The Choices We Make

By Robert T. Gardner Jr.

The Choices We Make is a book that tells a compelling story about bad relationship choices that resulted in enormous consequences. This book emphasizes the importance of self-love, a key element to making good relationship choices. You will be provided with insight on "People Types that mean you no good and "Games People Play" that have nothing to do with love. There are tips and tools in the Relationship Lab to educate men and women on how to avoid bad relationships with the wrong people. This book intends to transform the way you think about the relationship choices you make.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 25, 2010
• ISBN: 9781462817528

Robert T. Gardner Jr.

Robert is an author who is ahead of his time. In his first book, “The Choices We Make,” he calls for relationship skills to be taught in schools. He believes that would provide our youth with insight for healthy relationships to reduce intimate partner violence. Robert has a BA degree from Fordham University and a Master’s degree from NYU. Robert will attain a Master’s of Social Work degree in May 2013. He considers himself to be an agent for change regarding unhealthy relationships. Robert creates and facilitates educational programs that teach people how to improve their emotional health.

Book preview

Copyright © 2010 by Robert Thadd Gardner Jr.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2009911326

  ISBN:

Hardcover: 978-1-4415-9328-3

Softcover: 978-1-4415-9327-6

eBook: 978-1-4628-1752-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

61236

Contents

Devotion

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Advisory Notice to my Readers

Chapter 1: CHOICES

Chapter 2: THE IGNORANCE OF MY CHOICES

Chapter 3: THE MISCARRIAGE OF A MARRIAGE

Chapter 4: UNTIL DEATH DO WE PART

Chapter 5: THE CHOICE OF CHOICES

Chapter 6: GAMES PEOPLE PLAY

Chapter 7: PEOPLE TYPES

Chapter 8: THE RELATIONSHIP LAB

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the three most wonderful people in my life. The first is my aunt Sallye (a.k.a. Maunt) who stepped into my life to raise me when I was nine years old along with my sixteen-year-old sister. She came to the rescue after the untimely death of our mother. Unfortunately, for me, my sister died at the age of nineteen from an overdose of heroin almost three years to the day that our mother passed away. In the face of these tragic events, my aunt Sallye has provided me with a life full of motherly love and support from the moment she stepped into my life until the present time. I am and will be forever grateful for her sacrifice, commitment, dedication, and never-ending motherly love for me as one of her three sons.

The next person, my wife Valerie, is by far the most wonderful person I have ever met. Aside from her beauty, intelligence, communication skills, and her overall immensely loving ways, as my girlfriend, she stuck by me like a wife. She did this during the most challenging financial times of my life that resulted from the never-ending torment I experienced at the hands of my first wife. I cannot put into words the magnitude of my gratitude for the way she has stood by me when it was difficult for me to stand with myself. I thank God for her! I am inspired by her each and every day. It is my strongest desire to spend the rest of my life with her.

Then, there is my beautiful daughter Taylor who has been the source of my inspiration and pride since the day she was born. My baby girl brings so much joy to my life. She is the type of child that would make any parent happy. For she is everything a little girl could be and more. As a father, I cannot think of a better tool than this book to leave behind for my daughter and you. It is my hope that my daughter completes her college education, lives out her dreams, and most importantly that she has a zero tolerance for the things I tolerated in my relationships. For me, as much as I would like my daughter to complete her college education, it is as equally important that she find her way into good relationships, which will lead to a more enjoyable life for her. To facilitate her efforts in that process, I promise to provide my daughter with much love and insight to help her understand the importance of making good relationship choices. I love you Taylor.

Devotion

To my mother, Vera Francis Gardner, who died November 13, 1966, at the age of thirty-eight. At the time of my mother’s death, I was nine years old. During the nine years of my life that I shared with my mother, she taught me many things. She taught me how to cook bacon and eggs so she could sleep late on the weekends. She taught me how to read and write beyond the grade level of children my age. She taught me how to play chess, checkers, and card games. One of the most important lessons my mother taught me was not to hit girls. That lesson has stayed with me throughout my entire life. It has helped me through some very challenging times during my abusive marriage. My ex-wife abused me physically, mentally, and emotionally. During these times, she believed that she could start the fight, call the police, and have me arrested. However, the memories of my mother’s teachings helped me immensely in my effort to exercise restraint. I did not defend myself physically in response to the physical abuse I experienced with my ex-wife. Now I write my story from my bedroom instead of a correctional facility. I thank my mother for her knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. May she continue to rest in peace.

Preface

Officer, Officer, Officerrrr are the words I yelled as loud as I could as the gates to the jail cell closed when I was locked up after the ex-wife lied to the Hackensack, New Jersey Police. She falsely reported that I assaulted her. The fact of the matter is that on this day in November 2002, the ex-wife assaulted me. Then, she reported to the police that I punched her in the stomach. As bad as this situation was at that time, it resulted in a tremendous blessing for me. It was my ticket out! As I was detained in a jail cell in the police detention center, I made a decision to finally leave my abusive wife. Unfortunately, I stayed in this marriage much longer than I should have. Throughout the marriage she demonstrated abusive and vindictive tendencies, but she also showed me signs that she could not handle a breakup. In feeling sorry for her, I stayed too long. In addition, I did not want the drama or the scorn that would result if I broke up our marriage. My decision to leave was further complicated because I would also have to leave my daughter who I love very much. However, on this day, I came to realize that I was living in a scary situation with a woman who lied to the police to have me arrested. There are no boundaries for a person who would perpetrate a fraud to that extent. It became very clear to me that I underestimated the span of her anger. I should have known better because she has always demonstrated that she would not stop at anything to hurt me!

Acknowledgments

I want to give many thanks to a very special friend. Twenty-three years ago when we first met he was just my regular friend Ken. Today, he is known as Dr. Kenneth B. Ballard. In his capacity as a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor he has developed some of the relationship exercises in this book. His work will most certainly elevate the caliber of the instruments provided as learning tools for all those who read this book.

Thank you to my good friend KeiJuan Keitt for his hard work in keeping me wired to the latest technological developments in the social networking arena. You are always on the cutting edge with viable information. You will be a great teacher and role model for your students.

Last but most definitely not least, thank you to my Mainest man Kent Carmona for holding me down during some of the most challenging times of my relationship roller-coaster rides, which are detailed in this book. You are the most positive person I have ever met. Thank you so much for being a great friend to me for more than twenty years.

Introduction

Relationships and marriage are two of the oldest and biggest institutions known to mankind. Not only are relationships a part of human life, but also every animal, insect, and any other living thing has mating relationships. Relationships are a big part of our everyday life. Yet, the relationship subject is not taught in our schools. Consequently, we as human beings have no real frame of reference as to what the main ingredients are for a good relationship choice. Nor, do we seem to pay any attention to the importance of not taking our relationship choices for granted.

In addition, little boys and little girls start kissing each other at the tender ages of 9, 10, 11 and younger. And, unfortunately, young girls barely in their teens are being impregnated by their youthful male counterparts and older men, as well.

We as Americans live in the greatest country in the world. We have landed men on the moon and we are exploring the idea of landing men and women on Mars. Through modern medicine we have and continue to successfully transplant significant organs of the body like hearts, kidneys and livers. The United States fashions the most sophisticated weaponry utilized by the most powerful military forces in the world. The military controls everything by land, air and sea that might come against the US and its allies. The automobiles we drive today can do everything we want except fly.

In the US, we have the most advanced educational system in the world. Our system of education teaches us everything (from soup to nuts) except the subject that we need to learn about the most, which is the subject of relationships with the opposite sex. An essential part of American life is that all children are required to complete twelve years of formal education to earn a high school diploma. In addition, college and graduate school degrees have now become a necessary component for one to have as their basic standard credentials to qualify for entry-level jobs in today’s job market. In effect, we need twelve years of general education to earn a high school diploma, four more years of college to earn a bachelor’s degree and two additional years of graduate school to earn a Master’s degree, which totals eighteen years of formal education. Yet, nowhere in the curriculums of our vast educational requirements are we provided with any teachings of basic relationship life skills. Ultimately, we spend a good part of our adult life in and out of good and bad relationships.

Since we are not provided with any formal relationship education during the 12-18 years we spend in school, we have to learn from experience that we need to make good relationship decisions. We have to get beat on, cheated on, deceived, mistakenly conceive, infected by people with STD’s (Sexually Transmitted Diseases) and divorced once or twice before we might figure out how to make a good relationship choice. So that begs the question, how is it that girls and boys are required to sit together in school for at least twelve consecutive years to earn a high school diploma and the girls and boys are not taught anything about how to work together in relationships?

What could it be that our educators do not see a need for a curriculum inclusive of relationship life skills to be taught in our schools? As stated above, we as boys and girls sit right next to each other in class all day long. Due to our youth, our minds are wide open and are ripe for an education regarding the basic principles of respect, communication, trust and self-love. During this early childhood education period, we are prime targets for learning about the aforementioned basic relationship principles.

We are socialized by our schools to understand the importance of memorizing the Pledge of Allegiance and the National Anthem. Then we are required to recite these pledges every morning before our classes begin. Would it be too much for our educators to further socialize us by developing a pledge of allegiance that requires us to memorize and recite the principles of communicating our feelings, respecting each other, learning to trust and learn to love ourselves? This pledge could be recited by our students when their school day ends.

There are some who might say that the teaching of these principals is the responsibility of our parents. I totally agree with those who may espouse that point of view. However, the statistics outlined below show that the lessons of our parents may need to be reinforced by our schools. I believe it takes a community to raise a child. Some of what our children may not get at home can be provided at school, where by default they are a captive audience.

Furthermore, by the time children get to middle school, they start lusting for one another. By the time children get to high school they are having sex with one another. However, there are no lesson plans presented to educate our children about the inevitable relationship encounters they will have with one another.

As a result of this gross oversight by our educational system, I believe that has a lot to do with the 50% divorce rate in America. Even more compelling, on March 9, 2009, it was reported on CNN (Cable Network News) by Linda Fairstein, Author, that every 15 seconds a woman is assaulted, 4 homicides are committed daily in the US related to domestic violence, and the most vulnerable group are women between the ages 16-24.

With those chilling statistics, it is alarming that we as students are force fed algebraic equations, history that is either true, or use to be true and is not true anymore. Something is fundamentally wrong with our educational system in that we live in an advanced nation that totally ignores the relationship subject in our school systems. Our school systems are out of touch with what we