Love is a trap

             LOVE IS A TRAP.....

  Love is a Trap. Now I don't necessarily mean that in a bad way... let me explain, Love Hurts....in loving someone we give them the power to maim us in ways that we cannot even imagine. Doesn't matter what kind of love either, it applies to all love. However, we willingly relieve someone who's hurt us of their responsibility for doing so. That is absolutely absurd. 

          I had a rough childhood, viciously physically abusive father, emotionally unavailable, neglectful mother. I went through my childhood hiding bruises from my dad, wearing dirty clothes that smelled to hell of cat urine because my mom didn't care enough to neuter the male cat, What's worse is she didn't care enough to make sure our clothes were clean. Some days my hair wasn't combed and my face was dirty. My mom was the epitome of a battered woman. She tried so hard to fly under Dad's fists that everything else just fell away. I was bullied mercilessly in school because we were poor. Smelling like a filthy litter box just made things escalate, spurning the cruel creatures that were my classmates on to further heights of bullying. It was a never ending nightmare that I had no way of breaking free of as a young child. Still I loved my parents and every time they hurt me was another shocking blow to my system. At eight years old my brother decided to add incestuous sexual abuse to everything else I was dealing with. Still, I loved my brother and still he hurt me, I would silently beg God to end what he was doing to me, tears coursing down my cheeks in the dark. My paternal grandmother was a vicious, unhappy woman who played favorites and manipulated everyone around her. Still I loved her, wanted her approval and desperately wanted her love,  Still I made excuses for my family and the crappy versions of love they showed me. I accepted it because I didn't know enough to demand better.

            At fourteen I fell in love for the first time. His name was M, he was seventeen and about to enter the Navy. He was completely honest about wanting to sleep with me without commitment. I allowed it to happen because my views of love were so skewed. I lied about my age and when he found out he ended it with me. Still I loved him, chased after him under the guise of remaining friends and allowed him to come back and use my body whenever he wanted to.  What followed was a blur of me being promiscuous, though I didn't sleep with every guy. I met E at fifteen, he was twenty one and he felt different to me though he too drew the friends with benefits line. It was easier to fall into it with him because he made me feel seen, made me try to do better, act mature, dress well, carry myself and comport myself as the intelligent person I was. He even taught me to stand up to M and expect more from him. It was so easy to fall for him because the carnal side of our relationship was like nothing I had ever felt, passionate, intense, all consuming and he spoke to me. Long intelligent conversations about everything. I realize now how disturbing it is that I was fifteen and he was seven years older, an adult to my adolescent. The age difference never bothered me until I became a mother and realized I would not be comfortable with my son dating someone seven years his senior at fifteen years old. I digress though so back to my story. I fell head over heels, shout it from the roof tops in love with E and I couldn't help but tell him so. He hugged me and told me he loved me, but he wasn't in love with me, he reminded me that he told me the night we met he didn't want anything serious. That should have been the end of our relationship he should have broken my heart then to spare me further pain but instead continued to sleep with me, lavish time and affection on me. I excused his responsibility for hurting me not just because I loved him and was delusional that I could make him love me the way I loved him but also because I didn't know any better. I had never observed or had healthy relationships with anyone in my life except for a very few family members and an even smaller set of friends. So I excused the fact that he knowingly hurt me by continuing to cavort with me even though he knew he could never love me the same.  I excused him out of hope and naivete, the very same things he used against me to continue screwing me, He was no different than anyone else I loved he just manipulated me. Any time I felt like standing up for myself and called him out on his willingness to hurt me he would turn it around on me and remind me that I knew what I was getting into. He would even be filled with self righteous anger I mistook as his wanting me with him so badly he couldn't stand to lose me. So I excused his responsibility and let him hurt me more. This went on for almost a year. He became my best friend, I told him everything, He continued to use my body even after becoming involved in a relationship with this woman N. He told her I was his best friend and brought us around each other, I was so yonng, stupid and in love I adapted an I had him first policy, continuing to sleep with him even though I knew they were serious. My low point was letting him screw me bent over the toilet in the bathroom of the apartment he shared with N, while she was asleep! I am not proud of it and I wish I could apologize to her for it now, Then M came back into my life in a real way. I refused flat out to sleep with him the last time we had seen each other, telling M I didn't want to be someone's side piece, or someone's not good enough to  be their girlfriend. We started a penpal type of relationship and wrote each other letters about everything that was going on in our lives, We talked on the phone. We started building a genuine bond. I had started to  pull away from E as well, that self esteem he had been trying to teach me was finally taking hold. I devised reasons to avoid going over there when N wasn't around.                 M was finally viewing me seriously, he wrote m