I Ignored Everybody’S Warnings And Dated Him Anyway

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Ithink we can all agree that relationships are tough, especially at the very beginning when your mind and body feel completely consumed by passion, excitement, lust, and desire. But also fear, jealousy, hostility and difficulty. I’m not about to preach to you how utterly magical our relationship is because it’s not.

We have our ups, but we also have our downs, and although some days are amazing, some days are f*****g hard. We’ve been together for over 15 years, and there have been times when we’ve both considered separation.

Our relationship is far from a fairytale. Yes, it’s amazing, and I hope it lasts forever. But real love isn’t all fairy castles, princes, and princesses, I mean, it could be for some people, but for me, it’s a little more realistic. We’ve had to make sacrifices, we’ve overcome some pretty tough times, and we’ve had to let past memories stay firmly in the past.

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Fifteen years ago, I was young, carefree, and single. I was out every other night drinking, partying, and enjoying my life. After years of being stuck indoors with Anxiety, I finally set myself free and tried my best to enjoy every moment as best as I could.

Because of anxiety, I struggled to make friends, and I only had one true friend that managed to break down my walls and have the pleasure of being my rock. She was the one person I told everything to, we laughed together, cried together, and experienced many hilarious but also upsetting and scary situations together.

She was the more outspoken, flirtatious, and sociable one, but I was the socially awkward girl who would sit quietly in the corner, not speaking to anybody unless somebody spoke to me first. However, when I had one too many wines, I suddenly changed into a totally different person. Instead of my friend being the center of attention, it was suddenly me.

We had two years of partying and traveling, and we made some hilarious memories that I’ll honestly cherish forever. One evening, we headed to a local bar, and she informed me that her brother and his friend were going to be joining us. I was very nervous because I’d only met him twice, but I already had a pretty strong opinion about him.

He was one of those guys, a loud, mouthy, slightly obnoxious, and overly flirty guy — who oozed confidence. You know the type of guy that you could tell was just a complete womanizer and an extremely in-demand person.

He was not the type of person I was used to being around. Compared to him, I was shy and very socially awkward. My friend could tell I wasn’t too happy, so she advised me to try and be myself, and he would probably only stay for an hour or so. Everybody in the bar said hello to him straight away. As the pair of them approached us, he looked straight at me and said hi — whilst also asking if we had met before. I told him that we had met twice, and then he approached me for a hug.

Well, you guys know me by now. I’m socially awkward, and I didn’t have a clue what to do, so as he held out his arms, I stuck out my hand to shake his hand, and then I let out a nervous laugh before putting down my hand and leaning in for that hug. I could feel my face burning up, all I wanted to do was run away — as it was sooooo awkward.

After a couple of hours, we were all laughing and joking and we decided to play a game of pool, and he suggested we play doubles. I said, “okay I’ll be on her team,” he replied, “no, you be with me and those two can be a team.”

I shook my head at my friend, and she laughed. I was awkward because number one — I kind of fancied him at this point, and I had all those nervous butterflies trying not to make a prat out of myself, and two — I was absolutely rubbish at that game.

After trying and failing to get out of it, I had no choice. He even had to show me how to hold the pool cue correctly. When you play this game, you have to bend over the table and aim, so me being the awkward person that I am — I had to bend over this thing while he stood directly behind me, holding my hand, trying his best to teach me.

Bearing in mind that I just wanted to grab him and snog his face off at this point. You must know the feeling when you fancy someone, you feel all the nervous butterflies, but you want to try your best to hide it so you don’t end up looking like an absolute idiot lol.

The next couple of hours were a blur, I have no idea how I even got home that evening, but I can tell you from what I’ve been told that I was the life and soul of the party. Which is great for some people but not for me, I just wanted the ground to gobble me up. I didn’t know how the hell I was going to face him again.

All I could think about was what on earth did I do? What did I say? Did I tell him I liked him? Did I try and fail to show him some of my unsexy wannabe erotic dance moves? Did I let him hear my extremely unflattering rendition of the no doubt song don’t speak?

I couldn’t even face asking my friend because I didn’t want to accept the truth. A week or so later, I decided to venture out again, and every time my friend would try and tell me what had happened, I’d hold my fingers in my ears, screaming Lalala Lalala. I knew it was awful because she kept laughing.

Afew weeks passed, and he was hanging out with us practically every night. I didn’t tell a soul that I liked him, but my friend could tell. She knew everything about me, she knew when I was lying, and she knew when I was telling the truth.

So she decided to sit me down and tell me the truth about him. She said he was not the committing type. He used to cheat, lie, and fool around with anybody he wanted, and he barely ever had relationships. I assured her I didn’t like him like that, and even If I did, I would only ever have a little flirt and that would be it. However, the more me and him spent talking, the more I realized how much I liked him.

One evening we all walked to my house, and my friend ended up taking a stroll with his friend, so me and him were left alone together. We were getting on really well. He lent me his jacket because it was utterly freezing, and we spent quite a long time standing around cuddling.

He told me how much he liked me — but my friend’s warnings kept replaying in my mind, so I laughed it off telling him that I knew what he was like, and I’d heard all sorts of things about him. Later on, we exchanged numbers and then said our goodbyes.

After many weeks of texting and speaking on the phone, he asked If I wanted to meet him in town for dinner and some drinks. After speaking with my friend, who again advised me not to get involved with him, I reluctantly agreed. We met up and had a great time, and at the end of the night we exchanged our first kiss, and I was so happy.

I kept thinking, “what if he does actually like me.” We started to see each other more and more, and we were having a wonderful time. He told me things about his upbringing that I never knew, and it turned out we actually had a lot in common.

We’ve both never met our real fathers, and our mothers had engaged in a couple of very toxic relationships — in my case, my mum met a man who physically and emotionally abused her. Luckily she got away from him eventually, but it practically ruined my entire childhood. We both struggled in school, and we also liked similar things.

A couple of nights later, me and my friend ended up in town at a local bar/club. There were a group of people at the bar, and my friend dragged me over to say hello.

I spent most of the time texting him when suddenly everyone asked who I was talking to. After revealing who he was, they all scoffed, shook their head, and one by one they tried to turn me against him, by telling me how he’s treated other women, how he’s not the settling down type, and blah blah blah, Yes, I thought he sounded awful, and I actually wondered why on earth I was giving him the time of day.

Throughout the night, they would keep on and on at me until I had enough. There I was stuck in this club, music was blaring, it was dark, I noticed couples all around me, and all I could think about was him. I remember going over everything he had said to me, wondering if it was all fake.

Suddenly I had enough. One of them said something like, “don’t tell me you’re going to see him again.” So I lost it, I was sick and tired of them trash-talking him. He wasn’t around to defend himself, and they literally made him sound like the devil in disguise. Later on that evening, he called and we spoke for around an hour. I expressed all my doubts, and I told him about all the warnings I was getting. He suddenly became slightly frustrated and told me he would talk to me in the morning.

I barely slept that night, wondering what to do. We met up the following day, and he asked me to take a chance on him. He admitted that he did make mistakes in the past, and every other woman he was associated with was just a bit of fun. He never had anything in common with them, so he thought there was no point in pursuing anything.

I wanted to believe him, but I had so many doubts, and I kept thinking, what if he’s only saying all this for the hell of it? What if he is playing me and making me look an idiot? But he seemed so genuine, so In the end, I decided to go for it. We both agreed to keep it all under wraps from anybody, so we could see how things went.

We kept it all a big secret, and if I’m honest, it was exciting to sneak around. It was our little secret that nobody ever knew. Months passed, and my cousin’s wedding was quickly approaching, and I was allowed to take a plus one, so after many talks and careful consideration, I decided to take him.

I introduced him to my family, and they adored him. I started to look at him in a whole new light. Watching my cousin’s first dance made me realize how much I had fallen for him, and suddenly I wondered why the hell were we keeping it a secret? So what if everybody finds out — what they think doesn’t matter. We knew how much we liked each other, and that’s all that mattered.

So we began dating for real, we told everybody, and let’s just say not everyone was pleased. My friend laughed and told me not to go running to her if I ended up getting hurt, his mum wasn’t pleased because she liked me and didn’t want to see him mistreat me, and his friends didn’t want him to settle down and stop his wild ways — so as you can tell we had to deal with a lot of hate from everybody.

But we didn't care. We stayed together through thick and thin.

I’m not going to lie to you, there have been some tough times. He was always one for the ladies, and a couple of his previous partners would try and come between us. So, he’s been known to text other women. However, I’m talking about the 3rd year we were together, and I realize this sounds childish, but because he did it, I did it too, as a kind of revenge thing. Yes, we were both young and a little immature.

Which caused a lot of arguments. But, we both fought so much to stay together, and in the end, we decided to move away to a place where nobody knew us, a place where we could start all over again, and then we were finally happy and a real couple.

Years passed, and he finally proposed. We still aren’t married, but we will be planning our wedding very soon. Nine years ago, our son was born, and he is such a little treasure. We absolutely love being parents and are so excited for the future, so that’s a great, big F**k you to all the doubters and haters.

As I said earlier, we are not perfect, we’ve made lots of mistakes throughout our relationship and have questioned staying together at times, but we have such a strong bond, and we can’t imagine our lives without each other in it.

Some people might call it a habit because we’ve been together for so long, but it’s not. We still get on as well as we did when we first met — well, apart from all the awkwardness lol. The doubters from all those years ago can’t believe we are still together. It’s like we surprised them all.

I grew up in such a toxic environment, and I believed that fairytales were rubbish. It’s sad because I was a young girl, I should’ve felt excited about romance, I should’ve wanted a happy ever after, but I never got to witness it in real-time. All I saw was misery, violence, and depression.

“Happily ever after is not fairy tale. It’s a choice.”

I’m not going to say we never argue because we do. I don’t know any couple that doesn’t argue every now and then. We can say hurtful things to each other, and we sometimes get fed up with being around one another — but after we’ve both calmed down — we end up apologizing and then decide to move on.

The only bit of advice I could give you is communication, which is the key to relationships. Keeping thoughts and feelings bottled up doesn’t do any good, and it only makes the pair of you feel worse. If you’re happy then tell each other, If you’re unhappy, then tell each other.

Any doubts or fears should be addressed — even if it's going to be painful to admit, you have a right to tell each other. keeping secrets will only end up causing you both heartache and misery.

So don't listen to all the haters and doubters. Trust your gut feelings and take a chance. You are responsible for your happiness and life. Nobody has the right to tell you how to live. After all these years with my partner, I realized that love is indeed real, and doesn’t just belong in fairytales.

If you take a chance on someone and it doesn’t work out, then yes, it will be upsetting and difficult — but you’ll live. You will grow and move on. Life is sometimes about taking risks. If we feel like something will make us happy, then we should act on those risks. Happiness tends to sneak up on us, so grab it with both hands and embrace it.

Call me old-fashioned, but I feel that if you’re together, then you should be able to handle whatever life throws at you. I hate giving up easily, and I’ll fight to keep my relationship no matter how tough it gets. If we’re suddenly both miserable then yes, we will part ways, but until then, we will stay as we are and continue to make each other happy.

My love story was far from a fairytale, but it has been adventurous — and one which I’d be more than happy to relive again. ♥