Imagining a Future

Dear Friends,
I met the love of my life in August, 2007. Our first kiss was October 4 and it was wowie zowie at first sight. As I drove home from that first date I told my friend that if I believed in love at first sight, this was it. Mike is the sexiest, most gorgeous, strong, gentle, kind, and wonderful guy ever. We saw each other again and again and were soon saying the "L Word" ~ much sooner than my friends thought was prudent.

We waited a looooong time to make love the first time and it was soooooo hard to wait! Every time I saw him my heart jumped and bounced. I could barely breathe. I craved him with every inch of my skin and every sexual impulse of my body. When we finally did spend our first night together it was even better than I had imagined. That really doesn't happen in the real world, but it did for me that night.

Our sex life and our love just grew and grew. We were in love and all that goes with it. We had the stupid grins, the sighs at random moments, the little lover's secrets, and the big plans for a life together.

I knew from the start that he and his mother were close. I also knew he and his sons lived with her and her husband and their other adult son. I knew that Mike had moved in with his parents under extraordinary circumstances and that he had not lived with them since he joined the Navy to get away from them at age 17. He had only lived there three months when I met him. Surely it was only temporary. I understood. I was in love.

Mike's mom (M) escaped Cuba with her family when she was 12 and came to the US for political asylum. She is adorable and has a fierce love for her family. I liked her right away. I knew Mike was her pride and joy, so of course she'd love me. After all, he loved me and she'd want him to be happy, right? Can you say, "naive"??

She basically hates my guts. First, she is Baptist, so the very fact that I am a woman and a pastor makes me at least suspect, and more likely a straight-up Sinner! The man should be the spiritual head of the household, so how could her son be married to a minister? Then she mentioned once or twice that she and I should go to lunch sometime so we could have "girlfriend time" or something. Mike lives five hours away from me, so when I am in town our time together is precious. I just never made a priority of spending time with her alone in the early days. We finally sat down together to talk in March. She asked me to "make Mike" do some things (like quit smoking). I told her I don't know how to make another person do anything and if I did I wouldn't. I love and respect Mike as he is. I'll support him, but I won't try to change him.

I thought that was a loving and responsible thing for me to say. She thought I was uncaring and cold. She complained to Mike that I didn't spend enough time with Mike's little boy, N. Mike and I had already agreed not to invest N too much in our relationship until/unless we got engaged. N's mother has abandoned him and we didn't want to risk another mother figure abandoning him. Again, Mike's mom thought that meant I didn't care about N and would never bond with him. Clearly I was not the right one for Mike. Then she brought out the big guns and told Mike that she had prayed about it and God told her I wasn't the one. Then she had a dream about the "right one" and she wasn't quite sure who she was, but it wasn't me.

Oh, and for good measure Mike's parents "banned" me from their home. So now they hated my guts and never saw me, so there was no chance for them to get to know who I really am or to see me interact casually with N. Of course I never did anything to any of them. I was treated like a criminal, like it was dangerous for me to be in their home or something. I mean, who bans somebody from their house? I had never heard of such a thing, unless it was someone who had stolen from the house or something.

Poor Mike was living two lives; one inside the house and another outside. He had to negotiate time with me behind his parents' back because if they knew he was going out with me they would do something to sabotage it. Months went by and Mike never moved out of their house. Finally I couldn't take it any more and I broke up with him in September.

I've been meeting other men and have gone out with one new guy. I am supposed to be moving on and letting Mike go. But I'm still desperately in love with him I want him back, but nothing has changed. I don't know what to do. Somehow I've got to either imagine a way to have a life with him or imagine a way to have a life without him. Neither is working too well right now.

Be well and happy,
Mary