Wednesday 29 August 2012
I have been wrestling of late of how to continue telling you about Mr Mensa.  Well, it has been over 5 months since my last post, so I guess that gives some kind of indication of my resistance to proceed. I could continue by reminiscing month by month but quite frankly I don't have the time or the energy.  To put it bluntly, this situation with Mr Mensa lasted merely 6 months and in reality 3 months considering that he worked in Algeria in the oil industry one month on and one month off.

In that time I found myself falling for him but looking back I also know that I was working hard at not ending up with another failed relationship.

At the start of the relationship things started off really well.    It turned out that Mr Mensa didn't need to return back to Warrington as soon as previously thought, he seemed to want to spend as much time with me as he could before he went off to start his new job in Algeria and the feeling was certainly mutual. As luck would have it, my lovely and recently married friend invited Evie to stay for 5 days to keep her own daughter company during the school summer holidays so we managed to spend some quality time together.

I couldn't remember the last time I'd spent such a concentrated amount of time with a prospective boyfriend.  Mr Mensa seemed quite a hyper active character but it was refreshing to be involved with someone who emitted such energy.  It wasn't long however, until I put two and two together though and realised things were not quite as simple as I'd first envisaged.

The sorrowful truth was that as soon as I found out that he had a penchant for the white stuff I should have ended it.  Instead I stupidly thought that once he let me into his life he wouldn't need to get completely shit-faced at the weekend if we were out.  How silly of me.

I thought I could handle it.  I said to him that what he did in his own time was up to him but as soon as it started affecting my home life, that would be it.  I had Evie to think about, not to mention my career and he seemed to understand that. I've been involved with a couple of men in the past who liked to dabble but they never did it in my company, it was a separate part of their life to the one they had with me and they were never serious boyfriends.  I wanted Mr Mensa to be a serious boyfriend though.

What I didn't realise is, that unless you are really into Cocaine too, then the relationship is already on a downward spiral.

The first night I witnessed him take it we had been invited to an engagement party.  He had already been in the pub beforehand and was relatively high when I picked him up on the way to the party.  As the night progressed I watched him be the life and soul of the party while I knocked back the Vodka and Tonics.  When we got back to his place, he continued to take line by line and I started to find myself intrigued by the white powder being cut on the plate.  Within my drunken faze I found myself being extremely affectionate towards him although he explained to me that Coke doesn't have that impact on him.  I went off to bed on my own and asked him if he'd be long.  He said he wouldn't.  This would be a regular occurrence on the very few nights that we went out in the future, me, going off to bed on my own while he continued to stay up and snort coke.

Mr Mensa had been away for 2 weeks when it was coming up to our month anniversary and surprised me by sending a beautiful bunch of flowers to my work.  It gave me some hope that this was a sign of things to come.  The whole first month together was exciting as it often is in a new relationship, the difference being that ours was based mainly on emails and telephone calls following our initial week spent together when we first met. When you're involved with someone who works away for periods of time, you have to work hard at the communication side of things.  Emails have to be carefully written so that they aren't misread.  Phone calls need to be answered because it may be the only chance you have to speak to each other and you constantly focus on the home coming. You are regularly wishing days and weeks away.  I really can't say that Mr Mensa was anything but attentive during that first period.  I really was excited at the possibility of a future together.  Surely the coke would be of no interest to him once he was in an established relationship?  I convinced myself that it was just some daft, silly, single man past-time.  Unfortunately, I was the one being daft and silly.  I was deluding myself.

I'm ashamed to say that I found myself on two occasions trying a line of coke.  Why did I do it?  I guess in a pathetic attempt to fit in, to try and understand what all the fuss was about and probably because I was drunk.  I didn't see the attraction and I never did it again after that.  I was disgusted and disappointed with myself for allowing it to happen.  Mr Mensa and I didn't go out together a lot when he was home from Algeria after that.  If he went out and had a drink he had to get high and I didn't like that.  There were times he let me down because he'd got so wasted the night before and I will never forget the way he looked at me when I challenged him about it.  So in the end, I just stopped making the effort to go out.  We had 2 proper dates in all.  Of course, whenever I said to him that I was worried about him and the impact it was having on him, he would justify it by saying that he'd been doing it for years and he was still ok.  When he'd finally come to bed, just as I was just getting up, I knew that his heart pumping out of chest was saying otherwise.

It affected every area of our relationship and when he came round to the house high when Evie was there, I'd had enough.  Shortly after that he was away working.  He'd been moved to Holland with work and I was able to contact him through a mobile phone instead of him having to phone me.  I had sent him a couple of texts but had received no response.  I then sent him a text saying that I was getting worried could he please call me.  That evening I still hadn't heard from him so I phoned, several times.  His phone was ringing out so I knew it wasn't off.  It was the following evening before he phoned me to tell me he was ok but at that point I knew my worst fears were true.  I knew at that point that he had been taking Coke while he was working away.  I was furious and upset that he could be so selfish to put other people's lives at risk because of his habit, because that's what it was.  There was no denying it, he had a habit.  I was angry that he thought it was acceptable to have me worried sick but I knew there was no point trying to reason with him so I decided to send him a email.

I told him that I had been worried sick about him, that I thought he might have been arrested, beaten up by some dodgy dealer or suffering a heart attack.  I told him how I watched him turn into a wide eyed, agitated wreck when we were out together and that I wanted to fall into bed with him, not be getting up just as he was going to bed because he was so loaded.  I said that Evie was the most precious person in the world to me and I was not prepared to let her be in the position where she was let down by the person she looked up to because of drugs. I told him that he was a great guy but the stuff was ruining him and it was now ruining us.  I wasn't trying to give him an ultimatum but I was trying to make him think about the impact his "social" drug taking was having on us and I wanted him to chose us, not Coke.

And in very simple terms, he chose Coke.

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Bird on a Wire
Imagine Carrie from Sex and the City morphed with Bridget Jones and a baby thrown in for added entertainment – that’s me, the ever optimistic romantic looking for my Mr Big but already with child! Read my blog from the beginning where I find out I am pregnant following a brief fling with my much older male colleague and fast forward to where I am now, stressed out working mum to my beautiful 10 year old daughter wondering if love really does in fact exist at first sight.
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