I have always wanted to be in a relationship.  Ever since I was 15-16 years old and sat alone at family functions while my cousins and brother sat with their boyfriends/girlfriends I longed to be a part of their world.  The world where someone loved you as much as you loved them.  A world I thought I'd never enter.  I went from the girl who at age 14 wanted to be a Physician Assistant and never have to rely on a man to a girl who wanted nothing more than to have a man love and take care of her.  And that's where I went wrong.

I started dating when I was about 17 years old.  I went for the first guy who paid attention to me, who told me I was beautiful.  It ended horribly.  Not only was he using me, I had fallen head over heels within a matter of weeks.  Just a few dates and I was convinced that I loved him.  When he ended it by telling a mutual friend he was engaged and to let me know, I was absolutely devastated.  I thought my life would end right at that moment, that I would never be loved by anyone and it reinforced my desire, almost need, to find a boyfriend.  Someone to care about me.

I had a dating dry spell during my freshman year in college.  I also had the first manifestations of bipolar disorder and at a point when I should have been putting myself first and learning to love who I am, I became even more obsessed with finding "the one."  I made quite a few friends, but found myself trying to be the kind of girl I thought the guys wanted instead of who I am, which tended to be a turnoff to not only my friends but also the good guys.  I've always considered myself to be somewhat of a flirt, but I took it to the extreme.  Despite being a virgin, I became overtly sexual in order to be what I considered more attractive to a man.  Somehow, I never realized that this was why I was attracting the wrong kind, the kind who thought I'd sleep with them and that would be that.  The kind who dropped me like a bad habit when they didn't get what they wanted.

Sophomore year, I started online dating.  I met some nice guys, and some not-so-nice.  I got tired of my virginity and felt that it was the one thing holding me back, that maybe if I wasn't a virgin anymore I'd be able to find that perfect guy who would love me for who I was.  Instead, I slept with the first guy who dated me for more than a month and have regretted it every day since.  I became the guys who I had attracted the prior year, the user.  After that, I took a *short* break from dating again, but was still convinced that it was fate for me to meet "him" sometime soon.  That spring, I continued to be that user.  I moved on to a guy I barely knew, who I felt I owed something to after he didn't take advantage of me when I was drunk.  We hung out, but I would only do it when nobody else was around.  I used him for sex and I feel awful about it.  I thought that maybe if I gave him a chance, I could convince myself that he was that guy.  When the semester ended, I walked away.  I dropped out of the college I was in and moved home.  I couldn't handle the stress of being so far away from home for school anymore after my grandfather passed away, and my grades were terrible because I was so depressed that I didn't go to class.  I completely ignored the fact that this guy had thought we were in a relationship, that my heart was involved, and moved on.

I dated a few more guys over the next few months, some good, some bad.  Then I met J.  I thought he was amazing. Yet again, here was a guy I thought was cute who was paying attention to me.  There were so many warning signs but I chose to ignore them because he obviously loved and wanted to be with me, he'd asked me out!  I didn't pay attention to the fact that he didn't call when he said he would, disappeared for weeks at a time, only to come back into my life with vague apologies and explanations.  I ignored the fact that he never wanted to go out somewhere, but always wanted to go to "his apartment."  Turned out that he was married and I was the other woman.  I was heartbroken.  Here I had given my heart to yet another douche and it got torn out.  Yet I kept trying to find that perfect guy, I never started working on loving myself but thought that I needed someone else to love me to be whole.  I saw my family members in their happy relationships and thought that that was what I needed too.

So I met Geoff.  I had second thoughts at first but pushed them back as I am wont to do.  He was cute, paid attention to me, and wanted me to go out to parties and meet his friends.  I then got terrified because I didn't know what to do with a guy who obviously cared so much and I broke things off before he could hurt me.  I immediately regretted that decision, called him, dove head first into the relationship, and within the first month I was sleeping with him and staying at his house, moving to Connecticut with him after 6 months.  I had finally found it.  The guy who loved me and wanted to be with me forever.  It didn't matter to me that his mother was an issue.  It didn't matter to me that things were moving too fast, that I was ignoring things that bothered me.  I was happy.  I had found someone to love me when I didn't love myself.  It seemed a natural progression that after 1.5 years together we get engaged and married the following year.  It seemed even more urgent when he was trying to join the navy and would be leaving directly after he graduated from college, so I ignored the second thoughts I was having and planned the wedding.  Now, I'm not saying that I don't love Geoff, because I do.  Very much.  We just aren't as compatible as I had convinced myself we were, I ignored the things that made us incompatible and tried to make it work.  We fought.  A lot.  From day one.  I became infatuated with him so quickly that I was jealous of any girl who looked his way.  I was so insecure that I thought he'd leave me for one of them.

And then one day he did.  Nearly two years into our tumultuous marriage, he cheated.  I was devastated and my already low self esteem took another blow.  I wanted to leave him, but a mix of my self loathing, not wanting to leave the dogs, and his attempted suicide made me feel like it was wrong to leave and that the right thing was to stay.  If I didn't try to make it work, who would love me?  Just over a year after he cheated and we went to counseling, I was convinced that things were getting better and that we should have kids.  Natural progression right?  He can't leave me if we have a baby to take care of, the baby will help fix things or at least give me someone who loves me unconditionally.  When infertility set in, my already pained heart became almost unbearable to deal with.  I was crying all the time and so angry.  I had gained almost 100 lbs since marrying Geoff, 45 of it since his affair, and over 120 since the first time I had been dumped at 17.

Three years after we started trying to have a baby we were still fighting all the time.  He was passive aggressive, I was overly aggressive.  Every little thing became an issue.  I wanted to go out to dinner, he'd agree but then not get anything.  I always felt that he was playing the martyr, he always felt that he was being frugal and I was being unreasonable.  What had seemed like compatibility in the early days was suddenly showing itself to be an extraordinarily large rift, one that didn't feel like it could be fixed.  I sat, for years, unhappy in my marriage but feeling like this was normal, that because he is my best friend things were the way they were supposed to be.  I mean, everybody fights right?  It doesn't matter that these fights are every single day, I love him so it'll all be okay.  It wasn't until I started finding myself uncontrollably attracted to other guys that things started setting in.  I'd ask my friends and my mom and they'd all tell me that it was normal to be attracted to other guys, but this felt like more than a momentary attraction.

I finally realized that I wasn't being fair to either Geoff or myself.  That what I had thought to be harmless flirting was feeling like more than that.  Suddenly, a guy came seemingly from out of nowhere that I just could not stop thinking about.  I hardly knew him, I'd talked to him a few times but nothing in depth, mostly about school.  But I couldn't get him out of my mind.  Finally, I had the guts to tell Geoff how I was feeling, how I had been feeling for a long time.  I asked him for an open marriage/trial separation so that I could go after this guy guilt free.  I figured that it'd be a momentary fling, that I'd probably be rejected anyway, but I couldn't stop thinking about it, thinking about the potential of this other guy finding me attractive.

So I approached him.  I thought he was older than he was, more mature than he was.  When I found out his actual age and that he hadn't had sex before, I was afraid to back out.  I thought that maybe, just maybe, if I gave him a chance things would be different with him than any other guy before.  I dove in head first.  I finally told Geoff what I had wanted to say for so long, that I didn't think our marriage was working and that I thought we should divorce.  Now, I need to make this clear: I had wanted to leave for months, if not years.  I was so unhappy and felt that there was no way out and it was clear that Geoff was unhappy as well.  Then I met this new guy and suddenly there was someone paying attention to me, telling me I was beautiful, and seeming to want to plan a future.  I ignored the fact that he was so young and that while I'm quickly approaching 30, he couldn't even legally drink yet.  I ignored the fact that he was rushing into things too fast and I joined him in that rush.  It was so thrilling to have someone care, to have someone want to be with me just because they could.  I ignored the fact that texts would go unanswered for hours, that I was always the one to initiate the conversation and ask to make plans.  I was so excited that I pretended that getting into a relationship with someone so quickly after leaving my marriage was okay.  That I had been unhappy for so long I couldn't possibly be on the rebound.  I got attached to who I wanted this guy to be.

Instead of starting a friendship and moving slowly to see where things would take us, I let the infatuation take over.  I over shared my fears, desires, and hopes.  I started getting upset if he didn't call when he said he would or return a text.  I over-analyzed everything he said and did, and over emphasized how much I actually cared.  I'm not going to lie, I cared about him and still do.  Just not in the manner I thought I did.  I threw all of my anger from Geoff's seeming lack of care that I had ended our marriage into my new "relationship" in the guise of adoration, trust, and caring.  I convinced myself that, despite all of my reservations, I was making a good decision.  I was so excited when I flew home from New York and the new guy was picking me up at the airport.  I wanted to be in a new relationship so badly that I followed what I thought was his lead.  He told me he saw us in a relationship and I was elated.  Finally, someone who cared about me for me.

Then, the next night when we were talking on the phone, I was distraught.  I put all of my feelings of self loathing, and my lack of self worth onto him and was crying on the phone.  I again asked him to tell me where we stood.  I was so obsessed with being wanted and cared about that I got in too deep too fast.  I'm sure a combination of that and other things is what led him to end it that night.  In retrospect, it was for the best.  While we had a lot in common, we had both pushed aside feelings of doubt in order to pursue a relationship for the wrong reasons.  I did to feel worth something, and from what little he told me, I gather that he did to save me from my bad marriage and to feel that someone wanted him too.  I admit, I begged.  He looked at me with such cold eyes and offered no explanation other than "I just can't, I'm done" and "I wasn't ready."  Instead of realizing that I also wasn't ready, I begged him to give me a chance.  I was so afraid of being alone, of being single again for the first time in over 8 years, that I couldn't give up the romance I had created in my head.

After talking to my brother, I was able to finally realize what I had done.  That I had pushed so hard for a relationship with someone I hardly knew because I didn't want to be alone.  It was better to be with someone that I had doubts about than to truly deal with my own personal self loathing.  Because of my lack of foresight and ability to admit to myself that I wasn't ready, I lost someone who could have been an amazing friend.  I will regret that for a long time.  Instead of being content to be around someone who made me laugh, I needed that confirmation that I was important, wanted, and needed.  And that was my downfall.

Now I sit here, a week later, questioning my own self worth.  I thought that I was getting to a point where I was starting to love myself but honestly, I don't know where to start.  I'm still terrified of being alone.  Not of not being in a relationship but of truly getting to know who I really am.  For the past 12 years, I have felt I had no identity unless it was based on a man and to suddenly try to figure out who I am is scary.  I gave up so much of myself to try to please guys in order to not be alone, not be single, that I truly don't know where to start picking up the pieces of my heart and give it wholly to the person who most deserves it.  Me.  I've said for the past year that I'm trying to lose weight for myself, to be healthy and happy with how I look, but that's not 100% true.  I thought that Geoff would love me more, that our fights would stop if I lost weight.  I continued to put all of my self worth on what someone else thought instead of what I thought.  Even now, when I've realized that the key to my problem with not having successful relationships is me and my self loathing, not my weight, I have pangs of wanting to be thin to show the guys who've turned me down in the past because of my weight or who have left me for any of a number of reasons what they're missing out on.

Writing all of this down was incredibly difficult for me.  It's one thing to give lip service to your friends and family who constantly tell you that you need to love yourself before you can ever be truly happy, it's a completely different story to admit it to yourself.  I think I finally have.  Will I still be sad that I missed out on what could have been an amazing friendship because I had such a need to be loved?  Of course.  And I still have hope that in the future things can be different.  I just realize now that things will never be different until I love and respect myself.  Until I know who I truly am and what I want.  So for now my focus will be on school and my friends.  When I get involved with a man I generally throw myself completely into it.  My entire identity revolves around them, what they want and need. I thought this was how it was supposed to be, I didn't want to be thought of as selfish. I have friends but I don't give them the time I should because, in my mind, I should be doing everything to make my guy happy.  I give up my own personal happiness to make others happy and it's lead to my downfall and eventual, see current, depression.

Even as I write this I'm sitting and crying.  But you know what?  It's okay and eventually I will be too.  It's going to take time, but I'm going to go out and do things that I want to do.  I'm going to go out to the bar with my friends, have a few drinks, and flirt like crazy.  I'm going to move out and get my own place so I can focus on learning to spend time with me and getting to like me.  I'm going to throw myself into my studies and become the best nurse I can be, but most importantly of all, I'm going to figure out who Becca is.  What makes her happy, what makes her tick.  I'll finally learn that the number 30 is just that, a number.  Turning 30 won't make me suddenly an old hag, won't add wrinkles to my face or grey to my hair just as turning 21 didn't suddenly make me responsible and turning 18 didn't suddenly make me an adult.  They're just numbers, arbitrary ways of measuring the amount of time since your birth.  They don't define me.  Now it's time to figure out what does.