So then what happened? 
In my previous post, Chapter 2, I left off last with my attempt to confront my father since he learned that my boyfriend and I were having sex. I went into my dad’s room, slightly hyperventilating, almost begging for him to ground me or something to get it all over with.
Do you remember what he did instead? I’m standing in front of him… he wouldn’t even look at me. He just looked at the floor for a while and simply said, “Maybe we’ll talk tomorrow.”
What do you think is worse, when your parents say they’re angry with you or they’re disappointed in you? When I share my story with students, feel worse when their parents say they’re disappointment. Parents have a standard for us and it stinks when we feel like we have completely let them down. My dad was so quiet and distant with me. I was deeply distressed.
It was only 4:00 or 5:00 pm and I knew it was going to be a long night. I trudged down the hall and went in to my room. Then I called my boyfriend. “We’re in big trouble, Dad found out!” I screeched on the phone. “Oh, crap! What did he do?” he bumbled and I replied, “Nothing. Dad’s not looking at me or talking to me. He might talk to me tomorrow. He might kill me tomorrow… he’s definitely going to kill you soon.”
This was a pivotal moment because his response revealed my boyfriend’s true character. Do you think he said something like, “It’s okay, Babe. We’ll get through this together”? Even though you don’t know him I bet you can figure it out. His basic reaction was this, “Well… are we done? …Is it over?”
I didn’t really know what to say because I couldn’t really believe what I was hearing. I started to think to myself… well, I guess our relationship IS only based on sex… but hopefully we can stay together and work on all that other stuff. So I said, “I don’t think we need to break up but I’ll call you after my dad talks to me tomorrow.”
We did not break up on the phone but we had no clue what was around the corner. My life was changing, spinning out of control. I hated nearly everything about my life.
The next morning, after a fretful night of sleep, I woke up and approached my dad’s room. I was exhausted, nervous and anxious about what my dad would say since he basically hadn’t said anything to me since the night before.
I began my hyperventilating/talking thing again and this time he told me he had just cut the grass and he’d talk to me after he washed all the grass clippings off in the shower. I sat on the edge of his bed and waited for what seemed like an eternity. When he finally came and talked to me he did not make me break off the relationship. But he had an idea.
My dad decided that any time I wasn’t at school and he wasn’t at work we would be buddies. My dad started going everywhere with me. If my boyfriend asked me out, my dad went with us. Every teenage guy’s dream, right? NOT!
But, realistically that didn’t happen too often. My boyfriend wasn’t too thrilled about the three of us hanging out. So we didn’t see each other outside of school anymore. And how long do you think we lasted?
One hour?
A couple of weeks?
A lifetime?
Well, we broke up after a couple weeks of this new routine. I think we realized that we really had nothing in common and our relationship had no other foundation besides sex. I had not only lost my virginity but other things that were very precious to me…like the trust of my parents, self-respect and friends.
In my next post, I’ll show you graphs of my life. (PS. Things get better eventually!)
MY POINT: MY STORY ISN’T THAT UNCOMMON. BEOFRE YOU MAKE THE SAME MISTAKES, THINK ABOUT THE DIRECTION YOU WANT TO GO IN YOUR LIFE. RE-EXAMINE YOUR RELATIONSHIPS. SEX BEFORE MARRIAGE COMPLICATES THINGS. YOU ARE WORTH WAITING FOR!
