Peter’s Story
Section One - Episode Three
“Cynthia”
Continuing on with the version of the story written in October-November 1998,
for self-therapy purposes.....
On 14 June, 1991, in Nelson, I met Cynthia.....
At our third meeting, eight days later, I spent the night with her in her bed, and within a month or so we were living together. By October it had blown apart, and in December she left Nelson with her two children.
If ever a relationship was a recipe for disaster, it was Cynthia and I. Me straight out of a 22-year dysfunctional marriage. Cynthia with a history of disastrous relationships, and two young children (a son of 9 and a daughter of 6). Two needy, dysfunctional, codependent people, drawn together by their mutual neediness.
For a while, we really believed that it was a match made in heaven. Later on, I began to wonder if the match had really been made in hell! Within a few weeks, Cynthia was pregnant, and the pregnancy ended with a miscarriage which was very traumatic for all of us..... for her, for me, and for her children. All of this took place in Nelson, from June to December, 1991.
At the same time as the dysfunctional relationship with Cynthia, I was also in a dysfunctional business relationship.....
After the demise of the ill-fated business partnership with Josh (as covered in Part One), I spent a brief period unemployed, but old customers kept approaching me for assistance with their computers. Following the split with Jeanette, I gradually built up a new one-person business. I was approached by Jack (not his real name), who had recently arrived in Nelson from Auckland, with an offer to work for me on a commission-sales basis, and although I did not need him and had misgivings about him, I was too kind-hearted to turn him down.
While I was totally absorbed in my relationship with Cynthia, my business affairs went rapidly downhill, with Jack clocking up the overhead expenses in my name for very little return in the way of sales. By the beginning of 1992, Cynthia had gone, Jack had gone, and I was left with $20,000 of business debt and no money.
Looking back, I realize that I was staggering through life in a dream, a walking zombie. I was desperately unhappy, but had very little awareness of this. I did some re-birthing sessions around this time, and this seemed to help. The re-birthings were certainly very powerful, and brought up various issues. This was my first experience of any type of therapy. But I was very unconscious of how deep my problems were: I remember my incredulous reaction when Maggie, my re-birthing therapist, suggested that maybe I had a self-esteem problem?
Anyway, I somehow pulled myself together and decided that I needed to make a fresh start. There was nothing left for me in Nelson: no question of having another go at business, Cynthia was gone, and my old telecommunications industry job well and truly history. Nothing for it but to move to a new city and make a fresh start, and Wellington (our capital city) seemed the obvious choice.
Wellington, Here I Come!
I arrived in Wellington on 6 June 1992, on a wet, windy Saturday evening. Almost broke, with $20,000 of business debt hanging over my head. No job, and knowing virtually no-one. I drove off the ferry with my station-wagon packed to overflowing with all my worldly possessions, and took ages to drive to the suburb of Karori via the very confusing and unfamiliar Wellington one-way street system.
But, as always, my immediate needs were taken care of. While still in Nelson, I had answered a Wellington “Flatmate Wanted” advert., and after talking on the 'phone Jane said to come to her place straight off the ferry, stay for a few days, and then we could decide whether I should stay long-term. (Note: the New Zealand word "flatmate" means the same as "room-mate" in the U.S.)
I had several job interviews in the Wellington computer industry lined up when I arrived, including one where I had to drive up to Hamilton, about six hours drive, for the interview. I duly attended the interview, and was told that the job would be mine once the CEO of the parent company gave his approval. (The job was as the sole-charge Wellington branch manager of a Hamilton based company, and it helped that I already knew the person doing the hiring!). But the CEO of the parent company did not give his approval, he had another look at the budget, and canceled the whole project!
On my return trip from Hamilton to Wellington, I went via Hawkes Bay to visit Cynthia, at her invitation. We had been in intermittent contact: she would disappear for a while and would then contact me, usually broke and asking for money to cover some emergency. I, thinking she would be ever so grateful, would send the money (despite being broke and in debt myself) and begin counting the days until we could get together again.
Was I a “tiger for punishment”?
Anyway, on this fateful day of 9 June 1992, upon arriving at Cynthia's house, I was greeted by a torrent of abuse, and told to get lost! I tried to reason with her, but she slammed the door and refused to come out. I went to a public 'phone and called her, but she hung up every time I called. I eventually gave up and was driving back towards Hastings when I was stopped by the Police: she had complained to them that I was harassing her.
Following a “friendly chat” with a sympathetic sergeant at the Hastings Police Station, I drove back to Wellington with my tail between my legs. To say I was devastated is a gross understatement: I was in absolute agony. I'll never forget that long, long drive back from Hastings to Wellington that night, my spirit totally crushed, all of my hopes and dreams shattered. That four-hour drive felt like a million years.
Any totally sane person would not have entertained the idea of a relationship with someone as dysfunctional as Cynthia. I believe that at this time she was manic-depressive and mildly paranoid schizophrenic. But I was definitely not a "totally sane person".
On the job front, I attended many interviews, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, dressed up in my new suit, eager to make my mark on the Wellington corporate scene. Looking back, I realize that I was barely functional. I somehow got through each day.
Twice, I attended job interviews where I had been told ahead of time that I was the leading candidate, but both times I did not get the job. I was also keen to build a new personal life in Wellington by making a new circle of personal friends, but this was very slow to happen; in fact for the first year I made no new friends at all. And, when I called on the two old friends that I had in Wellington, I found that we no longer had anything at all in common, so I did not contact them again.
But even during this time of loneliness and despair, good things were happening. Over the spring and summer, I had a lot of time by myself to reflect and consolidate. I read a lot of books, including most of the works of Rudolf Steiner who I came to admire very much.
There was also the Reiki group that I attended every Monday evening. For all of the latter part of 1992, and into 1993, this was the social highlight of my week, spending time with a group of lovely, supportive people.
Eventually, just as my credit cards were reaching their limit, an offer came from someone who I already knew. He was a partner in a small software company and they needed an extra account manager. The role suited my skills quite well, and after an initial steep learning curve I did quite well. This job was a superb training ground for me, enabling me to learn new skills like business analysis and software design, and to polish up existing skills like customer support, and software and hardware support. The pay was not much, but at least it was a job, and I was deeply grateful for the opportunity.
During the period from my separation from Jeanette and my early time in Wellington, I also experienced challenges in my relationships with my flatmates. I had never before shared a household with other adults: I had gone straight from living with my parents into marriage. (Remember, the word “flat-mate” here in New Zealand, means the same as “room-mate” in the U.S.A.)
Between April 1991 and May 1993, I lived in five different households of adults sharing a house, two in Nelson and three in Wellington, and in every one of them the dominant member of the household was a woman. Maybe I was being told that I had issues to address in my relationships with women! In most of these households, my relationship with the dominant female “head of the household” was very dysfunctional.
I was very confused about how to relate to women in a healthy, balanced way, and I was being given opportunities to address this. I experienced several of these women as being very abusive towards me, and I had no idea how to handle this. Each time it became too intense, my solution was to try to run away from the issue by finding somewhere else to live. And each time I moved, guess what, the issue was still there!
Click here to continue on with Episode Four of this (1998) version of the story.
