If family or friends had issues with the one you are romantically involved with, would you listen? How much influence would you allow others to have on your relationship?
This is a bit long, please bear with me.
Oh my! Where to start? This very topic has been a very big part of my life, actually.
Several times.
It all started in 1997. August. I had just come home the previous month from my student teaching experience in Australia. I was living in an apartment shared by three other girls – that’s four of us beauties altogether. One of the girls and I had discovered chat rooms – the same weekend – different towns, different computers, different rooms, though. Heheh. Anyway…
When I returned from my trip, I introduced Theresa to the chat room that I had found. It was different, but she liked it. Soon, we were both regulars in the room. With her flamboyant and zesty personality (on and offline), and my outgoing and fun personality online (very shy in real life), we were bound to be a hit. And we were! We met a lot of really nice people. How wonderful to be able to “reach out and touch someone” all over the world! Very fun!
We met different kinds of people, and we both had a list of online friends. One of the people that I had met before going to Australia, in my first chat room, was David. He and I became fast friends and kept in contact while I was in the land down under. While I was there, we became closer and had talked of meeting some time after I returned to the states. It was exciting. I loved this internet thing. People get to know each other without other things getting in the way – superficial things like how you look. Heheh. A few weeks after I had returned (in July), we did meet. I drove from Wisconsin to Ohio for an interesting weekend. I had the use of my parents’ car because I had told them that was going to some kind of seminar. Then I returned home. I never guessed what would follow in that weekend’s wake.
Theresa and I used to sit at the computer and share – both talking in a room, or just one and the other watching. She met and became friends with a young man named Jeff. Theresa introduced him and me, and we just clicked. We started talking often, and pretty soon, we took it to… the phone. We would talk often and sometimes for hours, and it seemed inevitable that we would some day meet. We talked about it, and we finally planned it. It’s just one of those things, ya know? You start getting to know someone, and you want to take it to the next level. Well, when you start on the computer, then phone, the next level IS meeting.
He lives in New Orleans, and I, at the time, lived in Wisconsin. It was around October, and he had mentioned a good time to meet would be over Halloween because he had tickets to Anne Rice’s annual Halloween shindig down there in N’awlins. Well, we finally made the decision, and I booked the tickets. I got off the plane, looking for Jeff. He was nowhere to be seen. I was nervous enough, I didn’t need this! Heheh. As I was walking down the corridor, I heard this whistle. You know the kind – that hey-you-sexy-thing-you kind of whistle. I slowly looked over to my right, and sitting back all relaxed-like was a young man, his one foot was resting upon the other knee. (You know – how guys sit.) His arm was lazily laid upon the back of the chair beside him. Yeah yeah, cocky dude! I walked over to him, and he stood. He kissed me, just as I had imagined he would. It was so incredibly wonderful.
That was the start to our whirlwind romance. After a spectacular weekend in New Orleans – walking through the French Quarter, going to a book signing and meeting Anne Rice (who, by the way, showed up in a coffin carried in a hearse), attending Anne Rice’s annual ball, and just spending some quality with a man with whom I was falling in love – we began to call each other more and more frequently. He came up to see me, and we made plans for the future.
During this time, my family was suspicious about me “getting myself into some sinful ways”. They had their suspicions about why I had really driven out to Ohio, and things started unraveling from there. While I was home on the weekends, I would use my mom’s computer and my sister’s computer to talk on ICQ to David, who I had met in Ohio. Being fairly new to the whole thing that Fall, I didn’t sweep up my “trail”, and my sister found the chat history with David, where she found out that I went out to meet him.
All this is happening without my knowledge. I returned from Ohio and told David that, unfortunately, I could not continue anything with him because I knew that my family would never approve. After all, I had grown up in a very religious home – Baptist and penticostal, to be exact – and there were certain biblical “laws” that I had already broken by spending my time with him.
One night I heard a knock on my door. I went down the stairs to answer it, and there were my two sisters and best friend, Stacey. What made this bizarre is that they all lived a couple of hours away from me, and it was about 9:00pm. I welcomed them in, and we chatted for a bit. I thought it was a great surprise, and they seemed happy enough. They suggested that we go to Perkins Family Restaurant, and I agreed. We ordered and waited for our food, having pleasant conversations. Nothing seemed amiss. Once we got our food, my sisters just dived right in. They told me that they knew about why I had driven out to Ohio and that I had been intimate with a man. (This was a BIG no-no, mind you.) I was absolutely stunned. I tried to defend myself, but they retorted with all kinds of proof from the computer and whatnot. I didn’t know what to say.
Needless to say, I was a bit stunned. I was angry at the breach of privacy. I was upset that they seemed to feel the need to have some kind of ”intervention”, etc. I was just plain uncomfortable. We left and drove back to my place, and they talked to me, tried to make me see why what I was doing was wrong, confessed some things to me to show that they weren’t perfect either – all under the guise that they cared about me and that they loved me. Don’t get me wrong. I have no doubt that my sisters and friend love me. This was just not what I deemed a beautiful demonstration of such.
They had no idea that by the time they were talking to me, I had moved on from David to Jeff. I assured them that I was no longer seeing David, and that it would never again get to the point that it had with him. I knew that was true. I was with Jeff now. He even called during the time that they were talking to me. I answered the phone, crying (caller id – I knew it was him), and he was deeply concerned. I told him that I’d call him back afterwards. My sisters and friend thought it was David. I didn’t offer any extra information to the contrary. It was a mess.
They finally left for their drive home, and I called Jeff. Needless to say, he was furious. What right did my family have to tell me what I could and could not do with my life. I knew that’s how people would see it. However, I grew up in a family of born-again Christians, and I professed to be one, too. How could I be doing this and be a Christian at the same time. Well, I just decided to keep my relationship with Jeff to myself. I didn’t tell my family about him at all. Not at first. I hadn’t yet met him at this point.
As I was getting ready to go to New Orleans for the first time to meet Jeff, I had to tell my family something. Since “the talk”, they kept pretty close tabs on me, even though I lived a couple of hours away. They would call and ask how I was and stuff. I didn’t mind completely. My family was very tight-knit. I, of course, had to make up a story for the weekend that I would be gone to N’awlins. I knew they were suspicious, but they didn’t say anything. So, I went down to meet him.
He flew up here, too. When he returned home, we were both crying because we’d miss each other so much. (It’s the beginning of December by this time.) He made plans to come back up in a couple of weeks to go to my company’s Christmas party weekend. It would be a paid night in a glorious lodge up in Door County, Wisconsin. We knew that it would be romantic. The actual Christmas dinner was a formal, so I had gotten my gown from my sister, who owns a bridal shop. She, of course, didn’t know that I’d be going with Jeff.
The next time he came for a visit was over New Year’s Eve. We went out with Theresa, and that night he proposed. The next day we went to find a ring, and we were engaged. I was so in love with him, and he with me. Jeff was beyond wonderful, and I truly did love him. I also felt utterly loved.
I don’t remember the details, but I told my parents about Jeff. I knew that they would not be pleased on several different levels. Number one, he wasn’t a Christian. Number two, he is Jewish. Things went downward from there. When I told my family, I was nearly ostracized. My sisters would call me, and we would get into huge fights. They did not feel that it was right to marry someone who was not a Christian and would never be a Christian. I realized where they were coming from, and I knew the scriptures that supported their stance. I fought hard. I was crying all the time. I was majorly stressed out.
It came time for me to graduate from college (this is May now - months of fighting and anguish.) My sisters told me that they would not be part of my life until I saw the error of my ways (paraphrased). I was a complete mess. I was in love with someone whom my family would never accept, and it was hurting me so much. My family was so close, and this is just something that they NEVER expected from their “sweet little angel”. Yeah, I was an angel. I had always done what I was supposed to do. No one ever guessed that I would be the fallen one.
It was nearing my graduation, and Jeff had tickets to come and see me. I finally broke down. I realized that I could never live without my family, and that’s the choice they were giving me – Jeff or them. I knew that if Jeff and I married, it would never work because I know me, and I could see what the future would bring me if I did go through with the marriage. I would never be happy, and I’d make Jeff miserable, and it just wouldn’t be a good thing. So, I called off the engagement. It hurt like nothing had ever hurt before. I couldn’t marry the man that I loved. I knew that my family was not offering empty threats. They had done this same thing to my brother-in-law’s sister, so I knew they’d do it to me, and I just couldn’t fathom a life without my family. I broke. They broke me.
Jeff came to my graduation anyway. I loved having him there, but when my family found out, they refused to come to my graduation. I tried pleading with them – it was an important day in my life. My parents would come, but not my sisters. I even kept Jeff from the ceremony because my parents wouldn't have even come if I hadn't promised them that he wouldn't be there. That’s something that I truly regret. I told my parents that he wouldn’t be there, and he wasn’t. If I could do it over again, he would be there! It was an uncomfortable day. Even though there were the pleasantries, there was a tension that could be cut with a knife – it was so tangible. I could tell that the only reason they were there was because they felt obligated.
So how much would I allow friends or family to affect my relationship? Too much. I broke off an engagement and a relationship with someone I loved - for them. Would I do it again? I can’t say. I am a much different person now. I have been through a lot with my family, even since then. I would like to say that I am a stronger person, but I will never know unless I am in a similar situation.
This has been a collaboration for the "If..." Project - May 2002.
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