Moving to Brisbane

I was just about to have the 24th operation following on from my motorbike crash and drove the car 1200 kilometres to another city whilst I could still drive it.

I was staying at Doug and Debbie's (Thanks once again "guys", really appreciate your hospitality) and met recently divorced Gloria who used to visit a lot for coffees and a chin wag with Debbie.

She related to me later that she thought I was cute and it was too bad that I was married.

It was only a couple of weeks later, and my wife had walked out on me!

A northern address

Having moved everything to a new city, I wasn't about to pack it all up and head back to Melbourne straight away. I didn't have a job and tried everything to gain employment as almost anything for 9 months. In some cases I was too experienced or over qualified, so I would surely get bored with the work very quickly (I was told). In other cases, I was not experienced enough and didn't have anywhere near enough qualifications.

I was soon flat broke and in need of welfare assistance.

Cheaper rent?

As I wasn't working, I also joined Debbie and Gloria for a coffee quite a few times.

Before I was totally broke, I asked Gloria (Or was it "match maker" Debbie who asked?) if maybe I could move into the downstairs area of her home. (In Brisbane, a lot of the houses are built on stilts to assist air flow under them to keep them cooler. Quite a number of owners put walls up and pour a concrete floor for this area under their homes, ending up with a cheap play area or garage / laundry.)

Visiting your tenant

One of the reasons that Gloria used to visit Debbie so often was that she was lonely.

After I moved in under her home, Gloria used to come downstairs and visit me when Debbie wasn't home. I'd be sitting at my desk working on my computer, and she would come and lay on the water bed in front of me. She asked me upstairs for dinner a couple of times.

We would sit and chat over lots of coffee for hours.

It wasn't too long before we had a relationship of sorts happening.

Heading south for work

Within a couple of months of Gloria and I getting "together", I finally had a job offer (via a friend opening a door for me), but it was back in Melbourne.

We had a bit of a chat about it, then I packed up a trailer with all my remaining bits and pieces and headed back to Melbourne to start the job.

For the next year or so, Gloria and I tried a long distance relationship. We'd run up big phone bills that I couldn't afford, and we'd visit each other every school holidays.

I'm packing my job in to be with you!

After about a year of the long distance relationship, Gloria told me in one telephone conversation that she was going to pack her job in and come down south to live with me.

I was shocked (but didn't let on).

Soon after that, Gloria had moved in to my tiny bungalow and it wasn't too much later that we moved into a house.

I've sold the house!

I don't know how much time transpired before Gloria got a job also, and I also don't remember if the job came first, or her statement of, 'I'm selling my home in Brisbane'.

I didn't have the courage to tell her I didn't feel as committed to her as she seemingly was to me, so next thing she had sold her home and updated her car.

As I had maxed out my credit card and was paying for two cars I no longer had, as well as making payments on a cheap replacement car, I never had much spending money. Whatever I had spare, I used to try and buy Gloria little things like a bunch of flowers, or take her out to dinner. It seemed that she forgot about these things as there were frequent conversations about why I never had any money and Gloria always did.

Let me buy you a car?

The car I had when Gloria moved down to Melbourne required a bit of work to keep it on the road. Thankfully it was cheap enough for parts and I'd almost paid out the finance contract, so it didn't bother me too much. It annoyed Gloria though. She decided that I needed a more reliable (read new) cheap car which would ensure I didn't break down on the side of the road somewhere.

Again, I didn't bother fighting the point, and next thing I had a brand new little car purchased out of the proceeds from the sale of Gloria's Brisbane home.

If some bits are good, but the rest drives you nuts...

Gloria and I had different ways of doing almost everything. We also had totally different ways of sharing how we felt about things. Gloria felt obliged to provide feedback to people (as it was being honest with them) regardless of how hurtful the information might have been or how sensitive the person might be.

If I wanted to get things cleaned up around the house, Gloria would want me to sit and have a coffee and a chat first then get up and do it when she felt like it. By that stage I would have relaxed and only wanted to continue to relax, not burst into activity because it suited Gloria now.

Enough already

I tried to be adaptable and flexible in what I did during the time Gloria and I were together. I actually felt more like a wimp as I was financially crippled and could never take the lead in much that we did. Areas that I could have taken the lead didn't bother me, so I never bothered to lead. Gloria needed a strong partner to "protect" and guide her,  and I never fulfilled that role!

Gloria always had better (or worse) stories in her history, so she made people feel that their experiences were not of consequence by comparison. Whilst she loved to converse for long periods, she made her conversation partner feel like their recollections were inconsequential.

A lot of the time that I spent around Gloria, I felt more like a foot servant than a partner. That is never a good way to go about having a "caring and sharing" relationship with someone.

Lessons learnt

• Unless both members of a relationship have equal voice, one of you will eventually overreact from having held your tongue.
• If you don't like or agree with something, say so before the other person has sold their home, or spent a big sum of money on something you could do without.
• Even though real life is not meant to be about role playing, some people will not be able to successfully relate to you unless you can assume a particular role. (eg. Who wears the pants)
• If you don't both have the same idea about finances, it will eventually drive a wedge between you. Is the money earned treated as joint earnings, or separately as his money and her's? If you can't trust each other with a joint pool of money, is there a problem with the general trust which the relationship is supposed to be based upon?
• Are your plans for the future compatible with each other's? If you aren't talking about a shared future will you have one?