I faked a happy relationship.
CAUTION: NOT-VERY-FUNNY CLOUD OF MELANCHOLY AHEAD.

Those who are familiar with my QOTW answers will know that I am disastrous at relationships. It's not that I can't get into them, it's the fact that they always seem to fall apart in hugely spectacular ways; from the woman who got her calendar muddled up and had another bloke turn up for her while I was still staying with her to 'open-minded' girl with whom I ended it after she suggested she would quite like to fuck me up the arse with a strap-on, all my relationships tend to fuck up in quite extraordinary fashion.

However, there is one that completely dwarfs all the others. One that fell apart so slowly and agonizingly that it almost dragged me down for good, and through it all, I faked to everyone - friends, family, the lot - that everything was completely OK.

The story is thus. It began, tragically, with my girlfriend of the time getting pregnant. It was unplanned, the pill hadn't worked, and we were teenagers and bricking it. My parents would have thrown me out and her father would have probably killed her and then me, and we didn't even know how to tell anyone about it let alone consider raising a child. As is the usual thing in these situations, an abortion was decided on. We lied to ourselves that it would be easy "in, out, problem solved, right?". It's never that simple, and it was the start of eight months of tears, blame and recriminations that came so very close to taking two people to the very end.

First, there was the lies to the families that we were "just going away for a few days for a holiday", when really we spent the entire time drinking ourselves into stupor and crying. Late nights of screaming and her calling me a murderer for letting her go through with it, even though I was inescapably 300 miles away at the time, and would have given anything to be there with her. Over the course of the next eight months, she veered wildly between taking photographs of herself wearing her aunt's engagement ring and telling all our friends I'd proposed to being taken to hospital after stabbing herself in the stomach in a bid to end it all, all under the cover of her father's work meaning he was away for weeks at a time. Meanwhile, I tore myself between desperately trying to keep her from hurting herself, trying to get her to get help and trying to drown my own guilt in a drinking problem which had become so serious it would eventually grow to cause me to fail my degree. Still we kept up the pretence of being a happy couple to everyone else, even though the facade must have been beginning to slip.

By the end, we had become a terrible shadow of what we were at the beginning. We had had a year of wonderful teenage romance, where the sun always shines and the days go on forever, but now I was in a tiny one-room flat, drinking from the moment I woke up until the moment I passed out again, and spending my waking hours desperately trying to 'save' a girl who by now had now become anorexic and was swinging violently between drinking and suicide, and still the only people who knew about any of this were us and her doctor - If they ever informed her dad then he didn't care, but I don't think they did.

She was cheating on me and I had long since stopped finding her physically attractive, but we would get together and either have sex or simply lay on the bed crying and wishing the whole sorry mess away. She went away for a few days to Slough and cheated on me again, and I found myself in my flat, having not eaten in days, drinking a bottle of whisky and trying to cut her name into my arm with a razor blade I'd stomped on specifically for the purpose.

Something - probably common sense, or survival instinct - grabbed me and, right then, I stopped pretending. I picked up the phone and spilled my guts out. I told my mother everything - the abortion, the drinking, everything. I wanted out, out of that place, out of that situation, out of that city, even. Within a month I was gone. I had failed my degree and was back living with my mother as I was a complete emotional wreck, but I was out. Just over 18 months later, with lots of counselling, some understanding and some great friends, I'm now the man you see before you. As far as I've heard through a few mutual friends, she's happy as well now, shacked up with a new bloke and having a kid by him, not making the same mistake twice. Some people are just mutually destructive together, and I hold no grudges and couldn't be more happy for her. I'm glad she made it out too.

The moral of this story is, if you are in trouble, don't fake like you aren't. Your friends, your family, your co-workers, all of them want to help you, and no good can come from not letting them. I very nearly became a victim of thinking I could fix everything by myself, and fuck me, I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

If you need help, for fuck's sake, tell someone.

Oh, and if you're reading this, honey, I'm so happy for you. I hope you've got all you ever wanted.
( Shegetz Chris Kamara's comedy moustache, Tue 15 Jul 2008, 5:55, 5 replies)

Elements of this
ring very true for me so in some small way I can relate.

As is customary, please have one of these:

*manhug*

and also a smashing big *click*
(apple pie - eat me with ice cream, Tue 15 Jul 2008, 6:31, closed)

Bravely Told
Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Tue 15 Jul 2008, 8:25, closed)

I totally agree
There are elements of this that I can really relate to.. and yes you're right, 2 people can be terribly destructive.

You have to laugh though mate, otherwise you'd go mad..have a click from me.
(TheRiddler Hmmmmm... I concur., Tue 15 Jul 2008, 8:48, closed)

I have faked interest
in this extremely long-winded story
( MisterPunch did it that way on, Tue 15 Jul 2008, 16:52, closed)

No need for the disclaimer at the start
this is positive with a happy conclusion and hard-learned advice that could save some poor cunts life.
click
(Ktulu O'Ryleh float like a turd, sting like chlamydia, Wed 16 Jul 2008, 8:58, closed)