(Disclaimer: Some names have been changed to protect their privacy. Some information may be disturbing for some readers. Read at your discretion. 18+)
It was September, 2017, when Rosie appeared drunk inside the front entrance of my daughter’s, and my apartment. He bulldozed his way in, only to be confronted by my daughter’s partner, Aiden. Aiden was inside minding his own business, doing whatever Aiden did. He wasn’t expecting to see a distraught grown man pleading with him to help find me. Rosie slammed open the front door, made his way to my daughter’s bedroom, and demanded to know where I was.
Rosie had challenges with boundaries sometimes, both at home, and at his work. According to my adult children, Rosie didn’t knock before barging inside the apartment in his drunken rage. Aiden was in a state of anxious confusion. His first reaction was utter shock. His first thought was “what do I do?”
Rosie isn’t exactly a small man. He’s a six foot tall, husky built, soldier, who had been trained in some form of military style weaponry. He was also highly intoxicated, therefore, unpredictable to Aiden. That’s all Aiden knew. Aiden is five foot eight with the ability to throw a punch if need be. He definitely didn’t want to flinch towards Rosie at that moment. Let alone say no to his demands. Saying no would have risked a potential fight. Rosie had rage in his eyes and a volatile temper due to his state of mind. Aiden did what anyone would have done. He agreed to Rosie’s request to reach out to my daughter at work.
Back then, both Liv and I worked for a commercial cleaning company. She worked several different locations. Liv cleaned the main building she was assigned to, plus grabbed other shifts to cover for her fellow colleagues. All while pregnant. Minimum wage didn’t , and still doesn’t, cover much expenses these days. I worked part time, three days a week, for the same company. During the day I worked for a non-profit organization as an executive assistant.
Over the several years I worked for this particular nonprofit organization, I received maybe a few grand from them at best. Alongside a receipt totaling 15,000 dollars worth of volunteer time, for tax purposes. I am still awaiting the day I can claim that ‘volunteer’ work. Until then, the slip acts as a reminder. I have kept it tucked away in a safe place for me to retrieve anytime I call for it.
The volunteer work I did was as a youth co-ordinator for a youth program the organization created in Fredericton, New Brunswick. I assisted in the organization of the children, aided in both the strategic and written development of the youth empowerment classes, and was the lead coordinator for a peace festival in downtown Fredericton that the organization was hosting. I was doing a great deal for them. Both during work hours, and in my free time. I even used my own car and gas to taxi the kids too and from the youth nights on Wednesdays.
In the Executive Assistant’s role, I helped with proof reading and editing my boss’s proposals for funding. I took many proposals down from five pages to three pages to meet the submission requirements at that time. I represented the organization at different events, including the United Nations for the All Women, All Child conference in New York, New York.
The trip to New York city was paid for out of my own pocket, with the help of my ex husband, Bill. In addition to office duties, I also secured the Director of the organization into two different apartments as a representative on his behalf. Looking back now, it would have been wise to quit when he was evicted from the first apartment for missed rent.
In addition to all that, I picked up shifts as a custodial worker at night to make up for the “volunteer work” during the day. All whilst fighting cramps in my legs and feet on a daily basis. I had to make something of myself.
I was, and still am, determined to create my own independent stability. Instead of tangible rewards on a regular basis, I worked on a promise of a lucrative career, working both in Canada, and in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Freddy, the Director of the organization, pulled at my heart string, and my ego’s desperation to make a name for myself for all that it was worth. Takers attract givers in all walks of life and within all intended purposes, so does equal respect and reciprocity. I didn’t truly see the honor in equal reciprocity. I was focused on being a giver to make a name for myself. The non profit was focused on taking what I was giving.
Assuming you have been following my story from the beginning, allow me to pose these questions; does my working for a false promise of being recognized sound familiar to you? Like something I would do? My ego loves patterns just as much as yours does. A pattern is emerging. If you decide to keep following the breadcrumbs with me, it will all make sense.
One day, when I was working in the office, myself and two colleagues of mine came across a report which highlighted the breakdown and total of funding received over the course of the previous year. We were all shocked. The amount totaled close to a million dollars with well over three quarters of that for work in the DRC. The Canadian team was unaware of what efforts outside of what we were doing were being done in the DRC. The math wasn’t matching in my books. The smaller percentage of funds went towards the youth program, three people’s wages, and the Director’s salary, to which we were not privy to.
I recognize not-for-profit aid organizations tend to only dish out about two percent of the public sector’s donation money, and claim the rest of the funds as overhead costs of some kind. Freddy said he didn’t want his organization to be known as one of those. With that said, being paid one thousand dollars a year over the course of four years for all the work, sweat, and tears I put in, seemed a little off balance in my perspective. None of us felt we were compensated fairly. The reciprocity was way out of whack.
I am grateful for the experience of working for Freddy nonetheless. I learned the value of balanced reciprocity in the workplace. That experience also highlighted the importance of remaining humble by recognizing there is no such thing as self-made. Everything in life is created through collective efforts. One person offering you sound advice by a recorded video on a social media app could give you that one nugget of information to catapult your success. No one does it alone. If you approach life in the mindset of self-made, then self-made isolation, void of authentic love, friendships, and community, may be the end result of that approach. Is that true success?
Notice a pattern? I did the same thing with Rosie. I pleased him in more ways than one on a false promise of love. Being desperate for recognition by making a name for myself bled into both my business and personal life. Selling myself for free in this way was most definitely a pattern that required a solid break.
I quit that organization in 2018 because my relationship with the founder turned out to also be a hellish ordeal at the end of my employment there. I walked away after that man groped me, and force ably kissed me in his car, after dropping me back off to mine and my daughter’s place after work. The same apartment Rosie barged into shit faced out of his mind. Freddy’s soon to be wife was also waiting for him at home. Notice a pattern here too? Unwarranted sexual advancements from men kept following me.
After Freddy groped me, I went into the apartment, balled my eyes out for a moment, recollected myself the best I could, then called Rosie. He basically said “there, there muffin. Everything’s gonna be okay.” I suspect he was with a woman that night. He seemed awfully preoccupied. More so than usual. Oh the pain. It was real.
In Aiden’s holy shit moment seeing Rosie’s drunken stupor, he called Liv and gave Rosie his phone so he could talk to her. Aiden gave the phone to Rosie after preparing Liv with who she was about to speak with and why. Liv spoke with Rosie for several minutes. She said he was extremely persistent. From what I understand, he was frantic and insistent in knowing where I was, and when I was expected home. Liv, with clear understanding, Rosie was not going to take no for an answer, told Rosie where I was. I was at my parents house with a new friend named Joel. She was telling the truth. I was at my parents place, and I was planning to stay the night with Joel. With an idea in mind to return the next day. After brunch with my parents.
I had a fabulous time with Joel. He drove all the way from Ontario to meet me. Then we drove to Halifax, Nova Scotia for our date. He wined and dined me in a fancy seafood restaurant. We walked along the boardwalk. Going inside quaint little shops and eateries along our way. Joel even held my hand in public. Hand holding wasn’t a common experience for me. Then we closed the night out with a nightcap. Along with a wonderful encounter in the hotel room before falling asleep together.
The next day Joel and I drove about six or so hours back to St. Stephen, New Brunswick, so that he could see the oceanside of the province, and meet my parents. Rosie never did those things with me. He only held my hand when he was ushering me through a crowd. He never met my parents, nor had any desire to. Rosie didn’t have any desire in getting to know my family on a personal level. He only interacted with one person from my life. That person was Liv. Even those interactions were limited. Rosie enjoyed Liv’s insight just as much as he enjoyed mine. One minute pleasantries. That was about it.
My youngest daughter, Laura, saw Rosie’s character from almost day one. She didn’t care for him much. She offered her opinion when asked. Otherwise she kept her opinions to herself. Laura knew I had to learn my way. She also knew she could be blunt and straightforward. No pussyfooting around when it comes to Laura defending her loved ones. She can be fiercely protective sometimes. I love her strength in that way.
Joel was fun to hang out with. He wasn’t the man for me though. I knew that. Joel was overly affectionate and was planning out my engagement ring and wedding date within the three days of getting to know each other. That’s not a good sign. Even I knew that back then.
After Liv explained where I was and that she didn’t know when she would be expecting me home, Rosie wanted to know how to get to my parents house in St. Stephen. For the first time in the three years of knowing Rosie, he was finally okay with meeting my parents. And he was okay with showing up intoxicated at that. Liv wasn’t about to give him directions to my parents’ home for two reasons; drunk driving, and my overall safety. Liv also knew my parents would have had a field day with me if I woke them from their slumber with my drama, so she called me on my cell at midnight.
Joel and I were sitting quietly outside underneath the stars talking about our day and our overall time together. I met Joel back on the same dating app I had met Rosie on. Joel and my get together was after I did a walk of shame from a motel room Rosie often took me to.
The motel I am referring to was off the side of a highway in between Oromocto and Fredericton. Rosie used the excuse that he lived in a tiny little room big enough for his bed, inside a house with a family above, and another soldier as a roommate in the next room downstairs with him. According to Rosie, there was no privacy there. I believed what he said about his place in Oromocto to be true. That’s just it though, a sliver of truth embedded within lies makes for quite the game of who done it. It’s through this manipulative tactic that creates gaslighting. Nonetheless, I fell for it. I met Rosie at countless three Star motel rooms from 2015 to 2018.
I lived in a three room apartment with my daughter and her then boyfriend. The boyfriend, being Aiden. With that in mind, where I lived was cramped and too small for everyone.
I’ll put it to you this way, when I had my own place before 2017, Rosie was at my place every night after 9:00 pm. We had a private place just for the two of us and to which I called my home. Rosie would bring his duffle bag and stay the night. He’d then get up in the morning and head off to work. Except for Fridays. Fridays he went back to Moncton to be with his kids and secret fiancee.
Yep, I was that naive girl. The after 9:00 pm, no public outings, especially during the day, and a rare date if he felt it necessary to keep me soft hearted towards him, throughout the entire nine and a half years of being with him, girl. I was the naive little girl I thought he loved. Now I am the woman who knows he didn’t even like me, let alone love me. I think he secretly hated the fact that I am a strong communicator. He found himself often challenged in that respect.
The night Rosie invaded my time with Joel was intense. Whilst Joel and I were reminiscing about our whale watching day my phone rang. It was Liv. She never interrupts my evenings out, nor had I ever gotten a call from her that wouldn’t have been important at that time of night. That wouldn’t have been like her. I also knew she was working. As soon as I saw her name pop up on my phone screen I answered.
“Hi Liv. What’s wrong? Everything okay?” She didn’t even get a chance to say hi before I bombarded her with concerning questions.
“Hi mum. I’m okay” she responded with an elongated III’mmm okay. I said “oh, okay. What’s going on?”. Liv remained vague. She said “I need you to come home right away. All is okay. We are fine. I just need you here”. I said “of course honey. It’s gonna take a couple of hours to get there but I’ll be there as soon as I can.” I hung up the phone with Liv, and then turned to Joel to explain that we needed to go.
I didn’t know what was up. I did have a sneaky suspicion it had to do with Rosie though. Rosie had been texting and calling me in a foul mood earlier in the evening. I ignored most of them. Which probably pissed him off even further. I didn’t want to be rude to Joel. He didn’t deserve that after all the effort he put into getting to know me. I did tell him that Rosie was the one who kept on interrupting my attention when we were conversing on the patio that night, so he was somewhat aware. Rosie knew I was with someone because I told him. He kept on berating me about being with someone else. How dare I choose to be with another man right before his birthday. I was a cold hearted bitch to him in his eyes.
Rosie was so angry he forgot about the three weeks prior to this day. The dreaded walk of shame. Rosie and I booked a tiny motel room for the night. He brought a bottle of vodka, as per usual, and we drank. Whilst we were both drunk, and after sex, Rosie decided to explain to me that he and his ex, Gemma, were going to work on their relationship. According to Rosie, he was choosing to stay with Gemma for his kids. I was devastated. I dedicated three years of my life to that man by that point. That’s all I could think about while he was snoring peacefully next to me.
I had a rough emotional night. The next morning I got up and got dressed whilst he stayed in bed a wee bit longer. I told him I had to go. I couldn’t bear to be in that room another minute. I was beside myself in personal grief. Feeling sorry for myself, and playing the victim. I also hardly slept a wink. I just wanted to go home, curl up in a fetal position, and tune out the world.
Rosie said bye as he got up to get ready for work that day. I’m not even sure if he looked at me when he said bye. My head was so far down, I could hardly see past the red and brown paisley designed carpet on the floor. I walked out of that room with a plastic grocery bag full of dirty clothes from the day before and my head held in my hands.
I walked about half a mile up the road alongside the highway to the truck stop that day. I went inside to look for a taxi company’s phone number to drive me back to Fredericton. My cell phone didn’t have data so I was unable to do a Google search. My ex-husband, Bill, had taken my car for himself by that point. I found a taxi number, called, then parked my butt on the bench outside to wait.
I lived about a twenty-five minutes drive away from where I was. I had little choice other than to wait. As I sat there crying quietly, Rosie drove up to the T-junction in the road right in front of me, and made a left-hand turn without hesitation. He didn’t pull into the parking lot. He acted like he didn’t even see me on the bench crying my eyes out, square between his windshield, right in front of his face. He just drove off on his merry way to work like he didn’t crush my heart the night before.
I was heartbroken and extremely overwhelmed that day. The next day I was burnt out from crying. I was burnt out from being in constant physical pain. I was burnt out from being let down by yet another man. Rosie had also forgotten on that faithful night of drunken stupor, that he had only just gotten back from a vacation with his baby momma to Mexico as well. He was there with her whilst I was getting to know Joel on the dating app. I guess that was what he meant by “I’m choosing Gemma”?
I’m not innocent. I chose to meet Joel under false pretenses. I thought if I met someone new I could get over Rosie. All I wanted was to escape my life with someone kind and fun to be around. Joel had no idea a week before meeting him I was talking to Rosie over the phone telling him I wanted to die. I didn’t know Rosie had me on his car’s speaker phone for his ex, his mother, and his two kids to overhear me either.
I was on the brink of taking my life, spewing my guts to a man who was secretly getting a kick out of the attention, and my distraught. Him telling me there was nothing he could do, and that I was on speaker phone for Gemma and his mother to hear, after I spilled my heart out to him, absolutely crushed me. I am quite confident that information was the deciding factor in my choice to end my life that night. It pushed me over the edge. He also played with his ex’s mind at that time. Letting her think he could get anyone, and that the phone call could act as proof that he broke up with me for her.
Gemma and I knew of each other at that point. Gemma had called me out of the blue one day in 2017. That’s when all shit hit the fan. Rosie lied through that too. After he accused me of ruining his family by being truthful to Gemma, and kept that temper tantrum going for a couple of weeks, he smoothed things over by playing the victim in the storyline.
Rosie’s explanation and deflection of the motel incident, on the night I returned home from being with Joel was, “It’s not working with her. You know that. We are not together like that, I promise. You misunderstood me back at the motel. You were drunk remember? You’re overreacting. You know what she’s like. We are miserable. We fight constantly”. He was adamant and slurring his words. Yeah right, is what I think now. He was a smooth talker though. My naive ego was hooked on his looks, his appendage, and his charm.
Rosie was charming under the right circumstances. I also didn’t know he, along with his family, were driving to Montreal so he could leave the kids with his mom, and go on a planned tropical escape to the Mayan Ruins in Mexico with Gemma. They were on their way on holiday when I called him distraught days after my walk of shame.
All I knew, and fixated on in my mind during his drunken tangent about Joel, was that he decided to make things work with Gemma for his kids and he had me on speaker phone without care for my well-being.
Rosie was playing the wall you make in a pingpong table so that you could bounce the ball, without the ball following through. My fact based knowledge was bouncing right off of Rosie. All I was doing was hearing myself whilst seeing his rage.
I took an entire bottle of Ketorlac and other narcotic medications to end my life the night I spoke with Rosie through is car speaker. They were old prescriptions specialists gave to me for severe cramp attacks I was constantly getting. They didn’t work to kill me, thank goodness. They didn’t help the cramp much either to be honest. All I ended up doing was hallucinating and then crashing. I distinctly remember my daughter and her boss from the cleaning company showing up at the apartment at some point. I guess I had texted both my daughters a form of goodbye message. They made sure I was breathing and safe. Liv and her boss then went back to work from what I understand.
The drive back from my parents home to Fredericton with Joel was awkward, and for the most part, silent. I was too anxious about the potential of seeing Rosie when I got home. I couldn’t speak much. The poor man didn’t have a clue what he had gotten himself into. He still wanted to pursue me even after that entire fiasco. We didn’t hang out other than a talk and coffee after that, for the most part anyway. Like I mentioned, Joel wasn’t for me. I wasn’t about to lead him on, in any way, further.
When Joel and I arrived in the parking lot across the street from mine and Liv’s apartment, I didn’t see Rosie’s car anywhere. I scanned the area with my eyes. I guess I was wrong and it wasn’t about Rosie? I must admit, I was a bit taken aback by the thought of my intuition being incorrect. With that in mind, Joel and I walked up to the door and went inside.
Had I seen Rosie’s car, I would have explained the circumstances to Joel and bid him a fond farewell in his car, before going into the apartment. Rosie knew that. He planned it that way in the hopes of Joel coming into the apartment to bid his farewell. Rosie wanted to confront him. Where Rosie chose to park his car was premeditated. I am confident in this assumption.
As soon as I entered, with Joel trailing closely behind me, we came across Rosie sitting right in front of us. He was sitting on the bed I used to sleep on. It was situated right by the front door of the apartment. We locked eyes like two deer in headlights. I then quickly looked to my left to see Liv mouth the word “sorry”. She then quietly backed away and hid in her room with her boyfriend.
Liv later explained to me that Rosie would not leave her side whilst she was speaking with me on the phone . Nor was she able to text me a heads up, in the event Rosie would see. Rosie scared Liv in that moment too.
When I saw Rosie, I instantly turned around and addressed Joel politely. I told him he had to go. Even though he drove all the way from Ontario to see me, was suppose to hang out with me for another day, and had to drive all the way back to Ontario after, he obliged respectfully and left. I escorted Joel to his car and gave him a hug and a huge apology. Rosie was watching us from the front window. I turned around and went back to the apartment.
The night was just getting started.
LivWithClairity 
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