I Should’ve Left When...
A Novel by Mimi Mansfield
What if you could go back in time to a prior relationship or marriage? What would you do differently? Were there moments you felt you should leave, but you stayed? Are you using lessons from previous relationships to make better choices moving forward?
Join me on a journey through my prior dating experiences where I share intimate details including the things that went right, the things that went not-so-right, and the hard lessons I learned. I also call out my own crazy and the times I ignored my intuition.
This first installment of MiMi's dating adventures finds me at age 38, happily single, but never turning down the opportunity to connect with someone new. I start off the book in January with a guy I call Vegas and end in December with 57 - you'll understand the names as you read along! While there are four main ‘characters' in this book, there are several parallel storylines and additional guys within each section.
Throughout the book I identify the good things about each guy, the caution flags, and then the red flags where my intuition alarm is blaring “abort, abort” like a Titanic evacuation siren. All of the flags and signs I identify about the guys and myself are summarized at the front of the book.
Red-flags for all women
- 1. He starts spending a lot of time with a female acquaintance who he says is “just a friend,” but he does not bring her around you.
- 2. Your parents/family never liked him.
- 3. He has no true friends of his own.
- 4. He does not allow you to have girlfriend time.
- 5. He is not a law-abiding citizen – he has more than moving violations on his record. He has been involved in shady business deals gone bad or serious felonies.
For dating women:
- 1. Always comes to your house and doesn’t invite you to his.
- 2. He is over 30 and permanently lives with his parents (and it is not for care-taking reasons).
- 3. He cheated on his last wife/serious girlfriend(s).
- 4. Everything is perfect – “Mr. Too Good to be True.”
- 5. He paints far-fetched dreams: “Babyface will sing at our wedding; we can fly our wedding party to Fiji.”
- 6. He invites you to his place for the first or second date.
Future installments of Mimi's dating adventures will travel back in time to my early 30s and 20s, with “Credit Score,” “Radio Shack” and a whole other host of characters so stay tuned!
With this book, I want you to laugh, I want you to gasp, and ultimately, I hope you can in some ways relate to the journey that many of us women go through on the path to choosing positive partners.