Another View of a Mistake

   I was looking through some papers the other day when I found an email sent to me by my sister. It was a list of things that every woman should have. Some  of them were material goods, a black dress, a special recipe, an outfit that is comfortable and makes you feel pretty. Other items on the list were a good friend, a fulfilling job and a hobby. One of the items on the list caught my eye. It was an ex-boyfriend that makes you realize how far you've come.
   I have one of those. His name is Perry. I talk about him sometimes and when I do it's not very flattering. I've referred to him as Pyscho Perry or the dumb thing that I did when I was younger. For many years I could never understand why I dated him for as long as I did.
  I met Perry at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. He was working in a food booth. He sold me a bowl of soup and added some flattery. I was not used to flattery of any sort and after a few phone calls agreed to a date.
  It was not a good start. We agreed to meet at place where you could watch a movie and get some food at the same time. It was a midway point between my house and his. I was there early watching for him. He didn't show up at the agreed meeting time. I waited until the movie was about to begin. He still hadn't shown up. I decided as long as I was there I might as well watch the movie and have a bite. As I bought my ticket I remarked to the woman who helped me that I had been stood up. I found a seat and ordered something to drink.
  A few minutes later the woman came in looking sheepish. She asked me if my name was Sophie. I said yes. She told me that my date was waiting outside. I told her to send him in. Perry came in and sat down. He was wearing an old white t-shirt and black bell bottom jeans. It was obvious that the clothes had seen better days. The movie that he had chosen,by the way,was "Con Air". Not the best choice for a first date.
   Despite this I agreed to see him again. I must have seen something that I liked.  A month or so into our relationship he told me that I needed to get rid of my cats. He was allergic to cats and asthmatic. I was a little shocked and less than sympathetic. As far as I was concerned he could take antihistamines. I told him that he would be gone from my life before that cats would be.
  The cats didn't like him. Animals do have ways of communicating such things. Ary and Nim,the cats I had at the time did something very interesting. When I would come home from work, I would check my answering machine. Sometimes the last message would be from Perry and it was always cut off. I couldn't figure out why. I realized what was going on when I found that every time I had a cut off message, the phone by my bed would be off the hook. I figured out that my cats were knocking it off the hook whenever Perry would leave a message because they never did it with anyone else. When I fixed the phone so it couldn't be knocked over the problem stopped.
   That Christmas Perry was supposed to spend the day with my family. Instead Perry called because he was upset at a remark I made about his singing voice two weeks earlier. I didn't remember the remark. I spent what seemed like hours crying and begging him to come.
  There were times when we had fun and times when he did silly romantic things. I remember a few. I remember liking the fact that I had a boyfriend. I remember that I liked knowing that I was "normal".
   Mostly I remember a lot of little things. I lived half an hour away. Before I left to come to his apartment, I would call him and let him know I was on the way. He was never ready to go. I always had to wait at least another 30 minutes while he set up his VCR to tape shows that he liked or cleaned up. I remember the time that he had some bumps on his arm. He thought he had skin cancer. I thought they were cysts. He decided to go have them checked out. I told him they weren't cancer and he told me that he wanted to hear that from someone who knew something. I was upset by that. I'm not a doctor, but I do know when someone has a skin condition that needs medical help. (The doctor told him it was a cyst.) I remember him making me venison spaghetti when I had the flu. (He left the dishes for me to clean up.)
   Toward the end of our relationship things started getting worse. My sister got married and I banned Perry from the wedding. There were going to be two homosexual couples there and Perry told me that he planned to confront them. (Perry was a very conservative Catholic.) My sister said she could deal with Perry if he made a scene, but I didn't want her to have to. I'm sure Perry was frustrated. Early on he had told me that he wanted to get married and have six children. He wanted three boys and three girls and had names picked out. He also told me that if I married him I would need to quit my job. He couldn't have a working wife.
   Even though I knew this we still dated. In retrospect I think that we were each waiting for the other to change. He was waiting for me to want to be a full time wife and mother. I was waiting for him to be all right with me working and having cats.
   The last straw for me was a remark he made during an argument. I had asked him to have some respect for me. He replied that he was trying. Trying? He had to try to have respect for me. I thought that if he truly loved me,he would respect me. It wouldn't be an effort. Another thing that happened was that he was developing a bit of a violent streak. His sister told me that he had come close to getting into physical fights with his brother and brother-in-law. I wasn't worried about being hit, but it was not something I wanted to deal with.
  My mother told me a quote. "You can't give what you don't have." I'm not sure who said it. Inside my head a light bulb went on. I can't give what I don't have. The hard cold fact was that I didn't want to marry Paul. I didn't want to have the life he wanted me to be part of. He didn't want me as I was. He wanted me to be what he wanted me to be. I couldn't give him what he wanted and he couldn't give me what I wanted. This led to some soul searching and list making. I decided that I wanted and needed to break up with him. It wasn't pleasant and it wasn't mutual. I'm sure he felt like he had wasted four years on me.
   It has been over a decade since we broke up. Time is a wonderful thing. It gives you perspective and can make things clearer.
  What did I learn from Perry? I learned not to give mixed messages. I did tell Perry that I didn't want to marry him, but my actions did not match my words. Continuing to date him was letting him think I might change my mind. I learned what kind of man I wanted in my life. I wanted someone who liked me as I am,who didn't need me to change. I wanted someone who would respect me. I wanted someone who knew how to dress appropriately for the occasion and someone who liked cats.
  The biggest lesson I learned was compassion. I was always a little dismissive of women who stayed with men who treat them badly. I would wonder why these women didn't leave. I realized why. It's easy to make excuses for the small unkindnesses. It's easy to overlook then sarcastic remarks and veiled insults. It's not easy to break away.
  I was lucky. I didn't live with Perry nor did I depend on him for any financial help. There were no children to consider. I'm not even sure that technically our relationship  would be considered abusive, although it retrospect it wasn't far from it.
  I learned to have compassion for those women and men for that matter. If it was hard for me to break away, how much harder would it be for someone with stronger ties than I had?
   Perry and I parted company and I never saw him again. A year later I met C. Because of what I had learned from Perry, it was a much better relationship. I'm grateful for what C does and who he is because of my previous experience.
  I have a different view of a mistake now. The mistake isn't the original action. The mistake is not learning from what we've done. Our actions are our most powerful teachers.