Proof that I was a "fool in love".

As guys we can often be the proverbial "clueless". Yeah. Men are from Mars. Women are from Venus and all that stuff. I am certainly no kid and have had many relationships in my life, some good and some bad. I stuck in my horrible marriage for twenty-three years, always believing that by some miracle it would get better. It never did. Even my kids haven't spoken to me in twenty-four years and I don't know my five grandkids either. Sad.

Naturally I was cautious when I first met Elba. She was gorgeous. She was feisty. She was twenty years younger than me. She was Mexican and spoke no English. Unquestionably a handful for any man. But I knew there was more to it for me that first night we met. My friends Bill and Violeta called to say that Elba wanted me to come to La Bodega the following Saturday night. That came as a surprise; but I was intrigued. The night turned into pure magic. We danced amazingly together and after one particularly romantic song I said that was the best dance I'd ever had. She said it was the same for her. At one point we went for a smoke and I felt compelled to kiss her. A tender little kiss. She responded with the most passionate kiss I've ever had. I knew I was in trouble.

This all led to the most wonderful relationship I've ever had in my life. All the things other women had convinced me were my faults, like being romantic in public, were the opposite for Elba. Despite the obvious language issues we talked for hours and she said and did the sweetest things. As a joke I had given her one of my pinky rings because she suggested we were married. The next day she texted that she had kissed the ring a thousand times. What woman does this? We talked about all the amazing connections we had. Our fundamental beliefs in a successful relationship were honesty and trust, we agreed.

What followed were the best months of my life. I met her very large family in Guadalajara over Christmas and they all welcomed me with open arms. Given my horrible situation with my own family I was thrilled to be a part of this wonderful family. Her wonderful sons, Jonathan and Kevin, started calling me Dad. It was pure bliss.

Everywhere we went, particularly Adelita's, our Monday night hot spot to dance, where Jonathan played in the band, everyone greeted us like long lost friends and said we looked so in love and they were so happy for us. On New Years I gave her the replacement ring she had picked out in Guadalajara and everyone assumed it was an engagement ring so they congratulated us. Elba went along with it and started referring to me as her fiance. Her family was thrilled and started pushing her to hurry up and marry me.

Having spent time in both Panama and Ecuador, both of which proved to be disasters, I came to Mexico to check it out for six months and return to Canada. After I met Elba my plans changed to figure out how I could stay in Mexico. I started making arrangements with the consulate in Toronto to apply for my temporal visa. Elba and I joked how much easier it would be if she just married me.

Off we went to Canada, unquestionably the worst trip I've ever made. It was freezing and everything that could go wrong did. Elba was a real trooper with both the cold and all the problems and we had a wonderful ten days despite the problems. The plan was to get my visa, which I did, and return to Ajijic where Elba and I would find a new place because my rent was going up fifty-seven percent, then start working on the website together. We had talked for hours about her being our Sales Director and she was cautiously thrilled. I just knew that she was going to be great at it and, most importantly, very happy. I had dreams of us traveling the country, part vacation and part work, to set up other city portal sites. The future looked amazing.

As we came to the day we were scheduled to fly back she surprised me by telling me she had to stay in Guadalajara to meet with her lawyer about her apartment, which had become a total disaster. Our top priority was to find a place to live in Ajijic so I wasn't happy to hear she was staying in Guadalajara. She said to go ahead and just look for places myself and that was my first indication that something was very wrong. I told her I would never pick a place for us to live without her first seeing it. Little did I know.

After we got back I asked her to text me to let me know what happened with the lawyer. When I hadn't heard from her late in the afternoon she said she hadn't met her lawyer and now she had to go back after Adelita's that night. Again I wasn't thrilled because she had just told me she was coming to my place after Adelita's so we could look for places. We had to find a place for May 1st so time was critical.

Jonathan was coming early to play pool with us and was dropping Elba off at my place first. When I came back to get ready for Adelita's her bags were packed. When I asked her what was up she said we were going to be in a smaller place so she was taking her clothes home to sort them out and sell some of them. I didn't believe that for a second. Off we went to Adelita's and I knew something was very wrong. For the first time she didn't even sit with me and she also didn't appear to be enjoying dancing with me. She kept looking down at the floor and avoided eye contact with me. I kept asking her if she was okay and she said she was; but I knew that wasn't true.

That all led to the worst series of text messages I've ever had, culminating in the very worst. "Aqui terminamos con la relacion". Here we end with the relationship. It broke my heart. I fell apart. I just couldn't believe that she would go to Canada with me and let me go through the whole process of getting my visa to come back to live with her and hopefully get married, when she had no intentions of doing that. She had broken up by text message twice before, both times after which I fell apart. I told her to never do that again; but she did. How could this woman who I loved so completely be this cruel and do this to me again? My whole life was turned upside down and all my dreams of a future together were shattered. I wondered what the heck am I doing here?

She wanted to come and pick up the rest of her stuff and she wanted to talk to me. I just couldn't face her without breaking down so I told her I wouldn't be here when she came, which was yesterday. I knew I couldn't face the situation at Adelita's either. I had no idea what to say to friends. I hadn't danced with anyone else for six months. What was I going to say to Jonathan? How could I ever see her with someone else and not be destroyed?

My great friend, Jack, took me out of town to the other side of the lake. It was a great diversion and avoided facing Elba while she took all her stuff out of the apartment. She sent me a very strange text about leaving the gifts I had given her out of love and I had no clue what that meant. I had asked her for the engagement ring back only because we were obviously no longer engaged. When we got back home she had carefully laid out the various gifts I had given her for Valentines Day, her birthday and others, like the dress I bought her for her birthday. Blew me away! Why would she return these gifts that were given to her out of my deep love for her? It seemed beyond cruel.

I texted her to come back and get the gifts she had left; but she responded by telling me not to text her anymore. So beyond cruel. I would never have thought she could do this to me. I still love her with my life and wish this had not come to such a tragic end. I still don't have a clue why she ended our relationship. I honestly thought she loved me as much as I loved her and she shared our dreams. I was wrong. So sadly wrong.

by TheEditor