My Broken Heart

I have posted this article in a couple of other places on here, but this is my story: This is the story of my lost relationship  and my life,its ups and downs over the past 12 years. Well it's been 7 weeks since Jo left, she left on 07/03/12 it's been hard trying to get through this, but I know I need to, the road ahead seems to be full of the unknown and it's a long way until I'll turn the first corner, on the road to recovery.
When we met my life was at a low point, I had no real stability to speak of, I had been fighting with my mum a lot which usually resulted in me being kicked out of the family home on a frequent basis. Each and every time this happened  I had nowhere to go or nobody to turn to, I truly was alone on the streets with nothing and nowhere to go. I had to survive as best I could but with no money or food its hard, I had to sleep in parks and under railway arches just to get some shelter from the elements. There was even a time when I was living in the back of my dads van.These times were some of the darkest of my life, and the experience of being homeless was one I shall never forget. One day I had found some money and went to the shop with the intention of buying some cheap booze to try and numb the pain. When I went inside the shop the owner was in the back, whilst I was waiting for him to come out, I spotted a copy of the local jobs paper on the counter,in my mind I was torn between buying the booze, or the jobs paper. You will be pleased to hear that I chose to buy the paper, and found a job!
I rushed to the nearest pay phone and rang the number, and I got the job, I couldn't of been happier, I now had a job which was well paid, I was at the point were it was truly sink or swim, and I'm glad I chose to swim.Going  back to work and receiving a wage gave me my self respect back, as well as pride, independence, money and the chance to change my life.  Which i did , my experience had taught me how bad things could have turned out for me if I had bought the booze that day, its a slippery slope, one you start to go down it, who knows where you will end up?  I found a job and this was the thing that stopped me  from slipping under and drowning. This is when  it dawned on me exactly what the true importance of what working and having a job really does mean. After I had realised this, every single time I came out of work, I would instantly begin to think that I was on the verge of losing everything again. This  is something that has been with me for a long time and i still carry with me to this day.Now I had a good job  and  could pay my way again,I went to speak with my parents and asked if  I could come home, thankfully they said yes, so I moved back home, ready to start a new chapter in my life. At the time things were ok between me and my mum and I was living at home, I went to a party at a friends house,and met Jo.

She was the most beautiful wonderful girl I had ever met, she was fantastic!! After being together for a few weeks she had a fight with her dad and he kicked her out,seeing as Jo had nowhere to go  I asked my parents if it was ok if Jo moved into our house, my folks said this was fine, so she moved in with us. We lived in my bedroom in relative peace with everyone else in the house, until one night me and my brother had a fight. During the course of the rumble,my mum and dad came home, and it was decided that me and Jo had to leave.
I asked Jo to go out and find us a place whilst I was at work, she did manage to find us a flat. I rang the landlord to find out exactly what I needed to do so we could move in .He told me that we needed to go his office to pay a months rent in advance, and a deposit, in order to get the keys. Because Jo didn't work I had to take responsibility to pay the money to move in.
We moved in to 31 Kremlin Drive, Liverpool, with hardly anything at all to call our own, just a bed,tv,stereo and a few other possessions. It was the start of  our life together and of something that I thought would last forever. After moving in I went back to work as a fencing contractor, while Jo claimed unemployment benefit, I worked . I had been back at work for a couple of weeks when I had a accident on site, I was cutting through a fence panel with a sthil saw, a petrol powered industrial cutting tool, as I was cutting through the concrete panel, the blade of the saw snagged on one of the steel reinforcement bars inside the panel, which cause the saw to be thrown toward the right hand side of my face, which resulted in a severe laceration which needed 60 stitches to close.
This event was extremely traumatic for me to live through and worse still, I took away my ability to work,because I had to stay away from dirty & dusty environments, like construction sites!

I now had no choice but to claim unemployment benefit, which is something I really did not want to do,but was left with no choice. This gave me an insight to how Jo was living, and
I did not like it one little bit. Sitting around the flat all day with nothing to do, never mind trying to live on the measly pittance they allow you to survive on, this was not a life I wanted at all. I had to live this way for a couple of months until my wound had healed enough  for the stitches to be removed and I was declared fit for work once again.  This was an extremely difficult time for me, not only did I have to recuperate from my accident, I was not bringing a wage in nor could I work, this made life very hard, I had always gone to work and now that had been taken away from me for the foreseeable future. I indicate this time as when I really did start to feel extremely frustrated and angry, and it's when depression had started to set in.

It was  a couple of days after I had my stitches removed, when my brother knocked on my door to tell me that he had found some work on a demolition site, what great news!!! I could go back to work once again.  After trying to recover from my accident, and experiencing some really dark moments, thoughts and depression because I couldn't work, this was exactly the boost I needed. The next couple of months were fantastic, I was back at work earning money,and starting to leave the past behind me, and start a new future. 

After a while the demolition work had started to dry up, which is when my dad got me a job working with him, oh happy days!! A great job with good prospects, working with my dad and brother as well as getting a decent wage, what more could I want ? A few days after starting, Jo had borrowed some money to buy me some tickets to go and see Roger Waters at Wembley! It seemed like we were making real progress in our young relationship. We travelled down to London by coach, watched the show and had to travel back to Liverpool the same night by coach, my dad was picking me up in the morning so we could go to work that day, as the coach was approaching my home town, my dad rang me to make arrangements to pick me up for work, I got off the coach, into the van and had to get to Wrexham to work a 10 hour shift.
After I had returned home that evening I had a shower and went to bed, I was absolutely shattered after my long journey. The next few months passed by and it seemed to be going alright for me and Jo, my job did mean sometimes working nights, unsociable hours and long days but It paid well so the sacrifice seemed worth it, after all I was the only one working and bringing money in. Plus the place needed to be decorated, which I had to take responsibility for, as Jo had no spare income for such luxuries. 

My dad had told me that we would be working on a shut down in shropshire, and we had to travel there and back everyday, as the company would not pay for us to stay at a hotel, so this meant being picked up for work,at some ungodly hour, so we could be on site on time. One morning at around 3:40 am I got up out of bed and started to get ready for work, and couldn't find any socks for work, so I went to wake Jo to see why I had no clean socks for work to which she said " I haven't done any washing, you will have to wear dirty ones" because my dad was waiting outside in the van, i had no choice but to wear dirty ones and I set off to work. It was whilst I was at work, cleaning the inside of a machine, sweating profusely because of the intense heat, that it hit me: what does she actually do all day? Here am I who is out every single day working. To bring money home and put food on the table, to try and improve the quality of life for us, and what was she doing, apart from sitting on her arse all day smoking pot? And taking the dog for walks? At this point I think I should tell you about the dog, this was  a Rottweiler, a beast of a dog who controlled our lives, it felt that we could do nothing  because of the dog, every time we went  out we had to be back for the dog, Jo said she couldn't work because of the dog, the house smelt of the dog, the mess the dog made, it just done my head in!!
I decided to confront her about this after I came home from work, but because we worked 12 hours then had a further 3 hours to drive home, I was too tired. At the weekend I approached her about the subject  of why she didn't go work, only to bet met with a stoney face,and some ridiculous explanations and no action being taken, she simply did not listen to a word I had said, and this vicious circle was to repeat its self time and time again, in fact this went on for almost 6 years before she took any action. As this vicious circle repeated it self, I grew more and more upset and frustrated because she was not listening to what I was saying, please believe that I had asked her to go to work over a hundred times, with out any action being taken by Jo to find employment, the more I had to ask the more I became angry, and I'm ashamed to admit this, but my anger resulted in me smashing things up, inanimate objects like glasses and cups would be thrown at the wall, much to my detriment.

We were told by the landlord that the building we lived in had to be sold, so we had to move out. I had started a new job on a building site, and asked Jo to once again try and find us somewhere to live, which she again managed to do,through a friend of her stepmother, Tommy, he was working in a house that he was decorating for a private landlord. Once again we had to make arrangements to move out and yet again it fell to me as Joanne still was not working, i had to once again take full responsibility for us and to pay the necessary sum of money for us to move into: 75 Rector Road. Liverpool.
This time of our life was one of stress and turmoil, instead of being one of development and growth, I was working to support us and Jo still was sat doing nothing with her life, and it was becoming more of a problem for me, that I was out working and she was opposing me every day. Often I would raise the point only to be met by the same reaction I mentioned earlier, which caused me further hurt and pain. Its not like i was asking her to do something out of the ordinary, or to do something that was extreme, all i wanted was for her to go to work and to pull together with me, to become a equal in the relationship, why was it fair that i worked and she done nothing, and made no contribution.
I was working in Liverpool city centre, replacing the street furniture and pavements, it was cold hard work, plus I had the pressure of everything with Jo on my head, I was not in a happy place. One day I was working, I looked up to see Jo stood there crying, I put down my tools and walked over to her and asked what's wrong? She told me that she was in trouble because she was in debt and had no money to sort it out herself, and asked me for money to pay her debt. My immediate reply was to tell her to go away and sort it out herself,after all I worked and paid my bills, why couldn't she do the same, and why was this my problem? I Was on my break,and was seriously considering ending the relationship that night,how could she  come and ask me for money after all I had already done for us. I sat drinking my coffee and every step you take by the police came on the radio, as the song played and I listened to the lyrics,I started to cry and decided I would have to help Jo to get out of this mess, she was still not working or earning so could not get any money to sort it out herself.

I went home that night and told Jo that I was prepared to help her out, one last time
I also gave her an ultimatum, go and get a job or it's over, I've had enough. Not only did she not listen, she sold the games console I had bought her for Christmas to a pawn shop, the cheeky *****. This hurt me, how could she willingly sell something that I had bought her as a christmas present?
I went to get a loan to pay  Joanne's debt, and told her to go out and find work, after a few months she did find some work, albeit low paid and temporary, it seemed that after 6 years she finally had listened to what I said. The fact that it took 6 years of countless discussions, arguments and fights just made it so difficult for me, why did it take so long for her to learn the lesson I was trying to teach? Why couldn't she see the point I  was trying to make? Why didn't she listen to me? Why did she continue to disrespect me on a daily basis? Why could she not realise what I was saying made sense, or see the hurt it caused me by not listening? Why didn't she take note of how badly it affected me when i had lost my job?All of these factors and some I haven't mentioned, caused a deep rooted sense of animosity and resentment toward her to be born.
She did start to go to work eventually, and I thought that we would be ok from now on, after  all we were both finally bringing home wages. A short while after, the landlord had written us a letter telling us that we had to move out of the property, because of a discrepancy over rent. When she wasn't working it was being paid directly to her by the government, it seems that she had spent some of the money which had resulted in no rent being paid and a bill had accrued with the landlord,so he wanted us out, this is what I thought I had taken the loan out for, to clear this bill, but he still wanted us to leave, we had a month to find a place to live.

Yet again I asked Jo to find us somewhere to live, and we found a flat. And yes you guessed it, the responsibility fell to me to pay another months rent in advance and deposit, this time with a small contribution made by Jo, for the first time. So even at this stage of our relationship she had still not learned to take responsibility. After going and paying the money to the landlord, we agreed to move into the flat  a week later on the Saturday. I had finished work on the Friday and went to the pub to have a few beers after work, when the landlord of the property telephoned me and told me it would not be possible for us to take the dog to the new flat,well I could not have been happier, not only were we moving somewhere new, we couldn't take the dog! I felt that the dog had just held Jo back in so many ways.
I Went home from the pub to break the news to Jo and she was in floods of tears because we couldn't take the dog, well it was hard luck, no dog was going to stop  me moving out, so I told her that it has to go, she did not have a choice, the dog simply had to go so we could move out, simple as that.
On the Saturday morning she had to give the dog away whilst I was busy moving stuff from the house to the flat, I came back for another van load of stuff and thankfully the dog was now gone from our lives.

We moved into: 9 Osborne Road, Liverpool
Could this finally be the start of our life together after all the struggles we had faced? I certainly hoped it would be........
But I was in for further disappointment. Jo was working in a local shop on a low income, this caused some friction, ok she had gone to find work  but was getting paid £30 a day. I'm not taking anything away from people who work for this, but I wanted us to have a better quality of life than what we had experienced up until this point in the relationship. And the gesture and contribution she now decided to make  was literally too little, to late. It seemed that she still was not bothered and was happy to earn what she was earning.
Things seemed to be alright at this point,we were both earning and living life, at long last, we even manged to book a short trip to Ireland,  it was the first holiday we had together, and we had some great times in Cork that summer. 

We came home and things just went back to normal, working and not making any progress in life yet again. I was talking with a friend of mine about the situation we were in , and he offered to help, by getting  Jo some work cleaning for his aunt, she did go a couple of times, but soon stopped. I always wondered why, and why she didn't like my friend as he is one of the nicest people I know, and dearest friends I have. I was told recently by him that the reason why  Jo never went back was that she had stolen money from his aunt, which consequently explains why she didn't like him.I was still working on construction sites which meant a few bouts of me being out of work and the dark feelings that this brought about every time I was out of work. Jo had managed to find better paid work in a market, so it a least seemed that things would get better soon. Sadly it never did, I carried on working, so did Jo, but we still were not making any real progress in our lives as individuals or as a couple. Life it seemed was at a standstill, nothing to look forward to just more work the next day. It was around this time I had started to work for a large company with a boss who just didn't like me at all, and made this perfectly clear on a daily basis, at every given chance.  He really did make my life a living hell, from putting me down in front of people, to name calling and mentally bullying me, I just could not cope, nor would I leave my job, although I was in hell everyday at work, it seemed better than being out of work with no money coming in.

So I continued to survive this living hell until i could take no more, I decided to make a formal complaint about this, the outcome was not a good one, I got the sack from my job, this instantly sent me into the downward spiral I mentioned before, when I came out of work I would instantly withdraw from the world and go to my dark place. And worry that I was on the verge of losing everything again, how could i pay my bills? How would I survive? What was going to happen ? I would live under this dark cloud until I had found another job  and then I would feel alright once again, as soon as I found more work I was ok. 
This continued to be the cycle of life for us for the next couple of years, with little or no improvement or nothing to look forward to, except for a few gigs, such was life. 
I started to really feel that my/our life was stagnated and mundane, it needed something to change drastically and soon! 

I was becoming increasingly fed up of the situation I was in, for 8 years we had made no notable progress despite all of our efforts, our money wasn't working for us.It still had not gone anywhere, we might as well of still been living in Kremlin Drive. 
It still seemed that we were in danger of becoming stuck in a serious rut and nothing exciting ever happened to us. This period of the relationship was one that caused me to wonder would it be better if we finished with each other and end it, before we hurt each other too much? I say this because it had started to lose its magic and was starting to feel boring & mundane.  But despite these feelings I carried on regardless, in the vain hope that things would start to improve between us, but sadly they never did.I did stop smashing things up. After seeing the effect it was having on Jo I decided it had to stop, once and for all, I'm pleased to say that I did learn to prevent my self from doing this, but I still needed to find a vent for my anger. So it became purely vocal from this point on.
It was a difficult time between us, as we had not made any significant progress and this had really started to put a strain on our relationship and it was telling. Life was just a existence, and the sex had really started to become less frequent, leaving me to feel even more unloved and under appreciated in this relationship. But we still carried on regardless, so life continued to happen with us both working. And seeing no real reward for our efforts was starting to have a profound effect on me, why was it that we didn't or couldn't see any progress or reward to speak of despite all of our continued efforts? 

A very dear friend of mine had a house that he rented out and asked me & Jo if we would like to view the property and move in, well we jumped at the chance it was a 3 bedroom house in West Derby, Liverpool, after viewing the house we decided that we would move in as soon as possible, we had to wait a couple of weeks until the house was ready.
This time Jo had decided that she would pay the nessecary amount of money to my friend so as we could move into the house, so we packed all of our stuff up and moved in to 118 Allerford Road, Liverpool, the house is in a desirable area of the city and it has front and back gardens, and the area is very respectable and quiet, in short this was the best house in the nicest area  of the city we had ever been fortunate enough to live in.
Once again I pondered wether or not this would now become the beginning of the relationship I had wanted for all those previous years, was it to be?

I had started to work on electricity substations, it was fairly dangerous work but it was well paid, finally we were both bringing home a decent wage and living in a lovely house what more could we have wanted, you may ask, well I can tell you the picture was not as it seems. A short while after moving in, I had came home from work, to be told by Jo that she wanted to leave, obviously this came as a unexpected and great shock to me, and without little explanation she packed up a few belongings and left. I was left reeling and wondering why she had decided to leave without being able to discuss thing with me first. After all we had been through I thought that she would of at least spoke to me about this, she left and we were apart for 6 weeks, and I didn't know if I was coming or going, a few nights a week I was allowed to sleep in my own bed, as Jo was staying out, then once she was coming home, I had to leave and sleep in my old bed in my dads house.

This pattern revolved for around 2 weeks, when my dad and brother went away on holiday I asked if I could move back into the house whilst they went away, this gave me the time to sit and think, and to find time to ponder exactly what was troubling me in my relationship.
It came to pass, and eventually me and Jo spoke and it was agreed that I could come back to my home, we had discussed everything and it was time for action, we both came to the conclusion that it was time for change, I had started the gym, was looking into therapy, spoke with my doctor about anger management classes, and changed my diet. I expected her to change as well, particularly in her attitude towards finances and her contribution to this relationship, she was happy to be paid at 4 0'clock and have nothing left by 8. And to pull her socks up in regard to her appearance and our future as we were still going nowhere.Also at this point I should mention that she wanted to get a dog, as I expressed earlier, I'm not too much of a fan of dogs, and was this going to be a repeat of what has happened before? Sure she had no money left at the end of each day, but still managed to find enough to buy a dog. Once we had the dog it proceeded to chew everything in its path, including things of mine. And the kitchen cabinets, walls, fridge door, skirting boards, and door frames, I told her this had to stop or the dog has to go. 
She obliged by finding a dog trainer, which again she managed to find £300 for, the trainer only came twice, because Jo couldn't be bothered to keep up with the appointments. So here we were feeling like everything was a struggle, because she had no money left at the end of every week, but still manages to find nearly £ 1000 for a dog and training, how is this even possible? And this again was something that continued to play out during the course of the last four years causing me to feel even more undervalued.

 The frustration and resentment which I felt was really starting to become apparent during this time, I was working hard and earning really decent wages but still seeing no real reward for what I was doing, as I seemed to be the only one who had wages left at the end of the working week.
And this is how life was for the foreseeable future. It was a cycle of work and home with not much else interspersed to keep us amused, it was truly groundhog day, we just went round and round, stuck in a rut and life became routine once again. Despite this we fooled ourselves with feelings of supposed love and falsified contentment, and lived in this way for the next four years, making me even more unhappy. Life was lived with very little to look forward to and was becoming very boring and mundane, I had started to feel trapped to some extent, yes I did love her with all my heart and soul, but we were going nowhere. 

It felt like we had not made any true progress since we met. Things had changed but we were still living like we did at the start, with nothing to chart our progress so far, life is  meant to be full of great and rich experiences, and all I had felt is poor and bad ones whilst we were together.  Other people go away on holiday and explore the world, see and do things together, experience new foods and cultures in different places, we never done any of those things,and saddens me to write this but it's true, we were going nowhere, if we didn't make anything of our lives in 12 years we were never going to. It had only just got to the stage where I/ we felt ready and stable enough to consider starting a family together and looked into the possibility of getting married.
The fact that it had taken 12 long years to get to the point of feeling like it was time to take things to the next level, is pretty sad in itself, many other couples advance their relationships much sooner, because the foundations were solid from the start, whereas I felt that ours were only just starting to solidify, after all this time.
I had left the construction industry as their were too many pitfalls and periods of being out of work, so I decided to become a taxi driver, it seemed a better choice than to be out of work on a regular basis, at least there is always work on the cabs, granted it does mean working long and unsociable hours, but it pays well if you put the hours in.
I started this job without any real knowledge of what it is, long hours, stress, hard work, dealing with drunk & drugged upped people,  people wanting to fight, and becoming violent, road rage, people trying to rob you or not pay the fare, death threats, parking tickets, working weekends and public holidays, and those are just a few of the bad points! 
But like I said earlier it pays well and you can earn good money, oh and of course it does have a lot of good points, which is why I still do it for a living.

Obviously having to deal with all I mentioned above, it does put you under a lot of stress, and this did show. If you have to work later than normal to earn your money one day, it means you have to sleep longer the next day, meaning you will miss a few hours work, which means you have to play catch up, thus creating a vicious circle, you end up chasing your tail.
Added to this is the pressure of driving for a living, I am a professional driver and therefore behave and drive in such a manner, however not everybody drives by the expected standard, quite a few fall way below it, I feel that it's no wonder people get road rage. These factors did have an detrimental effect on my relationship, and it started to show.

Often Jo would call me, and I was caught  in the heat of the moment, under stress, and I would begin to shout down the phone about what had just happened, once I'd had my vocal outburst I felt better, but I never really thought about the seriously detrimental effect it was having on Jo. She told me that when we ended our calls, if I had been shouting she would sit and cry.
 
The vocal outbursts  were never directed at Joanne personally, I would just be sounding off about what had happened, and I would begin to shout things rather than speak them, the more angry I became the more I would shout. But this was my way of dealing with the everyday stress of being on the road, I would offload my frustrations and anger down the phone to my partner, thinking it was doing no harm, but clearly it was. And this is without the pressure I felt in our relationship. It was causing me undue amounts of stress and worry  I felt that even after all this time, why were we still not making any progress, why didn't we go away on holiday? Why couldn't we see any reward for our hard work? Why didn't we see the fruits of our labour? Why did life feel like it hadn't moved on and that we were stagnated and stuck in a serious rut? 

It seemed that Jo never had any money left at the end of the working week, whereas I had plenty, why is this? She seemed to be content with having no money left each day, as long as the bills were paid, and she had money to get to work, and to buy cigarettes each day she was alright.
How are  you meant to progress in life like that? I seriously want more out of life than just being able to pay the bills, I long for adventure and excitement, but when your partner has no money left to chip in, you can't do it, and it's not as if she was on low wages, £ 300 a week is a decent amount of money. I never told her or forbid her to spend any of her money, she  has the right to spend it on whatever she desires, I would of liked it if she had some money left,so we could go out and do things, and to plan things for the future, like the possibility of starting a family together, and getting married.
For the first time in my life, I  had really started to feel stable and secure enough to take the step in to marriage and parenthood.

Alas, this was not meant to be, things between us were not good, there was tension that existed and things just were not right. We had tried to make things better continually, but i think that we both knew deep down inside, that the relationship was on the rocks, feelings about the early years, of what had happened to us never really left me, as even after all this time, she still had not learned the true value of  money, nor  had we made any significant progress in our lives, both as individuals and as a couple, we had nothing to show for our lives together. We never made any plans, life was just work and home, seldom with anything to look forward to, so the monotony of life continued as the frustration,resentment and anger grew inside me. It was when I realised how I was feeling, that it became apparent to me that it needed to end. It was not a easy decision to make, but I knew it was probably for the best. 

It was not me who finished things, it was Jo. The fact is that even though we had lived through everything that I have written about here, I was too frightened to bring myself to end it, because I was scared about what would happen to us if I did. I am a very insecure, anxious, depressed and lonely person on the inside because of the experiences of life that I have lived through. I had became very dependent on Jo for emotional support and care, and the thought of losing that support scared me, I feel that after all I had suffered before we met, and for all that happened whilst we were together,she did help me to keep a lid on things for the most part, but occasionally that lid would come off, and all my feelings would pour out once again. Writing this hasn't been an easy task, nor is reading it back to myself,so god only knows what it must of felt like to Jo as I would stand and tell her these things, bearing my soul, quite often this would make me feel angry or upset as I spoke the words.

Now it has truly ended between us, I'm left feeling hurt, lost,lonely,confused, depressed,anxious,worried,scared,weak,disappointed,empty,lethargic and unsure about the future and what it holds for me, am I destined to be alone? I miss her dearly as she was my constant companion and best friend, we had shared so much together, a bond was created between us that I thought  was unbreakable but I was wrong. I'm now left reeling from what has happened to me over the past 12 years, and pondering over what the future will hold for me and Jo as individuals. I will never forget her and I will always love her. And wish her the best of luck in her new life, and I hope she achieves all that she desires. 
As for myself, I'm anxious about what my future will hold, I'm truly afraid of what lies ahead of me as I try to make sense of what has happened, and hopefully start the process of accepting this is over, so I can begin to heal.




Thanks for taking the time to read this,

Paul