I believe in a thing called love…2024 remix
“I believe in a thing called love, just listen to the rhythm of my heart…”
I actually do believe in a thing called love… and yes I do have some criteria, which I think is hella reasonable given what I have been through.
My mum and I should have had a wonderful Mother’s day… it was marred by several conversations about love and the fact that I was in absolute, unimaginable pain, to which I blanked out through the church service when not asked to participate via standing or sitting.
the situation is as follows.
Tuesday before Mother’s day I started planning my events. I was going to buy flowers and chocolate, and a card (obviously) then take my mum out for a meal at her favourite restaurant.
My mum currently lives with my cousin Mark, who was adopted into the family. My mum and his late mother taught together, his mum taught French and my mum taught accounting. He was then adopted when his father passed away by my mum’s little sister.
Because Mark lives in my mum’s house and it would be nice for him not to be on his own on Mother’s day, I invited him to church and lunch. Church started at 10:30am and lunch was booked for 12:00pm. He lives with my mum and when I called on Tuesday he had no plans, however on Friday he was invited to a boxing match… I didn’t know this until I rolled up on Sunday.
Anyway so I arrive at 10:07 which was enough time to hand my mum her flowers, card and chocolate and then go to church as planned. When I arrive my mum….does her sterotypical thing of analysing my very existence out of me. She didn’t like the following things.
My hair
My dress (had to change)
the fact that I bought chocolates (like every other daughter within a 50 mile radius)
And….the fact that I had booked her favourite restaurant at noon. Honestly it was like a litany of faults… all laid at my door… For things that were 100% reasonable. Especially because I had consulted with her personally the booking time, because she’d “had a big breakfast” and so was trying to get me to cancel the booking because she wouldn’t be able to eat as much as she’d want. Meanwhile I was unwilling to do that because I’d paid a deposit and was liable for £35 per head if this went south and I cancelled at short notice.
So… we went to church…alone because Mark was out and therefore wasn’t now going to church like he’d agreed with me that he would.
So then we go to church…=critism of dress and hair and general fashion sense. Par for the course.
Get out of church=pressure to cancel booking and talk of relationships and how she’s going to set me up with a school friend of hers that married a native (that’s important to note. I’m weird to people of my own tribe, to a native I’m effectively an alien. And some of their customs are messed up…to be kind. Think… FGM) My mum accused me of treating her little protege Alahji badly…because the little pervert didn’t get a relationship from me like he wanted… I wasn’t rude or nasty to him. I just didn’t want a relationship. 1. I was in love with someone else. 2. His personal failings are for me insurmountable (i.e. being a homophobic pervert)
So under that cloud I enter the house… Mark is still not there. Its 11:55am and the lunch booking may I remind you is 5 minutes by car and is at noon… so we’re going to be late. As soon as I get into the house… I call a taxi… a cardinal sin for which I will pay for with 2 hours of my life… today.
Why was calling a taxi unreasonable you ask? Well my mum reasoned I should check after my cousin first. She went shouting up the stairs and I called a taxi. He wasn’t home, it was clear. There were no lights on. Anyway I called the taxi and by a miracle they came within 5 minutes and we were in the taxi by 12:02 on our way to Mother’s day.
There is a perfectly good reason I called the taxi first before calling my cousin. The first is I have been taking taxi’s to Farnborough for 2 1/2 years now and I know they can take up to 20 minutes to arrive, and bearing in mind most places will give you 15 minutes grace before giving away your table, it was a longshot that we’d make it when Mark wasn’t home at 11:55am. Also before calling a taxi because it was Mother’s day you had to be on hold for a while, like I was when I was calling a taxi that morning to get to my mum’s house in time for church.
This then made me cautious, I didn’t have time for feelings especially his at that time… I figured if something was wrong he could communicate… Like an adult. I am neither chasing him nor am I worrying about if he wants to participate, after all Mother’s day is about me spending time with my mum. Not with her and Mark.
So we get to the restaurant, bearing in mind we’d not heard a peep out of Mark. Mum calls him he said he’s on his way. I haven’t heard anything from him. He rolls in at 13:05pm. We had the table until 2pm. However, I ordered the lamb and that would take 40 minutes. So they left us in the table until 2:30pm. We weren’t thrown out. Which was great. We should have been, but we weren’t.
So now here’s how I believe in a thing called love.
I feel like I am being mis-sold love. Love 100% is compromise. But the ups outweigh the downs. However there are a class of casual relationships in which if someone acts up the downs outweigh the ups.
Mark is my cousin. Here are some other important facts.
We didn’t grow up together. I first met him in September 2022.
Since September 2022, we have met a total of 6 times. And I have paid every single time I have seen him.
When my dad died he didn’t do jack for me despite the fact that he’s been my cousin since he was about 6, so he knew who “Uncle Beale” was.
He’s lived in the UK roughly 16 months, he’d been to Manchester and Reading on several occasions and have lived in London.
I have been nothing but kind to him, he has constant use of my car, and I paid a parking fine for him and he scratched my car. I have said nothing about it.
I believe I am being mis-sold love. I have been nothing but nice to him because he’s my cousin, but being 3 hours late for a 4 hour event is unreasonable. On this point we can all agree. However my mum considers it unreasonable for me to hold him in any way shape or form accountable for this because he’s a legit orphan.
I can understand that mother’s day is hard for him, we didn’t do any toasting to my mum or particular praise/shows of affection. I was in far too much pain. I had cleaned my house top to bottom, then gone on a massive food shop around Basingstoke, then came home and cooked all that food. (made a lovely lasagne thanks so much) Adrenaline got me to my mum’s door. Once there, the pain came crashing down from all the exertion. It was hard for him hard for me, (different, my pain was physical, his emotional) and so I didn’t make a fuss, but the moment I didn’t priortise the man in the proverbial room, my mum flies off the handle saying I’m not ready for a relationship because I don’t consider other people’s feelings…
And you know what? She is correct… I am not ready for a relationship…with a child… being 3 hours late, and no communication with your cousin is childish and wrong… So what if he communicated with my mum. My mum wasn’t on the hook for £35 if he didn’t show up, so he was accountable to me, I was the one who paid for a taxi I didn’t need to when he didn’t show up, an unplanned expense he incurred for me.
I feel like points 1-6 show I have been kind and generous towards this man, as I am with any person. However what I don’t understand is why I should be responsible for all bad things that happen? He’s 29 by the way, he’s not a child and this is neither his first rodeo nor his first time travelling from that location, he knows what its like. But what my mum was asking me to do was emotional labour, and I was in a lot of pain. I have actually never been in so much pain, so couldn’t do it, because I was only just holding myself together. I can’t be responsible for my 29 year old/month old sibling/brother whichever relationship suits my mum best. I don’t want to be responsible for a grown man who isn’t accountable to me. That is terrifying and an absolutely awful deal. If he totals my car? I pay, if he costs me £35 for food he didn’t eat. I am responsible, I get no joy out of it. “all’s well that ends well” is not worth the stress I went through.
I don’t believe that marriage based on a man not able to take care of basic responsibilities (himself) and therefore the woman is responsible for the man and herself and any children, when people joke about your husband being your 3rd child that isn’t a joke. But my small taste of it during my marriage meant that I was so tired. Incredibly tired. How are you meant to feel safe when you are the one on alert?
I am not for a second imagining marrying my cousin, so his personal nonsense isn’t a concern of mine until next mother’s day. But my mum mentioned her protege Alahji.
Alahji’s crimes will not be blasted on the internet. He made me uncomfortable and had some problematic views that meant I couldn’t ever take him to what I call “Polite society” i.e. my friends/general British public places. For fear of disgrace, also he put on airs and graces of being a gentlemen, he was playing at it, because its not a part of him and so wore it like an ill fitting jacket. You can tell. If I ever have to settle for him I will have fallen very far indeed. And so my body, mind and soul rejects entertaining that notion, because its an acknowledgement of complete, utter and abject failure to find literally anyone, that I would have to settle for the perv that would rot my brain.
But he is still God’s child and so I was neither rude nor nasty to him, I just made it abundantly clear I didn’t want him. I even gave him a further chance in December, and he blew that too.
I believe in a thing called love, actually loving someone, someone who makes you feel lucky to be with them, not someone you need to parent and therefore they are lucky you put up with their nonsense.
I believe in a thing called love, where I have hope for my life and its surrounded by love and joy and peace. But if I was ever subjected to putting up with a man who cannot look after himself, behave respectably in public and generally have his life together I can’t fall in love with that. That is what is known as “struggle love” and it will kill me. I have done it before. I can’t do it again. I can’t put myself in that box again, its like wearing shoes 2 sizes too small.
I believe in a thing called love, I believe my husband will embrace all parts of me, and make me feel safe. I can’t be safe and the sentry at the same time. I’m either one or the other.
I believe in a thing called love, and I believe that what my mum is selling me is not love, its suffering and if that’s all these men have to offer me then pass… because history will show I have been abundantly loving, kind and generous, but if a boundary is a boundary and if they can’t handle that its not for me.
Go forth and be loved well… each and every one of you.
Grace and Courage
Annetta Mother Smith.