The Story of BFNM - Part 7

I had no sooner made it back to Atlanta when things at BFNM’s job took a nasty turn. He decided he could no longer work for the micromanager. She was taking too much out of him emotionally for no benefit. Perhaps it was her sick pleasure to emotionally brow beat people down. I had observed her behavior during my two trips. Most of the employees were frightened of her. Her husband worked at the company too. She berated him in front of other employees. She is sick and cruel. BFNM felt he just could not be productive. It was time to move, again. Not his favorite thing to do and he would lose a substantial deposit on his condominium too. This job was not only costing him emotionally but it was going to cost him financially.

The right decision was to leave. He had to decide where he was going to live. He did not have any desire to return to Atlanta. Atlanta never felt like home to him and he did not feel there were any business opportunities worth pursuing in Atlanta. He did not really want to go to Naples; however, in light of the health of his parents and his sister and brother in law shouldering most of the responsibility, he felt it would be best to go to Naples. Yes, Naples is where DDG lives. DDG was none to happy to have him move down there. She pushed very hard for him to be in Naples by offering one of her rental properties for him to stay at if he chose not to live with his sister and brother in law.

Oh no, the rental property was not to be. The rental property was just a ploy to convince him that Naples was the place to be. No sooner was he in Naples, she once again tugged at his emotionally vulnerability. She said she did not understand the need for them to live separately. It would be so much easier to continue “dating” if they just lived together. If I remember correctly, he arrived in Naples on a Wednesday and was suppose to be in the condominium by Friday. He called me on Friday to tell me about the change in where he would be living. My only comment was: How do you going from not knowing if you are dating to now living together – what is next marriage? I think he chose not to hear me. I think the truth is he knew I had a point.

Oh, I suppose I need to mention DDG has a 16-year-old son. She claims to have discussed the “new living arrangements” with her son and that she had received his okay. Now I ask you this, what single parent puts that kind of emotional responsibility on their child? I would think that the child only wants their parent to be happy. If said parent presents this “opportunity” to have the “man of her dreams” live in the same household can we honestly expect the son to tell his mother no I don’t think that is a good idea? I do not care how “mature” someone thinks a 16 year old is. According to studies, the brain does not fully develop rational reasoning until the person has reached their early 20’s. My belief is that DDG presented her “case” to her son in such a manner that it would have been impossible for him to tell her no. There was a change in how BFNM and I communicated.

My communication with BFNM was confined to phone calls between the hours of noon and five pm, email or text message. Although, sometimes the emails and text messages were never answered. I needed to give BFNM all the space he needed in order to give his relationship a chance to grow. I will not say it was easy or that I did not get sad from time to time. I missed my BFNM. I missed the intellectual conversations; I missed interaction whenever it happened to occur – whether at 8am or 10pm; I missed hearing about his family; I missed my best friend. My frustrations finally boiled over in August when BFNM let a deadline slip for a business opportunity that we had talked about trying to get off the ground.