One of my roommates and I just watched a romantic Jane Austen period movie. I love getting caught up in the romance and feeling happy for the characters, but after it's all over, I sigh, wondering if I'm EVER going to meet anyone again who sparks any interest for me.
When I was 20, 21, 22 it was easy to find someone for a NCMO (non-committal make out for the non-Mormons). Now that I'm in my late 20's (gasp!) it's harder and harder to find someone to snog, as the British say. It probably has a lot to do with my being more discriminating now in general. I want kissing to mean more than just a random make out. The majority of my close friends are married, and several of them have started having babies, and I feel like I'm at a standstill in that area of my life.
Here's something I've wondered about for much of my life. How come it seems like some people always have a significant other trailing along behind, while people like me find it so difficult to even catch someone's eye? I don't think I'm repulsive and I think I'm a nice person, yet I have had one boyfriend in all of my 28 years, and he was no prize.
Disclaimer: to be absolutely fair there were many many issues that broke us up on both sides of the romantic equation. However, most of the time we were together I felt like I rated in his life somewhere behind his parents, his siblings, his friends, his schoolwork, and his favorite TV shows.
I have hashed over the relationship with many people and in my own head interminably. The point is, despite connecting on a very strong innate level, we were wrong in many ways. I've thought about this lately and feel like in reality he and I were very similar people with the way we thought about lots of things, but choices were made that changed things and drove us apart.
If I met him now, I don't think I would want to be with him. I don't think I would be attracted to him. I think I would see his insecure self and find it rather repulsive. I think the first time he said he was feeling distant from me because he thought I was judging him, or because he was jealous, I would have been annoyed, not despondent. This is all bearing in mind that my mantra to him was "I love you no matter what" and that I never gave him ANY reason to be jealous. I am the most loyal person in the world - to my own detriment. Even when my closest friends were telling me I needed to break up with him because the relationship was destroying me, I defended him. I would have defended him to my last breath. Even now, it's easy for me to rationalize his behavior, because it's so easy for me to see exactly what I did wrong.
But the more I talk about things with my friends who are in committed, long-term relationships, and the more I see how they interact with their boyfriends and husbands, I realize you cut each other some slack in relationships. I realize how much I was willing to let him slide, but how he never could understand why I wasn't perfect. I understood the hardships he was going through and the stress he was under, and all I got from him was "I am under so much stress," not "I know you're stressed out too."
Selfish bastard was his name after he broke up with me and I realized how fully I had been taken in. You know it's bad when beneath the sadness of the lost dream of the future, there is this little sigh of relief. There's this little voice whispering "I'm free." He and his family were not my concern anymore. I didn't have to drive myself crazy trying to figure out what I could do to help him and to make it so he didn't take everything I said to him as a personal criticism. I didn't have to watch what I said in the hopes that he wouldn't misinterpret it somehow and get mad at me, or think I was having feelings for whatever guys I happened to be friends with. I didn't have to accept that he viewed my scholastic and career goals as some sort of hobby, while his goals were the really important issue in our planning for the future.
I asked my therapist a couple of months ago, "When does it stop being forgive and forget, and when does it start being, I'm a doormat?" She told me if I'm forgiving and forgetting the same things over and over, then I'm a doormat.
That's what it was like. Every time I tried to tell him how I felt neglected or unimportant, he would apologize and tell me he loved me and I was right and things would change. And they would - for a day or two. Then it was back to the status quo. I was Kelly the Doormat and I freely admit that now. I was desperate to keep him at any cost to myself. Now I wonder what in the world I was so excited about. I thought he and I had this magical intense understanding, but I realize now that it wasn't really true. No, wait. Actually, I made the effort and I "got" him. His last birthday that we were together I sent him this great present centered around his favorite football team. Honestly, I could care less about football, but he loved football and I wanted to get him something he would like (because isn't that the point of presents?). He told me it was the best present he got, but he was so surprised I got it for him because he knows I dislike football. Well, duh. It's your present. I got it because I knew you would like it. Your birthday isn't about me. Things like that probably should have signalled to me how differently we saw what it meant to be in a relationship.
Once it was all over, I felt so worn out. I felt like he had sucked every last bit of pride and energy out of me, toying with my affections while he decided he didn't want to be with me.
I am not that person anymore. Thank God.
Both of us had issues of insecurity and neediness. I am not who I was and I would not be attracted to the little insecure boy who he was. I don't know who he is now. I know he is married, but I also know he and his wife didn't seem all that thrilled about being together the last time a friend of mine saw them together.
I wonder about him. I wonder if he has EVER dealt with any of the many many issues in his life. When his parents split up he went into denial mode, talking about how he guessed they didn't have the perfect relationship like we all thought. This from the guy who spent long hours talking with me about how miserable his parents made each other and how differently he wanted to do things. If he ever did have real feelings for me, I know he has never adressed them - at least not with me. I got a half-page note from him telling me we should "cut our losses" and then a venom-infused email 8 months later when I DARED to email him asking if we could talk because I knew he was back. Why the anger? Why the hatred? If he's blissfully with someone else, should my email have inspired such a vicious reaction?
No, he's probably thrown himself into schoolwork, because that's what he does best. Part of me hopes he's happy, but I'm not a big enough person yet to hope that whole-heartedly. Part of me would still like him to be miserable. I freely admit I'm human and I have not reached the point of angelically blessing his marriage.
Anyway....
I did not set out to write a diatribe about my ex, so I apologize to those of you who have heard all of this before. The romantic movie and the lack of ANYone else in my life can make me maudlin at times. I'm also slightly ill so that's not helping. I woke up in the middle of the night with an achey stomach and I missed church because of it. I should probably just go to sleep and tomorrow I'm sure I'll have some perspective again.
Have you ever noticed how out of whack your perspective gets at 1 in the morning?
2 comments:
If I may quote you:
"I asked my therapist a couple of months ago, "When does it stop being forgive and forget, and when does it start being, I'm a doormat?" She told me if I'm forgiving and forgetting the same things over and over, then I'm a doormat."
I was involved in a relationship of a similar nature to yours a few years ago. In hindsight, I believe that everyone, in order to grow and better understand themselves as a person, needs to have at least one relationship like this, to set the standards, if you will. My ex in particular was a real work of art: Like your relationship, he expected me to understand how important his life's issues were, but my life's issues weren't even worth the conversation. He basically assumed that I would worship him, and make him feel important, and jump at his beckoning call, all without question or regard to my own personal feelings and happiness. The man didn't brush his teeth, for crying out loud (because the taste of toothpaste made him sick and refused to buy the expensive toothpaste alternative his doctor suggested)!!!
But I was so desperate to be in a relationship that I didn't care. I thought I had to be with somebody, as if it made my life complete, regardless of how I was treated by my partner. But I'm the type of person who tries to learn a positive lesson from every situation I experience in my lifetime. The lesson here: I AM IMPORTANT, and all that muss and fuss I spent on him I should have spent on myself. Relationships aren't relationships if they're one-sided. You can't assume that everyone will see you for the magnificent person you are, because let's face it, if they can't tell from the beginning, they will probably never know.
Congratulations on finding the strength in yourself to realize you were worth more. I'm glad to see (read) that the experience didn't make you bitter. But if I may offer some advice - let him go. Completely. Holding on to him, in any sense, is not worth it, because every time you interact with him, he'll try to pull you down. And the burning question: Did he really love you? Although it is a possibility, probably not. He probably used your willingness to him to judge his level of tolerance to you. The more you did for him, the more he tolerated you. But it wasn't your fault he treated you like that - you hit the nail on the head by calling him what he is, a selfish, insecure bastard.
The good thing is, I don't see him. Actually, that drove me crazy after the break up because I never did see him to get some feeling of closure. Last I heard, he was in Baltimore. We haven't been in the same city for a long time.
I also don't want to be unfair (you understand. You're a Libra) He wasn't ALWAYS a selfish bastard. He had good moments of talking me through some crises and doing nice things for me. But there were key moments when he was faced with a choice of how to act, and the majority of the time he picked the option that was the most convenient and the least taxing on him, but often detrimental to me and our relationship.
Since the break-up, I have been letting go. Since we were planning on getting married and had made plans to that end and the break-up completely shattered those plans and the way I thought my life was going to be, I've spent the last year and 9 months reconstructing my own life and my own identity. It's been a good thing, it really has. Like you said, I have learned a lot about myself and have become so much stronger than I was before - even before I met him.
Now the man I'm looking for is completely different than the person who my ex was.
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