“Good Morning Babe! Only 15 more days til the cabin….Whooooo hoooo!” That was the morning text message I was greeted with by Shawn today. The excitement about our cabin stay has been building up like crazy. Shawn is excited, I am excited and all three of the boys are excited. In fact, my son asks me everyday how many more days until we go. Shawn and I briefly chatted about the cabin via text. He got in trouble for texting last week, so since then we have been texting only a good morning text, on his lunch hour and then when he gets off of work.

Shawn had called me on his lunch hour and we were talking for a bit. lately our phone conversations have consisted of how my weight loss is not as quick as I had imagined. (By the way, in case I had not mentioned it before; Shawn has stated over and over again that he thinks I look great exactly how I am now but he knows that it is my wish to be fit and lean.) Shawn has been preaching at me for months that I just have one of those bodies that requires a lot of cardio to lose weight. So anyhow we were talking about that and Shawn said as an incentive and to push me he is going to buy me a bikini and that I better fit in it by June; all the while he is totally joking by the way. (You would have to hear the conversation directly to know his humor.) Anyhow, so he continues to tell me “make it happen! I don’t care what you say or do, make it happen!”

He then says “Ok, here’s the real deal. How much do you wanna lose by the boat trip (in July)?”

“Twenty-five pounds.”

“Ok, so if you don’t lose 25 lbs by, let’s say mid-june. I’m gonna stop this whole Intermittent Fasting, lose my abs and get fat. Then it will be all your fault and you know I don’t want to let myself go like that?!”

“Oh great! So now all this pressure on me and it’s gonna be my responsibility if you get fat??”

“Yup! So make it happen!”

“How are you gonna know what size I will be then?”

“Well, you better just fit into whatever size I buy! What color do you want?”

“Purple and I want it to say “I used to be fat” on the butt in gold writing”.

“You can’t have purple! You need a sexy color like black. You can have the writing in purple!”

“Ok, fine. I want a black bikini with purple writing on the butt”.

“Ok, then no more excuses. So what’s your cardio plan?”

“i’m gonna do it 6 days a week!”

“Six days? Ok, I guarantee you, if you do cardio 6 days a week, you will lose weight fast. If you don’t, you may as well drive off a cliff  and kill yourself!”

I start cracking up. “Man!!! You are soo mean!”

He has me cracking up on the phone and he says “boy. I’m a prick!”, as he laughs hysterically. I tell him “I know! Why do I love you again???” He puts on his very serious voice and says “It’s because of my awesomeness….and you know? Because of the size of my….”. I interrupt him with a “Good grief!”

“But babe! You don’t understand! Even if I lose 25 lbs, I am not gonna feel confident to wear a bikini! I’m concerned about saggy skin!”

“Babe, I seriously would not make you wear something you weren’t comfortable in. If you lose 25 lbs and are are not confident to put on a bikini, it’s ok. I seriously just want you to feel your best. I know that I will not be happy until I get my 6 pack back and when I do, I am gonna feel like a million bucks! Just imagine how awesome you are gonna feel on that boat when you know you busted your ass the past 5 months to get that 25 lbs off?! You are gonna feel pretty amazing right?”

“Yea.”

“I just want you to feel that pride. ”

“I know. The saggy skin just freaks me out.”

“Babe, the saggy skin is a given. I know and expect that the extra skin is gonna be there until it gets its elasticity back. When you do all this cardio, don’t quit the weight training. Building the muscle will help with the skin.”

“Ok.”

“I’ve seen the skin now hun. It’s not gonna repulse me. Don’t worry. I know what to expect. Don’t worry about it, ok? Just do what you gotta do!”

I love that Shawn is my motivator. Some people would view this conversation and think that he sounds shallow and like a pig but he isn’t and that’s not how the conversation was. He’s very supportive of my goal to be fit and to become a personal trainer by Spring of next year. He’s the first man that has loved me for how I am now and is ready to support my wishes no matter what they are.

So now for the panic!!!

Shawn’s lunch was over and he had to go back to work. He called me a few minutes later and I was wondering why on earth would he be calling me back so quickly.

“Did you just get that email from Cindy (our cabin rental manager)?”

“No, why?”

“The cabin is no longer available”.

“What??????”

“Yea, she said it’s not available. I would call her but I am at work.”

“Alright, I’ll call her.”

It turns out the email stated that our cabin owner decided to pull his cabin off for the next few months. I freaked out! We paid a reservation fee already and a security deposit. How could they do this to us??? I started to look up other cabins I had bookmarked when we found that cabin and my heart raced with each listing when I could see our weekend was booked on every single back-up cabin I had bookmarked. This can’t be happening!!! Shawn, the boys and myself have been talking about this for the past 2 months! We all have our hopes high for it. Shawn and I need this weekend!!! It’s the whole reason we have limited time spent with one another to cut traveling costs for driving to see one another!

In Cindy’s email, she asked if there was another property of theirs we might be interested in. So I am looking at the other 10 cabins they have and I see that there is one similar in price to the one we rented originally but it’s not nearly as nice looking. It looks small and it would mean Shawn and I sharing a room with at least 2 of the kids. So, I call her and tell her there are none we are interested in because the rest are more expensive. She tells me to check out one in particular and even though it’s $25 more a night than the one we booked, she said she can give us the same rental price. Sweet!!! Game on!

There’s nothing new to report these days. I’m missing Shawn like crazy. To the point where I am starting to feel really insecure about how he feels about me. I know it’s just the distance talking. Tomorrow will be two weeks since I last saw him. The longest I have gone without seeing him was 2 1/2 weeks back in December but this is going to be a record since I won’t see him for about another 2 weeks. Ick!

I feel insecure about “us” because of the stinkin’ distance. We’ve had to rely heavily on text messages. Shawn called me a lot in the beginning of the first week but he hardly called me at all the past week. in fact, so far the only time we spoke on this phone this week was because I asked him if we could. I had to ask him something that I didn’t want to discuss through texting. So that has me feeling a little insecure. Still, he continues to send me a good morning text message every morning and a few nights this week he has actually said “Good night and that he loves me” (he’s kinda lazy about texting me goodnight or he sometimes falls asleep early on accident.)

I just keep reminding myself that the big thing we have looking forward to is our weekend at the cabin next month. 4 days of Shawn, me and all 3 boys. It’s much needed for all of us and will be worth the sacrifice of not being able to see one another these past few weeks. What’s so cool is that it’s Valentine’s weekend that weekend. So it will be interesting to see if Shawn does anything for me for it. I’ll do something special for him, just gotta think of something.

I tell Shawn how much I miss him and he always responds with that he misses me a lot too.

I’m fighting the relationship distance demons that are in my head telling me that maybe Shawn doesn’t really love me or that maybe he’s talking to someone else. You know, typical insecurity crap.

Shawn had last Thursday off of work and I was going to have to drive up to pick-up my son from his dad’s on Friday so he invited me to come up Wednesday and stay until Friday. So I arrived Wednesday night and Shawn and I had planned on getting a bite to eat together once I arrived. So, we drive to Capitola and look for a good spot to get our grub on. We were going to try some BBQ house but they closed at 9 and it was just after 8:30 so they said all orders would have to be to-go. I didn’t want to-go! I just drove 2 1/2 hours to see my man and I wanted some quiet time with him so that we could finally have adult conversation without worrying about little kids hearing us talk or any other person!

I finally just chose for us to eat at Chili’s. We ordered the two for $20 deal and were happy campers. Before our food arrived, Shawn would grab my hands over the middle of the table; I love when he does that! He will put his hand out for me and then open and shut them as if to make them say “Come here”! He looks me in the eyes and tells me “Have I told you how beautiful you are today?”

“Nope, but I never get tired of hearing it”, I say as I smile and blush at him at once.

There is a lot of good conversation and plenty of good eye contact going on the entire time. The check comes and Shawn whips out his ATM card to pay. Since we were planning on walking on the beach next, I excused myself to use the restroom.

I was gone for only 3 minutes tops but when I return to the table, Shawn is already standing up and putting his jacket on and asks me “Are you ready to go?”

“Yup!”, I say as I grab my purse and sweatshirt. We start walking towards the exit and out of the corner of my eye I see Shawn reach to shake the hand of our waiter and he says “Thanks a lot man!” Our waiter happened to now be sitting at the table directly behind us with two other waitresses. One of them says “See you in Hawaii!”

I didn’t hear her say that, by the way. I only know she said that because Shawn later told me what happened when I got up to use the restroom.

So Shawn and I drive to the beach and take a freezing cold walk for about 20 minutes. We then turn around because its just too darn cold! As we get into the car, I’m not sure how we got on the topic of jealousy but we were talking about it and I said something like “Well, a little jealousy is ok. It means you have value and that your significant other cherishes you and doesn’t want to risk losing you”. Which Shawn responded with “Well yea, everyone has a bit of jealousy”.

We continue to have this conversation on the car ride home and I explain to him how I have been out with exes before and had other women straight up flirt with my husband/boyfriend right infront of me. It’s as if they could careless I was there or not!

So Shawn decides to tell me about what had just happened at dinner.

“Ok babe, you know when you got up to go to the bathroom?”

“Yea.”

“Well, the table behind you had a few waitresses and out of the corner of my eye, I could see her staring at me. I was staring right into your eyes and out of the corner I could see her still staring. Well, when you got up to go to the restroom, I hear ‘Wanna go to Hawaii?’ I heard it but I didn’t think she was talking to me but then she says again ‘Hey, do you wanna go to Hawaii?’ So I say “Sure, I’d love to go.” She says “No, I am serious do you wanna go? We have like a huge group of us going.” I responded with “Well, I’m always up for Hawaii but I should probably take my girlfriend too”.

At this point I can’t even remember what he said the waitress’ response was when he said that because all I can think about it “The nerve of that hobag!”

“And at that point I just thought Hmmm, Ok I need to get out of here, so that’s when I put my jacket on and you came out. Didn’t you hear her say ‘See you in Hawaii’ when we walked past them?

“Nope…”

For the remainder of the drive home, all I could think about was the nerve of that woman. Was I invisible to her? Wasn’t it obvious to her that he was with a woman on a date? Did she just plain not care? What kind of woman does that crap???

I’ll tell you what kind….a woman that has no respect for other women. This waitress was clearly a woman that likes to screw over other women.

An article on Why Single Women Like Taken Men by Askmen.com states:

Then there are those women who simply have it out for their own gender. In grade school, they pulled pigtails; now that they’re older, they pull boyfriends. Some are out for revenge, others make a sport of seeing if they “can get him,” whatever the emotional cost. Women size up their competition and somehow rationalize that her boyfriend is begging to be with a real woman — no offense to the tramp he’s with. Remember, too, that women aren’t always down with waiting patiently for a taken man to free up. They want results, and they want them yesterday.

I trust Shawn and don’t believe he would cheat. I know there will always be opportunities for him to be flirted with, maybe in-front of me and maybe as soon as I get up to use the restroom. I guess I am just shocked to see that there are women out there that have the balls to flirt with a taken man regardless if his girlfriend, fiance or wife is right there next to him.

I can’t be the only one that has had to deal with this kinda crap!

My boyfriend Shawn and I were chatting on the phone one evening and I don’t remember how or why I asked him what I did but I asked him “Hmm, so you think I am high maintenance?”

Shawn didn’t even take time to think. He just blurted out, “Well, sometimes.”

“And why do you think I am?” (I really wanted to know because I am sure I had a good reason to back up every possible reason Shawn might toss at me.)

“Let’s see….you only wear name brand clothing and you would never buy any clothes from Target or Walmart”. You only wear Nikes.

“Ok, well I just like Fox clothing right now because they have a lot of amazing colors and styles and I already told you that it makes no sense to spend money on clothes at Target or Walmart only to have them shrink right away, fade or just plain fall apart. Then I have to go out and spend more money to replace it?? I don’t think so. It makes perfect sense to me to spend a little more on quality. And I only buy name brands if they are on clearance!”

“Ok, I’ll give you that because I saw you head straight to the clearance rack at Macy’s last weekend and shopped off of it.”

“I also buy brand names at Ross and Marshall’s.”

“You won’t buy bras from anywhere else but Victoria’s Secret.”

Do I even have to defend myself on this one?!

Shawn’s tone now goes into a mocking feminine voice. “Let’s see, then there is the fact that you won’t drink gas station or fast food coffee; no, it’s got to be Starbucks only”.

“Ok, but gas station coffee tastes like crap and to be fair, I did say the McDonald’s peppermint Mocha was decent but for $1 more I could have bought a Starbucks and it would have tasted sooo much better.”

“What else…Oh…You’ll only drive a Toyota”.

“I can’t help it. My 4 Runner was totaled and I was able to walk out unharmed and so was my family so now I have it embedded in my mind that Toyotas are safe. Plus, the Japanese make really good cars!”

“You refused to get the smaller one bedroom cabin that was only $80 a night and instead insisted on the two bedroom one that is $125 with a hot tub!”

“I was thinking of you! I was thinking of how awesome that would be to warm up and snuggle up together in the hot tub after a freezing day in the snow!”

Shawn laughs. “I know. I was just giving you a hard time.”

“Hmmm…what else? Oh, you only like newer cars and not fixer-uppers. You’re probably the same way with houses.”

Seriously, what woman doesn’t like newer cars and houses that are new looking and magically beautiful to start with? I didn’t say that to him but I sure thought it. I didn’t have a defense for that one. “Yea, ok that’s true.”

Do all of these things really make me high maintenance? I dunno, I guess my perception of high maintenance are the women that go over the top. You know, the women that not only want name brands but are spending $200 on a pair of jeans or $500 on a Coach purse.  Or how about the woman that has manicures done 2x a month. The women that insist on nice dinners only and would never step foot into a restaurant that wasn’t complete with full service waiters. The women that want expensive gifts in order for me to show them their “value”, that they were worth that money spent on those diamond earrings or whatever. Or worse, the women that constantly complain about not having time with their man even if the man is already making a lot of effort to see her.

According to Urban Dictionary:

1.) high maintenance -
Requiring a lot of attention. When describing a person, high-maintenance usually means that the individual is emotionally needy or prone to over-dramatizing a situation to gain attention

Although he was a nice boy, his low self-esteem made him high-maintenance.

2.) high maintenance -

A person who has expensive taste (re. clothing, restaurants, etc.).
This person is never comfortable because he/she is constantly concerned about his/her appearance.
This person feels they are better than most people and usually judge others based on outward appearances.
I am not high maintenance

Check out what eHarmony’s blog post on high maintenance women:

Why are some women high maintenance?

“Researchers who study the tactics of mate attraction probably saw the movie (reference to a scene from When harry Met Sally) and said “of course!  That’s just evolution at work.”   High maintenance is just today’s term for a well-tuned competition strategy to win over a high mate-value partner.  The evolutionary theory of mate choice starts with the idea that reproductive success is the foundation for choosing a mate.  Everyone wants to maximize their chances on having strong healthy offspring.  Men therefore should be looking for women who are young and attractive (since those are tells of fertility), while women should be looking for men who are resourceful, high-status and able to stick around to raise the offspring.  These would be considered high mate-value partners.   Considering the risk involved for women in choosing a mate to have children with (e.g., he could leave, he could be unfaithful, or there might be issues in conceiving or raising children), it behooves her to know her value and choose the highest status partner available. “

Does this mean high maintenance women are snobs?

“Maybe.  It depends in part on how the woman perceives herself relative to other women (i.e., her perceived mate value).  If a woman thinks that she has better resources and can win the competition to acquire a similarly valued partner, then she isn’t going to settle for someone perceived as having a lower mate value, especially for a long term relationship.  In fact, research shows that both men and women generally express a higher minimum standard of qualities when thinking about a long term relationship over a short term one.”

Perhaps I am high maintenance compared to the other women Shawn has dated. Maybe plenty of them shopped at Target for their clothing or bought their bras from Walmart. Shoot, I am sure plenty of them had no problem with buying coffee and even their meals from the 7-eleven!

I don’t see desiring quality as such a bad thing. Why get a gas station coffee for $2 only to complain with every sip how horrible it tastes?? Why buy a bra from Walmart only to find it is uncomfortable as heck after it’s first washing? Why buy a shirt from Target only to find it shrunk and got those little fuzzballs all over it after the first washing? It just makes no sense to me to spend money on things that don’t last.

Call me high maintenance but I will stand by the fact that it makes me smart with my finances. I’d rather spend $50 on a Victoria’s Secret bra that I can get 2-3 years out of versus spending $15 on a bra from Walmart that is going to last one washing. Then what??? You guessed it. You have to go out and replace it. So now that you have a bad taste in your mouth of Walmart’s quality, suddenly Victoria’s Secret looks more appealing. So you walk into Victoria’s and get your $50 bra, but guess what; now you have gone and spent $65 worth of bras in the time I only spent my $50.

Further more I’d like to add I am not a golddigger and Shawn has even joked about that saying “Well, good because you’re dating the wrong guy if you are looking for a guy with money. I’m not wealthy or close to it.” I’ve never been a golddigger. Those of you that have read my blog throughout the years would have seen that I was if I was in fact one. No. My goal for dating has never been about how much money a man has, does he own a house, can he support me and my son, can he take me on expensive dinner dates and nice vacations. I have been on the hunt for a faithful, family-man; with like morals and beliefs. Of course having a man that can BBQ, weight-trains (like me) and is handsome were bonuses with Shawn.

As of yesterday, it had only been 5 days since I had last seen Shawn. But each week that comes and goes has become torture. Especially since it has now become a patter of us only seeing one another every two weeks.

To make things worse, I am missing my son terribly too. He has been with his dad for a week and I don’t get him back until next Friday. So I was feeling rather twice as lonely as usual.

So here I was trying to get through my Saturday by playing some of my games on Facebook like Castleville and Frontierville. I started drifting off and daydreaming Hey1 Wouldn’t that be the coolest thing ever if Shawn just surprised me and showed up at my door. As if to say “Baby, You’re worth the gas money!”

I was texting him throughout the day and Shawn was taking rather a long time to respond. He’s usually the type to respond to my text messages in like 20-30 minutes. So now I am starting to think something is up. I sent him a text message around 4pm and said “I love you” and he responded with “love you”.

I kept imagining him to be having a riot of a time with his two boys all the while I sat home bored to death watching Zookeeper. About 2 hours later, I had asked him what he was up too. Which he took an hour to respond to me and he just said “Sorry babe, I was just cleaning the room and now me and the boys are just chillin’. What are you up to?”

I responded with “Oh just playing messing around on my PC.”

Then a few minutes later he sent me another text “What are you up to?”

I sat there puzzled why he asked me that question when I had just answered him. “Babe, can we talk on the phone later? You know when you’re not busy with the boys.” I hadn’t heard his voice on the phone for 2 days now and I was really missing him like crazy.

No response. I was starting to feel bothered about why was he taking so long to respond and why was he being especially quiet this evening. About 45 minutes later my phone rings.

Shawn: What are you up to, babe?

Me: Just messing on my PC still.

Shawn: Why aren’t you out or something?

Me: I know. I should be living it up and going out since you’re not here and neither is my son.

Shawn: Yea! Aren’t you gonna be going out with your other boyfriend tonight or something?

Me: (I laugh.) Nah. I’m just gonna chill at home.

Shawn: Wouldn’t you like to hang out with me tonight?

Me: Uh, yea but that’s not gonna happen.

Shawn: Sure it can!

Me: Uh, no.

Shawn: Babe, I’m in town.

Me: No you’re not!!!

Shawn: (laughs) Yea, I am. I just got here. I came down with my mom to drop off my boys a day early.

Me: OMG! No way?!?!

Shawn: (Laughs again.) Yes! So let’s hang out a bit tonight. I’ll take you for ice cream or something and then tomorrow we’re BBQing at my sister’s and you can come over here if you want.

Me: Ok, see you in a few.

I couldn’t believe it! I had daydreamed about this earlier and then it actually happened!

So Shawn shows up at my door and I come out to greet him. He looks sexy as ever wearing a red ball cap, his black and red athletic jacket, a pair of jeans and his favorite grey and red Nikes. I b-lined straight for him and threw my arms around him and kissed him repeatedly.

“What’s up smiley?” I smile at him. “I missed you soooo much!” Shawn holds me and lets out a sigh as he says “I missed you too.”

“Man, look at you all smiling! You look good, babe!”

“It’s you. You make me happy so I can’t help but smile.”
Shawn tucks my hair behind my ear and says “You make me happy too”, then he kisses me again.

We didn’t have much time since he could only hang out for a few hours because he hates leaving his mom to have to babysit his boys. So we went to Starbucks and chatted for about 2 hours. Man, those two hours of adult conversation was like a piece of heaven. No boys to interrupt, no crying niece throwing a tantrum, no one else demanding Shawn’s attention; just me.

Saying goodbye or even just goodnight to Shawn is never easy. We ended up sitting in the car outside my house chatting for another 30 minutes followed by another 15 minute walk-to-the-door-kiss-good-night session. But I knew that I would see Shawn the next afternoon so that made it slightly easier.

I showed up at 12:30 for the BBQ on Sunday (today). As soon as I walked in the door his boys greeted me and said “Sara, come open our present”. (They had a Christmas present for me.) The oldest boy hands it to me and I open it. It was a candle that smelled like gingerbread cookies. “Wow! I love it! Thank you boys!” His older son says “Aww, she hates it” and he lowered his head as he said that. “No I don’t. I honestly love it! I love candles! Thank you. Really, it was so nice of you guys.”

We all then went to the backyard as the boys were eager to introduce me to their dogs. (Wait a second! I just realized you all are probably confused as to why Shawn’s boys would be introducing their dogs to me if we were suppose to be at Shawn’s sister’s house. Well, Shawn’s sister and her children just moved into the house of Shawn’s ex-wife and his boys. I know….crazy right????) Anyhow, after a brief introduction to the dogs we all just hung out with him outside. I traded off between hugging on Shawn whom was manning the Chicken on the grill or I watched/played with his niece.

When we sat down to eat, we chatted with his sister and his mom a bit. I really love his family. His sister has a heart of gold and the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree; because she’s a lot like Shawn’s mom in that way. It was a really nice afternoon. I was able to snuggle with Shawn for a bit and then he was asking me when did I have to leave. I think maybe he was starting to get anxious because he himself had to drive back home still and he also didn’t want to have an awkward situation in which his ex-wife would come home and meet me for the first time, in her home like that. So, I left him at about 4:00pm.

This week won’t be too long. Shawn and I plan to see each other later this week when I have to pick up my son from his dad’s.

I had a wonderful Christmas even though I had to celebrate it without Shawn. Shawn lives 2 1/2 hours away and is currently living back at home in order to pay off his credit card debt. Well, Shawn has his boys a few weeks over the winter break and Tuesday was my grandfather’s Christmas celebration (my dad’s dad). This after Christmas Christmas Celebration is done every year. I was excited that this year I would have Shawn attending with me and his two boys. I was sorta nervous about leaving Shawn unattended with my grandfather at any point, especially after the conversation I had with my grandfather two weeks earlier that went like this:

Grandpa: So, how are things with Shawn?

Me: Oh they’re good!

Grandpa: So things are pretty serious then?

Me: Well, yea, I’d like to think so. We have casually brought up marriage talk but we aren’t real specific on the subject as far as stating we want to marry one another.  Like he will say things like “If we end up on that path to marriage….” But he doesn’t say anything like “I know that I want to marry you” or anything.

Grandpa: Well, you know there isn’t much time to waste. You’re getting older.

Me: Yes, I know Grandpa but we’re both in no rush to get married. I think because we’ve both been through a divorce we are more cautious. We don’t want to make another mistake.

Grandpa: Yea, but you don’t really have the time to diddly dally like you used to. Do you want more kids?

Me: Yes, but Shawn has had a vesectomy.

Grandpa: I see. But You know he can have that reversed.

Me: Yes, we have discussed that and he is open to the idea of having it reversed.

Grandpa: And what if it doesn’t work? Would he be open to adoption or invitro?

Me: I don’t know grandpa. We haven’t really talked about those options.

Grandpa: Well, you don’t have alot of time. How old are you again?

Me: 35

Grandpa: Well, you know, I hear that the closer to 40 a woman is, the harder it is to conceive.

Me: I know Grandpa. I do think about that but I guess I figure if it’s meant to happen, God will make it happen.

Grandpa: Well, I married a couple about two years ago who haven’t been able to conceive and they’ve done invitro and still haven’t had any success. Just something to think about.

I had mentioned this conversation to my mom and the first words out of her mouth was “Oh my gosh, I hope he doesn’t say anything to Shawn”.

“What do you mean, mom??”

“Well hun, you have to remember that grandpa comes from a marriage counseling background. So he’s going to want to make sure that you and Shawn have your basis covered. That you’ve talked about all the important topics necessary before pursuing marriage.”

So, based off of my mom’s opinion, I did warn Shawn about the possibility that my grandfather may put him in the hot seat. Now, if I had not mentioned it before, Shawn has a huge sense of humor. He is constantly cracking jokes. We could be what I would consider to be the start of a heavy conversation that Shawn has brought up and he will be looking at me straight in the eyes with this real serious look and then suddenly crack a poor joke all the while holding onto his serious look. But anyhow, when i had warned Shawn about my grandpa he said “Don’t worry babe. I’ll just tell him that I don’t plan on having any more kids, that I have no intentions of marrying you and that I am only with you because the sex is off the hook”; which he then let out an enormous belly laugh.

So we go to my grandfather’s Christmas celebration and we have a real nice time. The boys (his two and mine) were great! We even stopped by to visit the family that I used to nanny for before I ever had my son and they were really good there too. Shawn was a trooper meeting my family and then my 2nd family (the one I nannied for). Since we were going to be arriving back at his home rather late, my son and I were just going to spend the night. Well, the next day Shawn’s mom had to work and she usually watches the boys while Shawn goes to work. I offered to stay for the day and then I would drive home in the evening. After Shawn’s mother arrived home from work that day, she just asked if I would like to stay the rest of the week since I would have to drive back up on Friday in order to drop off my son with his dad for his visitation. So now the plan was I would stay until New Year’s (since I was already going to be staying new year’s eve weekend with Shawn and his family).

Shawn’s parents were out of the house since they had to help his sister move and they took his grandmother; whom they care for with them. So it was just Shawn, me and the boys for the week. Shawn would get up at 6am to get ready for work and he would come home at 5pm. I stayed with the boys during the day. Taking them to the park, or fishing or to an afternoon matinee just to entertain them.

During the few days in which I had all three boys, I really started to get a feel for what it would not only be like to have three boys but also what it was like to raise triplets. Shawn’s boys are ages 10 and 9 and my son is 9 1/2. They were all very good. Shawn’s boys break out in physical fights every now and then and this was something entirely new for my son to witness. In fact, one night he cried as he observed them fighting because he couldn’t understand why they were being so mean to one another. I empathize for my son not being able to comprehend that the behavior of brotherly love he witnessed is totally normal. But other then that, they were all well behaved.

The one thing I did notice and bothered me somewhat is that Shawn and I never had any privacy. If Shawn and I tried to have an adult conversation, one of his boys was usually right there to listen. Shawn would ask the boy to leave because we are having a private conversation and 2 seconds later the other boy was there. If we tried to sneak off into Shawn’s room to talk while the boys watched TV, a moment later one would be climbing right on top of Shawn or laying next to us on the bed. I started to wonder if this would become our life together as a couple. Where we would never be able to hold a quiet and private conversation again.

Come Friday, it was time for me to drop off my son for his visitation. So then it would be just Shawn, me and his two boys. His family returned home Saturday with the addition of Shawn’s 2 yr old niece and his 6 year old nephew. They are great kids but the house is small, Shawn’s room is also the boys/playroom so you can’t escape the kids anywhere in that house. It got so bad that when it came time for Shawn to return a movie we rented the night before, Shawn had asked me if I wanted to come and I popped up out of my chair so fast and said “Yes!!!”

I needed a breather. I need to escape the chaos even if it would be just for 10 minutes. When we returned home, we sat in the car for a few minutes talking. Shawn complained how he can’t ever say anything without his boys overhearing him. He complained how he has no privacy at all while living at home. There is one bathroom for 5 people and his 80-something year old grandmother has incontinence. So he said it never fails, whatever time he gets up for work and hops in the shower, she is banging on the door to use the rest room. But it is what it is. Shawn got himself into a lot of debt due to his last girlfriend that lived here in the same town that I do. He was driving down every weekend to be with her and he was doing it when he couldn’t even really afford it. So now he has a huge amount of credit card debt he is trying to pay off and the only way to do so, is by living at home.

We did have a talk 2 weeks about in which Shawn said that he wants us both to have our credit cards paid off before we step into marriage. It’s smart. I totally agree with him. But it sucks knowing we probably won’t be able to get married for a few years and like my grandpa said ‘You don’t have much time’.

At midnight, Shawn and I were alone in the kitchen having yet another talk about how shallow people can be and how we love that each other really wants to take care of our bodies for our partners. His mom was infront of the TV watching Dick Clark’s Rockin New Year’s Eve, counting down. She screamed “Happy New year’s!!!”, Shawn is standing infront of me and looks at me and says “Happy New Year’s, babe” and kisses me a few times. That was our exciting New Year’s Eve but I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else than to be with Shawn at that very moment. Saying goodbye to a year that ended with me finding love and the start of a new year with this wonderful man standing infront of me.

Happy 2012 everyone!

For kicks, I decided to read up on some of my blog posts for 2011 and I am astonished by the events involving my love life.  Seriously, as I looked back over how my year started off versus how it has ended, I am just amazed. Something that started off so ugly, demeaning, desperate looking and hopeless turned into something so beautiful and nearly perfect.

Last January, I started off the year already being with Josh aka Aquaman a few weeks. There were already tons of red flags being thrown all up in my face. When I went back to read some of these posts, I am astonished at how stupid I was. The first red flags of the year started off where Josh and I were already having some sort of problem in which we were going to have a talk later that evening and then the first announcement of him not knowing whether he wants kids or not. Ugh, it really is sickening to me how I believed all the excuses he gave me instead of just calling the relationship quits.

It took me about 5-6 weeks to get over my break-up with Josh but it really took me a bit longer to stop checking up on him. I decided to start dating online once again. I thought maybe the man I had met at my church named Sean was the guy God had for me. I find it hilarious that he had the same name as my boyfriend now only spelled differently. Maybe it was some sort of sign that Shawn would be coming into my life soon. But not until having to go through meeting one of the most frustrating “perfect matches” ever and being stood-up by him time and again.

And to finalize the year, finally meeting a good man; a man that was in no rush to get into my pants and took him 4 weeks to kiss me. After 6 weeks of dating I had fallen in love with Shawn and then 7 weeks in, Shawn told me he loved me. I met his parents about 9 weeks later.

Of course the relationship hasn’t been totally perfect because his ex-girlfriend had become an issue. She started drama by messaging me on Facebook saying Shawn still loves her, is sleeping with her and that he doesn’t really want to be with me. But there is just something completely different about Shawn. We had some serious conversations prior to that drama about how cheating is not tolerable and even the conversations we’ve had over the past week on cheating has made me realize how passionate he is against cheating to the point that I 100% believe him. Her actions on how she is handling the break-up is more likely causing her to become the crazy ex-girlfriend that just can’t let go and move on. Plus, I have spent quite a bit of time with his boys and I know for a fact, his boys would have said something, slipped something out by now.

All in all, its been a good year. Some more wonderful things have happened in the past week with Shawn (more on that in the next day or two) and now we are just really looking forward to our snow trip with the boys in February.

Ever since I discovered Shawn’s ex-girlfriend was messaging me on Facebook, every time I log into Face book, my heart stops just for a second as the page loads and I look immediately at my left hand side of the site to see if my “Others” inbox is showing a new message. I was and am afraid his ex will continue to haunt us and I almost expect her to.

By the way, she blocked me before I could re-block her. I blocked her when she had sent me the friend request but then 2 days later when I had discovered there were actually more messages found listed under “Others” and saw a few were from her, I had unblocked her for the brief moment in which I actually considered responding to her message but decided not to give her any satisfaction of knowing that her getting a rise out of me was working. So I tried to re-block her again over the weekend and I got an error of “You must wait 48 hours to apply a block to this person again”. So come Sunday, I tried to block her and it said that that user did not exist. I tried again, thinking that maybe I had mistyped her name, yet again I got the same error. I went and google searched her and her FB profile came up so I clicked on the link and it said “This person does not exist” which means, she blocked me and she did not delete her account.

Well good! I hope for her obsessive, stalkerish self that she blocked me to reduce the temptation to continue to stalk me and message me. I think it’s good when a person takes that step. I did it for Josh.

I’m not doubting Shawn. I still believe he is and has been faithful. All though he has been a little prankster. Yesterday he had a co-worker send me a text from their phone saying “Hi, this is Andrew. I was just going through Shawn’s phone and I see that you’ve been spending alot of time with him. Well, he’s mine!” I decided to play the game and act like I was really disappointed to hear Shawn was gay.

To get Shawn back for his little prank I proceeded to tell Andrew “You know he has a small penis right?”

Of course as soon as Shawn got off of work he called me and asked how did I know they were messing around with me.

“Um,because I know you’re not gay!”

“Oh whew! What a relief?! But now everyone at work thinks I have a small penis. But I just told them ‘Well, she’s just saying that because her hooha is so loose’; by which he proceeded to demonstrate how the roar of laughter filled his office.

There is just something different about him than any of the men I have dated. So I trust him.

Of course tonight’s text messaging session made my heart jump. We were texting about plans for New Year’s weekend and all of a sudden there was a random “I wanna see!!!”

My heart jumped as I thought Oh heck no?! He is cheating! He’s just mistexted me! Who the heck is he talking to??? Who is sexting with my Shawn?

So I responded with a classy “What??????”

I stood up from sitting in the cozy leather recliner and walked into the bathroom and started to bend over as though I was going to hurl. I felt my stomach drop, I felt absolutely sick at that moment. No response from Shawn. So I grabbed my phone and called him.

“Who the heck are you talking to?” (Oh yea, I forgot to even say ‘hello’)

“To you! I meant ‘I wanna see you!!!’, I forgot the you. Then I looked and saw your “What????” response and I thought ‘Ahhh great!’

“You seriously like giving me heart attacks. I seriously started to think you were talking to someone else and some hussy was gonna send you nude pics or something.”

Shawn starts bursting in laughter. “I am so sorry babe. I didn’t mean to scare you like that.”

“I seriously think you are testing me to see if I freak out or something.”

Continued laughter from Shawn. We continued to talk another 10 minutes and then Shawn mentioned he rented a movie with his boys so I told him I’d let him get back to his movie.

As soon as I hung up, I went to go give my son some cold medicine since he was complaining of a sore throat and when I returned to my room where my phone was, I saw Shawn texted me “I’m sorry for scaring you babe…I love you.”

So yea, obviously I am still a little hypersensitive about the whole cheating issue but I am still gonna trust my man until I see further evidence.

Oh boy, I totally thought the drama was going to be over with after Wednesday when Shawn’s ex-girlfriend sent me a friend request on Facebook. It was eating me up still as to why she added me on Facebook. Then I was checking my Facebook feed and noticed a friend had posted an article to how people can be missing messages received in their inbox when a person messages you and is not currently a friend. To view such messages, Facebook files them under “Other”. So I checked out my “Other” messages and I had a few in there. Bam! Three received from his ex-girlfriend and then another two from her best friend.

Apparently she started messaging me back in the beginning of November when Shawn and I had already been exclusive for a few weeks. She said that they have been sleeping together this entire time and that she thought I should know that she has become the other woman and that she knows she should cut ties with him but she can’t because she is in love with him and she feels incomplete without him.

Whoa! Wait a second!! Could this be true?? Could my Shawn possibly be sleeping with his ex-girlfriend; the woman he told me he couldn’t trust and whom he had dumped because he saw text messages in which she was sexting her ex-boyfriend???? Yea….her messages were very convincing and I my insecurities were already on high alert because of her trying to add me to Facebook just two days ago (the same day she sent her last message to me). I admit, at first I freaked out and started crying.

She said in a 2nd message that she had drove 2 1/2 hours up to his work and brought him coffee and Chinese food and claims they had sex. Shawn did tell me about her showing up at his work with the coffee and Chinese food that day. It was during that conversation in which I told him I would not feel comfortable with him contacting her anymore even if it was just friendliness on his behalf because she is mistaking his “niceness” for interest in her and a hope of getting back together. I told him her actions are not speaking of a friend but rather of her being in love with him still. So he was honest and told her he was wrong about them being friends, they just can’t and he had not spoken to her since. So even though they have been broken up for 5 months, really to her it only feels like it’s been a few weeks since he now has cut off all contact with her. I feel she was still in love with him because of having daily contact with him via text messages. So to her, there was no real cut off and she explained how over the 5 months she felt he and her were getting closer. Really???? You thought you were getting closer when Shawn has been in town every weekend, spending all day with me from early morning and then taking me out at night in which he would then come back to my place and hang out until 2 am most nights. Really??? You think that there was some quality time he was spending with you during those weekends??? I don’t even see how he could cram you in his schedule because the man would be falling asleep on me at 2am so he would go to his sister’s down the street to sleep and then be up bright and early back at my house for an 8:00am rendezvous.

The thing about all this is that Shawn has been completely honest and forth coming with information about it. I never checked up on him and asked him about her, he would just bring it up in normal conversation how she texted him a particular day and has been telling him she is still in love with him etc. His only fault in all this was being nice to his ex-girlfriend. Too nice! And I never agreed with his beliefs on it and sadly, he now knows it’s not a good idea. This is a first for this extreme drama in which an ex is accusing him of sleeping with her still. He says that he never expected her to be like this but I told him that when women become desperate, they do things out of the norm. The pattern I have noticed from all of this is that she messaged me on Facebook every-time there was a conversation with Shawn in which he would tell her that they cannot talk or be friends. I know this by looking at the dates in which she messaged me.

Her final message was stating that we both love him for very different reasons and that he continues to play with her heart, sleeping with her and telling her he is still in love with her but scared to be together. She said she is a God fearing woman and has given this over to God and hopes I can forgive her.

So what does Shawn have to say about all this?

Shawn’s first reaction was “And you believe her?” He said “She has been trying to get back with me since we broke up. My faults in all of this was that I did sleep with her post break-up until I met you and that I still hung out with her as friends up until the beginning of October. It also doesn’t help that we have known each other for 14 years and that I was still building up her self-esteem by telling her she looked nice etc. Obviously this all bit me in the butt and apparently I shouldn’t have been friendly with her and instead I should have just been downright nasty with her.”

Shawn and I had a conversation last week when we talked about another ex-girlfriend recently adding him to Facebook. He said “I am a God fearing man. If I was up to something shady, God would uncover the sin and I have complete faith that if you were also up to no good, God would also reveal it. So what we have to do is trust one another.” I agreed with him then and I agree with him now.

He then said “It’s tough because I know you are thinking “Is this God intervening and splitting up something that is not to be or is it Satan destroying something that is meant to be?”

I told him that God always confirms things. he is faithful that way, so if I ask for confirmation either way, He will give it to me.

Shawn just said “Ok babe”.

A few minutes later he texted me asking if I was ok and did I want for him to come see me after work the next day (today). “You are the best thing that has happened to me in a long time. I’m willing to do what it takes to show you I don’t want to lose you.”

I sent him a rather cold response telling him to do what he wanted that I wouldn’t oppose seeing him and in fact I needed to look into his eyes when we talk.

A few minutes later he responded with “Should we just go our separate ways? You’ve already told me you don’t want to stick around in a relationship where red flags are flying.”

I told him this needed to be discussed on the phone or in person and not thru text messages.

About 20 minutes later he was off work and called me right away. He said “so now we’re at a cornerstone where we have to decide what to do. I’ve been in your place, I’ve been on the side where stuff came up about my current girlfriend and I didn’t trust her at all. I didn’t trust her the remainder of the relationship and it ended it. It doesn’t matter what I say, the bottom line is that you aren’t going to trust me anymore and I don’t want that. I want you to be able to trust me but obviously I don’t have any surveillance. I hope my word is enough. I know trust is hard to rebuild if not, it’s practically impossible so you have to decide do you want to trust me and move on continuing this path of our relationship, do you want to take a step back and just be cautious or do you want to split while we’re still fresh at all this?”

There was a moment of silence and I said “Shawn, I’m gonna trust you. I don’t know why I trust you but I do. Maybe it’s because I have seen your integrity as a man, a boyfriend and a father. maybe it’s because you have been honest with me and volunteered all of this information to me as it happened. It’s almost as if God was preparing me for the drama. Like you would tell me how one day she was texting you, telling you she loves you and wants you back and then you would tell her not to contact you anymore and then came the crazy messages on Facebook to me those same nights.

I’ve been cheated on twice now. By my ex-husband and my last boyfriend, Josh. Both times I had my intuition nagging at me telling me something wasn’t right yet I chose to ignore it twice. I honestly don’t feel any sort of nagging going on that she might be telling me the truth.

Shawn’s final actions and words have helped bring me some comfort .

1.) Shawn didn’t ask for me to forward the messages to him. I think that anyone who was cheating would be curious as to exactly what details were being given away.

2.) If you really want to, go ahead and contact her. I told him “I don’t want to talk to her. I want nothing to do with her!” This is crazy talk. A cheater wouldn’t suggest this either.

3.) Does she really think I would go back to her after all this? She honestly thinks that if she was successful at breaking us up that I would want to go back to her??? After she just ruined the best thing that has happened to me and basically ruined my life???

4.) She degraded herself, there is no chance for a reunion. I know this makes me sound like a jerk but after we broke up I still slept with her. When we did sleep together after the break-up, I thought less of her because I started to wonder if this is how she acted with all of her exes and how many other exes is she sleeping with now.

5.) Do you want me to delete all my exes off Facebook? I’ll do whatever you want me to do. I told him “You know, at this point I think I would prefer you did. I don’t want to deal with this sort of drama anymore and I would prefer if you block her now. He said “No problem. I promise you, I won’t respond to her texts anymore.”

So I am choosing to believe him until God gives me further confirmation not to trust him.

Shawn and I were enjoying our evening phone conversation and had only been on the phone for about 10 minutes when I heard my phone notify me of an email but I ignored it because I wanted to enjoy my conversation with Shawn. We talked for nearly two hours and at the last 10 minutes Shawn decides to tell me that there was a bit of drama regarding his sister and his ex girlfriend the past 2 nights.

Apparently his sister had a run-in with his ex-girlfriend and within minutes, the ex started crying to Shawn’s sister about how much she still loves him and how hard this is. He then proceeded to tell me how she was texting him all night prior to him calling me in which she was saying:

“I am still so in love with you”

“I realize now how much I messed up”

“We are so good together”

“This is so hard for me to deal with”

Shawn said he debated on answering her back or ignoring her. He said about 20 long messages later, he responded telling her to lose his number and that he already stated he couldn’t talk to her anymore.

I trust Shawn and during this conversation it came up that I did trust him. We said good night and hung up. I checked my phone and was shocked to see a notification of “Jennifer XXXX wants to be friends on Facebook”.

And coincidentally another woman added me at the same time. Right away I texted Shawn telling him his ex-girlfriend that he just talked about with me, tried to add me to Facebook and asked if he recognized the name of the other woman. He confirmed he knew it was his ex’s best friend. I immediately blocked them both. Shawn apologized and just said “What are those crazy girls up to?”

I explained to him that we women are curious about the new woman that replaces us. We want to know if they are uglier, prettier, thinner or fatter than us. I told him that on Facebook, when you either send a message to someone or send a friend request, you get treated like a friend of the person’s profile which grants you temporary access to view everything that their friends are allowed to see. So she was able to see all my photos, wall posts and friends. He apologized again for it and we went to bed.

All day today I have felt totally violated, afterall it took me two hours after she had sent the request last night to receive it which gave her 2 hours to run crazy reading every post I had tagged Shawn in, check-ins with him or photos of us. She now knows that we are going to be staying in a cabin in the snow in February.

She Facebook stalked me. I didn’t invite this woman into my life. I didn’t invite her to get to know me, to know my likes and dislikes and I certainly didn’t invite her to check out my photos which some feature my son. She pried her way into my life like a stupid high school teen playing stupid high school drama.

I told Shawn that my concern is that if she hasn’t gotten over him after 6 months, how long is she gonna continue to try contacting him?! I honestly don’t know how much I can take of her text messaging him and although he says he won’t message back, what if she just continues to push his buttons and makes him feel guilt that he politely responds to her. With every response, she will just gather a little bit more hope that maybe he will come around again and give her a second chance.

As we talked about this all tonight, he continuously apologized and said that he can’t control her actions or how she handles all this. He does accept fault for her behaving this way because of how up until 3 weeks ago he was still being cordial with her via text. He understands if I feel insecure and annoyed right now and he says I don’t deserve his ex girlfriend drama. He swears he won’t let this drama create a wedge in-between us.

I love Shawn. He is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I would marry him in a heartbeat but with this ex drama coming up every few weeks, I am afraid it might make me rethink all this. I don’t want his ex to ruin something that is so wonderful. I won’t give her that power to steal my happiness with him but I don’t know how to get over this either.