This is my attempt to make a change...

Day 1:

In four years I've been in two very serious relationships.  The first lasted nearly 3 years, and was the first real relationship that lasted longer than 3 months.  That ended with him leaving me in the middle of the night, for a woman he had been cheating on me with for over half of our relationship - information i found out from 'mutual friends'.   For a year, i knew about this girl, and he worked to convince me that he was with her financially only.  A month before we were supposed to move in together he changed his phone number, and disappeared from my life all together.  That was last July.  This month would have been 4 years.  I was devastated, and it's taken its toll.

My next serious relationship started a few months later.  We dated for 2 1/2 months and it became serious very quickly.  Gone like a freight train in love i was, and to make matters worse, he was the first man my dad actually gave his blessing too.  He talked ring shopping, and asked me to move in with him in NC after his army training (LT) next November.  2 weeks before he left for ibolc he broke up with me, saying he just wanted to be friends.  I couldn't do that.  I was in too deep, and i WOULDN'T do that.  I kept a strong grip on my love to (with?, in?) him, hoping he would change his mind back.  Recently he asked my best friend to come visit him when he gets a break in his training...and they weren't that close.  Double devastated.

2 big loves, 2 big desertions.

HEART BROKEN.

I've been told I am a strong woman...strong sexually, strong will, strong drive, and a strong sense of humor.  But when it comes to love, and men, and relationships I have a very weak sense of self, it is hard to see myself as worthy sometimes.  I am weak, because mentally, I just had the shit kicked out of me.  And you know what?  I need time, lots of it, to recuperate, and that doesn't make me weak.  It makes me human. 

Hence the 6 month time-out.  I know I'm grasping at straws.  anxious to find my match, and have my Cinderella story.  I need to find me, NOT date, or become involved with a man.  And i have no freaking idea how to do that.  So this is my experiment.  Come into myself, develop a strong sense of self.  and QUIT being such a disaster.

So feel free to leave CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM as i explore.