I met this guy through work – he changed my laptop, I changed his life. (Oh, if only!)

He worked on me for about two years – you know, how guys like to keep women on the peripheral just in case they want to pursue some serious V. We stayed in touch and chatted every once in a while, and then after a year, we became intimate. Twice, I think. This was during the thick of my illness, and I was out from work many times because of serious problems with my shunt. When it got really bad I cut him loose, but we still stayed in touch. Then in December of 2014 he came back to me and said that things didn’t work out for him with an ex he went back to. I had also just ended a relationship with someone whom I had dated off and on for about five years. We sat down and had a serious discussion about what we wanted from a relationship, and we agreed to be exclusive. He told me that he was interested in me as a woman, and my lack of hair and my repeated brain surgeries did not bother him at all.

It wasn’t so bad, at first. He told me that he was trying to cut down to only drinking once a month, and he had made a promise to his sisters, niece and me that he wasn’t going to drink and drive. He’s a smart guy with a high I.Q. I affectionately nicknamed him Walks with Wood because he is Navajo and is obsessed with sex. About a month into the relationship, he tried to tell me that he has multiple personality disorder and he turns into a different person when he drinks.

Can you see the red flags? I did not go into this naively, so I always held back in connecting with him on a deep, emotional level. This wasn’t my first rodeo. Quite honestly, a statement like that about having multiple personality disorder is usually presented as a humblebrag and is completely untrue, so I just took it to mean that he is a liar.

Shortly after we started dating he landed a travel tech job. I would jokingly tell him that when I agreed to be in a relationship, I didn’t mean long-distance relationship. We talked every day but I only physically saw him three times a month, tops, and that mostly centered on me driving him back and forth to the airport after he parked his SUV at my house so he didn’t have to pay for parking. There were a couple of times when I stayed up 24 hours at a stretch to make sure he was picked up and dropped off when he needed to be. He moved to another apartment during these months that we dated, and I helped him with getting his belongings into storage so his free time at home wouldn’t be consumed with moving.

Oh, yes, I did ask him to fix a few things in my house and hang some new ceiling fans. He also promised to cut down a tree that was growing into some power lines (his idea). He never came through with help.

Walks with Wood could not keep up good behavior for very long. First he started visiting strip clubs – even one up the street from me, telling me that the waitresses were also the dancers, so they would dance on the poles fully dressed down to their tennis shoes. Not sure who to feel sorry for in this case, the ladies or WwW. Then he started saying that whomever he is dating better be okay with him watching strippers all of the time because he wasn’t going to give that up. I know it’s difficult to try to get someone to stop something they are addicted to and it would create problems if I put my foot down, but I’m going to let you in on a little secret: his drinking and diabetes are seriously interfering with his ability to perform. WwW is 6.5 years younger than me, but I would rate his functionality to be the same as some guy who is, say, 80 years old. So he’s basically a dirty old man watching naked women writhe around a pole. That much exposure to strippers has the same effect as having a porn addiction 24/7.

As time went on, he resented me asking if we could spend time together when he was in town between work trips. When I say “time”, I mean more than one hour. I never even asked him to stay overnight. At the beginning of the relationship, he told me that if the woman he’s dating puts her foot down and says that she wants him to do something with her, he will put her above everyone else. That was definitely some hot, stinky smoke being blown up my ass.

Then he started drinking heavily again. He broke all of his promises to me, and he was proud of it. The last fight we had happened because I invited him and his roommate over for dinner at 6:30. After he was an hour and a half late showing up, he and the roommate finally arrived, but he had another woman with him. He also had a tall Mason jar filled with Coke and Jack. I was mad because, 1) he was late – VERY late; 2) he was back to drinking heavily, and 3) he brought his fuck buddy with him. When a fight ensued, he was yelling that I was using his past against him, and that if I said anything, it would make him want to drink. I told him his past was his present. I asked him if he had been to the bar that day, and he said no. So when the roommate, the other woman and WwW and I sat down to eat, the other woman revealed that WwW had driven her around all day to look at cars to buy (even though she doesn’t have cash and doesn’t qualify for a loan) and then they sat at their neighborhood haunt and drank for three hours before heading to my house. Everyone quickly finished eating and the roommate and the other woman went to sit in the car outside, and WwW and I had a few more loud words. He left by saying he really wished I hadn’t fought with him. That was the end of it. We didn’t talk about it later and we didn’t have any contact at all…

Until about a month later. I got a text message saying, “I was in a really bad car accident and I hit my head. I was going through our text messages and it seems like we didn’t end things well. I hit my head really hard and I don’t remember anything.” When he said he didn’t remember anything, he meant ANYTHING. He claimed that he didn’t remember any of the months we dated, any of the times I picked him up or dropped him at the airport, any of the promises he made to me about helping out, and anything of what we talked about in general.

This is like the lighthouse of red flags. I have never, never had any of my former men claim total and complete amnesia.

He kept offering to send photos of his banged up head. I told him I wasn’t interested at all, and I was busy with having to sell my house, get surgery #10 and move to MN. His only response was, “Oh, okay.” Then I told him to check his texts for conversations with other women and go screw them, because he had told me right before the big fight that he would cheat on me if he got bored, and he was bored. Again, he responded with, “Oh, okay.” No denial. No apologies.

In conclusion, I have improved greatly my ability to send someone packing, even if the guy says he is “okay” with my health issues and lack of hair. The lesson is to believe someone when they show you who they really are (thank you, Maya Angelou). I didn’t have stars in my eyes and hang onto the relationship as I might have just a few years ago. Life is short.