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I was married for nearly thirty years and four children to a gorgeous, wonderful, long blonde hair, caring woman until she was stolen from me by breast cancer. She always kept in shape and never gained a point. I was always proud to be with her. We had a great sex life until the very end. You know as a guy, you just naturally assume that you will die first, but six years before she passed away, she was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer with liver mets. The oncologist told us that her one-year survival chances were 50%, two-year 11% and three-year 1%. Fortunately, we lived near one of the top cancer hospitals in the nation and we had great health insurance, and she was able to have five pretty darn good years (if you can call them that), but in the sixth year things got worse and she finally selected hospice after almost dying from a chemo. A few months later she passed away.
The night before she succumbed, she was lying on the couch watching her beloved Yankees and told me she wanted to sit up. I asked her "Are you sure?" since she had lost quite a bit a weight and was weak. She said yes. I helped her to sit up and then she said she wanted to stand up, so I helped her up and then she said she wanted to dance. If you can remember back to high school when you were dancing with your steady, she put her arms around your neck and gently swayed to the music, that's how it was. After a few minutes, she wanted to lay back down again, and soon she was asleep. The next morning she passed away and I realized then that that had been her way of saying goodbye.
She had been my best friend for over thirty years and I missed her terribly. Sometimes I had entire weekends when I would just cry on and off. When I would drive by a restaurant where we had eaten, I was often over-whelmed.
I pretty much thought my love life was over, but I didn't really mind as I figured I just had thirty great years and four wonderful children so I figured I was going out on top with a wonderful woman. How could I ever improve on that, I wondered? My plan was not to have any other relationships, but just work and spend time with my children and grandchildren.
We had lived in suburbia for many years, and the memories at our home were overwhelming, so I decided I just had to move to something completely different, so I moved into a high-rise near downtown. The move didn't solve everything, but it helped a lot. I sold about half my furniture in order to squeeze in and tried to start my life over without the person I loved for so many years.
Within the first month after moving, the high-rise building had a mixer where you could meet all of your neighbors. I really wasn't interested in going, but I was persuaded to at least be polite and show up for a while. While I was there, I met a woman for a few minutes who didn't live in the building, but was there with her girlfriend who did. I never thought much about it and went on with my life. Six months later a held a housewarming party with my closest friends and colleagues which I enjoyed.
The next month, I received a phone call from this woman I had met six months earlier for five minutes. She had gotten my number from her girlfriend who had gotten it from the concierge. She said she wanted to go out to dinner with me. After I pulled myself off the floor, I told her I was twenty years older than she was and a few pounds overweight to boot. Didn't she have the wrong number? She assured me she didn't and she said she would explain at dinner. So we went out to dinner and had a great time.
Let me assure you that this woman was a head-turner. She had been Playboy's Playmate of the Month about fifteen years ago and if anything, she looked even more gorgeous. She had long blonde hair and a figure to die for, and wore clothes that made every other woman in the restaurant jealous. The only thing I couldn't figure out was what interest she had in me. I am above-average in looks, but nothing super special, and although I am financially ok, I'm not rich by any means, having just put four kids through thirteen years of private school and college.
She began to explain and I listened intently, wanting to know this mystery woman's motivation. She asked if I was a Seinfeld fan, and remembered the episode in which George and Jerry were having a conversation in Monk's wherein George was complaining that everything he did was wrong. So Jerry tells him if everything instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite must be right. The strategy turns out to be successful for George beyond his wildest dreams. She states that she has had two terrible marriages. In her first marriage, her husband physically and mentally abused her, and did unspeakable things (revealed over the next several months), so finally after twelve years she got divorced. He told her she was ugly, and she was lucky to have him, and if it wasn't for him, she would be a spinster. She said it sounds crazy, but if you're told something often enough, she said you start to believe it. Within thirty days (on the rebound) she met a seemingly nice guy and got married again. After getting pregnant right away and having a son who is now eight years old, she slowly came to the realization that her new husband had hidden the fact that he was a drug addict (oxycontin and meth), and she became involved in a co-dependent relationship with him, hoping to cure him since he was the father of her child. She finally realized after going to NA Anon that she couldn't fix him, and in fact she was an enabler, and finally divorced him also.
She now re-entered that dating pool at age forty-four, determined to not repeat her earlier mistakes. She said you would think being a gorgeous forty-four year old woman would make dating a snap, but she said in fact it was just the opposite. The ten men she dated during this time period all told her they were single but they all turned out to be married!
So she had a come-to-Jesus meeting with herself, and decided she had been going after the wrong kind of guy: good-looking, etc. She decided she wanted what she craved, which was inner beauty. She recalled that I had told her I was a widow, and she said married men don't say they're widowed they say they're single, so she was sure I was not married, and she called me up. This was her opposite plan.
We continued to date, mostly dinners and TV movies (she is a big TV and soap opera fan), and I learned a lot about her. She was a high school dropout, as her parents had gotten divorced when she was a senior in high school and she dropped out of school to live with her mother. I've always dated college graduates before so this was a completely new experience for me. She is very bright, but uneducated. Her grammar is atrocious, and she is from the south, so she speaks a very difficult (for me) to understand Southern American English dialect with many idioms. And of course she had a hard time understanding me as well, as I used too many seventy-five cent words. But gradually over time we learned from each other. I have never corrected her grammar, since I always felt that was degrading. Growing up, she was raised as a princess, but after the divorce and during her two marriages, she lived in poverty. She was on food stamps, had practically no clothes or possessions, nothing in her kitchen matched, owed money to everyone, and had absolutely no credit record. She never felt sorry for herself and always did the best she could.
She had never traveled or flown on a plane and had never been out of a few Southern states. One evening at dinner, I brought my iPad with me and showed her all the places I would like to travel to with her, San Francisco, etc. I didn't know it at the time, but she said that evening marked a turning point in our relationship, and she knew she wanted to be with me forever.
In the meantime, I was trying to make sense of all of this. Half of my friends and children saw red flags everywhere, and that this woman was trying to take advantage of me. I finally decided that time would reveal all, and that if she was lying to me, she would slip up eventually and the game would be up, My feelings would be hurt and I would be out some money. Maybe God was being nice to me for taking such good care of my wife during her cancer. I just didn't know.
TIme passed and we grew ever closer. I haven't mentioned sex up until now because I didn't want to bias anyone, but let's just say it was fabulous and conservative at the same time. She loved to tease me, like going to dinner with no panties on, and she loved to wear Victoria Secret black panties pulled to one side during sex. Her breasts her amazing and she loved wearing low-cut dresses to show them off. Her bikinis were barely legal at the beach. She is high-maintenance with her nails and toes being done with French-cut manicures, and loves to get her hair done at the beauty shop.
She drinks socially (we'll split a bottle of wine at dinner) and she'll have an occasional bear or margarita at a Mexican restaurant, but not an alcoholic by any means.
Even though she is gorgeous and gets hit on all of the time, after twenty-five years she is used to it and just ignores it completely. Her goal is to please me and she does that in so many ways. She is always asking if this dress is ok, or are these shoes ok, and at first I answered whatever you want is fine, I quickly found out that was the wrong answer. She wanted my approval. She is very affectionate and is always telling me loves me a misses me.
Close to a year ago now I proposed and she accepted. We have not set a date yet, as she is very leery about making a bad choice again, but she tells me she has never been happier in her life, and I feel close to the same way.
I have met her son now (she held off for nine months after we started dating, which is the recommended thing to do), and he is an amazing kid. Understandably, he is starving for male attention, since his dad is now in his fourth rehab and is never around for him.
This is my story so far; I don't know how it will end yet, but I am optimistic.
My only comment is that it sounds like the perfect draft of a romance novel in the Harlequin genre. To that end I urge you to copyright it, hold onto it, add to it, find a good agent and submit it for publication. It has the makings of even being turned into a made-for-TV movie on probably the Lifetime channel. I see even more financial security in your future!
The next month, I received a phone call from this woman I had met six months earlier for five minutes. She had gotten my number from her girlfriend who had gotten it from the concierge. She said she wanted to go out to dinner with me.
And the men on C-D say women never ask men out!
OP, why did you post this? You don't have any questions, so what's your point? Testing out a new plot line for a book or men's magazine?
My only comment is that it sounds like the perfect draft of a romance novel in the Harlequin genre. To that end I urge you to copyright it, hold onto it, add to it, find a good agent and submit it for publication. It has the makings of even being turned into a made-for-TV movie on probably the Lifetime channel. I see even more financial security in your future!
Agree 100%.
Before I read the above comment, I Googled one of your sentences to see if it was actually written by you.
You are a fantastic writer. Get an agent. Start working on a novel.
As far as your story, I'm very sorry to hear about your wife's passing. She sounded like a great wife, you you two were lucky to have each other for 30 years.
Best of luck with your new lady. Not many men get to have a former playmate fall in love with them. No need to describe her features. The fact she was selected to appear in Playboy says it all. You are one lucky guy!
It is all true, but I left out certain details in order to not violate anyone's privacy.
Looking back, I have to pinch myself from time-to-time to remind myself that it is all true. I would have to say that truth is stranger than fiction because you can't make this up.
My children, especially my oldest daughter, had a very hard time with her. My late wife's brother went to dinner with my daughter and she kept repeating over and over again "But she's twenty years younger and looks gorgeous!" My colleagues at work were equally skeptical until I brought her to lunch.
I can assure you that every word is true and that we are very happy together. I was not sure about the age difference myself but she is right it never even comes up.
I forgot to mention that she eats whatever she wants, including junk food, and never gains a pound. It must be genetics because her Mom is sixty-eight and looks like her twin.
Not all is perfect. As she says herself, she is damaged goods. All of thus has taken a toll on her and it is taking a long time to recover. If any if you have known a meth addict, living with one can be a nightmare. The rages and name-calling were beyond terrible. At one point she said she hot down on her hands and knees and begged him to quit but he chose meth over her. She felt like two cents. She wishes she knew twenty-five years ago what she knows now.
No, nothing is fiction here. It is all true and we just want the nightmares of the past to be over.
To answer why did I post this? This forum is about relationships and so is this post. I didn't really have any questions to ask. I'm sixty-five years old and at this point in my life feel comfortable in relationships with women, children, and colleagues. I just thought it would be interesting to others and maybe help them by honestly conveying my feelings.
Thank you for the comments about my writing. I have been a software developer for my whole career and English was my worst subject in high school, but after writing for work for many years, my writing has improved. I just write what I remember and feel.
Yes, she is stunningly beautiful, but I understand a lot more about beautiful women now. They need and want the same things everyone else does, someone to love them and care about them, and she has never experienced that. She stayed married to her first husband for a long time because she is deeply religious and believed marriage was a lifelong commitment, but after being shot at three times with a gun she decided that if she stayed, she would be dead.
LOL, no not a troll. I don't think a real troll would make the effort I've made here.
Not all of this story is happy, of course. Both of us have had painful and difficult pasts, but it's where you're going that counts not where you've been. There is a lot that hasn't been told here but it isn't germane to the story so it has been omitted. The main points are that everyone needs to be loved and that you never know what life has in store for you.
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