Dear Diary: my 5am torment
Dear Diary: my 5am torment
I woke up this morning at about 5am and was tossing and turning playing it all over like a reel in my mind for the thousandth time. I have had what I believe is some clarity, for today, and really just need to get the feelings down and out of my head so maybe they make a bit more sense to me. What puzzles me is that each day a new reality seems to make sense, but then another thought undermines it and makes me re-question everything from scratch.
What is confounding me is why I have been unable to put this one to rest, 10 months after we broke up. I am not understanding the sticking point in my mind of what it is I am hanging on to or what is not adding up in my mind. I have had relationships before and in each case I have been able to logically compartmentalise it, put it in a box in my mind and be happy with how it ended. I have had real closure in each case.
Then, it sort of flashed in my mind that, that in itself is a massive part of this problem. I simply cannot figure him, or his motives out. Even though he said certain words about why for him it was over, it doesn't hang together as the words or actions of somebody in love. And there you have the disconnect - there is where I begin using my other relationship yardsticks as measuring tools, against "normal" behaviour, and that is where I become unstuck. Each time I think I have figured something out, I go back to square one.
I'm just going to thrash this out in my mind now, diary-like, so bear with me.
When I look back to summer 2009, the relationship started out on uneven ground. I was married, out of work, had lost my dad the previous year and was feeling a little groundless. When he and I hooked up, the chemistry was immediate but it was initially only meant to be as 'fun'. He knew I was married. He is 18 months older, was divorced himself (31 at the time), living alone and working well in the profession. He was ready and looking for somebody to settle with, or so I thought.
Very quickly, our 'fun' became serious. I think we both felt strong feelings very quickly and knew that if / when it came to an end, it was going to hurt. He said as much. He said "this can only end badly for me. I can only end up getting hurt."
I do think there was an element of wanting what another man had. We had so much fun, laughter, amazing sex. I think we both wondered how on earth we cold pull away from it and very soon it made me realise what was lacking in my marriage.
For his part, knowing shared colleagues thought I was "really pretty" (one of them even saying "why don't you think about going out with someone like her?") I think the pull of having an attractive little female was too great for his ego. He loved the attention I was lavishing on him and he loved the sex. He had had a relatively sexless marriage with his wife for the latter years of their marriage, having been together pretty much since high school.
So in I swept like a little ball of energy and fire and this slow and cautious man threw all caution and abandon to the wind. His mates were saying they had never seen him like it, he was a different person around me, they had never seen him that happy.
Then, about 7-9 months in, he started to get a bit nasty, snappish and overtly game-playing. By month 9, he flipped out and verbally lashed out in a way I just did not expect. For 2 days he let me stew, no real word of an apology, and I ended up calling him. The call ended in tears with him saying to me "maybe I don't love you in the way I did before..". I was crushed. he had blown up at me but then was saying, basically, he may be falling out of love with me.
My confidence in him and the relationship diminished with each successive month and pretty much each time we had a fight thereafter (which increased in frequency because I was feeling so vulnerable by this stage) he would pull away, give me the silent treatment, twist my words or find some other way of escaping blame.
Once or twice he ended it by email after fights and then left it to me to persuade him to give it another shot. In one memorable episode, he smashed his cellphone on the floor in front of me, stormed off and let me go after him. When I caught up with him, he had this sublime smile on his face, like he was delighted I had gone after him.
I railed at him by text that night and he dumped me by text. He then followed up with a dumping email from work the next day, starting it with a joke and saying "For some reason my phone isn't working properly. Easier to put it in email anyway."
Easier to dump the love of your life, by email and with a joke?
Anyway this nonsense limped on, with him pushing me away because I couldn't ask my husband to move out and it wasn't happening fast enough for him. So he tried to "artificially slow things down" so that he didn't feel disappointed with where we were. Then he wasn't happy with that and wanted things to be as they were. It was all on his terms but he kept insisting that he "had no control" over any of it.
Then in October, we had another fight in the street because he was being very aloof with me and walking about 6 feet in front of me, not holding my hand or anything. I suggested we have lunch and he just wanted to get home and do stuff. I was heading into work that day. I was supposed to be going out for a meal with him that night to his friend's house.
I got upset and asked him why he was being so cold and he basically told me to get over the fights because he had. While I was in tears he accused me of embarrassing him, I told him to dump me again and he said challenging him to do it wouldn't stop it from happening etc.
I went to leave and he followed, this time saying "please don't leave like this, I don't even know what I'm saying and now I know I'm just making things worse."
I invited him to come and speak in my office but he didn't say anything, stood there with another sublime look of control and joked "have a good day at work, dear." Then, "are you coming along later?" to which I looked puzzled, shook my head and said I didn't see how I could. At this, he smirked and pulled out the money I had loaned him earlier, as if to say "well, here's your money. Bye."
I told him not to be ridiculous and he out it back in his pocket. He then kissed me on the cheek and left.
A few texts ensued after that, with one sent close to midnight saying "it's all my twatishness that has fucked this up. I'm sorry I caught you up in it."
Then that week he left some silly facebook status updates (he never went on facebook) and for the first time in our whole relationship, I just went silent, no texts, no calls, nothing.
The following Saturday he tried calling and I didn't pick up. Then the following Tuesday he sent a regretful email ending it and apologising for creating so much doubt and uncertainty and for causing so much damage.
I left it 2 days before responding and when I did, it was measured, honest but firm. It made no bones about the fact that he had pushed me away in a game playing relationship and I wouldn't stand for it, but I was willing to talk and wipe the slate clean.
He then responded himself 2 days later (no urgency there), this time more smug and falsely contrite but "oh no, I think we really ARE over. but let's meet for a closure meal."
I didn't respond, nor did I knowing he had a holiday booked for us in late November. His last email was the end of October. Now here is where it all gets silly and didn't make much sense until later.
I was able to log into the holiday booking and he left it open, in our names, until the very last date for a refund. Then he cancelled it. If he thought we were over, why did he leave the booking open? Because he thought it would lure me back. He thought I was having a strop and the promise of my belated birthday holiday would lure me back because I had made such a fuss before about it. It didn't.
Christmas came and went. No word from him, no word from me. New Year - same.
His birthday, early January. I ignored it. At the same time, I de-friended him on facebook.
One day after his birthday, I get a stroppy email from him about some of my "bits" left at his flat and did I want them. he listed them all including lingerie and chocolates he had bought me.
I gave him an address to send them. 2 weeks later I got them - no note, nothing. But the lingerie and the chocolates were missing and instead he had included a chocolate bar he got for me once.
I emailed a thank you for sending them and the email communication had started. I suspect he knew then that it wouldn't take much to reel me back in. I sent an email at one point and he ignored it. Another time, he sent something else of mine and said "pretty sure that's everything" knowing full well it wasn't. I didn't take the bait.
What I did do, unfortunately, was panic. I was so damn scared of losing him for good that I put the word out amongst mutual friends that I was getting a divorce. I couldn't afford a divorce and still cannot afford for my husband to move out, but because I was terrified he would move on and forget me, I dangled my own bait.
He took it and a week later he emailed me saying he had heard and hoped it wasn't too painful or hard.
Then some more banal email exchange, and again he ignored one of my emails, almost to prove a point that he could resist responding - and it had a direct question posed in it. Perfect.
Then I panicked some more, felt I was losing his interest, so I asked him if he wanted to meet up.
The rest almost is history. He jumped at it, said he had been a total arse, was apprehensive, didn't think he would handle it well but was looking forward to seeing me.
We met up in one of our old haunts and he was 20 minutes late. He blamed it on his landlady catching him for a gossip but you would have thought he'd left enough time.
He looked great and was carrying a tiny bunch of chocolate flowers for me. he was gushing and so pleased to see me, but the games started almost immediately. He wore a scarf I had loaned him - did I want it back? (Read as, this is our closure meeting, don't go thinking we're back together..)
Grinning while apologising about his conduct. Grinning while saying we couldn't be friends afterwards and it would be too hard. Telling me we had been 90% amazing and recollecting really fun times we had enjoyed.
Telling me he had really missed me and that "I didn't see it coming. I didn't expect it to happen. I didn't want it to happen."
Rewind to the emails in which he had suggested a "closure" meal and that he thought he had "done too much damage". So he was just saying that to trigger a needy response in me? A power game.
Then, when I comforted him at one point by putting my arms on him, he responds with "I think we should leave it there for tonight." Text book reunion date conduct almost. Then "we need to take it really slowly, as in, baby steps slowly." I didn't demur from this.
He saw me to the station, we had a laugh, he asked me "do you hold a grudge?". I answered no, but I probably should have answered yes.
He saw me on to the train and kissed me on the lips goodbye.
He followed up with some keen texts and asked when we could next meet, but I was decidedly cool. For a number of reasons. First, because there was no way in god's name I was going to chase him again like I had done before, and second, because my husband was still in the home and I was stalling for time to keep the ex from wanting to come into my home. Crazy to think I could get away with it, but I did.
Anyway by Date 2 a week and a half later, he was a different kettle of fish. Snappy, terse, and I asked if we were dating, and if not (and we couldn't be friends) where were we?
He said we weren't dating and he "needed more time." He had "doubts". He was "scared it could happen again". He was worried that we could go another 6 months down the line and the same thing could happen and we would be right back where we were. He needed time.
I didn't cry, I didn't lament. If anything, I was curt back. I told him he had hurt me by staying away for so long, that he should have contacted me, that his silence for 5 months had done damage. i told him it hurt that he told me he threw away a special gift I had got him. I asked him why he told me that when we first met up again, why he even did it if he kept other stuff. His response was "maybe I threw it away precisely because it meant so much."
Anyway we ended up kissing and he was aroused. I told him that if we weren't dating, I could go out that saturday night and pull another guy. He clenched his fists at that and said the thought "made him feel physically ill".
I went home, he was affectionate enough seeing me off, but as we hugged I said "I don't want to get hurt again" and he said "I can't promise that."
Then that Saturday night he knew I was out with an Italian friend and he texted almost all night on the hour, I presume to ensure my attention was on him and not the Italian. Sunday had a lot more texts and then a few on the Monday. I had said I would call him over the weekend but I didn't. his first text on Monday was "what happened to my weekend call?"
By Tuesday, all I got was "sorry for not texting much at the moment. x"
Then radio silence the rest of the week except for an email he sent in relation to a funny article I emailed him. I think he had been planning to end it that week but the article put a spanner in the works.
I heard nothing over the weekend and then he ended it on Monday night by voicemail while I was on another call. He cited that we had "lost our spark or something because we were texting all the time before.." and "you said you don;t want to get hurt and I think that will happen if we get back together, so…."
I left it 2 days before responding (again, very unlike me not to chase) and sent him an email explaining why I hadn't texted much and that he had asked for baby steps and I was trying to respect that. I told him I didn't want to try and rush things or move too soon.
This cut no ice with him and he texted a day later just saying "saw your email. clearly it's just me but there are too many doubts. I didn't lie at the X (deliberately got the name of the bar wrong) but tried to picture a future for us together afterwards and couldn't, which confirmed for me it is over. I am sorry and it shouldn't have happened that way and we can't be friends but agree no regrets."
I texted back a few hours later accepting it and saying it wouldn't have worked after all the damage that went before and in my heart of hearts I knew this.
He responded within minutes saying "we were the victims of bad timing. You never once hurt me. I will only have happy memories."
That was 4 months ago.
I have not heard a peep since then, nor will I.
I am therefore scratching my head trying to understand why I am in this rut. I keep asking over and over, did he truly love me? Does somebody in love really give up that easily? Was it simply because I didn't pave the way with roses for him when we reconciled? If so, why did he not even try to discuss it with me when I sent that email?
That is when it started to click into place (like the layers of an onion, you have to take one layer at a time) that maybe, it was all just sex and infatuation for him. Maybe, all it was was that he loved having all that power at the beginning but was beginning to have doubts last year. Then when I went total NC, he suddenly thought "oh fuck, I may have just lost the best thing that ever happened to me." There is nothing more crushing to a big ego than losing control of somebody over whom you have enjoyed domination in the past. Such was his confidence in the relationship and in my love of him that when he was debating over email whether to end it or not, he actually said "I suspect it could end up being the biggest regret of my life." Yet he was sharing his doubt and indecision with me. I wish I had had the luxury of doing the same.
So when we reconciled, that awful little devil on my shoulder is saying 'absence made his heart grow fonder, you gained his interest again because he wants what is no longer his to have. Distance lends enchantment to the view.'
All of a sudden, the old doubts were forgotten and when we met up he was gushing about how we had been 90% perfect and reminiscing about old times. He had been ditched for 5 months and, while he knew he had deserved it, a part of him, that 2 year old in him, wanted me to make it up to him. He wanted mummy to play nicely and apologise for being mean and abandoning him. I wouldn't do it. I purposefully held back and didn't go rushing at him like I had before.
Was that, I ask, the final nail in the coffin? My obvious need for payback? My patent need to punish him and make it be known that I did, and was, holding a grudge? And was he right to decide not to engage any further in that, or did he take the coward's way out and jump before he was pushed?
He got to say his piece - he got to say each and every doubt, every cruel thing that entered his head. I never got to speak up because I was so damn afraid of him and scared of being dumped, even that last time. Such was his mastery over me.
I feel as if, at the end, he just thought "oh fuck off, bitch. You pushed me away, you think now you're divorced you can piss me around and play it cool and make me sweat some more. Fuck off, I'm done."
That is how it all came across. He assumed I was living alone and was perhaps puzzled as to why I hadn't invited him into my home, my life. He may well have looked at it and after 5 months, he may have hardened and thought "i'm not in this to be punished some more. I've had enough."
That is instinctively what I feel he has done. he has taken the view that my anger and inability to let go would cause another fight, another breakdown, another breakup. He said at the last date "I'm scared I will say or do something that will hurt you and we will be right back where we are…"
He clearly knew his own character and what he was capable of. So what part of that brain thinks 'fuck it. easier to walk away than to build from the foundations up'?
My other ex slept with another girl to punish me, but I still gave it 6 months. He didn;'t even give it 6 weeks. Was he just, in his moment of fear, actually very wise in knowing I was holding a grudge? Or is that intense selfishness not to allow me to thrash it out, to knuckle down and try to work on it?
I am coming to the slow realisation that if it is easier to walk away from the One, and you can envisage a life without them (as he said, he couldn't picture a future for us) then I cannot have meant all that much to him to begin with, because when someone is your love, your life, you can't turn away in the blink of an eye without even trying.
Can you?
So this leads me full circle. If he can, and if he has moved on, then he was playing me all along and I have been played by the nastiest cruellest person to enjoy twisting a married woman in knots, only to decide when it gets a bit rough, "no thanks, not for me any more."
If he really, truly did love me, has he not made the gravest error of his life? The sex was there, the chemistry was there, the laughter was there, the whole package was there. but he was scared of being dumped again. Is that selfishness and immaturity that he couldn't face his own shortcomings?
When he didn't chase me or say he loved me those whole 5 months (but admitted later to it being his "silent torment") was that a big sign that he didn't love me enough? That is what I am finding so hard in all of this, because men, when they love somebody and really love, they go for it heart and soul.
Was it me being fooled, or is he so closed off emotionally that he, as my friend put it, "cannot love. he is not capable of love. he is not big or kind enough to love."
She and my mother were convinced he was punishing me but I am not so sure. It is safer to assume he never loved me because at least that strips me of any hope.
To assume he punished me is to assume he cared enough to punish me and might one day live to regret it - and he has shown no sign of regret or remorse since.
No
Another thought. He used to
read what I wrote again!!
You are caught in what I call
He is also a very great
Not wanting me, not wanting other men to have me
Yes, there is a lot I look