Jaysus…I realised I was in danger of coming back here in the next decade. Really can’t believe how much more time has passed since my last visit. Forgive me readers for I have sinned, it’s been about five months since my last confession/bitchathon. Where have I been? Discovering that two children equals double the shock to the system and flying by the seat of my pants, working like a mofo, vertigo for a few months, and dealing with my crackerjack family. But forget that! I feel in honour of a new decade, I had to look back on ten years because this has been a hilarious and yet at times highly painful ten years. Let’s see….
2000 – The Year I Ran Off to the US, Ditched BeeGee and Acquired a Replacement Assclown
I was 22, an ad exec making great money, going out with BeeGee, a guy ten years older with a penchant for dancing 70s style no matter what the genre, wisecracking about threesomes to my mates, and totally eroding my self-esteem. By the time I ran off on a great adventure to the US in June of that year, our 2 year relationship was barely existent and I had lost faith in my company after I was racially harassed and they handled it badly. All of this didn’t stop him turning up with 24 hours notice the following month. I’d already met a new assclown by then… BeeGee and I had a major bustup. He went home. I decided to move to the US and started university, only to run home to Dublin by the end of the year, to get away from the other assclown and expensive uni fee’s.
2001 – The Year Moved to London, Went Out With a Manchild and Met Mr Brownsuit
I started the year with insomnia as BeeGee was waiting for me when I got home and badgered me for 5 weeks and coupled with the other assclown calling, my brain went into overdrive. I got accepted into uni and on 31 Jan I moved to London – yay! I was robbed within 2 hours whilst having a sneaky shopping trip in H&M – hilarious! I loved uni life although I attracted a stalker from my class almost immediately… Dated a guy three years younger and the novelty wore off when I realised how immature he was. I met Mr Brownsuit. There was no initial attraction yet we started dating. He wore black leather trousers and a cream jumper to our first date and nearly killed myself laughing! He was very jealous and very annoying – I thought we had a passionate relationship. In reality, he was a pain in the arse.
2002 – The Year I Got Engaged & My Life Derailed
Despite the fact that Mr Brownsuit (he was actually named this by readers after I bumped into him at an event dressed in brown from head to foot) was a total pain in the arse, we got engaged on Valentine’s Day. I should have been on cloud nine, but I admit I wondered what would happen if I did what they do in movies and climbed out the bathroom window of the restaurant. I think I thought that surely if we got engaged, the happiness would follow. Unfortunately the misery followed instead, and at some point, I’d either lost or gave away any power I had as he became a control freak. A very dark year….
2003 – The Year I Called Off the Engagement, Graduated, Got a New Job, & Fell in Love with a Guy with a Girlfriend and Became Mysteriously Ill
The first six months of the year were spent fighting for a relationship I didn’t want and finishing my degree. On the 1st June, I walked away from the relationship. Moved in with my aunt, got a job, and became instantly attracted to Male Best Friend (MBF as christened here on the blog) who had a girlfriend. What followed was 18 months of pain. To add to it, in August of that year, I woke up one morning and couldn’t see properly. By the end of the year, my eyesight had totally deteriorated and I became like skin and bone.
2004 – The Year I Got Veeery Ill and Started Blogging
Hmmmm, turned out the mild eye infection was an immune system disease called Sarcoidosis where the immune system attacks healthy organs. By the time I started steroids, I couldn’t breathe or walk properly and it was attacking my spleen. Somehow I juggled all of this with the craziness of being involved with MBF. I started trying to date and after one of the funniest dates (probably for all the wrong reasons) I’ve been on, I started blogging – yay!
2005 – The Year of the Epiphany When I Started To Fight For Me
Oh what a year of drama! I’d ditched MBF, thought I’d met a great guy, The Contender who soon became Dot Dot Dot Man because he kept sending me one line text messages with ambiguous dots on the end and saying ‘chat soon’ and then disappearing. There was much hilarity en route but it was me ending it with him and then sharing my realisations that I liked unavailable men and that I had commitment issues which, not only changed my life and relationships, but also attracted a whole new following of readers who were going through what I was. I also came off the steroids and became ill within a month. They said I’d have to go on steroids for life or keel over when I was 40 from pulmonary heart failure. I declined and decided to fight for myself and went to see a kinesiologist and started to get better. Oh and I started Baggage Reclaim.
2006 – The Year I Found Love…Found An Extra Sister…And Got Knocked Up….
I started acupuncture and was in remission by April. I briefly datedThe F*ckwit doctor with some hilarious dates. I told him to get knotted and thought I’d chill out on my own and met the boyf a few days later. The rest is history. Joking! Totally different to anything before, I accepted he wasn’t too good to be true and started enjoying it. We were on a weekend away in Rome when we realised I was pregnant. It could have been disastrous but it so wasn’t. Oh and this was also the year when I found out I had another sibling…five minutes before I met her. This was also the year that a lot of people found out I was a blogger, especially when the Daily Express featured me and I walked into my office to find the whole company logging on.
2007 – The Year I Became A Mum and Suspected I Wouldn’t Be an Employee Again
After being worried how I’d get the bambino out of my va-jay-jay, I ended up with an emergency c-section. One minute there was just the boyf and I, and then she was here and it was like a new little mate to hang out with. I also became a home owner, turned 30, and thought about throttling both of my parents as they kept being a pain in the arse, albeit with very funny results. This will also be remembered as The Year When My Mum Turned My Baby Shower Into a Hot Date. Oh and I started Bambino Goodies as a ‘little experiment’.
2008 – The Year I Finally Started Blogging for a Living…And Got Knocked Up…Again…
I went back to work for four days and it was all a shambles, which gave me the excuse I’d been looking for. Totally by coincidence, exactly seven years after I moved to London, I became self-employed – woohoo! I released my first ebook, Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl and the blogs continued growing. I made plans…and then I found out I was pregnant again. I got very stressed towards the end of last year and kept worrying about how I’d cope.
2009 – The Year Of Growth..And I Became a Mum Again
For a start, my family expanded and we welcomed another little girl in April. She’s a gorgeous, feisty, cuddly bundle of att-i-tude! The business also grew even though I’m supposed to be taking it easy (ooops), but I also learned a hell of a lot more about myself. The boyf and I are still very much loved up, and the learning actually came from my crackerjack parents who I had a series of bust-ups with over the course of the year. I’m excited about a new year with lots of exciting stuff with my little family and finally getting to crack on with my work plans. Oh and this was also the year that MJ died which gave me even more of an excuse to be silly and break out the MJ moves at parties. Some things never change…
Happy new year! Happy new decade! See you in 2010!
Natalie/NML xxx
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Happy, Healthy, Successful New Year and New Decade to you, dear Nat. Much love and good wishes to you and all those you love.
Your blog has been the most amazing thing ever, as have been our consultations. Looking forward to the new book as well – you are amazing with the incredible amount of valuable, eye-opening material/information/logical and effective relationship assistance you produce !
Now… if I could just meet A HEALTHY AVAILABLE LOVING AND LOVEABLE MAN WHO IS HIGHLY COMPATIBLE WITH ME IN ALL WAYS, NOW AND ALWAYS !:)
Send prayers for me that this will be my year – and I can owe all my successs to you and your blog
((HUGS)) to you and the bambinos and the BF
Nat,
Blessing on your journey, and may the next decade have much more peace than interesting stuff.
Because the decade after? You get two teens starting to date, and we get to see how prepared *they* are for that whole girl-guy thing! Ooh! I can *not* wait. Snigger. Snigger.
Blessed be!
Hey Nat
Great post, since I met you through Mr Brownsuit, we have to give thanks for something. You are a wonderful friend who deserves only good health, much happiness and continued success xxx
Great Post…..
I found your site on stumbleupon and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you down the road!
Thanks for sharing….
I found you through Being the Other Woman… Need I say more??
But what I have found in your Blog ( which by the way Blog's are new to me) is a no nonsense thought process from someone who's been through it and has come out of it happier and finally with the Dream man.
There is hope!
I was married for 20 yrs to a wonderful father for our children, however a very controlling and jealous person. I fell out of love and soon tired of the "green man". He was my first and only for all of those 23 years ( 3 were dating). But since then I seem to attract all the wrong ones. I am disheartened and disillusioned. They tell me I am great, beautiful, one of a kind blah blah but at the end of the day they choose to be with someone else?
So how does someone so GREAT always end up alone?
I don't get it.
signed,
Trying to Find my Way
By the way.
You say you are In Love with the BF
I read today someone saying that being In Love is only the beginning passionate brain waves talking.. but to be in love for many years is unlikely.
I beleive that yes that initial fireworks dies down but I am optimistic to beleive that you can be In Love for many years…
Falling out of Love are results of events in the relationship.. changes perhaps, but if you are really in love then you ride the events and changes out… and still end up in love???
Anonymous,
I tend to think that love is often mis-labeled. As is "making love" when nothing happens for one or more partners than an act of sexual congress.
I do think that love may end, mostly.
Love as an enduring force in life, has to be expressed as respect and trust for the partner. A devotion to the happiness of the other, finding joy in the act of keeping that someone in our life, and conviction that our partner holds us in esteem, I think, are essential.
I have come to believe that we come together not for ourselves, but to meet social, familial, and community needs. We form a couple or family, in order to interact with our extended family and community as a couple or family. Which means that we choose a partner not for a delightful treat, but for their ability to be responsible and able as mate and, within the couple, as a member of the community.
I see the family as a unit of culture, the traditions, rituals, and values that secure and nurture the family, and contribute to interaction with extended family and community. If we are raised to respect the family that raised us, we will likely be driven to emulate the need to instill our culture, our family, in the next generation, often as children.
Which is a long way of saying – guys skilled at winning bed partners – dress hot, hang out at hot spots, use the usual booze and lies tricks – will *never* forget their delight at their life skill. Find out where the successful daters – those that date a lot – hang out, and live a life that never, ever, touches any of that. Find the community of people you wish to live in, and try to be a part of that life. And keep your eyes open for the forgotten, single guy that is respected and trusted. Check with the (happily) partnered women for advice and introductions.
The passion, the hormone-induced giddiness at the beginning of a relationship is quite physical. Your body is adapting to the pheromones and hormones (exchanges of breaths) of a new person in your life. People that confuse this adaption with "love" may continually change partners just to experience that rush again. Those that choose a respected and respectful partner, a mate, are treated with the delight as they adapt to a new life in family and community.
The respect, trust, devotion, conviction of our partner's esteem, and joy really should begin with delight, and weather the years very well.
Apologies all! I did originally comment from my iPhone but it seems that my comments all over the Blogger land get eaten…
Anyway, happy new year all!
@Loving Annie I've thoroughly enjoyed getting to know you and being part of your journey. Thanks for your continued support, big hugs xxx
@BradK Happy new year! I dread the thought of the girls dating! I'll be on assclown watch for sure but I won't project my experiences on them, well the bad ones anyway!
@b You and a couple of other friends are the most wonderful thing about the period with Mr Brownsuit so I can certainly thank him for that!Love you loads , nat xx
@MyBambino Thanks for stopping by and belated happy new year!
@Anon We've been together for a few years now and have a couple of children. I don't really look at things being madly in love. We're just really happy. I think it's much more simple just to say that we love each other very much. I was never looking for fireworks – just like the real ones they go out. I'm sharing my life and my love with someone. That in itself feels good. I don't analyse it and wonder how much in love I am; I'm embracing it and enjoying it. We're both the same people and although we've evolved as our lives have changed, we've both remained consistent to each other. I would say if you were in a long relationship with jealousy etc, you probably needed some time to work through the emotional impact of these things as you may not be so emotionally available yourself as you may be trying to secretly protect yourself. Also if you're looking for fireworks, they usually come packaged in dubious types.
@BradK Great comment – the last line in particular is excellent!
Thanks Nat and Brad for your feedback. It is appreciated…
Good day again Nat and Brad…
Need your advice again…
I have been recieving phone calls, mail, visits from the MAN even though he has told the wife I am gone.. I keep telling him to get lost but as soon as I hear that voice or see those eyes I melt and give in..
I vowed this past weekend to be strong… He called insistently again..
I know his wife thinks he's being faithful, she thinks I am gone.. She thinks that he is not lying to her.. I am tormented about advsing her of her disillusions…? Please help..
@ Trying to Find My Way,
One of the posts that apply on Baggage Reclaim would be a better place to look for answers, maybe with "The No-Contact Rule". One post is
http://www.baggagereclaim.co.uk/the-no-contact-rule/
And notice that NML does offer a ($) consulting service.
But briefly – it is your responsibility to change your mind, not his. You are the one to decide what you will do with your time, your body, and your life – and who with. You are lying to yourself if you thing *anyone* should believe you are "gone" – if he can find you. You are not being weak – you just haven't yet decided that what you want to do with yourself as far as family, home, community, and career are concerned – doesn't include him. You are still using him as a "safe" sex toy.
His wife? She isn't your concern. Your first and most important responsibility is to yourself. And you cannot heal while rubbing up against a lying, manipulative sex toy. Don't think of any way of keeping him out of your pants – except your honest "No!"
But please ask this on one of the Baggage Reclaim posts – there are many that can help with their own fears and feelings.
@Trying to Find My Way Brad is absolutely right. You don't need to advise her of her delusions – you need to deal with your own. Never ever play God with the wife. It never ends well and if you think that it means you'll both be able to live happily ever after, you won't. You need to realise what his actions mean – that he lies, he's deceitful, and that his word does not mean anything.
Thank you to both of you!! xo