The Tarot keeps telling me that I’m repeating old patterns which is why I am miserable and cannot move on. No job prospects (actually I’ve been turned down by 8 within the past five months), no boyfriend. Had a lover, a great lover, but it was time for me to move on. He had some pretty big problems, bigger that mine maybe, and I’ve got some doozies, as you well know if you’re reading this.So, I began to think of these old behavioral patterns and thought of “The Trade.” You see… it’s what I do. And it works. It works well.

With my husband I traded my youth, my looks, my dynamic personality and I know perfectly well that I can do this. Men have always noticed me. When I was in my 20’s I was a traffic stopper, a pretty girl, and its still darn easy for me. I wanted to sail around the world, and he had just the boat to do that. He pursued me relentlessly! So after he crossed the Atlantic I put in a message for him to call me. The next week I was on the plane to Palma de Mallorca. We sailed for four years together, crossed the Atlantic and I logged 10,000 miles in deep ocean waters. It was a fair trade, so it seemed…

For my fiancé, I also traded my looks and youth because I wanted a replacement family from the one I just lost. What I really wanted was someone to help me raise my son. And that’s just how it started, our two boys meeting at The Children’s Museum.” It seemed like kismet, and we stayed together for 5 years. It was a long distance relationship. He lived three hours away, but I didn’t mind, I’m pretty sure that was just what I wanted. He put a ring on my finger right away because of a serious jealousy issue. Should’ve seen that one coming. But we also had fun. A Lot of Fun! With the boys. By ourselves. Heck, he flew me first class to Thailand for 2 weeks. We were always on the move…

Now I just ended what I would call a “transitional relationship.” I needed to get back in the game and he was lonely. I knew this guy, since he was a friend of my brother’s from years back. I remember as a young girl having a huge crush on him. So he asked me out when I got back to Michigan, and then the texting began… oh, how I love the texting game, (always make them text first and never be the one to text last!) I let him pursue me for 6 months then he finally called me and asked if we were ever going to have that drink or not? So, I said yes to dinner. We texted then nearly every day after that. Then there was New Year’s Eve….. the notorious one night stand! But I was still okay with this, after all he was what I considered in the safe zone. My family new him, thought he was a nice guy, but I knew it would never go anywhere. It did. For five months…

These trades have consequences though. There are definitely red flags all along, but I would ignore them for the trade off. For example: my husband turned out to be verbally abusive and threatening. By the time that 10 years was over I was just a shell of who I once used to be. It took me years to return to myself, but I’m not sure I ever really did. My so called fiancé turned out to be manipulative and controlling, eventually (once I was diagnosed with bipolar) blaming every argument or tiny disagreement on my illness. This last guy, as much of a connection we shared and all of the mind blowing sex we had, turns out he met his first wife in AA, and his second wife left him unannounced one day while he was at work and forced him to have a psych eval. Turns out he was an alcoholic and sex addict.