I had a really long talk with someone tonight about the demise of a relationship and all the pain associated with it. It reminded me of something I went through three years ago, and so I dug through my now defunct livejournal and found this gem written on December 7, 2005.
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What I’m Not Allowed To Talk About
I’m not supposed to talk about it. I’m supposed to keep it all under wraps and deal with it in silence. I’m not supposed to say that we crossed the line. I can’t reveal that we discussed and planned just how we would cross the line and then we did it.
I’m not supposed to be open about the fact that he told me he wanted us to be lovers. I can’t say that I asked more than once if this was the right thing to do. I can’t say that we fit together just so. That for days afterward I could still feel the imprint he left inside of me. That in my dreams we are back in that moment and in that space, and he is loving me all over again. That we took showers together and laughed and got the bathroom floor so wet i had to use all the rest of the towels just so we could walk in there safely. That we kissed in elevators and on benches and in the line at the grocery store and people commented on how happy and cute we looked. That we kissed and touched each other everywhere possible. That when we slept, we were a tangled mass of limbs and torsos and we liked it like that. That he said our bodies defied physics and occupied the same space at the same time. That he sat behind me on the bed, and when we looked at our reflection in the mirror, he said, “I love you,” and pulled me closer. That when I asked him if there was anything else he would rather do, he said he couldn’t think of anything better than snuggling up with me. That every moment we were together, I didn’t have to want for anything. That all of our conversations surrounded the prospect of us and what we could be. That we promised we wouldn’t let it turn to shit.
I’m not allowed to talk about how he’s ignoring me now. How all of this has suddenly turned into my fault, as if I am some temptress that he couldn’t resist and now he’s suffering for it. How I am to blame for the demise of things, because of how I have “behaved”. He’s punishing me; he’s teaching me a lesson. He doesn’t think we can be friends, and he’s “resolved” to that fact. He doesn’t hate me; he doesn’t hate anyone; he just doesn’t “think” he can “feel” something for someone that has done what I have done.
And what did I do? I got mad. I became angry at being asked to be the very thing I told him from the beginning that I couldn’t or wouldn’t be. I became angry at the idea of our relationship being determined by someone whose only knowledge of it was through second-hand information, which a lot of times can be misinterpreted or misrepresented. I became angry at the idea of being downgraded from what we said we would be. I took that anger and I filled a page with all my feelings and thoughts, things that I had expressed before, but because this time they were coming from a space of anger and not a space of love, they weren’t taken in the same context as they had been before. This was my mistake, because my meditation had been to keep things in a space of love and to never act or lash out in anger. I broke that meditation, and the day I did is the day things changed forever.
So now I can’t even call him friend. Well, I could, but I’m quite sure he wouldn’t refer to me with that same description. Now he pretends I don’t exist. This is his way of dealing I think, but it also assures me that he isn’t as “over it” as he says he is. When you are over it, you are over it; there are no more discussions and no more efforts to make the other person feel bad, you simply coexist in a space where you are no longer what you were to each other. He is actively trying to make me feel bad. If I reach out, he lashes back. He doesn’t want to be touched, talked to, disturbed. He would rather I pretend I never knew him, just like he’s trying to do with me. It’s so abnormal as to be laughable, because for almost as long as we’ve known about each other, we have been a “we” even if that “we” was just the friends version of “we”. He says we can’t even do the friends version of “we”.
And now that there’s no more phone calls for him to ignore, screen names for him to block or emails for him to not answer - what’s left? The empty shell of our relationship.
I would submit that he is taking the coward’s way out. Ignoring me and trying to pretend that I’m not there is a helluva lot easier than facing me and telling me what is really on your mind. Even in the conversation where he stated we couldn’t be friends, he was so vague and evasive, it left a lot of unanswered questions.
Him (2:24:15 PM): I don’t think we can be friends.
me (2:24:35 PM): can you tell me why you think this?
Him (2:25:43 PM): Because of how you’ve behaved.
me (2:26:00 PM): and this behavior is referring to the LJ post?
me (2:26:08 PM): or is there something else?
Him (2:27:17 PM): It’s about everything.
me (2:28:11 PM): I’m not understanding. what is everything? because before the LJ post everything was fine. and suddenly after the lj post, everything was not. i could understand you being upset about it, but i was quite sure if there were anything else that had bothered you, you would have spoken to me about it before then. so can you please tell me what is everything?
Him (2:31:08 PM): It’s what led to the LJ post. And what followed.
me (2:31:35 PM): are you being purposely cryptic?
Him (2:33:01 PM): It’s the lack of balance that led you to post it.
Him (2:34:39 PM): I can’t control your actions. All I can control is how I react. I don’t expect posts like that. I don’t have to put up with them.
me (2:35:40 PM): can you see how i was operating from a space of hurt and confusion?
Him (2:35:56 PM): Especially when I don’t see what looks like self-control coming from you.
me (2:36:37 PM): one post on LJ means i don’t have self-control?
Him (2:37:14 PM): It’s the words in the post, and their weight.
Me (2:38:08 PM): so this is all about the LJ post then.
Him (2:39:10 PM): The post is representative of the behavior,
Him (2:39:17 PM): of the space of hurt and confusion.
Him (2:39:27 PM): Hurt and confusion are circumstances. They are not excuses.
me (2:39:39 PM): i’m not making excuses. i own it.
me (2:39:45 PM): what i’m having a hard time understanding though
me(2:40:09 PM): is that i am expected to be perfect. to not be human. to not make a mistake.
me(2:40:40 PM): i feel as though this post, its words and the weight of them
Him (2:40:52 PM): Self-control, not perfection.
me(2:41:34 PM): was there anything in that post that i had never said to you before either in person or in our random conversations with each other?
me(2:41:42 PM): were any of those thoughts something that you had never heard from me before?
him (2:44:44 PM): I’ve heard plenty of things from you before. I haven’t seen certain things expressed with such venom and ugliness.
him (2:46:12 PM): There’s nothing to be done with thoughts. What matters is what you do and say.
me(2:47:05 PM): so, in your eyes, everything that went wrong went wrong on my end, there was no contribution in any way shape or form from your end?
Him (2:49:25 PM): I didn’t put up a post. I didn’t say anything hurtful or mean. I didn’t make dialogue untenable.
Me (2:49:39 PM): you feel that dialogue is untenable?
Him (2:50:07 PM): Yes. I don’t think we can be friends.
i am coffeenated (2:50:16 PM): that makes me sad.
i am coffeenated (2:50:28 PM): have you never said anything in the heat of the moment that you wished you could take back later?
i am coffeenated (2:51:18 PM): i was hurt, angry and confused. i expressed that hurt and that anger and that confusion in the moment. i don’t regret feeling it. i don’t deny what i was feeling. i own all of it.
i am coffeenated (2:51:44 PM): but i also know that the moment passed. the anger passed. even the hurt has passed. i am able to look at it now and say, okay, that is where i was, but here is where i am now.
i am coffeenated (2:51:50 PM): what is today won’t necessarily be tomorrow
i am coffeenated (2:51:52 PM): and so it goes
i am coffeenated (2:52:04 PM): do you feel like i’m in the same space i was then?
i am coffeenated (2:52:19 PM): or are you in the same space
i am coffeenated (2:52:35 PM): we are having dialogue now
i am coffeenated (2:53:04 PM): we are choosing to have this dialogue now. it’s important that we have this dialogue
Him (2:53:58 PM): Why?
i am coffeenated (2:54:34 PM): because even this is a part of our evolution. regardless of how it turns out, this is part of the process.
i am coffeenated (2:54:59 PM): just because you stopped speaking to me doesn’t mean that i stopped thinking of you or wondering how you were or wanting to speak with you
i am coffeenated (2:55:04 PM): nothing is so finite as that
i am coffeenated (2:55:10 PM): and regardless to what you tell me now
i am coffeenated (2:55:19 PM): i know in my heart that you’ve thought of me too
i am coffeenated (2:55:23 PM): and so it is what it is
i am coffeenated (2:55:25 PM): whatever it is
i am coffeenated (2:56:11 PM): it’s important to me that i know what you are feeling. because i care about how you feel.
Him (2:56:29 PM): I feel that we can’t be friends.
i am coffeenated (2:56:52 PM): and i accept that, but i don’t agree with it.
i am coffeenated (2:57:04 PM): i feel that you are saying this because you think it’s where it should go.
i am coffeenated (2:57:10 PM): but i feel that over the course of four years
i am coffeenated (2:57:15 PM): you’ve watched me go through various situations
i am coffeenated (2:57:19 PM): and seen my reactions to them
i am coffeenated (2:57:28 PM): and this is something that you know about me - that i am emotional
i am coffeenated (2:57:34 PM): that i do speak my mind
i am coffeenated (2:57:43 PM): that i say what i am thinking, sometimes without filter
i am coffeenated (2:57:51 PM): and i think that you were accepting of that
i am coffeenated (2:58:06 PM): until the presumed “target” of that became you
i am coffeenated (2:58:11 PM): but even in my being angry
i am coffeenated (2:58:12 PM): like i said
i am coffeenated (2:58:22 PM): i took great pains to make sure it wasn’t a public spectacle
i am coffeenated (2:58:41 PM): we have a xxxxx to do together in xxxxx
i am coffeenated (2:58:45 PM): and that worries me
i am coffeenated (2:59:00 PM): i don’t want you to feel like you have to make me your enemy
i am coffeenated (2:59:05 PM): and it feels like that is what you are doing
Him (3:00:46 PM): I’m not saying it because it’s where it should go. I’m saying it because I don’t want to be friends.
Him(3:01:10 PM): I’m capable of being civil in xxxxx.
i am coffeenated (3:01:26 PM): do you hate me xxxxxx?
Him (3:03:55 PM): Why?
i am coffeenated (3:04:02 PM): i want to know
i am coffeenated (3:04:07 PM): i need to know
Him (3:04:26 PM): I don’t hate anyone.
i am coffeenated (3:04:48 PM): but you don’t think there’s a chance for us to ever be friends again.
Him (3:05:10 PM): That’s right.
i am coffeenated (3:06:19 PM): another question?
i am coffeenated (3:06:24 PM): why did you choose to speak to me today?
Him (3:06:52 PM): Because.
i am coffeenated (3:07:05 PM): because…?
Him (3:07:11 PM): Because.
i am coffeenated (3:07:55 PM): well, all righty then
i am coffeenated (3:08:30 PM): i’m not going to apologize for what i felt, because those feelings were real and in the moment and to deny them would be to deny myself.
i am coffeenated (3:08:34 PM): what i will apologize for though
i am coffeenated (3:08:38 PM): is being insulting
i am coffeenated (3:08:43 PM): the way those feelings were expressed
i am coffeenated (3:09:02 PM): i’m sorry that you think i don’t have self-control; i think you’d be surprised on the amount of things i am able to hold back on.
i am coffeenated (3:09:36 PM): your not wanting to be friends is valid, and i acknowledge that, so here is me giving you what you want.
i am coffeenated (3:09:41 PM): i’m open though
i am coffeenated (3:09:50 PM): so if at some point you decide that it’s not what you want
i am coffeenated (3:10:02 PM): you can feel free to make contact. my door is not shut to you.
i am coffeenated (3:10:13 PM): fair enough?
Him (3:12:01 PM): You’re free to do what you want.
There are a lot of other things I can’t talk about too, like the fact that we were even considering being lovers in the first place had a lot to do with the fact that his primary partner informed him that she wanted to have an open relationship by starting an outside relationship of her own first and then telling him about it. When he initially told me about it, I could tell he was upset and hurt.
We had confessed our mutual crushes first, and then later in the conversation he informed me that she was seeing someone else. This led us down the road to agreeing to see each other, and then agreeing to be “lovers” and acting on it, and everything else that came after. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that it went from sugar to shit over the course of maybe three hours in one day. there was a lot of interference on his end, mainly because she reacted so badly when she found out that he too had a lover on the side now. she had initiated this situation, and yet she felt that now that he was out openly expressing his openess, she needed to put some rules in place. She didn’t feel there was a necessity for rules when she thought she was the only one that was going to be doing something and he was just going to sit and take it. As soon as she found out about us, she wanted to know if he was going to leave her and if he compared us sexually and the whole lot. He would come to me and tell me these things and we would discuss them. I would tell him how I felt - that it wasn’t fair for her to try to control the relationship that he had with me when she was uncomfortable even discussing her outside relationship with him. I told him that she shouldn’t be all up in ours if she tells him that she feels like it’s an “invasion of her privacy” for him to ask her questions about her relationship. There was a complete double standard, and being on the outside of it now, I can see how there were a lot of things they needed to resolve first before he and I ever got involved. I’m sure he still had a lot of unanswered questions as far as she was concerned. I can see how he could still be hurting from the situation with her, and I feel as though I’ve been made the scapegoat of that situation.
I just can’t wrap my head around the concept of your primary partner coming home, reminding you that you need eggs and butter - and oh, by the way, I’m fucking this guy now, okay? - and you are okay with that, that is not the end of anything, and yet, I write an entry on livejournal where I repeat things I’ve been saying to you all along, things you have been agreeing with, and things that i’ve empowered you to disagree with if you think I am wrong - I write these things in a livejournal entry that only you can see, no one else, just you, and it is the livejournal entry that gets a reaction out of you. all along you’ve been telling me about her and how you think she’s reacting to us just because she feels guilty and she didn’t realize what she started, and i repeat these things back to you and I’m wrong.
I can’t wrap my head around him playing victim to our mutual friends. One in particular whose advice to me was to “stop posting it to my LJ”. Ha.
Anyone who has been reading my website any amount of time knows for certain that any situation I encounter is likely to end up in either my LJ or on my regular website. I change names and situations just enough to not embarrass people, but I’m gonna tell my story, because it’s mine to tell. You know this. Everyone knows this. You leave comments of oooh and ahh and “hell yeah girl do your thing” when it’s about someone else, but when it’s about you, all of a sudden you want to be wounded and hurt and “oh my god how could you”?
My contention is that the LJ post is his out. It’s not what has him upset, it’s not what he’s trying to work through, it’s just his way of getting out of facing me and what he started - what he brought me into. He brought me into this shit, and yes, I came willingly, but I was following him. I followed him and somewhere in the middle of the crowd he dropped my hand and ran off.
So this is where I am right now. I am hurting and I am in mourning.
I’m hurting because how could you fucking do this to me, knowing everything we discussed and all the things I told you I didn’t want to have happen. i’m mourning the loss of our friendship. we were so fucking cool. staying up late every single night talking. you were the shit to me. and now you are just shit to me, because for all your intellectual diarrhea of the mouth, it’s really all just rhetoric, isn’t it? in the end, the way that you are acting towards me is petty, puerile and pointless. it’s obvious that you are hurting and i can’t control how you process your hurt and your anger, but don’t you dare stand there like a fucking hypocrite and try to make it seem like i’m the one with a problem. i’m hurting too, and i’ve reached out several times so that we could try and deal with it together. cuss me out, i don’t care. do something. the whole deleting my links and shit is like so tenth grade, and i thought we were beyond that.
Yet, i’m the one that lacks balance. You are telling me that you have the capability of being civil when it comes time for us to do this project together, but you haven’t even mastered the capability of being civil right now, so how can i trust that?
And all of this is completely indicative of the fact that depsite what you say, you aren’t healed, you aren’t over it and you aren’t “resolved”. Resolution is being able to see me and no feel no way; resolution is not doing everything you can to make sure i “notice” that you are “trying” to ignore me. and let’s not stop there. i know you read my shit every single day; i know your ip address almost by heart. YOU AREN’T FOOLING ANYONE, least of all me or yourself. So grow a spine, borrow your balls back and man the fuck up please. It’s way overdue.
I can honestly say that i love you and I miss you (or at least the you that you were to me before), but I’m done being your scapegoat, and I’m done being the bigger person.
The ball’s in your court now; do with it what you will.
