I had come to a crossroads in my life. I had taken close to a year after my surgery to try to find myself, but had defined my existence and based my actions on a woman that never had any desire to be with me and for whom I was a backup plan. I was better than that and needed to start living for me.
Letting go and moving on in one’s life when you think you are in love is not an easy task to do. You ignore the obvious signs that that person really does not want to be with you, and you ignore the fact that she only wants you when her relationship has problems, and you ignore the fact that all the signs point to the fact that she is never leaving the person with whom she is currently in a relationship. It takes time and focus to realize that the person who you wanted to spend forever with is not right for you. Getting to that point is an internal battle some people can never win.
Over the next couple of months after the baby’s birth we still text messaged and saw each other at afternoon coffee from time to time, but you could tell that Priscilla was being watched like a hawk by her parents who had been informed of the email. The woman she had been before the birth, free, full of passion, and a thirst for enjoyment of life was slowly being erased by the controlled situation she was in.
Her husband had told her that she was not to see me again and her psychologist told her that her husband cannot tell her who she can or cannot be friends with as that is a controlled, abusive relationship. You know who won that argument in her head. She was constantly worried about him asking for phone records and seeing our texts. She was constantly worried when we did hang out, if he had people watching her. Yes, I wanted more than just friendship but even when we were doing nothing wrong like going shopping or eating, it was like she expected there to be a private investigator following us.
I would still help with tutoring as the baby was just an infant, but this consisted of going to the children’s houses
and tutoring them there. Each time Priscilla’s mother saw us together you could feel her eyes burning a hole in the back of our heads. It was like she was trying to make me vanish or dissolve into thin air. She knew that the situation her daughter was in looked good for her and her family. Her daughter had a baby, she was married to the father, and he was a gringo whose family had money. I was a distraction that needed to be eliminated from her daughter’s life, and her family’s image was much more important than her daughter’s happiness. If I ever have a child and pick how society views me over my child’s happiness, just shoot me in the street.
I was slowly being pushed away from her and her family. It was definitely a Montague and Capulet situation that was based on the fact that my current social and economic situation did not allow me to date Priscilla. Social status and financial stability is a huge factor when it comes to many women and their families’ determining if someone is good husband material. Even when a lot of women say that it does not matter, more and more are admitting that it does. Try to go on a date with an upper middle class to upper class woman on the bus in Costa Rica…she might ditch you during the date instead of just never calling you again.
Although I was finally seeing this, I was not quite able to internalize it as I kept holding onto that false hope of ending up with her. Continually, I would try to have my rational mind talk some sense into my blind heart to let go and move on, but each time something would happen to keep that slim hope alive.
Near the end of December another promise was broken by the husband as he told Priscilla that he would not be able to make it down for their child’s first Christmas. His boss was making him work and he had to get a bunch of reports done during the holidays. In the middle of the holidays he found out why his boss was working him so hard to get all the information from him, he was being fired. So after missing the first 5 months of her pregnancy to try and find a job, he was fired 6 months later.
Immediately after the firing, her husband turned back into Oscar the Grouch. He is one of those people that base their self-worth on how much money they are making, and if they are not making money then they get angry and take it out on others. His other was Priscilla. She got to hear about how he was depressed and wanted to kill himself. He was not a good father on a daily basis while she raised the child on her own as well as went to work each day. She had to tend to 2 children in her life instead of one now. Guess that is what brought her eyes back to me temporarily.
We would spend afternoons in the plaza in our home town. She seemed to be finally having a change of heart about the fact that she needed the child’s father in her life. I would hear about how she was not going to move to the USA, that she did not think he was going to change, and that she would be able to raise the child alone. With each sentence she pulled my heart back to her and they would erase the rational thinking that was occurring in my head; to run not walk as far as possible from her. However, the heart blinded what I should have seen.
With the firing of her husband, doubts were raised in the back of Priscilla’s mind…Will this guy be able to provide the life I want for my baby? Will the effort I am putting in this relationship pay off in the end? What if the guy here in Costa Rica actually makes something of his life? She needed her back-up plan back in case the business relationship she had made with signing the marriage papers failed. It was more than obvious to everyone but me that I only had a chance to be with this woman if I could show her that I could support her and her child with the life she wanted. At this point it was just not going to happen.
Over the month of January the husband came down to Costa Rica to live for that month in Priscilla’s house as he
searched for another job. Over the month, I was given daily updates on how she was miserable and that she and he never were intimate. She wanted to make sure I knew that she was not sleeping with her husband. It was strange to me that she and he had been married for close to 6 months and never had sex. I think she knew that if she did or told me she did, that it would give me closure and I could move on with no regrets, and she would no longer have a back-up plan. To me if someone gets money from someone and does not love them and has sex with them, then it is no different than prostitution.
The two options going through my head were she was lying to me and she was really happy with her situation or she was staying in the situation because it was the best shot for her son to have everything he needed. Most likely it was a combination of the 2 scenarios.
I had a battle going on inside my head on what I should believe and what I thought was the truth. What I was being told was that she was miserable, she was celibate, she was not moving to the USA, she was going to leave him, and she was letting go of her idea of having to stay married. What I should have heard was if my husband gets another job soon and shows he can support my child, then I will not need you anymore and I will remain with my husband. The real question was how long was I going to allow myself to continue waiting for someone for whom I was their second choice?
I had to start looking for myself and defining my own life without alcohol. I had gone from one addition to the next. Both the alcohol and the relationship with Priscilla were toxic to my health. The only way I was ever going to be able to be with her was if she left her husband. Why waste my life waiting on that?
The key was going to be figuring out how to make it in Costa Rica, one of the hardest countries to be able to start a business without the capital flow to grease some palms. I was starting from scratch and had to figure out a business idea to achieve success within the borders of Costa Rica with little to no capital. I wanted to build an empire and needed a platform to start.
Little did I know about the uphill battle I was going to fight while trying to start and organize a successful business model in Costa Rica.
Next Up – Starting a Business in Costa Rica
