With both feet in a destined to fail relationship I tried to show Priscilla the love that she deserved, or the love I thought she deserved. Looking back it was a co-dependent situation for both of us. I was recovering from my stay at the hospital and continuing my daily battle with alcoholism and she had to go through a pregnancy without the father of the child. We both needed someone and were the supportive shoulders that each of us needed during this time. However, the co-dependence caused toxicity because of the situations that we were in.
After each day of work with the extermination software employment, I would head over for afternoon coffee and to help Priscilla with her tutoring. I watched each day as she went to school in the morning to teach her classes, came home in the afternoon and prepared the house for the arrival of a baby with contractors and did tutoring for about 3 to 4 hours each night. It impressed me so much to see her do this and still try to present herself as emotionally strong and stable on the outside. Inside she was dying and more and more she would open up about her struggles both in her family life, her pregnancy, and her relationship.
Over the next few months, we spent more and more time together; normally about 5 to 6 hours a day. There was an obvious attraction between us but the real question was, did we need each other or did we just need someone? We both spent the long afternoons talking about life, love, happiness, and dreams. The more I heard about the woman in front of me the more I fell for her. The deeper I fell, the more pain I was preparing for to enter my life. Nothing good could come out of this and immanent destruction of two hearts was on the horizon, but still I continued on the path.
Hind sight is always 20/20, and in all my past relationships I would try to start and stay in relationships that basically had no chance to actually function. I would look for women with strong attachments to their exes, women that I knew were fickle and players, women with boyfriends or husbands, or ones in situations where they had so much going on in their lives that there was no way it would work out between the two of us. Luckily, Priscilla fell into a few of these categories.
Although the chance of making the relationship work had about a 1% chance, I had pulled through a surgery with the same odds of survival, so it can be done. We did everything together. We went shopping for new clothes as her body grew with the pregnancy. We would laugh and joke around as she tried so hard to make herself beautiful in her eyes. Little did she know that she was always beautiful and glowing in mine. We went to multiple dinners over the months and shared our inner most secrets with each other. The more she and I 
shared, the more I opened my heart to her and fell more in love.
The most difficult thing was going through the emotional roller coaster with her as she dealt with the hormones of being pregnant and the long distance relationship she was in with her boyfriend. Every other day it seemed he would do or say something that made her extremely upset. She would then call me for a shoulder to cry on. With each of these stories about the ways her boyfriend was being an asshole, hate began to grow inside me. Why should this asshole get to stay with a person that I thought hung the moon and was becoming my best friend?
Over the pregnancy we became in essence, a couple. I brought her medicine in the middle of the night when she felt sick, I taught her kids when she was too tired to tutor, I made her CDs to try to make her feel special. I wanted to do anything I could to make her know that she needed someone to share her life with and not someone that wanted her to drop everything to be with him. Each Friday her parents would go and eat at a friend’s house which left alone. After cooking dinner one night for her, the passion between us boiled over. I guess the hormones and the need to be with another person overcame both of us. As it is with all relationships, sex changed everything. We had gone past being just friends and she was now torn. Each time after we crossed that line, she would feel like she had done something wrong. I sometimes wish I could go back and change what happened, but trying to erase the past is a futile task.
As we started talking more and more, there was the feeling that she was truly being emotionally controlled about all of her decisions by both her boyfriend and her mom. Priscilla’s ideas for happiness and what she wanted with her life were polar opposites of the life she was living. I knew that if she stayed with her boyfriend for the entire pregnancy, she would be destined to spend the rest of her life (or at least another 20 years, as he was 20 years older than her) with the father of the child. It did not matter if she was happy or not. Her boyfriend would use the baby to control her and stay with him, basically talking about how life would be without the father of the child around or threatening to take him away. She would also be controlled by her mother and her Catholic beliefs and the fact that her mother thought that her families’ image was based on her daughter staying in the relationship. Once that child was born she would never leave him no matter how unhappy she was. I had a time table of about 4 months to try to show her that there was another life out there, a life in which she followed her dreams instead of those of others.
The worst part about emotionally abusive people is that they know exactly when their victims are thinking of pulling away and getting out of their controlled environment. Her boyfriend was just that. You may think I am just saying this because of how much I did not like this guy, but it was more than that. This abusive persona was picked up on by everyone that saw Priscilla and her boyfriend in public. Each time that I was able to bring Priscilla a step or two in the direction of freedom and living her own life, he would feel her pulling away and use techniques to control her more. His most used technique was talking about how the child could not have a good life without him in it. He could provide money, he could provide a higher status in society, and he was the father of the child, and a child without a father could not be happy. Although these statements were proven false, he had control over Priscilla.
There were the lies and false promises each and every day. You will be in the USA with me to have the 
baby…false. I will have a job right away and that is why I had to leave…false. I am not talking to my ex-girlfriend in Costa Rica that is 30 years younger than me while you are pregnant…false. But even though everyone around her knew this was absolute bullshit, she took it hook line and sinker. As the pregnancy went on, the thought continued to come into my head, she has to look out financially for the child and right now this is her best option. She had it perfect, I was here to help her emotionally and he was there to help her financially. The only thing that could not happen was having those 2 worlds collide.
All of the times we were together she would only hold my hand or act loving towards me when she was sure that there was no one around that might know her boyfriend or her mother. We would go to places to eat that were very secluded and where there was no chance of her being caught. Since I had fallen head over heels for her, I could not see the truth. All I wanted to do was to help her through a tough time in her life as she had done for me; I could “save her” while being her support and that would be the icing on the cake.
With about two months left in the pregnancy I felt like I was finally getting through to her to make changes in her life and relationship. She was acting like she had finally had enough of being with this guy. She was going “to talk” to him and tell her how she felt. I knew that it was not much, but perhaps it would at least provide him some insight into the heart of the mother of his child. Maybe he would change and she would find happiness with him. A person changing their persona after the age of 30 is almost impossible (he was 51) and I did not see him as a person that wanted to change for anyone else. She had to fit into his life the way he wanted it, this was a dictatorship not a democracy. He arrived the next morning and like his good little slave, she went to the airport pregnant with her father to wait for him. He could not be bothered with taking a taxi to her house.
Through text messages she expressed that there was no love or compassion between them. I thought she might actually have grown the balls to break free; a glimpse of hope entered my soul. I went over for afternoon coffee a couple of days later as I had to get my emotions and anger in check for the first couple of days he was there in Costa Rica. Her father was there but Priscilla was not and he suggested I should go say hello to my ex-boss.
I knew he was leaving in the next 48 hours so decided to gather myself and put on a hell of an act to hide my true emotions. Upon entering the house I had a feeling like I was being seen as Judas to both her mother and father. Priscilla exited the bathroom with red eyes and tear marked cheeks.
Pricilla’s Boyfriend – “Do you want to tell him?”
Priscilla looked over to me with a look of absolute pain and a heartfelt apology could be seen in her eyes with the pain she was about to shoot into my heart.
Priscilla’s boyfriend – “Priscilla and I are getting married today…….”
Next Up – An Alcoholic Breaking Point
