I just finished “ The bridge of Madison county” and I had to get this off my chest.

It’s about A lonely housewife who spends four amazing days with a complete stranger while her family is out of town. In those four days the stranger gives her a glimpse inside his exciting adventures life and of course she falls in love.

At the end of their four days and steamy nights spent wrapped around each other she has her bags packed to run off with him and leave behind her children and husband. After debating with the she decided to stay and be with her family, the family she didn’t want to hurt, the husband she didn’t want to hurt because they didn’t deserve that. She had to say goodbye to the man she loved. The man she wanted to be with.

At the end of the movie it shows her now adult children with families of their own reading these diaries that she kept of her four exciting days and their reading about their mother, a side of her that they never knew. Their mother told them life was too short to miss out on. To miss the beautiful parts of life and to be stuck somewhere you don’t want to be stuck. She told her children not to hold back, to go after the life they wanted and not to be afraid to do so.

That broke my heart because I whole heartily can relate to that. to the whole movie. I am so miserable with my life. Only god and I know how depressed and sad I am. How much I want better for myself. For my daughter. How badly I want to feel loved and touched like I’ve never felt before. How badly I want to sit down with someone and have them actually look at me, not look by me or around me but to actually look at me and care to ask how I am, or what I’m thinking or even what I want. For so long I’ve settled. I settle with every decision in my life. I settle for what the only person/people want. What i watch! Where I go! What I say or do! My feelings aren’t even my own feelings any more .

I’m criticized for everything, it’s like I have this huge magnifying glass pointed right at me and I’m being picked apart for everything.

I don’t know if I’ve ever been good enough. I feel like I’m so unlovable. If not then why have I been made to feel this way. This movie just opened so many old wounds and some new one’s. From my childhood, and having a crackhead for a mother. I practically raised my siblings. I Dropped out of school and stayed home with my younger siblings so they could go to school so they could a education and graduate. I was the mother while my dad worked because he didn’t have help. I was all that they had. I ate my feelings and I was the overweight child in the family and I was scrutinized for it by everyone. My dad had my brothers to bond with and when my mom wasn’t popping pills she acted like she and my sister were sister/best friends. and I was left alone on my own. I never really felt loved until I turned 18 started losing weight And met my boyfriend, that I’m still with.

Now I’m about to be 30! And I’m so scared. Im scared I’m only getting older and I’ll only be more and more unhappy with life. I’m with the same guy I’ve been with since I was 18. He was my second boyfriend, he was my first and 3 years later the father of my child. There were red flags in the beginning but I was so desperate for the love I felt like I was missing in my childhood so I loved all the attention even if it was suffocating and borderline abusive. He gave me an attention like I never had before made me feel loved made me feel beautiful, spoiled me like no other. The same guy also yelled at me for everything. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t talk to him. I couldn’t look in that guys direction. Without being accused of cheating or being called a whore or a slut, he would punch himself in the head and tell me that he would kill himself if I ever did anything he seen wrong. Then he would snap back and act like such a sweetheart apologize over and over again promise it will never happen again. He would buy me something. treat me to dinner or treat me to the movies and then we would be picture perfect again until something else made him mad. He would shut the door behind us, get in my face and tear me down yelling at me calling me names telling me nobody would ever love me or take care of me. He would make me feel like I didn’t have a choice or a way out, that this was it for me. He wanted to scare me, scare me enough not to stray too far. He kept me at arms length and it worked.

11 years later 300+ pounds heavier and with an eight year old I’ve never been more unhappy and things keep getting worse. Im Referred to as bitch or a cunt or a dumb fucking bitch. I’m a loser who is going nowhere in life I’m just dragging him down with me. anything and everything that is wrong with our daughter is my fault. I am a stay at home mom who’s also homeschooling our daughter who struggles with Reading and that’s my fault. He goes to work comes home goes to bed and has his weekends to do what he wants. I can’t remember last time we’ve been out to eat or been to a movie or have done anything as a family. I took my daughter to her first movie. my daughter and I carve pumpkins alone, make Christmas cookies alone, go get ice cream on hot Summer nights alone, he goes on hunting trips he goes on fishing trips. He goes to the races with his family alone. He spends his weekends doing what he wants or with his family helping them with something. We live separate lives. My daughter and I and then there’s him . It’s never the three of us, but when he wants to have sex, I better be here and willing and if not, He calls me names, makes jokes about getting hookers I mean the list goes on and on.

I don’t know why I ended up here, I started writing about a movie I just watched and before I knew it I was venting. I guess it’s because I don’t have anyone to talk too. No one knows my heart. My true and pure heart. My daughter is the closet thing I have to a soulmate, to a love and best friend and if that is it for me then I wouldn’t have it any other way. She is my heart she is the reason for my existence.

I’m going to be 30 and I’m terrified my life is over and I’ll never know what it’s like to have a real man love me and touch me, not just my body but my heart. I’ll never know what’s it’s like to be loved. Loved like the ones in the movies or romance novels. A love like your grandparents who have been together for 70+ years and still give valentines cards to each other. I’m scared to blink and have more years fly by and still not know if i was ever loved and if I was ever really good enough.

That movie really messed me up. She was married. She had a family. She was a mother and despite the love she had for her husband and kids she wasn’t happy. She met this amazing man who lived this exciting life and they fell In love. She felt seen and heard and wanted but she had to choose and she chose her family and that just breaks me. I would always choose my daughter no matter what but I can’t imagine finding a love like that and just letting it slip away. I’m so unbelievably sad for her, for the love she lost and the life she missed out on.

Yes I know it’s a movie. But to me someone who has never been in love or felt seen, heard and wanted... it’s real. And I’m afraid I’ll never know a love like that for myself.