Ready for a relationship again

Well as I never had a 21st celebration thrown for me, I decided to throw my own on the 21st of the month, just before I turned 22. I asked one of my mates if he knew of any single "blue eyed blondes" that they could invite along for me. He said, 'As a matter of fact, yes!' So he invited Pauline along to my party.

As I didn't know if Pauline was going to be able to make it, I also invited Jane as we were sort of friends again and occasionally going out.

As it was my motorbike days, I hired a car and picked up Jane and Dave and his girlfriend and met everyone else there.

A blonde with long hair and blue eyes?

All the early arrivers to the party sat up one end of the long table. When my mate finally arrived with his wife and some other girl with short hair and green eyes, I wondered if Pauline would be coming at all.

I worked my way around the table having polite conversation with everyone and got to my mate. He asked me, 'What do you think of Pauline?'

How long will a relationship last?

In the photo above, Peter is no longer with his wife; Lee left her husband Zep; Pauline left me; Randy is deceased; The couple on the right (Maarty & Marjke) are the only ones still together! Congratulations to  the sole surviving couple!

Missing from the photo are Dave's girlfriend (I think she was camera shy!); Jane because she was off somewhere crying; Randy's wife Elise because she was consoling Jane.

May I drive you home?

Not that I had a vast amount of time to talk with Pauline at the party, but I didn't think too much of her! However I was away from Jane's end of the table long enough for her to go off crying and ask some of the others to take her home.

With a vacant seat in the car now, I thought I'd do the gentlemanly thing at least and offer to drive Pauline home.

There was very little conversation almost the whole way to Pauline's place. Dave was making out something fierce with his girlfriend on the back seat. When we dropped them off at Dave's place it was almost silent to rest of the way.

We pulled up outside Pauline's place and the chat started. All quite pleasant, but that was about it. I leaned over to kiss her goodnight, and the kiss turned into something very steamy that went on for a few hours!

Find someone else...

It wasn't long before we were living together. I thought things were comfortable, and believed we had a good sex life, etc. Nothing was earth shattering though and I was having thoughts of moving on.

Then, on the way to work about 7 months after meeting, I had a major motorbike crash and was badly banged up.

I was laid up in hospital for a very long time and in one fit of depression told Pauline to leave me and go and find someone else.

Amazingly, she stuck by me.

Let's get engaged?

As she'd been there for me through all my time in hospital, and I was badly scarred and looked a mess physically when I was discharged, Pauline was going to be as good a partner as I could expect, wasn't she? I asked her if she wanted to get engaged.

Must be time for another party - Let's get married?

About 2 years after we'd met, we started to make plans to get married.

I still didn't love Pauline, but was confident that there would be no one else who would take on the human wreck that I felt I was.

As neither of us was working too often, we got everyone to pay their own way in to the restaurant we got married in.

At the end of the night we went home as if nothing had been different that day.

How about a holiday?

Around about the time we got a cash settlement from my bike crash when things were not looking so grim financially and physically I came to the realisation that I did actually love Pauline.

It seems things were heading the other way with her. She finally admitted that she'd been faking every orgasm since we'd been together.

I started to wonder what else she might have lied about.

I guess we're having a baby then?

Pauline's life was so meaningless she told me one day. 'Either I can have a baby, or join the police force', she advised.

Not considering the police force a real option for us, I responded that I guess we're having a baby then?

As I'm sterile, we needed to go on a program for about 12 months.

I know the child isn't biologically mine, but is he a result of the program we were on, or some extra-curricular "program" that Pauline was in to?

I'm leaving you!

15 months later and I was interstate setting things up for the move there that we'd both planned and agreed on. Meanwhile Pauline was staying with family. I'd only just had another operation on my foot, so I was on crutches moving very slowly doing the lifting and pushing around furniture.

We spoke on the phone every evening and Pauline's conversation was full of 'Wayne this..' and 'Wayne that...' I tried to think nothing of it, but a week and a half later when I met Pauline at the airport she told me that she was going to leave me!

She told me she wasn't leaving me to be with Wayne, but when I brought all the furniture back to Melbourne they were as good as living together.

When legal advice is useless

I was devastated. It had taken a long while, but I'd finally placed my complete trust in Pauline, and she had totally betrayed it. Everything about our relationship seemed to be a farce.

Even though I was hurting, I wanted to make sure I did the right thing, so I went to a local solicitor and told him the whole story. He charged me a small fortune to draw up some "legal papers" and get her to sign them agreeing to what would make up a one time only lump sum maintenance payment.

I thought it was all over, and started to build my life again.

Things were just starting to look up when a notice server knocked on the door one evening to serve me papers for ongoing maintenance.

According to the Family Court judge it was irrelevant as to who the biological father was, the child was deemed to be a "child of the marriage", so I won ongoing maintenance payments until the child turned 19. It was also deemed irrelevant that I'd paid a lump sum when she left me as it hadn't been registered in the Family Court, it was deemed to have never happened.

Was the grass greener?

Is it rude or unfeeling of me to find that Wayne is the complete package? He comes complete with HIV+, a criminal history (and more time inside since Pauline's been with him), and perhaps a bit of a temper which includes physically beating his partner.

I must have been too soft on Pauline as to my knowledge she is still with Wayne (when he's not locked up), and she had another child to him not long after they got together. (It must be real love to have unprotected sex with someone who is HIV, mustn't it?)

Years later Pauline and I were having a chat over a coffee and she confided in me, 'I wish I'd never left you! I though things were crap back then, but they were no where near as crappy as what my life has become.'

Was she motivated to say this from looking a round the place where I lived and seeing that I was quite successful (and single at the time)?

A short while later she hated me again when I shared my thoughts that the child I paid maintenance for for 19 years was Wayne's.

Lessons learnt

• If you place all your trust in someone, you will be devastated if you find they have betrayed that trust.
• Having a relationship with someone else is a lot like "trying them on the see how they fit". In today's throw away society, relationships seem to have been added as just another thing that can be thrown away if it doesn't seem to be working out.
• If a relationship is not travelling along smoothly, having a baby is not going to fix anything. The sleepless nights and added financial burden, etc are only going to cause more friction.
• If you know that something is not financially viable, do not be brow beaten into doing anything that is against your better judgement by your partner.

Lessons learnt about the legal system

• The only people who win from any legal action are lawyers.
• If you have any family disagreement sorted out by the legal system, make sure the outcome/ruling is registered in the Family Court
• Only honest people end up paying! Pauline admitted that if she had ever left Wayne, she would never have considered taking him to court for maintenance.
• Judges make their rulings based on their perfect blinkered view of the world. They either have very little real world experience, or seem to disallow real world to enter their blinkered judgements.