Pulling the Plug

One of the toughest places to be is at the mercy of others when you are at your most vulnerable most beggars don't mind being at other people's mercy. The poor are naturally at the mercy of the rich, the confused are naturally at the mercy of the critical thinker, and the fool is naturally at the mercy of the wise.

Once in a while, a man can find himself in a situation that puts him at the mercy of someone he or she does not expect to be at the mercy of. Power over his destiny or his survival could suddenly be thrust into the hand of a slave, a servant, an enemy or even a stranger.

Remember Naaman? His destiny was entrusted into the hand of a young female Israelite slave. What about Joseph? Did you see what Potiphar's wife did to him? She was given power over him for that moment of his life and that was how she chose to use it.

When David returned to Ziklag and discovered that the Amalekites had taken his entire family and that of his men into slavery, his destiny was entrusted into the hand of a young slave who led him and his men to the camp of the Amalekites.

At certain times in the life of a man, he could find himself at the mercy of someone who could offer him as little as a cup of water just for the sake of survival. It is at such a time that one prays the person one encounters turns out to be a friend and not an enemy.

She said her boyfriend did not give her any indication that he did not love her in any way. They met at the wedding of a member of their fellowship, the wedding was one of those poorly organized affairs and they had to be there because she was one of the bridesmaids. By the time they were done with the ceremony, it was close to 5 pm and she had not tasted a drop of water. She was seriously hungry, It was at that moment he walked up to her and told her he was going to have lunch at a restaurant close by and would have to leave the wedding.

He was hoping she would tell him to sit down so that she could go and get him some food but she had also been nursing the idea of leaving the wedding to get food somewhere close by. She felt safe with him and hopped into his car. They got to the restaurant, ordered food and began to talk generally about the wedding and how disorganized it was. Then they began to tease each other about their single status. She told him about a relationship she had recently which didn't work out, he told her he had decided to stay off relationships for a while.

When they were done at the restaurant, he asked her where to drop her off, she said she would like him to drop her at the wedding venue because that was where she left her car. He drove her there when they got there at about 9 pm, the wedding guests had all left and it was only her car that was left in the parking lot. He waited until she got in her car and drove away before leaving she liked the fact that he didn't just drop her off he was mindful.

They were also intellectually compatible, he was a criminal lawyer who worked with one of the government agencies as a profiler and investigative psychologist, she was a corporate lawyer. Later that night he sent her a message asking if they could do the date again but this time on their terms. She liked the idea too and told him she was open to it, so they had dinner again and he was in his element.
She had never wanted to be with a guy as badly as she wanted to be with him, she couldn't even disguise it. She was the one who asked him to pay the bills and let them leave the restaurant for his apartment. That was how the whole relationship thing started between them, It had the perfect beginning. She spent the weekend with him and was weeping when the weekend was over. He drove behind her almost to her flat before turning back and heading to his own house. She was on the phone with him throughout the journey. It was fierce, crazy and firecracker love. She felt she had found the one and she was willing to surf the wave for a lifetime.

Finally, the right guy with the right level of education, enlightenment and wealth he was the perfect match and it was not an exaggeration. In the course of that week, he brought up the idea of them doing medical tests .

She had told him she reacts to the use of condoms and would prefer they go natural ,he was uncomfortable with the idea despite all her assurances that she was healthy and had recently done a series of tests as part of her annual medical checkup at her office .

They both went to have the test done in the course of the week in anticipation of the weekend when they would meet again, she asked him why the test was so important to him he kept quiet and said it was important that they got it done.

They had the test and their results came out okay, they met that weekend and again the weekend was memorable. He brought up the issue of body count in the conversation when she asked him why he insisted on them doing tests. She told him she had been around, she was thirty-six years old and a very beautiful woman what does he think she had been doing all her life? Sitting still on a virginity while waiting for Prince Charming to come and rescue her? What he did with the information was psychologically devastating for her but she didn't know it at the time.

She expected him to judge her, as others whom she dated before him had? He didn't He laughed and told her she had not been as around as he was. Never in her life had she thought of him as that kind of guy. How can any man be more around than she in terms of sexual relationships? She had lost count of the number of guys she was with before she turned twenty-five. She used to be a proper runs girl when she was in university.

It was not something she was proud of but for her to meet a man who was so cavalier about sex was shocking to her. She didn't want to be with a man she could not trust, there were things she had never told anybody about herself, especially about certain aspects of her life that she told him that day.

She did so just to show him how wide her scope of being around was but no matter what she told him, he came up with wilder and better stories. She told him she met a guy once and was living with him two days later, he laughed and told her about a lady he met and slept with within an hour he didn't say it with remorse or with any sense of guilt, he spoke gloatingly as if they were competing and it made her very uncomfortable.

She began to talk and so did he. They went at it all night until she had told him the story of her entire sexual history when they were done and she had nothing to say again, he looked at her right in the eyes and said "Would you have told me all that if I had told you I had only been with two people before I met you?"

She shook her head then he laughed and told her the truth he had sensed that she had been about and knew she would never share her story unless he made her feel he was like her or even worse off. It was a psychological strategy trained intelligence officers like him use to gain the trust of criminals and get them to open up to them, It was at that moment she realised she hated him for baiting her and taking advantage of her vulnerability. Nobody had ever done that to her before and he did it so easily that he did it with the attitude of "You will drop your pants for me and also divulge all your secrets to me because you are powerless around me".
She realised he told her made-up stories just to keep her talking he saw the competitive streak in her and milked it mercilessly he did it without any other reason but the fact that he could do it just to amuse himself that no woman can keep a secret away from him, it made her feel ordinary and powerless.

She told him she felt they were having a moment and she told him truths while he goaded her with lies, she felt that was the moment the relationship went sour. He tried to explain to her that he did what he did because he knew she would never have told him the truth otherwise he could see she was willing to barter information, but he had no truth to trade with so he made up colourful stuff to match her colourful stories to get to know her more,

She told him she had never told anyone that part of her life and she would prefer that he kept her confidence he laughed and said "There was nothing hidden that won't come to light, so hiding her past would only make her vulnerable. Own it. You have turned your life around and you are no longer that person. This new you is worth loving if you will embrace your future without considering your past baggage" It was easy for him to say If as a guy he had her kind of history, he would not be judged for it but she is a woman and she knows such a colourful history in the open would impact heavily on how people perceive and judge her.

When she got home that day, a sudden fear gripped her she just felt he was going to dump her because she had told him too much and any man can use that as an excuse to walk away from a relationship. She called him intending to test him and hear what he had to say when he picked up his call, she told him she wanted to leave the relationship he laughed and said "You are developing cold feet because you feel you are my mercy, allow yourself the luxury of rest, I mean you no harm"

But her fears won't go away, she called him again and asked if they could take a week off that was when he told her he was going on a business trip to Singapore for two weeks, she said okay she liked him but she had never felt that vulnerable before in her life It felt as if she was at his mercy. She brought beauty, grace and class. He brought wealth, confidence and security. It was a good match until she used her mouth to remove the class and grace from the table.

That was her opinion beauty was not enough to keep a man If it were, she would have gotten married already If he decided to dump her, she was the one who gave him all the reasons he needed to do so and she in turn had nothing on him.

He went to Singapore she was on video calls with him every moment of his journey afraid staying away from him for more than a minute would make him come to his senses and dump her.

She believed no man could know what he knew about her and stay with her, she had divulged too much she told him about the abortions and the orgies and the foreign trips and the hookups and the side chic runs and multiple lovers at the same time and how she headed in that direction as a teenager.

She told him everything, even the things she felt she had blocked from her memory. Things she wanted to forget, things she had forced herself to forget What value was she adding to him after all that? It was abnormal for her.

She was the one men would naturally be afraid to lose in a relationship, she was the one men would choose to call on video to find out where she was, who she was with and what she was doing. She made men feel insecure, the tables had turned she was scared he would meet someone else, someone better and she would be left clutching at straws.

Sometimes she called him to discuss her fears, and he would say "I am supposed to be the one thinking like this, I am not, so why are you?" She told him she did not know what had come over her.

He told her to get some sleep and worry less, he was in a foreign country where he barely left his hotel room unless she urged her to and was on the call with him she had nothing to fear.

She knew he was right but the feelings in her tummy didn't go away. She called an old friend, one of the three with which she surfed the street in her colourful past. The friend had gotten married and seemed happy she told the friend what she was going through the friend told her to break up the relationship immediately "If you have not married him and you feel this way, you will never have rest of mind if you marry him".

She called another friend, the third one with whom she ruled the nights of the past, they had a long chat and the friend also told her to walk away from the relationship "He is not the one for you. If he was, you would tell him the truth the way you did and you will still feel safe and secure in his love.

There must be something you are not seeing but which your instinct is telling you" She agreed with them to an extent. He returned from Singapore she met him at the airport and they both went to her apartment she prepared a meal for him and got all the goodies he bought for her she sat him down and told him they had to break up.

He didn't say a word she kissed and he kissed her back he spent the night. When it was morning, she saw him off to his car she stayed on the call with him until he got to his destination after he had parked his car, she sent him a message via WhatsApp explaining why she decided the relationship was not good for her anymore he replied asking her what he had done wrong. She said "We were fine until you started asking those questions for fun, I felt you didn't understand the gravity of my past and one day it will hit you and you will just walk away from this relationship or marriage if we ever got that far.

You could stay married to me and then start cheating on me or treating me badly because you know just too much. I know I sabotaged myself here but I don't feel safe being with you with everything you know about me. It is best that we part ways" She felt she was at his mercy and as someone who desired to get married and be happy in her marriage, that was not where she wanted to be.

He blocked her after that, he blocked her everywhere she knew he was hurting but she felt it was for the best. She didn't have time to waste and she was sure she wasn't comfortable anymore being his girlfriend or getting married to him.

PS: He tried getting back with her but she made it impossible. It took some time and a lot of activities but she finally moved on from him. She wished him well she knew what she did was for the best.

GSW's note: Sister Maureen sent this to me overnight she asked me if I think she did the right thing by pulling the plug on the relationship. I grudgingly agreed with her, you should be comfortable in a relationship, not edgy or fearful. You should accept your partner for who he or she is and you should also be confident that you have been accepted for who you are by your partner. If you find yourself in a relationship in which you are insecure and tempted to check the phone of your spouse or log into his or her WhatsApp to check messages, if you ever feel the relationship is not for the long haul and at a point your partner will turn on you or just use your past as an excuse to maltreat or mistreat you, It is better to take a painful exit than keep waiting while anticipating the other shoe to drop. Prioritize your peace of mind above all things.

I love you.