Let me start out by apologizing for the length of this post because it's going to be a LONG one.

In 2009 I met the most amazing man while meeting up with my best friend at karaoke. He and his girlfriend were invited to go with my best friend as they work together and he was telling her he likes to sing. I had a lot of fun with him that night but his girlfriend was very standoffish because she and I knew each other from High School. She's a couple years younger than me but I knew her well because she made it a point to bully me every chance she got (I don't know, maybe she thought it was making her look cool since she was a Freshman and I was a Junior?) Anyway, she and I never really got along and I knew her dating style in High School because pretty much everyone talked about her all the time...to say she slept around would have been an understatement.

Of course I have no right to tell this amazing man the kind of woman he's dating because it's not really my place at all and I was dating someone myself that I met on World of Warcraft and we had plans for me to move to Oklahoma once I finished college in the spring so I just let it go and enjoyed my night.

So I move to Oklahoma in the Spring of 2010 and by December the guy I moved down there for has already met someone else when he started his new job and he kicked me out on Christmas Eve so my family came and got me and I made it home with my tail between my legs.

In March of 2011 I started working with my best friend and in turn I got to see this amazing man everyday M-F. We started talking every once in a while to having lunch together when he wasn't having lunch with his girlfriend (the same girlfriend from 2009). I learned a few things that troubled me about his relationship with her...things that would have been a red flag for me if I were in that kind of relationship. We weren't "allowed" to hang out outside of work because she wouldn't "allow" him to have any friends of his own (they had to be HER friends and she had to approve of anyone before he could hang out with them.)

I was laid off in April of 2012 and I moved into my new house (out of my mother's). I had a friend help me move into my new house and he just kind of never left. We ended up dating each other up until November 2015 when I kicked him out of my house because I was tired of his ways. I was tired of his not wanting to get off his butt and get a job, learn how to drive so he could help me and he would get mad at me because I started refusing to buy his cigarettes and the 5th of bourbon he would drink every single night. I was never in love with him but it was kind of nice to have someone I could sit and talk with when I needed it. After a couple of months of living in my new house one of my brothers needed a place to stay until he could find somewhere more suitable so I let him move in for a bit. Every time I tried to instigate any kind of sexual contact with this man he always had an excuse. His first one was because my brother was living with us so I rushed my brother into moving in with another friend of his. He still refused any sexual advances I would make saying he wasn't ready for that part of the relationship just yet so I backed off. Then another one of my brothers moved in with me and a couple of months later and we went through this whole scenario once again. I made my brother find his own place and once again he had an excuse not to have sex so I backed down...again. In October of 2013 my mom called me because her house caught fire so I jumped up out of bed and was at her house within 5 minutes to find she also had a stress induced heart attack and the house was being condemned (fire, folks, CHECK THOSE LINT TRAPS). It was either let her move in with me or have her move in with my oldest brother and his wife (whom she hated) so she moved in with me. Any sexual advancements made at this time was completely denied because he couldn't stand the thought of doing anything like that with my mother in the house. I helped her find an apartment that her insurance paid for until her house could be renovated. Still no sexual contact now his excuse was that he just couldn't get it up and needed to be on drugs so I bought him xtendz and other OTC treatments that he would recommend. My mom was diagnosed with Small Cell Lung Cancer in May of 2013 and I started going with her to treatments and the like so I just completely gave up on having sex with him at all because I wasn't in the mood after dealing with that monster named cancer on a regular basis. I had to put my dad in a nursing home because he could no longer take care of himself and I couldn't handle taking him on at the time. In March of 2014 my dad passed away from Emphysema and COPD, he just couldn't breathe anymore. On June 1, 2014 I move into a new house across the street from my mom so I could help with her as she was on hospice at this time. On June 2, 2014 (exactly 4 months to the day of my dad passing) my mom passed away. I stayed in the home I was in for a while longer and moved into mom's house in March of 2015 as it was rent/mortgage free and it was left to my brother's and I. He moved into my mom's house with me. In August of 2015, shortly after I started working at my new job, he told me that I either move his youngest child's mother in with me or he was leaving. I didn't care at this point because I already knew it wasn't going to last so I had her move in. In September we were sitting around the fire pit in the backyard. He was drunk with his friend once again and he made the comment, "If you think you can do better just go ahead and try." That was my out, at least that's house it felt. I just shrugged because I figured someone that works at McDonald's has got to better than what I have right now.

In October this amazing man posted a comment on FB about meeting new women on Match.com so I couldn't resist the urge to comment back. Something witty and catching. I didn't even know he and his GF broke up. He and I started talking for hours on end on the phone until we were bother exhausted and our work was falling behind and everyone was commenting on it to both of us (we work at different places now). We made a date to go out for McDonald's after I got off work one night and we sat there talking for 4 hours before I went home. He called the next night and we made plans for Halloween to play D&D and watch some DBZ together. After we sat down to watch DBZ he took me in his arms and we just snuggled on the couch for a while before he leaned over and kissed me. I'm not talking about just any normal kiss, either, I'm talking curl the toes, out of this world, OH MY GOD kind of kiss. I went home that night and my BF asks me to come to the fire pit where he and his friends are once again drunk. He asked if I had fun being a nerd and told me he wasn't worried about the guy or any other guy so I asked him why so which he replied, "Look at you, you're NO ONE'S type." At this point I was just fed up so I told him to get the frick out of my house. I made him take his babies mama and his daughter with him.

From this point on the amazing man and I are seeing each other on a regular basis and I'm starting to fall for him...HARD! That's where the problem is...

His ex has his head so messed up that I'm not sure how to help him heal. He says he can't love because he doesn't have a heart because it's broken. His ex talked trash about him to her family, her friends and to just about everyone she came across. She cheated on him from almost day one, she took his money for bills and used them to buy herself and her son things instead of paying said bills. Things started getting sketchy. She would deny him sex and affection because if things weren't going her way that's how she got her way. Things escalated and he got to the point where he told her he was done. He kicked her and her son out of his house. After 2 months of her talking crap about him she came back and was all sorry for the way she had treated him. Started telling people the truth of the situation and he told her he would date her but it would never be anything more than that. He told her he could never be in a serious relationship with her again even though she posted on her FB that she was in an "open relationship" with someone (it doesn't give his name). She says things on her post about being in an open relationship like, "Maybe one day it'll get changed to just relationship but this will do for now." and "Well this is what I want. I will do it no matter what everyone says. If it gets to be too much I will end it. But for now I am ok. I appreciate the concern from everyone but I know my heart." He did say he would date her, however, and when I asked him why he would put himself through the hell and torment he simply said, "Dating her is much more fun than being in a relationship with her." He's getting more sex and head from her now than he did in the 6 years they were together.

He also told me that he doesn't want a serious relationship right now because from his one and only failed relationship he has learned that women are manipulative and he doesn't want that. He says he doesn't have a heart to love anyone else because it's broken but he won't give himself a chance to heal because he's constantly with her and letting that poison into his life.

He wrote me this back in October, "I dont know what is worse being alone or being told they want nothing to do with you. I miss the idea of a relationship. I miss sleeping next to a person and being told they love me. I miss morning sex. I forgot how much being single sucked. lol"

I know he wasn't marriage and kids, the whole nine yards and I'm ready for that as well.

So how do I show/prove to him that he can have a relationship with someone like me who believes in compromise and working together in a relationship because that's the way I was raised to be. That he can't base EVERY future relationship on the one failed one and the failed/failing relationships he sees going on around him because I'm not her. I'm not them. He's not them. WE ARE GOOD TOGETHER! So how do I protect myself while helping him move on even if it's not with me?