The Ballad of Betty and Dan

Hi Ragers and Ragettes!  It’s been a very busy few days for me!  I have been working at my new job (which I absolutely love!!!)  and going home each night and packing up Rage Towers for my move to Simon and my new apartment!  I am beyond excited and I can’t wait to get in and make it look like home.  Simon has given me free rein on decorating the flat how I want to.  So I have decided on plum for the front room, lime green for the kitchen, red for our bedroom, and the spare room is going to be my room to put my clothes, shoes and it will be my little corner.  I can’t wait!!!

There is one dark cloud that has come up....Dan. 

You see, Dan has been texting, calling and basically being a pain.  But Dan and I have a long and chequered past.

Ragers and Ragettes...I present to you....the ballad of Betty and Dan.

Once upon a time, back in 2008, I was in a deeply commited relationship living in Ireland with an Irish man named Donal*.  (remember, all names are changed to protect the not so innocent!!)  We were happy but something wasn’t right with Donal.  He had a psycho ex girlfriend and 2 kids.  He loved his kids so much and was only allowed to see them on a Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday.  So Monday, Wednesday and Saturday nights I saw Donal.  (Friday night was lads night out.....he used to get trashed, call me at 2am and sing to me) and the other nights I just pleased myself.

Then I met Dan.  Dan is from Liverpool and he was my supplier and I was his customer through my job.  We met over the phone and instantly built up a friendship.  He would make me laugh and every day I would look forward to coming into work to speak to him and laugh with him.  

There were 2 issues with Dan.  Dan was 20 years older than me and...Dan was married with 2 kids.  But I couldn’t help how I felt about him.  Maybe it was because it was like forbidden fruit and you all know that forbidden fruit tastes the best!!

He and his wife came to Ireland to visit myself and a girl I worked with.  I brought Donal with me.  We had a brilliant night.  Donal got trashed and went back to mine earlier.  I had a great night.  Dan attracted me so much.   I knew that I couldn’t live without him.

He invited me to visit him in Liverpool and in May 2008 I came over to visit Dan and the city.

I fell in love with Dan that weekend....and the city of Liverpool.  It had a charm.  Its people, the shopping, the waterfront, the vibe, everything!!! I knew that I had to get there.  I knew that Donal and I were through and that I needed to be with Dan and back in Liverpool.

I met Donal’s friends and we all had a laugh.  We all got on so well!!  I was so happy and felt liked I fit in.

Dan and I kissed that weekend.  He was so romantic.  So sweet.  So loving and tender.  I had never been treated like this.  He made me feel beautiful.  When I left Liverpool I cried for leaving the city and for leaving Dan.

I saw Dan again in the August but in between then, we were constantly texting, calling, emailing and keeping in touch. 

The August, his wife twigged that something was going on and they rowed mercilessly.  He ended up booking a flight to see me in the September.  We had a lovely weekend together.  We kissed, touched but didn’t have full on sex.

He returned home and his wife went ape shit.  She knew.  She kicked him out and well, I decided to leave Ireland and be with him.

Donal and I had finished.  He wouldn’t let me meet his kids and it came out that he was fucking his ex behind my back.  Good riddance!!

So in October I left Ireland with Dan.  He came over to bring me to Liverpool.  Romantic?  Sweet?  Oh how reality is so cruel!

When I moved over I needed to find work in the beginning of a recession.  We had to find somewhere to live.  Oh reality was so cruel!!

I  managed to find a job on the same industrial estate in Manchester as his job and Dan and I found an unfurnished flat in St Helens.  It was a lovely flat.  1 bedroom, 1 bathroom, kitchen and living room.  It was lovely.  But we had little money.  So we bought a blow up bed, a friend gave us a TV and we sat on my suitcases in the front room. 

Life with Dan was a misery.  He missed his children and I discovered that Dan had a very big drink problem.  Everything was around the pub. 

I think that he resented me.  He would drive me to and from work.  And in the car he would grunt, huff, puff and rage.  Then he would drop me off at our flat, see his kids.  I would make dinner and he would come back, open a beer and grunt at me.  He wouldn’t talk to me. 

When we would go to bed, he would lean over, put his hand on my nipple and pull.  He’d kiss (and by kiss, I mean he’d slobber all over me) finger me and I would fake an orgasm.  I would then suck him off.  We never had full on sex.

Why, do you ask, Ragers and Ragettes?

Simple.  He was an alcoholic.  He couldn’t sustain and erection.  And when his erection would fail?  He’d call me a frosty bitch or something to that effect.

We struggled with money.  My wage wasn’t big as I was in a job that was awful in every way.  I was bullied mercilessly from day 1 by my manager.  I was living in pure hell.

Where was the money going?  He was paying child support to is kids (fair enough) the rest of it?  At the pub of course!!!  I couldn’t afford to get my hair cut, my nails done, I couldn’t buy new clothes.  Our lives were around the pub.  He’d buy rounds and I would buy rounds and soon before you knew it, 2 weeks before payday I was broke.  He’d have a go at me.

I remember one May, he made me sell my beloved Washburn guitar that I had for 9 years, that a good friend of mine gave me.  I write music and it was my most prized possession.  And I had to sell it.  I only got £40 for it.  The guy in the shop told me not to sell it.  He said that there was always a solution.  When he handed me the £40, I cried my eyes out.  I felt such a hatred to Dan that day.  I felt such a burning, torrent of hatred.  I shook.

Dan picked me up from the shop and he said, let’s go to the pub, your round.  He acted like nothing happened.

Then one night to try and spice things up, I dressed in my trashiest lingerie and cooked him his favourite dinner.  He came into the flat as always in a grump.  I smiled and he just looked at me, shook his head got a beer and mumbled something under his breath about me being fat. 

Another time, I had a particularly bad day at work and I just wanted a cuddle.  I was crying so hard.  I asked Dan for a cuddle and he just went to the fridge and got a beer and told me that I was pathetic.  I never felt so alone in my life.

This man wasn’t the man that I had met in 2008.  Even though I had a boyfriend (Dan used to call me “the girl that I stay with” not his girlfriend.) I never felt so alone.  Sometimes I would pray that he would hit me just so I knew that he felt something.  The emotional abuse that I was suffering was unbearable.  And along with Dan, I picked up his drinking habits.  I too started to drink too much.

This went on from October 2008 until May 2010.

Ragers and Ragettes, in March 2010, my life changed.

Dan called me one morning at work saying that he had been constructively dismissed from work.

This changed my life majorly.  First, I had to make my own way to work.  I had to walk to get to the train from St Helens (a 2 mile walk) to Eccles and walk from the train station to the office which was 2 miles.  I was getting up at 5:30 and walking to the train station by myself.  And in the evening I had to make the same journey back.  I was effectively commuting 4 and a half hours a day.

And I would get home, Dan wouldn’t be there or he’d be at the pub or on the cheap and uncomfortable settee that we had bought from Ikea.  I felt so scared and so alone.

One day when I was walking to work getting ready for a day of being bullied, I snapped.  I decided that I couldn’t do it anymore.  I wanted to jump off the Centenary Bridge.  I couldn’t live with the commute, living on noodles (that’s all I could afford; my train ticket was £200 a month!!!)  So  started looking for house shares closer to work. 

May 2010, I moved out from the flat and into a house share in a cold, smelly, dark house in Eccles. Yes, my landlady was psycho, but I was free from the shit I had to deal with every day. 

Dan I broke up later.  I dated a few guys but we managed to stay friends.  We got back together in 2011 but soon broke up because he went back to his old ways.

We have stayed firm friends ever since.  But whenever I have dated guys, Dan will bombard me with texts, calls and start acting all pathetic and desperate.  He would emotionally blackmail me.  So those relationships would fizzle out eventually.

I moved into Rage Towers with the thought that would have to shoulder this burden for the rest of my life.  Never again love or be loved because Dan would put the act on.  He would be nice and lovely when I was single but as soon as I found a man...bam!  The emotional blackmail would come about.

Last night it came to a head.

 

I always say that this blog is therapy to me.  I have now found an amazing man who I want to build my life with.  Who I feel stable, cared for, and dare I say loved.  And now Dan is turning the emotional blackmail on again. 

I was restless and Simon picked this up.  I told him about the emotional blackmail texts from Dan.  Simon held me and said, Betty, this isn’t right.

Simon was right (I would normally talk to Suzanne but she is back in America) and so I snapped.  I hit my breaking point.

I texted Simon and my mutual friend “The Lad” and told him what I was being subjected to.  He is going to have a coffee with him and tell him to man the fuck up. Because if he doesn’t, I will block him and slap a restraining order on him.  I am deadly serious. 

I am not letting him fuck this up for me.  I am finally stable and settled.  I don’t need this shit.  So for once in my life, I am letting my fear of “hurting someone’s feelings” go away and I am going to take care of myself and only myself.

So with Simon’s support and this new found strength, it’s onwards and upwards for me, Ragers and Ragettes!!

I just need the strength to get through the flat move!  I will tell you all about it, of course!

Lots of love

The Fabulous Betty Rage xxxxxxxxxxxxx