The man who taught me to sneeze...

Once upon a time I met a man and he hurt me. Many times. Very much. And then a little more. Many of my friends told me that enough was enough and that I should never allow him to be in a position to hurt me again, a couple of people wanted to do him physical damage and believed him to be manipulative and intentionally cruel and a few more told me to hold on. To give him the chance to put things right. To believe in my own judgement and to not give up on him. Eventually though, he even pushed them too far and then in the end there was really just one person who still saw the total good in him. One person in addition to me, that is. I knew the kindness and compassion that this man had deep, deep down in his soul. When I looked into his deep blue eyes I saw a whole range of emotions including love, kindness, pain, confusion, guilt, regret and, above all, blind panic in the face of an uncertain future that terrified him. He tried to move past the fear but it quite simply paralysed him and made an inherently good man behave in 'bad' ways that caused chaos and pain all around him. I understood this. I knew why it was that he treated me in the way that he did and because of this I never lost sight of the fact that I ultimately trusted my judgement and my belief that he didn't have an intentionally bad bone in his body. That deep down the man I knew he was was still there but he was buried so totally in his own pain that it would take more strength than I ultimately thought he may have to break free from it.

I'm not going to defend him anymore though. I don't need to and I know that he wouldn't want me to. Almost four months have now passed since the insanity of out three months of trauma ended and he would never, ever want me to try and excuse the way that he behaved. He is his own harshest critic and judge and I know that he still suffers on a daily basis because of what he put me, and others, through. He was incalcuably cruel. He was selfish. He was erratic. Most of all though, he was frightened. It was his fear that ultimately brought him out of the spiral of destructive and self-destructive behaviour....the realisation that the thing that he feared the most was losing me.

Things have not been easy in the past few months and the legacy of those early months continue to take a toll. We have both cried because of them, very recently, and I know that he sheds many a private tear too when he thinks back to them. I think it's time to move on though. The man who did the things he did doesn't exist anymore. He didn't exist prior to that insane three months and I know that he will never exist again.

The man I now know has proven himself to be even more than I initially believed him to be, more worth fighting for than even I knew. This isn't because of how he makes me feel about him but how he makes me feel about myself. To him I am beautiful. To him I am precious and treasured. To him I am worthy of all of the love and attention that I ever dreamt of having in my life. I could write for paragraph after paragraph of the things that this extraordinary man has brought to my life but I have flu and am rather too tired. I want him to read this tonight though. I want him to know that what he did for me today finally took almost all of the 'maybe' out of our relationship. I shall keep it there because we have both rather got used to our little 'maybe' now but I quite simply can't imagine not having it there anymore. This morning I dragged myself out of bed with a chest infection so bad that even walking upstairs at home meant being so breathless that I took at least ten minutes to recover. I had planned to go and see Graham on the train but I had no idea how I would drag myself there and almost cancelled the trip. I went though because, quite simply, I knew he would somehow not only make me feel better but actually make me better somehow. I first felt his guiding hand in the middle of my back as soon as I got off the train, a hand full of deep concern for how ill he could see I was. When I got into the house I saw that he had already put a duvet and pillows onto the sofa for me and had arranged a couple of little tables in easy reach for drinks, my laptop and the remote control. He had even put a pair of his slippers next to the sofa for me in case my feel got cold. He took my boots and socks off for me, covered me up and then sat and gently stroked my head until I relaxed so much that I felt my lungs working just a little easier. He then went off to work for a few hours and I almost immediately fell asleep feeling safe, loved and just very happy. There have been many times over the past few months that he has proven to me what a wonderful and unique man he is and he has spent many, many hours travelling up and down the motorways to take care of or help me, my sister (who adores him and calls him her best friend) or my kids. His behaviour has been totally immaculate and I trust him. Totally and without reservation. I know I am safe in his arms and, apart from randomly treading on my toes, sticking his elbows into my ankles and clumsily visiting all sorts of random minor injuries on me on a daily basis (clumsy does not even BEGIN to go there!) I know he will never hurt me. I need him to know that. It matters and it is time.

So, on 23rd December 2010 two special things happened:

1. I wrote a blog about Graham Spencer.

2. Graham Spencer taught me how to sneeze and I never even knew I didn't know how to sneeze before. I thought that the way I have always sneezed was the right way. Just shows what I know, huh? Come to think of it, I also never knew that when a man loves a woman it is absolutely normal for him to do the multitude of little things on a daily basis just to make sure that she knows it, feels it and believes it with every bone of her body. See...sneezing and love would appear, for Diane, to be rather similar things...funny the things that a girl still has to learn at the ripe old age of 46.

I can't think of the perfect way to end this but, as my chest infection turns more and more into a head cold, I think that there is only one more thing to say....says Diane as she releases one huge, beautiful and perfectly formed ATCHOOOO :)