Ex-boyfriend & Future Husband

In the summer of 1976, my brother got married, and I met my first long-term boyfriend. He was my brother’s friend and best man. My brother married one of my friends. I was her maid of honour. We hit it off and started dating. I think it was the following year that we moved in together. After we moved in together and settled in, we decided to take a trip, even though we couldn’t afford it, but he was a big spender. We chose to go to Freeport, Bahamas, because I had enjoyed it so much the previous year. I also was still in contact with Dwight, and we arranged to meet up once we were there. It was great seeing him. It was like no time had passed. My boyfriend liked him and was okay with me spending alone time with him, which surprised me.

Dwight offered me a job at the travel company he was still working at, but as much as I was tempted, I refused because I could see a future with my boyfriend. We had a nice visit and then parted ways. I had a really hard time with the sunshine. I would get a very itchy heat rash and couldn’t spend much time in the sun. I spent a lot of time in the shade reading as my boyfriend was in the pool, having a blast with all the ladies. I enjoyed my quiet time, and I did have a rest, but I was happy to return home.

I found a new job at Cardinal Watches, closer to where we lived.  I started as a receptionist, and then my duties grew. I was promoted to a secretarial position for the service manager. My boss was very moody, and you never knew what personality you would get. I needed the job and stuck it out as long as I could. I didn’t want to leave because I liked the people I worked with. There was also a man I worked with who was a recovering alcoholic, and he helped me understand the disease. It made me look at my father in a different light.

You get to know someone once you are living with them.  Everything was great initially, but it didn’t take long before things turned ugly. He liked partying and smoking cannabis. I enjoyed being with friends and family and didn’t need alcohol or cannabis to enjoy myself. He never had anything good to say about me. He would put me down around friends, which caused my self-esteem to get worse. He was very jealous and liked to flirt with women. If I even spoke to another man, he would start accusing me of flirting. He became verbally abusive, and we spent less and less time together. He had a great family, and I think I stayed with him for so long because I didn’t want to lose them or their love.

One night, when he was pretty stoned, he went to physically abuse me, and that was it. I left and never came back. I went to stay with a friend living in the same building. I left everything I owned, all my apartment furnishings, everything!  I returned when he was working to get my clothing and cats. The rest of the stuff was material stuff, and I knew I could just start from new. It wasn’t worth fighting him for it.

It was a difficult time because I felt like I was losing all the people who cared about me. I had become so close to his parents, and even though they had told me to leave him on many occasions, I felt so much guilt for leaving him. I had become very close to his brother and his girlfriend. I didn’t want to cut them out of my life, but I didn’t want to bump into him either. I gradually weaned myself from the family and started on my own.

I got an apartment in the same area because it was near my work. At that point, I was working for a Honda car dealership. I started there as a receptionist and was also given some bookkeeping and secretarial duties. This is when my future husband, David, came into my life. He got a job as a salesman in June 1979. He was soft-spoken, kind, and also very good-looking. He would always go out of his way to ask how I was doing, which was a really nice change from what I was used to. As time went on, we grew closer. We started dating in Nov 1979 and got engaged on Valentine's Day. David didn't give me an engagement ring because he wanted me to tell him what kind of ring I wanted. We went to Peoples jewellery store, and I chose several rings, and he chose the final one. We announced our engagement on my birthday in March of 1980 and married on June 21st, 1980.           

I can’t say that our dating times were all great. When David and I met, he was still dating someone else. She had been his long-time love, and she was very possessive over him and would not let him go. Their relationship had been on and off for many years. I had just left my boyfriend and was starting over. I did not want to enter another relationship, but he swept me off my feet. I found myself head over heels for him. Before I knew it, he stayed at my apartment most of the time. I didn’t realize that he had asthma and was allergic to animals.

I had two cats; the female, Minette, had just had kittens. He never said anything until one time, he could hardly breathe, and I asked him what was wrong. That is when he told me he had asthma. I had never heard of asthma and didn’t know how this affected his health. After we dated for some time and knowing he was the one, I decided to return the cats to my ex-boyfriend. This is a picture of Satin, Minette, and her babies, along with one she took from a friend’s cat that would not take care of it. I called him Pepper. She would take care of him in the daytime but bring to me at bedtime.

At the end of February 1980, I went to Miami, Florida, to visit my sister J and her family. My nephew was 18 months old, and my sister J was pregnant and due in March. I enjoyed spending time with my nephew. We went to the beach and spent a long time playing in the sand. He was a very easy and happy toddler. We also took a short trip to their ranch near Gainesville, Florida. It took us longer than usual because J was car sick, and we had to stop several times. It was so different from Miami. I could understand why they enjoyed it there. It also made me realize how much I missed David.