You're Just the Girlfriend...

Bruce and I had been dating a year. We went to Sausalito in Northern California for the weekend. He planned every minute of the trip. One might even say he "produced" it, including the presentation of the pretty gold necklace with a small inset diamond. It hadn't been easy to get the weekend off. The scheduling shrill at work had been determined that whenever Name That Tune taped I had off and I worked most weekends. Nice!

I was spending many nights at Bruce's place in Encino. Truth be told it was inconvenient on several levels. My little abode in Toluca Lake was much closer to NBC and I was always leaving something behind or forgetting to bring it. I think at some point I had a "drawer". The classic girlfriend dilemma. How much do I leave and how much do I take? I took this anniversary as a sign that we did, in fact, "have a future" and asked Bruce to spend a night or two at my apartment. Never happened.

Spending most of our time at his place had its' pros and cons. He had his daughters just about every other weekend but now that they were both teenagers their social lives were impressive. As were their acrylic nail appointments. There's something wrong when your boyfriend's thirteen year old daughter has nicer nails than you do.. on so many levels. The girls liked me, more or less. As I was around more, it sort of became less. Their comments about their mother increased with the frequency of my time around them. Honestly, had I been dealing with half a deck I would have raced off to find a therapist, but instead I accompanied Bruce on visits to his. Joan was a very nice woman. Competent but conflicted. She'd been walking Bruce through the past five years of his separation and dating extravaganza's and wasn't quite sure what to do with the grief stricken younger woman who insisted everything would be "just fine if Brenda would stop calling twenty times a day." Exaggeration all around!

But Brenda did call a lot. There was always an emergency if we had a weekend trip planned or even a special dinner and somebody knew about it. Bruce was a good father and played in to every single manipulation, especially after he filed the divorce papers. Everything seemed to escalate at that point. Especially his guilt.

I wish I could say I handled things well. I was a whirling dervish when it came to my idea of "fairness". Of course these three women, his about to be ex and his two daughters were threatened by the new one in the mix. Had I been older, less in turmoil over my own unresolved issues perhaps I would have handled things differently. At least I surely hope I would. Instead I became demanding, too. Up to and including a conversation with Brenda "staking my turf". What was I thinking? I'd been in the picture a little over a year and I'm dealing with pain and confusion taking up close to two decades, expecting my position to make sense to anyone.

I wish I remembered what I said to elicit this response.

"I'm his ex-wife and the mother of his children...you're just the girlfriend."

The stakes got raised again...big time. I don't think Bruce knew what hit him.