The gut factor

I often look back and ask myself where I was 1, 2 or 3 years ago on this day. My life in the last two years has been a whirlwind, to say the least. Two and a half years ago, I was well on my way to making one of the biggest mistakes a woman can make.

Life couldn't have been better, or so I thought. I was in my late 20's, at the top of my career where I thought I was completely untouchable, my family was doing wonderful, I was in tip top shape( if I may say so myself). I thought I had everything I wanted. I had a boyfriend (we'll call him "Mr. So-Not-Perfect") that I honestly thought I was going to marry. Here's the mistake all (or the two who stumbled on this blog): I was not listening to my gut.

Now, listening to my gut was not one of my strengths at the time. I get confused between what my gut is telling me and whether or not I'm just freaking out, which I have a tendency to do... a lot. I'm a pessimist by nature and tend to worry about all kinds of things. Like what if a traffic helicopter falls on me on my way to work, yes folks, I'm cool like that. So getting back to Mr. So-Not-Perfect, who was a handsome architect that everyone I knew thought was the best thing since sliced bread.

Looking back, I realize my gut was screaming that this was not the man for me. In fact, I had never been physically attracted to him despite the fact that he was exceptionally handsome and probably one of the best looking men I've dated. Every woman I know was drooling over him. I often asked myself why I wasn't feeling that butterfly-y feeling, but I could never put my finger on what the issue was. I tried to make it work and for a while convinced myself that everything would be just fine. I convinced myself that we had "that connection" and so what if our relationship had as much passion a couple in their 80's. After all, isn't being an adult about letting go of these fantasies of ALWAYS having passion in a relationship? The truth is that we were in the right place at the right time. I was in my late 20's, he in his early 30's. We were both tired of the dating scene and wanted something solid leading to marriage. My family liked him and I believe his family liked me (although I can't be completely sure about one of his sisters).

I should have mentioned this earlier, but this was a long distance relationship. He lived all the way across the country and although we only saw each other every 6 weeks or so, we spoke daily. I can't, for the life of me, remember what we talked about. He wasn't particularly intellectual nor did he enjoy any philosophical debates. Still, I convinced myself that this was indeed the man for me. He was the "perfect" boyfriend in the sense that he never forgot an anniversary or birthday, he sent flowers for Valentines Day, bla bla bla. But I knew something was missing. A year and a half after we met, everyone was salivating over possible news of our engaged.

Every time I thought about marrying him, I would get images of Julia Roberts in Runaway Bride. Nevertheless, I convinced myself to start planning my move to his state. I was preparing to leave my family, my friends and my job to trek across the country to be with him. Yet, every time I tried, I just couldn't envision myself happy. I kept on wondering if I would be one of those women who, at the alter, would suddenly know this was all wrong. Lucky for me, we didn't get there.

After months of us arguing and me being distant and nitpicking, the relationship ended. To this day, I'm uncertain who broke up with who. I always laugh at people who say it was a "mutual break-up", because we all know there's no such thing. Basically, after months of the worst communication a couple speaking the same language could have, I asked him if he was really happy and he said NO!!! Now, I'm only shocked because he was the one who was more into this relationship the whole time. Now any normal person who was feeling the way I felt would feel a tremendous sense of relief and gratitude that this relationship had ended, but staying true to form, I didn't. In fact, I felt quite the opposite. What lay ahead were months of agony.

To be continued...