Working thru yet another friend zone saga

[dascientist]

Hi everybody, this is my first post. I know it's a dousy, but I felt if I expressed myself in this way, I could finally bring closure to the situation and move on with my life, in addition to serve as an example to others of what NOT to do in a situation like this.

 

My story goes like this. I moved from one state to another and have been in this new state for about a year. I was dating a lady in the former state, and we had an "amicable" break up, and are still friends. I get to the new state, and there is a girl who contacts me from previous contacts I made with her when I was in the old state. She is moving into town, and reaching out for contacts, networking, etc. I had come in contact with her because she says she is a health consultant and spiritual advisor, and I was going to have my then girlfriend take a health/spiritual class with her, since she is interested in that thing.

 

Anyway we finally meet in person and she looks good, but I am not immediately ga ga goo goo over her, because, although we share some common interests such as diet choices and historical interests, we disagree on some issues like "religion". In addition, she has 4 children by 3 different men, and is now single. That should have been the "oh ok, we can only be friends" queue from ME, but no, I let my self get taken for ride.

 

When she moved down her, she didn't have a car, and her and 3 of her children, her oldest who is 19 and not really child anymore, and her two youngest from her ex husband, were staying with her, at one of her friends apartments. I suggested a network of other like minded individuals she should meet concerning alternative healing, and took her to one of there meetings. She seemed grateful, but then she started hitting me up every so often to get rides to places like the grocery store or run errands or what have you. This is where I should have stopped my self, because I usually subconsciously become attached to girls I give rides to on a consistent basis, or help out on odds and ends, especially if they are single.

 

Now keep in mind, while I was doing all of this, I am still having one night stands and what have you with other females from time to time, because hey, I'm not formally in a relationship, and even though me and this new woman would hang out from time to time, it was never established as any "date" or "dating". So as we go along, one weekend, she asks me if I can drive her several hours up north so that she can pick up her children, who had been visiting with her father, meaning the children's grandfather, and her father didn't want to drive all the way down to the city we live in. So I agreed and we met then half way. It was then that I began to detect within myself that I was having greater feelings for this woman and her family. I met her father, and he seemed enthusiastic that his daughter had met a guy friend down in this city that could help her out from time to time on things like rides, doing guy stuff like house repairs, fixing computers, and things of that nature.

 

I was very curious about her older son, because he seem to have never known his father, and show animosity to his mother's friends and her way of life, and was getting in trouble in the streets. I tried to get my network to assist her with her son, in terms of pursuing getting his GED, getting a job, etc. Little did I know that the reason why this woman had moved in the first place was to protect her son from the authorities who where pursuing him in another state with a warrant for assault and theft.

 

One weekend, I was giving my roommates a ride, and the woman was also along for a ride. We get stopped by the police because my tag was improperly displayed, and they check everybody's ID in the card, and they take the woman out of the car and tell her she is under arrest for a outstanding warrant. Me and my room mates are looking around like "uh oh what happened, what did she do?" Before she was taken into the car, she tossed me her phone and told me to inform her children of what was going on. I wrangled with the county jail all day to find out the nature of the arrest and they pointed me to the originating county of the warrant. Turned out she had gotten a dui in this county in the passed, and her sentence was probation, which was supposed to have completed, or so I thought. In either case, it came back that the warrant was inactive, so they fortunately let her go that evening. This part of the story plays into what happens later in the story.

 

This woman would from time to time have out of state seminars that she organized, and this was her primary means of support. She would try to depend on her oldest son to watch the younger children while she was gone, but it often would leave them home by themselves, or not feed them, or was abusive to his younger brother and sister. So she would ask me to stop by the house to check on her children while she was out of town doing her alternative health seminars. This caused me to further get attached to her and her children.

 

One weekend, while she was out of town, she had another one of her girlfriends look after the children, and her girlfriend took her children to another seminar that was going on in town. It was there that her oldest son decided to drag the younger brother into a scheme to burgle some of the property and money of the people at this in town seminar. The oldest son did not finish his scheme before the seminar participants were alerted, and the younger brother who was really on forced to help by his older brother and really wasn't invested in scheme, but rather fearful of his older brother, decided to stay while the older brother ran off with the money and other property. His mother called me frantic, talking about "you have to protect my son the cops are after him for stealing". Me, thinking that this magnitude of delinquency was a first for the oldest child, picked up her son from her house and had him stay at my house for a day or two, and try to talk some sense into him, and at the same time help her mother make a restitution deal with the people that he stole from so that they would that further press the authorities. We reached a restitution deal, and this is where the first time in our relationship, I started to fork over several hundred dollars in money to "protect" her son, but more importantly, buy him a bus ticket out of town so that he can pursue his own life, since he grown and if the is going to act like this, he really doesn't need to be living with his mother and his brother and sister.

 

The oldest son is now out of town, restitution has been paid to the victims, and now the mother now owes me money for the restitution payment. This, in my brains, is formerly preventing me from querying her about us pursuing a more serious relationship, because that would be in appropriate and would seem like solicitation. So we maintained an awkward relationship after that, during which time she was going through other financial difficulty because of secretly trying to help her oldest son with money. Finally, news got back to her that her oldest son got shot, but survived, only having been shot in the legs, and she got him a bus ticket back to her home, where she attempted to use alternative healing on him to supplement the stitches and impromptu surgery he got at the free clinic in the other city. I talked to her oldest son on the side and pointed out that I predicted that this would happen and it's consequence of your criminal behavior, but he kept denying to me he was even responsible for the previous theft.

 

Anyway, a month or two goes by, and the oldest son's gunshot wounds to the legs are nearly healed, and it seemed like a sense of normalcy was being restored at my friends home. One day, she had to go out of town to do a seminar, and take the youngest daughter with her. I told her I would come by and keep an eye on the boys, and take them to the movies. She told me she was fine with this. So the weekend, I come by to get the boys, and I am greeted by the boys and "some man". We introduce ourselves, and I asked if he is my friends boyfriend, and he says "no", he is just a friend, and needed a place to stay for a couple of days, and to work of the couple of days, he would watch the children. So I am thinking, how did she just let some "guy" come over to watch the children, a guy that the children had never seen before until that weekend? Anyway, when she gets back town, I talked to her about it, and she tells me it's a guy she met at a local event, who indicated that he was homeless, and that he would be staying for a week or two, until he could collect a payment he was due, and then move on.

 

Well, that week or two became a month or so. All during this time, her oldest son is contacting me, asking me if I can find a place for this homeless guy to stay, because he doesn't work and doesn't help pay rent, and I tell the son, "look, this is your mother's decision, she's the only one there paying the rent, or securing the money for the rent, and plus, maybe she is trying to form a relationship with this guy. Who else just lets a guy stay over for several weeks like that, out of the blue, without having to pay rent, unless she has feelings for him". At this point, I am in recovery mode, and thinking about the best way to get her to pay me the money back she owes me for her son's restitution. I come up with the idea that at one of her future retreats at the beach, which I was interested in going to, she must let me lady friend come to the retreat for free, and then we will be even steven. This lady friend in fact is my former girlfriend, who I am still friends with.

 

In the meantime, leading up to the retreat, the oldest son has destroyed the homeless man's car windows, stolen his computer, and destroyed other property he has, including sacred artifacts and paraphernalia. This causes further tension and discord in the house. I come by one day after running an errand for the woman, and I have a discussion with her son with everybody in the house, about his behavior, such as being verbally abusive to his siblings, and smoking cigars and even marijuana in the house. I inform him that smoking the house creates greater air pollution in an already cramped run down apartment, and he replies "well, my mother smokes in the house" At this point, I am taken aback because the woman is a health advocate, and had talked about giving up smoking in the past so that she could now practice alternative and homeopathic healing, but here she is smoking, behind people's backs. Me being a non smoker, did not know the signs until, put my perception changed about things that had been happening before, such as giving her a ride to a convenience store and her coming in and out of the store in only a few seconds, or getting in the car, and I am thinking I am smelling a bad batch of sage, when in reality, it is cigar residue.

 

Now for this upcoming retreat, all the participants are request to undergo a dietary fast. I have a discussion with the woman about her fast, and suggest that maybe she should try refraining for smoking for part of her fast, and she comes back at me very upset, talking about "who are you to tell me what to do, it's my choice, my spirit". I reply "I thought I was a friend, and it's obvious to me, your habit is enabling some of the bad behavior you are experiencing from your oldest son, in addition to subconsciously causing opportunities for you to slip by, because of the whole contradictory nature of being a health advocate but at the same time smoking". She wasn't trying to here it, even after all the things I had done for her an her family, so, I didn't press the issue again and eagerly awaited the opportunity to settle up for the retreat so that I can finally begin to formally distance my self from her.

 

We finally come to the weekend of the retreat, and over all it was a positive experience for my self, and my former girlfriend and her son, and for the other participants. However, part of the retreat was ruined because the woman who is my friend brought all her children, including one of the middle sons who stays with his father, and that means she brought the oldest son too, and guess what the oldest son does? He beats up his youngest brother during the retreat, and steals money from his mother's purse. Needless to say that put a dampener on parts of the weekend, since she was the retreat facilitator, and her emotional state was wavering. Incidentally, the homeless man she has as a "room mate" did not come on the retreat, and I later learn it she was trying to protect her son from the man, because the oldest son had destroyed much of his property, and she was trying to avoid the confrontation, and had the man leave her apartment for a few days as she figure out what next to do with her oldest son. At this point, she has finally resolved that it is time once again for her oldest son to move out the house, and for good.

 

The son gets a ticket out of town in addition to the second oldest son, who is going to spend a brief time with the oldest and a relative up north. However, during that time, the oldest son takes advantage of the second oldest son and nearly gets him assassinated by thugs that he steals from and blaming it on his younger brother. Luckily, the second oldest son's father rescues him from that situation and brings him back home. I'm thinking now maybe the woman can get a sense of normalcy restored to her life, and it seems like her "room mate" has moved on. However, a week later, she calls me asking to borrow money to help pay the rent, or else she and the children will get kicked out. She claims she can pay me back within a week. I don't have confidence in her ability to pay me back but I loan her the money because it's her and the children and I don't wan to see them homeless. I come back next week and ask what is the pay back plan looking like, and as I suspected, there is delay. I also come back that same weekend for a healing circle she has organized. I bring one of my platonic lady friends with me to the healing circle to kind of even out things, and lo and behold, who is there at the healing circle, with his other stuff at the house, but mister homeless guy. Now WAIT A MINUTE, I'm loaning you money for YOU and your CHILDREN, but you didn't bother to mention that your homeless room mate is now living there too. How can you be borrowing money from me, but letting a guy who isn't helping with the rent stay there? Sounds controversial.

 

So all of this is going on, and then a week or so later after loan happened, she tells me that her oldest son has kept calling her trying to move back home, but she wont let him or doesn't want him too. I agree with the decision, it's time for that man to make his own way, if he can't respect the home. But lo and behold, her oldest son finds money or a way to get back to town on the bus, and comes to his mother's house. When he gets there, he is met by mr homeless room mate, and they get in a scuffle. She has everybody leave the house, especially the children, who were scheduled to get picked up by their father, and even mr homeless room mate, and her own self, so that the oldest son is left alone in the house. Then she calls ME to come and pick up her son!!!!!! I suppose because by now, mr homeless has a broken car that isn't drivable and has expired tags, and she doesn't want him to be in danger, but I guess it's ok for me to spend my time and possible safety to come pick up her son, who may or may not agree, and may or may not have a weapon. So I pick him up, and she is over in her car (who's tags are also expired) hiding and waiting for me to get there so that it is safe. When I get there, then she comes out and tries to plead with her oldest son not to do what he is doing, and that she will try to get him ticket back out of town, but that he can't come back.

 

I take the oldest son with me, and I break it down to him, you can't go back to your mother's house, because next time she is going to call the authorities. You can't really stay at my house all that long either, and you got until the end of the weekend to be out, and you can't be at the house if I am not there, which means you have to come to work with me on campus. I have instructed my room mates not to let him in the house unless I am there, since I am the one responsible. I told him, you are either going to end up in jail or get killed, going the route you are going, and in fact you may need to go to jail and settle up for whatever crime you committed that is preventing you from getting an ID or seeking legal employment, or perhaps leave the country. In either case, life is no longer going to be a picnic for you. So I take him to work the first day, and it goes ok, while he waits at a student lounge. The next day, he asks me if I can drop him off at his mothers and I an telling "no, you will get arrested". He says "but I still have things there". I tell him, if he has anything there, that I will go get it, but he not allowed over there. So we get to work, and the oldest son eludes me after I get to my office.

 

I get the suspicion that he may attempt to go back to his mother's house, so I call eventually to try to alert her, and she doesn't answer. I find out later in the day that she has gotten arrested AGAIN, for the same DUI probation violation, and the reason why she is arrested is because her son and two other men come to her house, with one of the men having a weapon, as he demands to have his other stuff back or whatever else he felt was missing that belong to him. When she contacts the police and they show up to take the report, they take her ID, and inform her that she has a new warrant out for her arrest. So I get the call from the jail, and I thinking, OH NO, not this again, didn't we take care of this half a year ago? Turns out the warrant was reissued, because in fact, she really was in violation of her probation.

 

I become the contact person for her and the rest of her world, including her parents, her ex husband, and her "room mate" as we try to scramble to get her legal representation and handle this. She spends two weeks in jail. While all of this is going on, I put her "room mate" up for a few days during the duration. I ask him before I put him up, if he has ever been intimate or was dating or having relations with the woman and he tells me no. While the guy is here, he keeps harping on what the oldest son has done to his mother and her family, and I understand, but his harping began to border or come into the realm of obsession on the oldest son. This probably because all of the property damage he experienced. Him and the woman's ex husband are into alternative religions, so some how both of them while communicating on the phone came up with a reading or oracle result prompting them to suspect that in addition to the oldest son being a delinquent, he also molested his younger brother. They say this, with why consider no viable evidence, and just channelling anger to the son, and clouding the more important issues of getting the mother out of jail and securing the children PROPERLY.

 

Any way, her parents were able to retain legal representation and get up almost enough money to cover her restitution fee for probation violation, and had me go to her court date and then pick her up from jail. All during the time she is in there, she is calling me when she has access to the phone. The desperation in her voice is apparent, and I guess it's only during this time when your life is shambles do you know who you can depend on. When she gets out, I warn her that her ex husband and her "room mate" don't want her to watch the children anymore, and understandably so, although she could have prevented all this earlier on by let the oldest son face the consequences with the authorities.

 

She tells me some of her life story, claiming that she was "verbally abused" by her father, and that is why she has made poor choices or in men or is attracted to abusive men. I found it hard to accept that her father was verbally abusive, he just seemed like the stern father that was looking out for her, not an abusive one. I guess her perspective of abusive in that regards is relative. Anyway she goes on the explain this is how she was able to have the oldest son with a no good man who left them before the oldest son was born, how she able to stay with another man who was a crack head who beat her oldest son near to death when he was 3 years old in the city we now live in, which is why she left town in the first place and skipped out on her probation from being distraught; how the father of her two youngest left her when he found out they were about to have their first child together, so he disappeared for 2 years, how later on he came back and they reconciled, but he was verbally and physically abusive to her and the children, and she felt stuck in the situation because of not being able to provide for her self and the children. What really angered me is through all this, all of the people involved agreed and including her that once she got out, she would go ahead and re file the police report, but she was hesitant, so I felt like she was all taking us on another "protect my oldest son" ride. So I called her father and told him, look, I know you are depending on me to help her out, but I can only do so much if she wont do the right thing for her self and her family, and she is claiming you were verbally abusive to her when she was young, but I don't see the evidence, so why is she trying to bad mouth you? Anyway, he contacts the ex and here and was able to finally convince her to do the right thing.

 

Now here is where things take another bizarre turn for me. When she gets out of jail, she is all trying to smoke in my car while I am giving her rides, which she knows I don't approve of, so I am like, ok I get it, you need a fix, but you can't smoke in this car, we can stop and then you can get your fix. Also she wants a place to stay so she recommends I get a hotel. I price one and tell her the price and she tells me it's too expensive and that "we" only need the place to do some spiritual work? Who is we, I ask? She says her ex and her homeless guy room mate? I am like "huh?, they can't get the room for you, two man, combined?" She is like no, they are broke. But you know what, I told her "no, I can't do this for you, if you want to get a room with a man or two, then all three of you should be able to handle that, not me". So she figures out where to get money from one of her friends I suppose and they get a room. This is where I am starting to see that she doesn't have the respect for me that she claims to have, and other things we have done to bond, such as share in healing work, ancient language instruction, ancient culture research, etc. are just a mask to string me along so that she can use me up.

 

They get the room, do the hocus pocus pow wow, and then she stays at the room for extra days while her ex finally leaves town, and her homeless guy room mate asks me to drive him out of town to some extra spiritual training he has to do in the state over, which I do (slaps for head).

 

I am thinking, ok we are finally getting somewhere with all this, and some closure can happen. Understandably, she does not want to remain in the state, after the hardship she has gone through here, so I help to secure the moving truck and some of my friends and her friends to help her move stuff out of the apartment, which in the meantime had been used as a crime den by her oldest son, and with no power, had started to rot inside. We get her moved temporarily to another girl friends house. She is asking me to fax her children's school, get her rides to the probation officer, get her rides to community service, fax her bank because of fraudulent charges her son made on her card, help to replace some of the lost documents she had from the summer retreat we went to, pass out flyers for her upcoming events and seminars, borrow a power tool so she can cut her community service in half, and a host of other things. All I get for all of that work is some water and a salad :-P. However, she found time to make a care package for homeless room mate including money which she doesn't really have to give. I am like "where is my care package? Where is compensation for me getting this moving truck?" I guess I would have to be homeless, a bum, and verbally abusive to her for her to give me the proper respect right?

 

Anyway, she is able to finish of the conditions of her probation successfully. In the meantime, mr homeless room mate is staying with my platonic lady friend, who is also in social services and is trying to secure for the guy benefits and see if he can get disability, because he claim his back is messed up and can't do a whole bunch of manual labor. Now platonic lady friend, I normally go to her house once or twice a week, to get her and her son rides to the grocery store, to take her son to the park or a science exhibit, etc. since he doesn't have a male role model i his life right now, and it is all good, and I have been doing this for several months now. This means, that me coming over there from time to time is a normal thing already. So I come over one day to use the computer, and I notice a car there with out of town plates. I get in and there is mr homeless guy and the woman who I get out of jail is there in his room laying on his bed. I am like, oooh ok I see. Y'all just tell people y'all are not together so that they can do stuff for the woman, but in reality you are prostituting this woman, maybe not literally, but figuratively. I get it. I didn't say this out loud, I just came and did what I had to do on the computer, and then rolled out. That was about a week ago. I haven't heard from either one of them since.

 

I remember when she was in jail and we were on the phone and she asked why is all of this negative stuff happening to her, because she claims she is doing right or finally removing the negative elements in her life, and she just doesn't understand why she is having such bad luck. After further reflection, to me she is have misfortunes because she is living a dishonest life, and for somebody to say they are spiritual adherent and alternative health advocate, you can't still be doing some of the things you are doing such as being deceitful and jeopardizing your health with bad habits and expect to come out successful. Maybe she can now make a positive transition, but who knows. I haven't know many successful relationships where the woman is the provider for the guy, instead of co providers. I just wish she was more honest with me about her son, and about her living arrangement, so I could have made more informed decisions. I would definitely try to work to make sure her children are not homeless, but I'm not going to do a whole bunch of extra stuff you want me to do, if you have a man living in your house, who should be the one you turn to for all these extra things you claim to need.

 

Anyway, I am coping with this now, by communicating with my ex girlfriend who is really one of my best friends now, and we seem to have been resolving issues that where hanging when we amicably broke up, so life for the most part is going to be ok. But as my ex girl had pointed out, I need to find the method of relating with woman with out always having to feel like I must be a provider on a large scale right away, so that is one of the issues I am dealing with. She says it makes it look like you are a control freak, and that you would try to take advantage of a situation by with holding provisions if things dont go your way, so dont invest in a whole bunch of provisions to begin with. The thing is, I seem to be attracted to needy women, probably because is less of a challenge in terms of getting with them initially, if you are a good provider. I am working on not getting myself in to those kind of situations, but it's been hard, but I continue to value lessons I have learned from this and previous life events.

 

Please forgive me for this extremely long excursus and thank you for reading or listening.

 

Cheers.

[Iselia]

I didn't read all of it. Just bits and pieces.

 

She was using you the entire time. You kept letting her get what she wanted, so she kept pushing and pushing her needs on you. Never talk to this woman again. She is a damn mess and you don't need that in your life. I know this situation has been hard on you, but please, please, PLEASE realize what a mess she was!

 

I think you should learn to assert yourself more and not tolerate such bull sh*t. Learn a lesson from all of this, and never let someone do this to you again.

Edited August 17, 2010 by Iselia
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