relationships, marriage, women, and love
There have been a number of articles posted on this platform but also others on the topic of relationships, marriage, women, and love. There are different kinds of articles, ranging from married mothers caring for their families, women flaming men for some reason or another, and some who have a.... different.... view on relationships altogether.
One very memorable and commotion-stirring article (and YT video) was from @MarcDeMesel, and it reaped the whirlwind on Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, and here on read cash.
You can read it here:
https://read.cash/@MarcDeMesel/am-i-preying-on-young-girls-db244bd7
Unpopular perspective and opinion.
When I noticed this "trend" if one could call it that, I got to thinking about my own personal views, feelings, and opinions on the relationship between, in my case, a Man and a Woman. I realized after some thought that my perspective is not an average one, nor is it a popular one these days.
Go with the trends, they always say.
I also realized that the experiences in my life that lead me to the perspective I now have is one that connects directly into my three-part article series "My miserable life, a cautionary tale" which I posted here a couple of months ago. In fact, it is a fundamental part, the start even, of the downward spiraling descent of my life that ended with me being deeply in debt, having a debt help agency appointed by a judge to handle my finances, basically forbidding me to make any decisions that concern money.
Sentenced to "Beschermd Bewind"
Basically, my welfare money goes to them, they pay my bills and try to pay off debtors, and give me a weekly allowance for food, clothes, drinks, transportation, and anything fun.
Might not be appreciated by my ex-wife though.
So I decided, despite fearing it might damage the tenuous relationship i now have with my ex-wife and mother of my son, to regale you with the story of how the misery in my life began.
Short recap of the life i lived until July 2008.
To be completely honest: My life was perfect!
I lived in a nice apartment, had nice furniture, and I always had a computer system that was the bleeding edge of technology. I could eat and drink what I wanted, and my social circle was spread over the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and Luxembourg. Real people that I spent time with in person, not via the internet!
I had a job that I liked and made me happy, and made me smile every day on my way to and from work. I got paid to do my hobby. Back then I liked, and still like, to solve computer problems for people. It's what I have wanted to do since I was 9 years old. In 2008, I worked as an IT-Support Specialist and I loved every minute of it. Besides loving what I did, I also got paid pretty well. I earned more money than I spent each month, I had a company car and a tank pass for fuel.
Work hard and play hard!
I had been living my life according to that motto: "Work hard, Play hard!" since 1992, when i looked something like this:
That was still my motto in my life in 2008. When i looked something like this:
Each weekend, after a 60-80 hour workweek, I went to hardcore raves, or I went to "LAN-Parties" (multiplayer online gaming events) with my friends. And we had fun and we were happy. I had long since reconciled myself with the idea I would probably never find a woman that would want to be with me, let alone marry me and have a child with me.
Then I went to Lancamp 2008, in Kasterlee in Belgium, and met my fate.
One Lan-Party that we went to in the summer, our vacation, was an event that was 11 days long. The basic concept was to come to a field in the woods with 1000+ gamers, set up army tents and facilities, connect a superfast network, and spend every day shooting each other, racing each other, BBQing, drinking around the campfire
(shhht, no one tell my ex-wife she is the one in orange!)
and whatever else a nerd in such an environment can think of that is fun to do.
The view from just above my monitors:
One of the people in the organization of the event was the woman that owned the Army Tents we rented, in which we set up our "Battlestations" (what we call our gaming computer setup). She hung around our tent quite a bit.
On the second day, a friend of mine mentioned he thought she was interested in me. He said I should go for it, and see if there was something there if I had a chance. I'll be honest, it took about two liters of whiskey before I found the courage I needed to even consider such a thing. But I did find it and in the end, sometime before the whiskey hammer knocked me out, I came to the conclusion:
"If a woman ignores, avoids, and abandons her current fiancé every evening/night to come to my spot, sit in my lap, to watch Star Trek with me, and hang out with me, she probably isn't coming for the Star Trek or the other 5 ugly old geeky nerds in the tent"
On the third day, having won "the battle of the hangover" (using chemical warfare ;-) ) a shower and a hardy breakfast, we kissed. From that moment on, after telling her fiancé that their relationship was over on which I had insisted, we were a couple, inspired by rabbits.
Love!!
She had convinced me that she loved me, and I was truly, completely, and unconditionally in love with her.
After the vacation ended, things escalated quickly!
For reasons which are her own, that is her story to tell, she moved in with me three days after the end of the vacation. A week after she moved in she met my parents, who reluctantly and with reservations, decided they were happy for me and accepted her. In October (begin November) we decided that we were going to have a child, and in December 2008 we married.
(I've decided not to include my ex's image, she probably wouldn't want to be recognizable anyway) (So nobody tell her about those pictures of her farther up in this article...)
On July 24th 2009 our Son was born.
I couldn't be happier or prouder than I was at that moment in the picture you see above here. That 3028 grams of human, barely a minute or two old, was the best and most beautiful thing I had ever achieved in my life.
But soon the cracks began to show.
Now I am tempted to regale in minute detail all the things that started to happen (most of which I didn't really notice at the time) because that really doesn't matter in the context of this article and the chances that my ex is going to read it and disagree (and fight me over it) is not worth it.
I'll summarize the next year for you. I worked full time and overtime, 60-80 hours per week, and we had agreed that my wife would take care of the household, administration, and finances. The problem was that as time passed the household got taken care of less and less, the administration was absent, and I gave no thought to finances. I was blind and trusted my wife completely.
Things escalated, things got unpleasant.
But coming home after a long day (leave home at 06:30 coming home 22:00) I became less and less overjoyed finding no household work had been done, and the apartment had become a bit dirtier and messier. We argued about it, then got into full-blown arguments and, in the end, fought about it.
Fighting
She hit me, kicked me, cursed me, and everything you can imagine going with it. As she had begun taking Karate and Kickboxing lessons, after a month or two she began to really hurt me in those fights, and at one moment I was angry and hurt enough to grab her and hold her immobilized against the kitchen counter. I did not hit her, I did not assault her, I held her with one hand and pushed her against the kitchen counter, immobilized her.
I was left clueless for another half a year.
Without me knowing it she had gotten into an online love affair with another man, which leads to her cheating on me for half a year. During that time I had the feeling and conviction that things were getting better, we were getting through the rough time and would go on to live happily ever after. I was still a happily married man!
Oh boy did i get annihilated mentally and almost physically
Imagine if you will, Christmas Eve, 24th of December 2010. Apartment decorated, nice dinner, snacks and drinks ready for the xmas spirit, my ex told me she had something she needed to tell me. She sat me down on the couch and said
"I am not in love with you anymore. I think its over."
On December the 25th, she told me she had been cheating on me and had a boyfriend. Merry Christmas.
On December the 26th, she told me she was moving in with her new boyfriend and left for Friesland on the 27th.
She had me so scared she was going to claim I had abused and molested her and take my Son away from me forever that she convinced me to bring my son to her new home on December 31st. A 400KM+ car drive up, and another 400KM drive back.
I literally thought about ending my life on that day.
If I didn't have my puppy with me, and if friends didn't force me to come to their new year's party that night there would have been a very unfortunate Truck driver who'd have an accident that day, with a Nissan Almera crashing into his truck at 190 kilometers per hour.
Two weeks after she left the shit began hitting the fan.
Two weeks after she left I got the first debt collector banging down my door. He was certainly not the last. Again not going into the finer details but the rent hadn't been paid for months, utilities weren't paid, subscriptions.... No bills had been paid for months at least. The debt was substantial, but not alarmingly so. I still had a well-paying job and I made deals with the debtors to pay back in installments. I could even indulge some more in the drowning of my sorrow each weekend!
I had to act, and get my son out of there
Over the next couple of months, when I could pick up my son for the weekend once every two weeks (remember, 800km ride to pick him up and 800km ride to bring him back) I began noticing.... things..... Again, long story short, I needed to get the child protective agencies and judges to order my son to be placed under my care permanently. It took some doing and some convincing but I did it. My Son came to live with me and Poof! Suddenly I was a single father with a full-time job.
Kinder Opvang Toeslag Affaire
That was also indirectly the nail to the coffin of my financial prosperity. I had to leave my Son at child-care services when I went to work each day, and the Dutch government had a subsidy (tax exemption) to compensate that (Kinder Opvang Toeslag) to incentivize parents to keep working. I received that until I got laid off in 2012. Officially I informed the IRS (Belastingdienst) a week too late about losing my job, and I received the subsidy for a week more than I had a right to.
Branded a fraud, I didn't stand a chance
And ever since then, with the IRS not even willing to listen to me, take documents into evidence or anything, my debtors smelling blood and the IRS demanding a fine from me I have been drowning in a swamp of debt, sorrow, and misery. And that is the story of how I got into debt that was impossible to repay, and my miserable life got more miserable every single day for the next years.
The Epic Trilogy's Prequel Saga.
That was the origin story, or prequel, of the three-part story "My miserable life, a cautionary story" I posted a while back.
You can go and read those articles and the ones after that if you want to know what my current situation is in more detail. Pfff, I must admit that thinking about that last part, reliving it in my mind.... It really depressed me. Of course, I've turned my life around, got "debt help" and officially reducing my total debt by 1000-1200 Euro each year from now on. So there is that. But knowing that at this rate I'll have paid back my debt 30 to 40 years from now somehow dampens the joy I get from knowing my debt isn't growing anymore.
But this depressed feeling won't last long.
Anyone who has read my previous articles knows I'm not one to allow myself to wallow in self-pity. I've been able to make enough from read cash and other similar means to have a little extra money once every two or three weeks with which I can give my Son a little extra to make him smile. If I see my Son smile I have a moment of pure happiness, so I have that
(thank you read.cash, @MarcDeMesel , and my sponsors!)
Oh darn, it's only now that my perspective and opinion on relationships and marriage can be entered into the conversation.
You now know what has shaped my perspective on relationships, marriage, and women, but not what that perspective and opinion are.....
Come back soon for part II
Well, I think that I'll have to make this a two-parter then. I've been working on this article for over 5 hours now, and I think it's time for me to close off and shut down (myself). Tomorrow's another busy day, with the foodbank and counseling appointments.
Thank you for reading this! Stay safe and happy!
Thank you for you supporting and uplifting replies! They're appreciated!