When I was young I was a bit of a wild child, out at every opportunity, clubbing, drinking, getting in from clubbing at 7 and being at work or college for 8:30, what a time to be alive.
I grew up in Oxford, May Day is a Big thing, go out early, party all night, head down to the bridge to watch people jump off on May morning, have no intention of going into college the next day as you know you'll feel like death!
We were all out as usual, it was a Wednesday night, which was probably our favourite of the week, we started drinking at college at lunchtime.
After the nightclub closed we went onto another party on Port Meadow and some other people joined us, friends of school friends, one started chatting to me and we spent quite a lot of time together that night, the only thing I can really remember is a conversation about his necklace, it had a Z on, I joked asking if the Z was his girlfriend, he told me not to be silly, it was his daughter, I'm not sure if I was naive at the time but you know back that not many people I knew had wives and girlfriends, certainly not the ones that used to hang out with us week in, week out.
We started to see each other when we were out, we always ended up together at the end of the night, he worked nights so he wasn't out as much as us but often he'd come out and then go straight to work, he'd also come to see me on the way home from work, or on the way to work if I wasn't out, out.
He wasn't out quite as much as the rest of us but he was out a lot, which is why I never suspected anything, like a wife.
We were a few months in when I overheard a conversation (which looking back was likely intentional on his mates behalf) he joked about a wife, I thought he must have been joking and didn't raise it for a couple of days, until we were on our own.
When I mentioned it I honestly expected it to be a stupid joke, it wasn't. He had a wife, the mother of the daughter I already knew about, he lived with her and I don't think at the time I had a lot of words.
I always liked a bit of a challenge but I would have never gone near a man with a wife but we were several months in and feelings were already involved, we continued to see each other, he continued to be out all of the time, he continued to see me at every opportunity.
It was months later when he came over with his wedding ring on and I asked where it had been that first night, he told me he'd been wearing it, I knew that was a lie, it was about 10 years later that he finally admitted to taking the ring off and putting it in his pocket, I knew he wasn't wearing it, I knew that I'd have noticed, he told me that he took it off as no one talked to him if he wore it, well duh!
We continued like that for about a year (by the way I never slept with him in this time, I was young, a bit shy, lived at home, he lived with his wife)
On Valentines Day I walked out to my car COVERED in roses, it was sweet and then later that day at work a bouquet of red roses, I love flowers but I was a bit embarrassed at having to walk through town with them.
In that year we saw a lot of each other, his wife was even out one night, I avoided her, I felt sorry for her and I felt like a bad person and while it wasn't right, it wasn't me that was cheating. I never brought up him leaving her, I never expected him to, we just made the most of the time we had, I was out at every opportunity, he was too.
I don't think from when I found out I ever wanted him to leave, I was too young to be tied down, I never wanted to meet someone, I wanted to carry on as I was and I guess in some ways him being married allowed me to do that.
On a Saturday I was coming home from work on a bus and just as I got to my stop I saw him, walking along with an overnight bag, I was cold at that moment, I got off of the bus and my first words were 'what did you do?' he told me he'd left her and I didn't know what to say, I guess it's what the other woman is meant to hope for, genuinely that wasn't the case, I liked him and wanted to be with him but I thought it would fizzle in it's own time and that he and his wife would carry on like before.
I was going out that night with my best friend, I rang and told her and she thought we weren't going out, I said we absolutely were and that he was coming to babysit for her, I very much needed to have a good think about what was to come and what I wanted, I knew he and I needed to talk about it at some point but it wasn't the time, for either of us.
May Day came quickly and it was the first time we slept together, a whole year after we first met. The wife found out we were together and made four from 2+2 she quite rightly went mental and gave me shit for months, smashing my car, every time we were due to do something she'd tell him there was a problem with their daughter and he'd have to go round and get her.
It meant constant cancelling of any plans, I always understood his daughter came first and I never had a problem with that, I also knew that she was doing it on purpose but there was nothing I could do about it.
It was about four weeks later when I started feeling sick constantly and a day later I did a test, I remember doing it at my best friends house and being devastated.
The timing was bad, the situation was bad, I wasn't ready, I'd had tests done a couple of years earlier and been told I had Poly-cystic Ovary Syndrome and that I'd probably never have children, certainly not naturally anyway so it was quite a shock to be in the position I was in, just four weeks after sleeping with him for the first time, I guess after being given that diagnosis I didn't think I needed to be very careful, it was never going to happen to me.
It didn't take much thinking through, I'd been brought up in a single parent family and didn't want to do that, I wanted a career, I wanted to have fun, I wanted to have my own house, I wanted to be married before I had children, I wanted to be in a stable relationship, there was so much I wanted, I really wanted it to be over.
I had an appointment at the hospital, luckily it was early days so the procedure was relatively simple, I hadn't told him, I was struggling to communicate with him at all, apart from being miserable, we were out in the car and he asked me what was wrong, I told him and he said he's support my decision whatever it was, he asked if I wanted him to come with me and I said no, I was going with my friend.
I honestly couldn't have taken any emotion, I was a wreck as it was.
Would him saying differently have changed my mind? I don't know. If the timing had been different would it have changed my mind? I don't know. Was it the right decision at the time. Yes, it was.
The day came and my friend took me to the hospital, we both have a warped sense of humour and tried to joke about it, I remember the Doctor having a very hot Junior Doctor with him, they both had to do an internal and the Doctor asked who was the best, it was the strangest of situations.
The day was painful, more emotionally than physically, I have never been so mixed up and emotional, I was a wreck but to be honest it was too late by that point anyway, you've already taken the first tablets and the job is done largely by then.
I went through a terrible period of depression following it, in those days there wasn't counselling, you just did it, never told anyone and went back to work a couple of days later after a few days holiday.
My body healed fast, my head didn't, I couldn't stand to think of him with his daughter and I distanced myself from him, we were still having sex (much more carefully) at every opportunity but I really tuned out from him.
My second and very young sister had been born shortly after, we were all at her Christening and people were saying how she could be mine, I'd literally just had the termination and it hurt, it really hurt, they were right, there was that much of an age difference that she could have been, little did they know how much their jokes hurt.
My 20th birthday came he was keen for us to do something together, all I wanted to do was go out with my friends (and him) get drunk and forget the world, it was then I learned that he had a hang up about his penis size (I'd never even really noticed until that point that it was a little on the small side but I wasn't very experienced and he was great in bed, he well and truly made up for any size with everything else he did, I assume it had been an issue with the wife and he really did have a hang up about it.
It came up a lot (the hang up!) but things were falling apart, I was depressed and didn't know that, I used to take it out on him and the whole thing started to come apart.
We were about another six months in when I told him that I couldn't do it anymore, it wasn't working out and we split up.
It was hard, we hung out in the same group, he blamed me for ending his marriage, I blamed me for everything.
We still saw each other as we were out in the same group, then one night we were out and he lost his shit with me over a birthday card I'd sent him (I've spent ages choosing it so that it couldn't be misconstrued but I'd added 'love from' he pinned me up against the wall of the nightclub and asked why I'd written love when I didn't love him, I'd obviously not thought that bit through as much as I thought.
One of his best friends; P pulled him off me, threw him out of the nightclub and told him not to not to be such a dick, he then came back to see how I was, I was bleeding and a little sore and shaken but ok, he said he was taking me home to make sure I got home safely, he spent the journey telling me that his friend had been a dick and I'd done nothing wrong, we'd been finished a couple of months by that point - there is more to this story but P deserves a post of his own, so I'll carry him on there.
I got a call the next day, apologising for being such a dick, he said that he didn't mean to hurt me (he genuinely didn't, I do believe that)
I'm writing this many years later, he still keeps in touch, probably at least monthly, a lot of time went past when we didn't but along came Facebook and changed that, even all these years later, if he knows I'm out in Oxford he'll still meet us for a drink.
He's remarried, to the Ex of one of his best mates, she apparently hates me, I've no idea why, I wouldn't know her if I fell over her and if I hadn't let him go she'd never have had him, you'd think she'd be pleased really!
All these years later you know I still think about it, not so much him but the termination, what might have been, that I lost my only chance that day. It was the right thing at that time.
I will one day make choices purely for me and not give a shit what anyone else thinks, I promise I will!
