We Should Have Killed The Root.

*This memory is a continuation of the 'Like A Runaway Train' memory.

After Stephanie moved to the States, not surprisingly my relationship with Janine was so much better. It felt as if a stormy dark cloud had finally been lifted from over our house because now Bonnie, Lorna and Stephanie no longer had any reason for causing Janine and me any more grief.

Since I moved to Muskoka, Bonnie had become nothing but a cancer in my life and with Stephanie now gone so to was the cancer. There would be no reason for Bonnie to ever meddle or interfere in my life any longer. I also knew deep down in my heart that my relationship with my daughter would never be the same again. Although, I do believe that by Stephanie leaving when she did it was the best thing for mine and Janine's relationship at that time.

Stephanie had told many of her friends on social media that while living with her father, she was subjected to a very toxic environment. However, she always neglected to mention how she along with her mother and grandmother were the ones who created that toxic environment. Naturally like any father I only wanted the best for my daughter. As much as I was crushed by her decision to move, I needed to respect her decision and I wished her nothing but the very best going forward.

Back in May of 2005 Janine and I got engaged. Ironically, I had bought her ring from the same guy I had bought Bonnie’s engagement ring from twenty-three years earlier. I wonder what the odds would have been. I bought two engagement rings twenty-three years apart from two different stores twenty-three miles apart and I ended up dealing with the exact same jeweler. I knew after buying Janine’s ring, it would be the last engagement ring that I would ever buy.

Although, I do recall I thought the exact same thing back in 1981 after buying Bonnie's ring.

I loved Janine and I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. She had sacrificed a lot to share my dream by choosing to live up in Muskoka with me. She welcomed Stephanie into our home back in Mississauga and she treated her like her own daughter. She was a friend to Stephanie when my daughter needed a friend more than anything else at that time of her life.

Personally I thought Janine and I had a great life together in Bracebridge. We shared a beautiful home and she as well had a great job in sales. After moving to Bracebridge Janine continued working in the city for about five months until she received her annual bonus in the spring of 2005. With her bonus deposited into her bank account, she then quit her job and within a month she started a brand new job working at a plumbing store in town. Her daily commute to and from work was now just 2 km instead of the 40 plus km she was commuting daily while working in Mississauga.

Knowles Plumbing is an institution in the town of Bracebridge. They are a family run business and have been serving all of Muskoka from the same location since 1957. Although Janine knew absolutely nothing about plumbing, she knew a lot about sales. Janine negotiated herself a salary plus commission pay structure. She then expanded the sales floor into a boutique like showroom to increase retail sales. Within a few years she had more than tripled the stores annual sales and for her efforts she was very handsomely compensated.

Janine loved her job; clients from all over Muskoka were coming to Knowles and dealing with her personally to handle their bathroom and kitchen renovations. Muskoka is well known for its multimillion dollar waterfront vacation properties and with not a lot of competition around, Janine was like the big fish in a little pond.

The one thing I quickly realized after moving to Muskoka at the age of forty-four was that I too needed something to do and I was much too young to retire. I became semi-retired and I took on a seasonal job at a marine distributor working four days a week Tuesday to Friday for six months a year.

Within the first year of Stephanie moving to the States, Janine and I had travelled to both New York City and London England. It was my first time visiting either of those cities and it was great to have Stephane meet up with us in New York. She came up on the train and the three of us spent a whole day just gallivanting all over New York City. It was our first visit together since she moved to go live with her mother. I will never forget that great day in NYC with my daughter and Janine. We all had so much fun.

Being with Janine, it just seemed like I was always having fun as we were always goofing off and doing whatever. We marched to our own drummer, but it wasn’t always as rosy as it looked like from the outside. Both Janine and I could be pig headed and stubborn and we would have numerous spats and squabbles. At first they were very minor in nature, but gradually they began to escalate and there were many times neither of us could even stand the sight of each other. Once again it was the same things I had experienced in my marriage to Bonnie that were slowly beginning to irritate me. It seemed like every chore in the house was my responsibility. I was doing all the cleaning, yardwork and whatever maintenance around the house needed to be done. And just like Bonnie, Janine never lifted a finger to help nor did she even offer to help me out.

Slowly little red flags began popping up and I eventually began to resent moving into our new house altogether. It was just too much work for me keeping everything the way that we both liked. I found myself on more than one occasion thinking I would be much happier not having a woman in my life that I physically lived with.

The biggest red flag was yet to come and just like my first red flag back in Mississauga, it was once again me finding another bank statement of Janine’s. This time it was just sitting on the basement floor after she had carelessly dropped it while doing her banking. It was another line of credit statement from her bank. The balance reflecting that she had not paid a dime towards lowering her debt. In fact she had almost doubled the amount she owed since the last time I confronted her about her line of credit back when we lived in Mississauga. I was furious and once again I confronted her about why she even still had a line of credit. Afterall she had given me her word four years earlier that she would diligently and quickly pay off her balance and I just assumed she had taken care of it already. She knew how disappointed I was when she deceived me after I had already sold my condo to move into her house.

Once again I felt betrayed and I wanted some answers. Naturally, it was the same old song and dance as the last time, but the last time we were not engaged. I honestly believe that confronting Janine once again about her line of credit was the beginning of the end for us and it would be the straw that broke the camel's back. Janine and I began to have many more spats more often and it got to the point where we often talked about splitting up. Our spats began to escalate and it seemed like we were constantly talking about going our separate ways.

I will say cooler heads would usually prevail while Janine and I would always make up. For me making up with Janine always made our little spats worthwhile. Sadly our quarrels and spats only continued and we were now making up a lot less often. Both Janine and I became less happy and more miserable with each other. Our relationship became one more out of convenience than anything else as we began to slowly drift apart.

As well Janine was renewing a relationship with a former work colleague on her social media. Her chats that she was having were definitely not appropriate while she was wearing my engagement ring on her finger. Eventually just like Bonnie, Janine too found herself another man’s waiting arms to run to. That is before she pulled the plug on our relationship. I had already known for some time what Janine was up to behind my back and I had already given up any hope of us ever getting married. Although I had not told her yet because I was foolishly and blindly holding out hope that things would get better between us.

Our train wreck of a relationship would soon be getting back on the rails.

Back when I suspected something was going on behind my back, I purchased a keylogger and installed it on my computer. Janine was always using my computer to check her email and within a couple days I had all of her passwords. Once I began snooping around, it only confirmed what I had suspected for some time.

Janine just like Bonnie was both a liar and a cheater.

Although I know I should have, I never said anything at the time. Selfishly it was only because I did not want to lose my lifestyle living up in Muskoka. I still loved being with Janine, but I was no longer in love with her. We still had many good times together, but I no longer trusted her. Once I stopped trusting her, it was just a matter of time before we split up for good. We sold our house and we each went our separate ways.

I had spent a good solid decade with Janine and she had played a huge part in making my forties decade hands down and by far the best decade of my life. Unfortunately, there were just too many issues that we never got to the root of. We would always trim the weeds back when they sprouted up, but we never got around to killing the actual root.

Looking back now, we should have killed the root.

It had taken just 2,241 days from the day when we moved in until we sold our house on McCrank Drive. My dream of living in Muskoka with the two most important people in my life back in 2004 had now become a nightmare. Both Stephanie and Janine no longer shared my dream and both of them moved out of Bracebridge altogether.

I too had given some thought about moving also, but I decided to stay put. Perhaps another one of my dreams will come true and perhaps someone else will want to share my dream with me.

Considering I was now oh for two in the relationship department, I wouldn’t bet on it.