Inside the Mind of the Hopeless Romantic

Everybody in life wants to be loved, but what are you willing to put up with to get it? As all girls do, I watched all the sappy love movies growing up. Naturally, I craved that kind of love. I always dreamed of finding my knight in shining armor even if it meant taking a few bruises to get there. Now of course I dated in my teenage years, always believing the “I love him so much” feeling that every new guy was “the one.” I eventually realized that was never the case. They were just teenage loves that never really amounted to anything more.

I met my first real love when I was 19... my son's father. This man lit up my entire world and became my best friend. I got pregnant right away not even thinking of it because how could someone that loves you ever hurt you?! That was my first mistake, believing that real love didn’t come with any pain. He and I did everything together—random road trips singing at the top of our lungs, staying up all night talking about life and losses, just seeing the world. For a while I believed that was the movie love I always wanted, but that’s the thing movies don’t tell you... it's staged and nothing will ever be like that. I made excuses for his actions because I thought he’d never hurt me again.

The first incident was when I was about five months pregnant... We lived in a very small apartment and his temper got the best of him. He pushed me into a bookshelf to “catch his balance.” I was in shock not fathoming how the man that loved me could ever cause me harm. We didn't talk for several hours and when I finally got the courage to ask him “how could you?” he stated that it was an accident and how sorry he was.

Mistake number two... believing it was an accident. In all reality that was just the beginning of “accidents.” Everything was amazing again for months. Then I had an attitude that needed to be dealt with. My attitude cost me my son's ultrasound pictures, my late grandmother's elephant statues, and most of my dignity. Again, I made excuses and blamed myself because maybe I deserved it, maybe I could've acted differently. The only thought was, “He loves me and could never really hurt me, right?” WRONG!!! We always had such amazing times that the bad ones seemed to just be “accidents.”

Nine months later, our beautiful baby boy was born and all seemed right in the world. That was one thing the two of us have always seen eye-to-eye on. I so badly wanted a family that I always pushed the bad tempers and throwing of things and breaking of things to the side. The countless cribs we bought our son were just more “accidents.,” the numerous formula containers that would get emptied on the floor were just mistakes, and the hospital visits for my dehydration due to countless hours of crying were just more accidents. He never harmed our child so that made him a good guy, right? He paid the bills and provided for his family so he was “the one,” right? Until finally the bruises because of my attitude, the cuts because I had run out of ways to handle anything, the drinking nightly because maybe if I was drunk enough I wouldn’t feel the next blow became too much to keep making excuses for the man I believed was a fairytale. My life and my son's life had to become more important than the life we shared and finally it did!

Love is pain. Love is forgiveness. It's not always going to be easy and peaceful but when you start making excuses for actions you know shouldn’t be taking place, it's no longer love... it's abuse. Find the strength in yourself to know the difference because it's there in all of you that say, “he didn’t mean to,” “it won’t happen again,” or “but he loves me.” It’s been a year since I decided that wasn’t love and he no longer scares me, no longer has control over me, and I no longer make excuses for him. I’m free from him and that's the best feeling I’ve ever experienced! The next time someone tells you love has no boundaries, always remember it does.