Our Relationship Before I Knew

I thought I was ready. Long distance, no problem! Yes distance is hard, but that's to be expected. For Luke and I things were decent until I went to visit him for Christmas. I started noticing more tension between us. We didn't fight, yell, or get overly upset, but there was an air of frustration throughout our relationship. I was frustrated because my needs weren't being met and he was frustrated because he felt like a failure for not fulfilling those needs. A few things often discussed were him working too hard, not following through, and not being interested in spirituality. He had all the right intentions but something was different.

I would often get emotional because of the underlying tension and confusion. I told myself we were just going through a phase and that our problems were situational: he had a new job, wanted to work more to save money, we were long distance half the time, etc. I acknowledged our problems, but I thought they'd go away when he went back to school. Also I had a lot more free time than he did. I am a Nutritionist and I travel around giving health seminars and cooking classes. Because I'm starting out, I often have quite a bit of time between gigs. I try to fill that time with productivity, but (frankly) the fact is I have a lot of free time. Because of this I told myself he didn't have the time I had to invest in our relationship. I told myself not to be too hard on him because I had an unfair advantage. However, I still had needs that weren't being met so this coupled with my attempt at not being too hard on him created a passive agressive monster inside me. Luke had a cute name for being passive aggressive "Pass Ag," but  it wasn't cute. He didn't think so either.

After my Christmas visit to Florida I was very busy during and communication between was sparse. Thing were hard enough when just trying to find time to talk, but then this zinger came my way: One day Luke called to tell me his supervisor Cathy (who was also his age and married) had confessed she had feelings for him. He was sad because he didn't know how do deal with her and scared things would be awkward at work. I freaked out! I tried to handle the news like an adult, but I just felt like there was something off about the whole thing.

From then on, I was paranoid. I couldn't believe him when he'd say she was just innocently telling him her feelings. I know what women do; they get their way on the sly. This girl was smart, and into women's rights so she wasn't about to wait for the guy she wanted to make a move, she'd make it first if she had to.

For two months I lived in Florida before another stint of travel. I wanted to spend some time with him before things got busy again. I was looking forward to exploring the beaches and the seeing the sights. I was hoping for romance! However, instead I got two months of living in a crappy apartment with a random I found on craigslist and being paranoid because I felt like there was more to the Cathy story. There was a lot of good. I knew he loved me but the tension was still there. He worked a lot, I was alone a lot.

I left again. Things were hard. I visited for two weeks between gigs and it was pretty horrible. At this point there was so much tension between us and disappointment on my part that there was no avoiding that something needed to be changed. I couldn't make anymore excuses. Before I left we decided to go on a break. My stupid suggestion... The plan was we'd get our lives back on track spiritually and recenter ourselves before being together again when he returned to school (I was planning on settling down in the area and not traveling as far and wide). It seemed like a good plan.

During our break I talked to God. I really did become closer to Him. I presented my relationship before God and I felt like he was still leading me to stay in it. During this time God led me to forgive Cathy for her stupidity and inappropriate forwardness which caused me so much paranoia. He also led me to forgive Luke for being stupid enough to leave the door open wide enough for someone to be comfortable enough to say something like that. I also let go of my paranoia. A while back I had started a list of "fishy" things that I thought could be possible pieces of evidence of infidelity. During this time I deleted it. I really let go and I told God "I'm paranoid. I don't know what's going on but I feel like there might be something more than just a friendship between them. Something just doesn't seem right God. Please reveal it to me. But until that time you reveal it let me be happy." I really let go.

If I could do it differently, I would have broken up with him right after Christmas when things started going south. I think that would have been the wake up call he needed to see that he was headed down a bad path, but I stuck to it. I loved him! Maybe it was for the best that we stayed together through all this. I don't know yet.

Backstory Pt. 2

Luke had one more year of college left. Our plan was that he would finish school while I lived and worked in the area. I loved him. He was the one, so I had no problems at all with this plan. Our summer together after my graduation was blissful, but Luke had left a summer job opportunity to travel with me for my job. My guess is that he started feeling a little useless, so during a visit we made to his parents home in Florida he applied for a job with the intentions of working only the remainder of the summer. However, they didn't want to offer him a temporary position and asked if he'd be willing to work full time for the rest of the year. He took the job.

Luke made it seem like he made a thoughtful and prayerful decision, but I had a gut feeling he was rushing into things. However, it seemed like such a great opportunity that I quieted my intuition. The job offered was at a juvenile detention center as an activities coordinator. The upside of this job would be he'd get experience working in a field closely related to the one he wanted to pursue (social work), and he would be able to save to pay off school loans. It seemed like such a solid plan. Sometimes solid doesn't equal good, but more on that later. I was so proud of him that I overlooked the fact that it would mean our relationship would go through some changes; our timeline for marriage would be off and we'd have to deal with long distance. At this time our relationship was still pretty new and I didn't feel qualified, if you will, to question his decisions. So I marched forward. 

I read recently in a John Eldredge book that "Starting very early in our lives life teaches us to ignore and distrust the deepest yearning of our heart." At this time I was learning to distrust myself, to be too understanding, and to ignore what I felt was right and what I yearned for. 

Because of his new job I would be back and forth between my home in Connecticut and his in Florida as well as going different places my job took me. I had no idea what I was in for. Yes, long distance relationships are hard, but I wasn't prepared for what was to come.

Backstory Pt. 1

I met Luke almost two years ago in one of my classes my last semester in college. He was charming, funny, and different. Because graduation was just around the corner I was not interested in meeting anyone new. Because I had no intentions of dating I let my guard down around Luke. We started hanging out as friends, but before long we had fallen for each other...hard.

Our relationship progressed steadily and things were working out for us. We had so much in common, so much depth, and so much laughter! It really was the dream relationship in many respects. It wasn't too long before we knew that our relationship was headed towards marriage. We talked comfortably about our future together: a dog, a house and how we'd decorate, what our job situation would be like, the whole nine yards.

One thing you may need to know about us is that we were both committed christians. This will color the story differently as you read more. Our commitment to christ, or at least what I thought was a commitment, was/is very important to me.

How did Eva and Luke go from a committed christian couple talking about marriage to him cheating leaving me bewildered? I wish I knew the answer to that question. I may never understand why this happened. I can however, write about it. Writing has always helped me cope. This blog is my attempt at coping.

Stay tuned for more.