Sydney Blythe Mackey — Maine

Sydney Blythe Mackey and I dated while I was in graduate school in Maine. After a few months of dating, I confided in her that I was not interested in “investing” in a relationship where the other person could throw it all away in a matter of seconds. Specifically, as a lesbian, I am not at all interested in dating a woman that still has *** with men, especially if that women is likely to let a complete stranger that happens to have his d*** in the right place for the right 30 seconds have more of a relationship with her than she has with me, a person that as spent alot more time and energy with her. (referring to the “accidental” nature of pregnancy in casual ***) She said that she understood, that she felt the same was, and even asked to be exclusive at that point. But not less than a week later, she admitted to me that she got drunk the night before and had *** with someone else. I found out years later that it wasn’t really a mutual thing–Sydney really just took advantaged of someone who went home with her and was passed out from drinking too much. She pleaded for me to stay-and with much regret now, I did. Within weeks of moving in together, she again got very drunk and “ran” off with a truck driver for three weeks. No conversation, no note, no call, nothing. There was not one overnight house guest that we had that didn’t witness me holding her head while she vomited into the toilet late at night. Oh, the explanation the next day was that she was allergic to the food, but it really was the massive amount of alcohol she was consuming behind our guests backs. The last time that happened–her puking it all back up in the middle of the night, we were visiting her parents. I remember that night vividly–because that’s when I realized that I couldn’t cover for her anymore, and, instead of getting up to help her, I stayed in bed. The emotional struggle was painful: I loved her and wanted to alleviate her pain, but, on the other hand, she not only created this, her own pain, but she was creating mine as well and I couldn’t justify participating in it anymore. That morning, at breakfast, her mother said she thought she heard someone puking last night. Sydney lied to her again and this time it was a big fat sloppy lie–so unbelievable that I then also realized that her mother, Susan Mackey-Andrews, knows the truth and as long as her daughter makes a modicum of effort to deny that she, Sydney, has an alcohol problem, then Susan doesn’t mind also acting as if nothing is wrong with her daughter’s behavior and choices. When we would go to therapy, Sydney would admit that she was worried about her abusive behavior, especially when she was drunk–which was nearly every day when we were together. She would go to a conference for work and call me, crying, admitting that she had *** with another complete stranger. In one call, she even admitted that she was scared that she was addicted to alcohol and asked me to help her. That was right before her birthday, when her parents usually take us to a local restaurant for her birthday dinner. When she got back from that conference, I told her that I could not go out with her anymore and watch her consume alcohol. I told her that it was just too painful to watch her. I wasn’t saying anything about her decisions to go out or to drink, I simply told her that I could not go with her if she was going to consume any alcohol. There was too much pain for me to watch her drink knowing that she had been so unfaithful and abusive when she was drunk. So, on the day her parents were to take us out to eat, I begged to stay home, and she begged me to go. She said she wouldn’t have any thing to drink if I went, and I believed her. So I went. As soon as her parents showed up, she ordered a beer. Not saying a single word, I got up and walked out and waited for her at the library. Whatever she told her mother must have been a huge lie, because her mother–Susan Mackey-Andrews, thought it was funny to buy the beer glass from the restaurant and give it to me as a “gift.” Of course, she had Sydney deliver it, and she did, even though Sydney knew exactly why I left the restaurant and what that glass represented and how much her lies and betrayals hurt me. Towards the end, I asked her give up alcohol for just a couple of weeks, she immediately refused, saying that she liked the taste of it too much. That’s when I realized that she had exhausted my affection for her and I made plans to leave the relationship. After I left, she must have felt threatened that I would reveal her “secret” and started accusing ME of being the abusive one. She started “volunteering” in local GLB “anti-domestic violence” programs and telling mutual friends–the same friends that has seen my naked a** in the bathroom comforting a similarly naked and puking-drunk Sydney, that I was the abusive drunk and that she needed them to protect her from me! What a great scheme of a lie to prevent me from getting the support or assistance that I might have needed to deal with her abusive and addictive personality. A couple of years later, after dodging all her false attacks–and walking away from every mutual friend that Sydney and I shared, I ran into the therapist that we saw together and asked him for copies of his notes. I thought that maybe he had written down something that may help me cope with her attempts to rewrite history. THough his notes didn’t provide a golden nugget, he did describe a relationship exactly as I had experienced and remembered it. Now, I am not going to warn anyone to stay away from her, but I will counsel you to be prepared for the false fronts, the betrayal, and the addictions–ask yourself NOW if its something that you want to spend the precious moments of your only life on. Ultimately, as I told Sydney, I felt like the three years that we spent together were the best three years, but I also felt like they were the worst three years of my life, and all I knew/know with any certainty is that my heart and body scream at me to NOT do them, or any portion of them again.