will not be talking to me in the future or allowing visitation, though they do know where to find me if that should change. I know that the respect I feel for myself in not making 'them' breakup with me by becoming a bitch or even just drifting away for long enough that we grew apart - but instead assertively addressing why I needed to leave - and then leaving with as little drama as possible - is already worth the breakup. Relationships are painful. They are not all light and happiness. And I don't like that I have had to navigate my first ever break-up and the pain that has come with it - but I am trusting that the view from the top of the mountain is going to be spectacular. The path is becoming clearer with each step I take. I'm seeing clearly - I'm breathing easier - and I am trusting that God will guide my path around each curve - away from obstacles - and safely deliver me to the destination of His choice. May His Will be done.